THE MERCHANT NAVY. By Archibald Hurd. Longmans, Green and Company, New York. Vol. I, 1921, $7.50. Vol. II, 1924, $7.50.
Reviewed by Rear Admiral Albert Cleaves, U. S. Navy, Ret.
Many years ago a navy poet, deploring the scant attention given to the dead sailors of the Civil War, wrote a Decoration Day poem, in which he asks:
What song will sing, what chant will bless,
The breeze-blown graves of outer deep?
The sentiment is recalled by the volumes of Mr. Hurd, who has done for the Merchant Navy of Great Britain what Sir Julian Corbett did for the Royal Navy, and he has done it with skill and sympathy.
The two volumes under consideration trace the history of the Mercantile Marine from the earliest times down to the year 1917. He presents the story against a fascinating background woven with the adventures of British seamen in the days of William Rufus, who, we are told, created the Cinque Port fleet, which defeated the French Armada, and in the Elizabethan period when Elizabeth’s great sea captains, Drake, Frobisher, Hawkins, Raleigh and others, “burst into the Southern sea,” circumnavigated the globe, “planted new lands on the coast of America,” destroyed the ships of Medina Sidonia and voyaged to the Orient for the “Discoveries of the Trade for the East Indies.”
Drake, whom the Queen knighted and made an admiral in the navy, inherited the traditions of the sea created by the famous laws of Oleron, said to be the oldest collection of modern maritime laws and generally ascribed to Richard I, and he and the other merchant adventurers of that time created traditions which have become the spirit of the merchant service today.
The Merchant Marine is older than the Royal Navy. The latter was first organized by Henry VIII, but was merged with the Merchant Marine, until the defeat of the Spanish Armada when the inadequacy of merchant ships for the line of battle was demonstrated. From that time the two services developed on lines of their own. By the end of the seventeenth century the merchant ship as a fleet unit had practically disappeared. For two hundred years there is little to be told of the merchant service, except of its prosperity in the sea-borne trade of England.
During the Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars, it fell a prey to French corsairs and privateers. In the period 1793-1815 more than 11,000 British merchant vessels were captured, but, notwithstanding this, the activities of the English ship yards were such that the tonnage at the end of the war was greater than at the beginning. During this period the convoy system was introduced, the press gang flourished and the morale of the service sank to the lowest ebb.
The convoy was unpopular. Many owners and captains preferred the “daring individual voyages.” They disliked the delays in assembling, and in sailing, and the simultaneous arrival of many ships in port, which choked the markets and reduced prices. It is interesting to note that sometimes the convoys were composed of as many as 600 vessels, and on one occasion Lord Saumarez in the Victory convoyed 1,000 sail; it is true that they were small vessels, the average tonnage being about 150 tons or less.
The press gang was the terror of the merchant sailor, afloat as well as ashore. At sea he was liable to be taken out of his ship to fill vacancies in a man-of-war; on shore he was kidnapped on the streets, or dragged out of his own home; often he was never heard of again. Strange as it may seem, this system of recruiting for the navy was sanctioned by custom if not by law. In 1793 the Admiralty employed in the impressment service, three flag officers, twenty-nine captains, fifty-four lieutenants and 4,000 men. It was not abolished until the late ’30’s, and then against the opposition of the reactionaries who were unwilling to agree to any weakening of their power.
In the middle of the nineteenth century public attention was drawn to the living conditions in the merchant service and laws were passed to ameliorate the life of the merchant sailor. The ignorance and brutality of captains, drunkenness of officers and men, unseaworthy and overloaded ships had been the main cause of marine disasters until thirty years after Trafalgar. Then came a period of reform for which the introduction of the steam engine was largely responsible. New navigation laws, the transition from wood to iron and then to steel in ship building; watertight subdivision; the Plimsoll mark and changes in insurance produced an era of great prosperity for British shipping and British seamen which continued uninterruptedly until the summer of 1914.
On June 30, 1914, the British Merchant Marine consisted of 8,236 vessels of about 12,000,000 tons, which was forty-seven per cent of the world’s shipping. These ships were scattered over 80,000 miles of trade routes. It was therefore obvious from the beginning that the protection that could he given by the navy would be restricted to certain points, focal areas, for instance, of the steamship lanes. Ten years before the war, the question of the protection of the Merchant Marine by the Admiralty had been under consideration. In 1903 a commission was appointed and sat many months. Volumes of evidence were adduced and the following conclusions were arrived at:
- Concentration of naval forces was the more effective protection.
- It would be injurious to lay up liners or tramps.
- Convoys were not favored. (In the initial stages.)
- There was no reason to fear interruption of supplies.
The merchant service did not entertain the thought that under any circumstances they would be brought into the war. The generally accepted principles of international law, their trust in the camaraderie of the sea, and their sense of security from their own defenselessness encouraged merchant seamen to hope that when war came it would bear less hardly upon them than past conflicts had done.
To be sure, the question of floating mines was a serious one, although at the plenary meeting of the Hague Conference in 1908 von Bieberstein vociferously disclaimed Germany’s intention to demand unlimited liberty in the use of mines. “The officers of the German Navy,” he said, “will always fulfil in the strictest fashion the duties which emanate from the unwritten law of humanity and civilization. I cannot admit that there is a government or country which is superior in these sentiments to that which I have the honor to represent.”
At the Second Hague Conference, Germany had opposed the British proposal, supported by the United States and Japan, which would have allowed the arming of merchant ships only in the national ports or territorial waters of the converting power. When it was discovered that one of the North German Lloyd vessels was provided with gun mountings, it was suspected that Germany might arm her merchantmen at sea, “and fresh impetus was given to arming British merchant ships,” so at the beginning of the war thirty-nine British merchant vessels had each been provided with two 4.7 guns. Many an enemy submarine would have been destroyed had even a moderate number of ships been similarly equipped.
