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Page 11
"Yes, of course. Unquestionably it means war. We have been misled. We
were thinking of one enemy, and we have been struck by another. We
thought we could send our fleet through the Canal and get it back easily;
but--now we cannot get it back for at least two months!"
CHAPTER II
AMERICAN AEROPLANES AND SUBMARINES BATTLE DESPERATELY AGAINST THE GERMAN
FLEET
A week later--or, to be exact, on May 4, 1921--I arrived in New York,
following instructions from my paper, and found the city in a state of
indescribable confusion and alarm.
War had been declared by Germany against the United States on the day
that the Canal was wrecked, and German transports, loaded with troops and
convoyed by a fleet of battleships, were known to be on the high seas,
headed for American shores. As the Atlantic fleet had been cut off in the
Pacific by that desperate piece of Panama strategy (the Canal would be
impassable for months), it was evident that those ships could be of no
service for at least eight weeks, the time necessary to make the trip
through the Straits of Magellan; and meanwhile the Atlantic seaboard from
Maine to Florida was practically unguarded.
No wonder the newspapers shrieked despairingly and bitterly upbraided
Congress for neglecting to provide the country with adequate naval
defences.
Theodore Roosevelt came out with a signed statement:
"Four years ago I warned this country that the United States must have
two great fleets--one for the Atlantic, one for the Pacific."
Senator Smoot, in a sensational speech, referred to his vain efforts
to secure for the country a fleet of fifty sea-going submarines and
twenty-five coast-defence submarines. Now, he declared, the United States
would pay for its indifference to danger.
In the House of Representatives, Gardner and Hobson both declared that
our forts were antiquated, our coast-defence guns outranged, our
artillery ridiculously insufficient, and our supply of ammunition not
great enough to carry us through a single month of active warfare.
On the night of my arrival in Manhattan I walked through scenes of
delirious madness. The town seemed to reel in a sullen drunkenness.
Throngs filled the dark streets. The Gay White Way was no longer either
white or gay. The marvellous electrical display of upper Broadway had
disappeared--not even a street light was to be seen. And great hotels,
like the Plaza, the Biltmore, and the new Morgan, formerly so bright,
were scarcely discernible against the black skies. No one knew where the
German airships might be. Everybody shouted, but nobody made very much
noise. The city was hoarse. I remembered just how London acted the night
the first Zeppelin floated over the town.
At five o'clock the next morning, Mayor McAneny appointed a Committee of
Public Safety that went into permanent session in Madison Square Garden,
which was thronged day and night, while excited meetings, addressed by
men and women of all political parties, were held continuously in Union
Square, City Hall Park, Columbus Circle, at the Polo Grounds and in
various theatres and motion-picture houses.
Such a condition of excitement and terror necessarily led to disorder and
on May 11, 1921, General Leonard Wood, in command of the Eastern Army,
placed the city under martial law.
And now on every tongue were frantic questions. When would the Germans
land? To-day? To-morrow? Where would they strike first? What were we
going to do? Every one realised, when it was too late, the hopeless
inadequacy of our aeroplane scouting service. To guard our entire
Atlantic seaboard we had fifty military aeroplanes where we should have
had a thousand and we were wickedly lacking in pilots. Oh, the shame of
those days!
In this emergency Rodman Wanamaker put at the disposal of the government
his splendid air yacht the _America II_, built on the exact lines of the
_America I_, winner of across-the-Atlantic prizes in 1918, but of much
larger spread and greater engine power. The America II could carry a
useful load of five tons and in her scouting work during the next
fortnight she accommodated a dozen passengers, four officers, a crew of
six, and two newspaper men, Frederick Palmer, representing the Associated
Press, and myself for the London _Times._
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