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Page 12
What a tremendous thing it was, this scouting trip! Day after day, far
out over the ocean, searching for German battleships! Our easy jog trot
speed along the sky was sixty miles an hour and, under full engine
pressure, the _America II_ could make a hundred and twenty, which was
lucky for us as it saved us many a time when the slower German aircraft
came after us, spitting bullets from their machine guns.
On the morning of May 12, a perfect spring day, circling at a height of
half a mile, about fifty miles off the eastern end of Long Island, we had
our first view of the German fleet as it ploughed through smooth seas to
the south of Montauk Point.
We counted eight battle cruisers, twelve dreadnoughts, ten
pre-dreadnoughts, and about sixty destroyers, in addition to transports,
food-ships, hospital-ships, repair-ships, colliers, and smaller fighting
and scouting vessels, all with their full complement of men and
equipment, moving along there below us in the pleasant sunshine. Among
the troopships I made out the _Kaiserin Auguste Luise_ and the
_Deutschland,_ on both of which I had crossed the summer following the
Great Peace. I thought of the jolly old commander of the latter vessel
and of the capital times we had had together at the big round table in
the dining-saloon. It seemed impossible that this was war!
I subsequently learned that the original plan worked out by the German
general staff contemplated a landing in the sheltered harbour of Montauk
Point, but the lengthened range (21,000 yards) of mortars in the American
forts on Fisher's Island and Plum Island, a dozen miles to the north, now
brought Montauk Point under fire, so the open shore south of East Hampton
was substituted as the point of invasion.
"There's no trouble about landing troops from the open sea in smooth
weather like this," said Palmer, speaking through his head-set. "We did
it at Santiago, and the Japs did it at Port Arthur."
"And the English did it at Ostend," I agreed. "Hello!"
As I swept the sea to the west with my binoculars I thought I caught the
dim shape of a submerged submarine moving slowly through the black
depths like a hungry shark; but it disappeared almost immediately, and I
was not sure. As a matter of fact, it was a submarine, one of six
American under-water craft that had been assigned to patrol the south
shore of Long Island.
The United States still had twenty-five submarines in Atlantic waters, in
addition to thirty that were with the absent fleet; but these twenty-five
had been divided between Boston Harbour, Narragansett Bay, Delaware
Bay, Chesapeake Bay, and other vulnerable points, so that only six were
left to defend the approaches to New York City. And, of these six, five
were twenty-four hours late, owing, I heard later, to inexcusable
delays at the Brooklyn Navy Yard, where they had been undergoing repairs.
The consequence was that only the K-2 was here to meet the German
invasion--one lone submarine against a mighty fleet.
Still, under favourable conditions, one lone submarine is a force to be
reckoned with, as England learned in 1915.
The K-2 attacked immediately, revealing her periscope for a minute as she
took her observations. Then she launched a torpedo at a big German
supply-ship not more than a thousand yards away.
"Good-bye, ship!" said Palmer, and we watched with fascinated interest
the swift white line that marked the course of the torpedo. It struck the
vessel squarely amidships, and she sank within five minutes, most of the
men aboard being rescued by boats from the fleet.
It now went ill with the K-2, however; for, having revealed her presence,
she was pursued by the whole army of swift destroyers. She dived, and
came up again two miles to the east, bent on sinking a German
dreadnought; but, unfortunately, she rose to the surface almost under the
nose of one of the destroyers, which bombarded her with its rapid-fire
guns, and then, when she sank once more, dropped on her a small mine that
exploded under water with shattering effect, finishing her.
As I think it over, I feel sure that if those other five submarines had
been ready with the K-2, we might have had another story to tell.
Possibly the slowness of the Brooklyn Navy Yard--which is notorious, I
understand--may have spoiled the one chance that America had to resist
this invasion.
The next day the five tardy submarines arrived; but conditions were
now less favourable, since the invaders had had time to prepare their
defence against this under-water peril. As we flew over East Hampton on
the following afternoon, we were surprised to see five fully inflated
air-ships of the nonrigid Parseval type floating in the blue sky, like
grim sentinels guarding the German fleet. Down through the sun-lit ocean
they could see the shadowy underwater craft lurking in the depths, and
they carried high explosives to destroy them.
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