Germany had about twenty vessels in her own ports capable of conversion, about as many more in North Atlantic ports, and another score in various ports of the world.
But the main reliance of British seamen was upon the increased regard the nations had paid for many years to international usage, and “the anxiety which had been expressed by them to make their acts conform to the unwritten code, to the dictates of humanity.”
That so many of Germany’s largest ships were in foreign ports and unarmed when war broke out, is evidence that she did not expect Great Britain to intervene, or that the navy would be mobilized so quickly.
On June 22 (1914) an indication of what the British seamen might expect was disclosed in an order issued by the German Naval Staff. It said in part:
The exercise of the right of stoppage, search and capture, as well as any attack made by an armed merchantman against a German or neutral vessel, is piracy. The crews are to be dealt with under the ordinance relating to extraordinary martial law.
If an armed enemy merchant vessel offers armed resistance against measures taken under the law of prize, such resistance is to be overcome with all means available, etc. The crews are to be considered prisoners of war and the passengers in case of resistance might be proceeded against under extraordinary martial law.
This order, says the author, explains the German policy of frightfulness at sea, and is an essential element in the due application of the danger to which the merchant seamen were exposed.
Then the war came, and the greater part of Mr. Hurd’s history is given to the recital of thrilling stories of dogged resistance in the face of unparalleled dangers by the merchant seamen, “non-combatants and unpledged to the state.” To them as much as to our own men aptly apply the words of the inscription on the memorial tablet in the Seamen’s Institute in New York City:
In remembrance of the officers and men of the Merchant Marine who in the World War of 1914-18 without fervor of battle or privilege of fame went down to the sea and endured all things.
They made victory possible and were great without glory.
It is beyond the scope of this article to follow the narrative of disaster and death which has been compiled from official sources. With a few exceptions such as the sailor-like conduct of Captain Ludecke of the Dresden, the captain of the Karlsruhe, and the submarine commander Hans Rose at the sinking of the Jacob Jones, it is a sordid story, the mere recital of which is the severest arraignment of people who fired upon women and children in open boats, abandoned men struggling for their lives in the storm-swept icy waters of the Atlantic, and who laughed and jeered at the drowning of their fellow beings. As Colonel Roosevelt said of the sinking of the Lusitania, “it was not merely piracy, but piracy on a vaster scale of murder than any old-time pirate ever practiced.”
The many stories of the wholesale sinking of merchant vessels differ only in the degree of their disregard of all the laws of Poseidon, which the brotherhood of the sea have held sacred in all ages, since those scriptural sailors “called to the brethren which were in another vessel to come unto their help, and they came.” Each one is an epic of war by the sea, and should never be forgotten.
The merchant service, however, was employed otherwise than in forlorn and desperate encounters with submarines.
The liners and other big ships were engaged in transporting troops, patrolling and blockading. As a rule they were commanded by naval officers, but as far as possible retained their own captain, officers and crew. Great numbers of fishermen were brought into the service and were actively and efficiently employed in the trawlers and drifters largely officered from the Naval Reserves. It was Lord Charles Beresford who, in 1907, suggested the use of trawlers in war time. Experiments with them were successful, and six were bought and fitted out. Naval officers on the retired and emergency lists were trained in their use, and the Trawler Section of the Royal Naval Reserve was organized in 1910.
The achievement of the Merchant Marine in transporting troops brought from the dominions, and across channel was accomplished under the protection of the navy, and the success of the operation reflects credit on both services. Their convoys were operated on the general lines familiar to us.
The British gave us the benefit of their experience, and we took more than one leaf out of their book. There was, however, a great difference. We had to build up our system from almost nothing, while from the beginning they had a large merchant service to draw from. It was, moreover, a new experience for us, whereas England had the experience of the Crimean, Egyptian and South African wars, under totally different conditions it is true, but nevertheless helpful in organizing. The author truly says, “The overseas transport of large military forces calls for closest cooperation between naval and military departments and demands perhaps a higher degree of technical efficiency in all the elements concerned than any other operation of war.”
The two volumes are well illustrated and the text is supplemented by numerous charts. It is hoped that someone will do for the sailors of the American Merchant Marine, what Mr. Hurd has accomplished for his countrymen who served so meritoriously under the Red Ensign.
NEW ALTITUDE AND AZIMUTH TABLES—By Hydrographic Department, Tokyo, Japan, 1924.
Reviewed by Commander Benjamin Dutton, U. S. Navy
This is another addition to the growing list of publications that offer methods of determining lines of position without recourse to logarithms. It contains two methods, with the necessary tables for use with them. In the first method the solution is made from an assumed position, so selected as to avoid interpolation in the tables. The tables are conveniently arranged, and easy to use. Three book openings are required for the calculation of the altitude and three for the azimuth. The arithmetical work involved is merely the addition of two five-place numbers and two three-place decimals, plus the combination of the declination with a function selected from the tables. The tables give a range in latitude and declination from 65°N, to 65°S.
In the second method the solution is made from the estimated position. Seven book openings are necessary, and six selections must be made for the solution for the altitude and four for the azimuth. The arithmetical work seems only slightly less than the solution by logarithms.
In addition to the explanation of the above methods and necessary tables incidental thereto the book contains all the other tables usually required by the navigator, such as traverse tables, corrections to observed altitudes, meridianal parts, etc., and notably a very compact star identification table. All of this is presented in good type in a book of 152 pages measuring 6 x 9¾ inches, bound in flexible covers. It is in extremely convenient form for navigators who must work in restricted places.