CHAPTER II
AMERICAN AEROPLANES AND SUBMARINES BATTLE DESPERATELY AGAINST THE GERMANFLEET
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 ofindescribable confusion and alarm.
War had been declared by Germany against the United States on the daythat the Canal was wrecked, and German transports, loaded with troops andconvoyed 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 thePacific by that desperate piece of Panama strategy (the Canal would beimpassable for months), it was evident that those ships could be of noservice for at least eight weeks, the time necessary to make the tripthrough the Straits of Magellan; and meanwhile the Atlantic seaboard fromMaine to Florida was practically unguarded.
No wonder the newspapers shrieked despairingly and bitterly upbraidedCongress for neglecting to provide the country with adequate navaldefences.
Theodore Roosevelt came out with a signed statement:
"Four years ago I warned this country that the United States must havetwo great fleets--one for the Atlantic, one for the Pacific."
Senator Smoot, in a sensational speech, referred to his vain effortsto secure for the country a fleet of fifty sea-going submarines andtwenty-five coast-defence submarines. Now, he declared, the United Stateswould pay for its indifference to danger.
In the House of Representatives, Gardner and Hobson both declared thatour forts were antiquated, our coast-defence guns outranged, ourartillery ridiculously insufficient, and our supply of ammunition notgreat enough to carry us through a single month of active warfare.
On the night of my arrival in Manhattan I walked through scenes ofdelirious madness. The town seemed to reel in a sullen drunkenness.Throngs filled the dark streets. The Gay White Way was no longer eitherwhite or gay. The marvellous electrical display of upper Broadway haddisappeared--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 theGerman airships might be. Everybody shouted, but nobody made very muchnoise. The city was hoarse. I remembered just how London acted the nightthe first Zeppelin floated over the town.
At five o'clock the next morning, Mayor McAneny appointed a Committee ofPublic Safety that went into permanent session in Madison Square Garden,which was thronged day and night, while excited meetings, addressed bymen and women of all political parties, were held continuously in UnionSquare, City Hall Park, Columbus Circle, at the Polo Grounds and invarious theatres and motion-picture houses.
Such a condition of excitement and terror necessarily led to disorder andon 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 Germansland? To-day? To-morrow? Where would they strike first? What were wegoing to do? Every one realised, when it was too late, the hopelessinadequacy of our aeroplane scouting service. To guard our entireAtlantic seaboard we had fifty military aeroplanes where we should havehad a thousand and we were wickedly lacking in pilots. Oh, the shame ofthose days!
In this emergency Rodman Wanamaker put at the disposal of the governmenthis 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 muchlarger spread and greater engine power. The America II could carry auseful load of five tons and in her scouting work during the nextfortnight she accommodated a dozen passengers, four officers, a crew ofsix, and two newspaper men, Frederick Palmer, representing the AssociatedPress, and myself for the London _Times._
What a tremendous thing it was, this scouting trip! Day after day, farout over the ocean, searching for German battleships! Our easy jog trotspeed along the sky was sixty miles an hour and, under full enginepressure, the _America II_ could make a hundred and twenty, which waslucky for us as it saved us many a time when the slower German aircraftcame after us, spitting bullets from their machine guns.
On the morning of May 12, a perfect spring day, circling at a height ofhalf a mile, about fifty miles off the eastern end of Long Island, we hadour first view of the German fleet as it ploughed through smooth seas tothe south of Montauk Point.
We counted eight battle cruisers, twelve dreadnoughts, tenpre-dreadnoughts, and about sixty destroyers, in addition to transports,food-ships, hospital-ships, repair-ships, colliers, and smaller fightingand scouting vessels, all with their full complement of men andequipment, moving along there below us in the pleasant sunshine. Amongthe troopships I made out the _Kaiserin Auguste Luise_ and the_Deutschland,_ on both of which I had crossed the summer following theGreat Peace. I thought of the jolly old commander of the latter vesseland of the capital times we had had together at the big round table inthe dining-saloon. It seemed impossible that this was war!
I subsequently learned that the original plan worked out by the Germangeneral staff contemplated a landing in the sheltered harbour of MontaukPoint, but the lengthened range (21,000 yards) of mortars in the Americanforts on Fisher's Island and Plum Island, a dozen miles to the north, nowbrought Montauk Point under fire, so the open shore south of East Hamptonwas substituted as the point of invasion.
"There's no trouble about landing troops from the open sea in smoothweather like this," said Palmer, speaking through his head-set. "We didit 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 thedim shape of a submerged submarine moving slowly through the blackdepths like a hungry shark; but it disappeared almost immediately, and Iwas not sure. As a matter of fact, it was a submarine, one of sixAmerican under-water craft that had been assigned to patrol the southshore of Long Island.
The United States still had twenty-five submarines in Atlantic waters, inaddition to thirty that were with the absent fleet; but these twenty-fivehad been divided between Boston Harbour, Narragansett Bay, DelawareBay, Chesapeake Bay, and other vulnerable points, so that only six wereleft to defend the approaches to New York City. And, of these six, fivewere twenty-four hours late, owing, I heard later, to inexcusabledelays at the Brooklyn Navy Yard, where they had been undergoing repairs.The consequence was that only the K-2 was here to meet the Germaninvasion--one lone submarine against a mighty fleet.
Still, under favourable conditions, one lone submarine is a force to bereckoned with, as England learned in 1915.
The K-2 attacked immediately, revealing her periscope for a minute as shetook her observations. Then she launched a torpedo at a big Germansupply-ship not more than a thousand yards away.
"Good-bye, ship!" said Palmer, and we watched with fascinated interestthe swift white line that marked the course of the torpedo. It struck thevessel squarely amidships, and she sank within five minutes, most of themen 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, andcame up again two miles to the east, bent on sinking a Germandreadnought; but, unfortunately, she rose to the surface almost under thenose of one of the destroyers, which bombarded her with its rapid-fireguns, and then, when she sank once more, dropped on her a small mine thatexploded under water with shattering effect, finishing her.
As I think it over, I feel sure that if those other five submarines hadbeen ready with the K-2, we might have had another story to tell.Possibly the slowness of the Brooklyn Navy Yard--which is notorious, Iunderstand--may have spoiled the one chance that America had to resistthis invasion.
The next day the five tardy submarines arrived; but conditions werenow less favourable, since the invaders had had time to prepare theirdefence against this under-water peril. As we flew over East Hampton onthe following afternoon, we were surprised to see five full
y inflatedair-ships of the nonrigid Parseval type floating in the blue sky, likegrim sentinels guarding the German fleet. Down through the sun-lit oceanthey could see the shadowy underwater craft lurking in the depths, andthey carried high explosives to destroy them.
"How about our aeroplanes?" grumbled Palmer.
"Look!" I answered, pointing toward the Shinnecock Hills, where some tinyspecks appeared like soaring eagles. "They're coming!"
The American aeroplanes, at least, were on time, and as they swept nearerwe counted ten of them, and our spirits rose; for ten swift aeroplanesarmed with explosive bombs can make a lot of trouble for slower andclumsier aircraft.
But alas for our hopes! The invaders were prepared also, and, before theAmerican fliers had come within striking distance, they found themselvesopposed by a score of military hydroplanes that rose presently, with agreat whirring of propellers, from the decks of the German battle-ships.Had the Americans been able to concentrate here their entire force offifty aeroplanes, the result might have been different; but the fifty hadbeen divided along the Atlantic coast--ten aeroplanes and five submarinesbeing assigned to each harbour that was to be defended.
Now came the battle. And for hours, until night fell, we watched astrange and terrible conflict between these forces of air and water. Withadmirable skill and daring the American aeronauts manoeuvred forpositions above the Parsevals, whence they could drop bombs; and so swiftand successful were they that two of the enemy's air-ships were destroyedbefore the German aeroplanes really came into the action. After that itwent badly for the American fliers, which were shot down, one by one,until only three of the ten remained. Then these three, seeingdestruction inevitable, signalled for a last united effort, and, alltogether, flew at full speed straight for the great yellow gas-bag of thebiggest Parseval and for certain death. As they tore into the flimsyair-ship there came a blinding flash, an explosion that shook the hills,and that brave deed was done.
There remained two Parsevals to aid the enemy's fleet in its fightagainst American submarines, and I wish I might describe this fight inmore detail. We saw a German transport torpedoed by the B-1; we sawtwo submarines sunk by rapid-fire guns of the destroyers; we saw abattle-cruiser crippled by the glancing blow of a torpedo; and we saw theK-1 blown to pieces by bombs from the air-ships. Two American submarineswere still fighting, and of these one, after narrowly missing adreadnought, sent a troop-ship to the bottom, and was itself rammed andsunk by a destroyer, the sea being spread with oil. The last submarinetook to flight, it seems, because her supply of torpedoes was exhausted.And this left the invaders free to begin their landing operations.
During four wonderful days (the Germans were favoured by light northeastbreezes) Palmer and I hovered over these East Hampton shores, watchingthe enemy construct their landing platforms of brick and timbers fromdynamited houses, watching the black transports as they disgorged fromlighters upon the gleaming sand dunes their swarms of soldiers, theirthousands of horses, their artillery, their food supplies. There seemedno limit to what these mighty vessels could carry.
We agreed that the great 50,000-ton _Imperator_ alone brought at leastfifteen thousand men with all that they needed. And I counted twentyother huge transports; so my conservative estimate, cabled to the paperby way of Canada,--for the direct cables were cut,--was that in thisinvading expedition Germany had successfully landed on the shores of LongIsland one hundred and fifty thousand fully equipped fighting-men. Itseemed incredible that the great United States, with its vast wealth andresources, could be thus easily invaded; and I recalled with a pang whata miserable showing England had made in 1915 from similar unpreparedness.
AS THE GERMAN LANDING OPERATIONS PROCEEDED, THE NEWS OFTHE INVASION SPREAD OVER THE WHOLE REGION WITH THE SPEED OF ELECTRICITY.THE ENEMY WAS COMING! THE ENEMY WAS HERE. WHAT WAS TO BE DONE?]
As the German landing operations proceeded, the news of the invasionspread over the whole region with the speed of electricity, and in everytown and village on Long Island angry and excited and terrified crowdscursed and shouted and wept in the streets.
The enemy was coming!
The enemy was here!
What was to be done?
Should they resist?
And many valorous speeches in the spirit of '76 were made by farmers andclerks and wild-eyed women. What was to be done?
In the peaceful town of East Hampton some sniping was done, and afterwardbitterly repented of, the occasion being the arrival of a company ofUhlans with gleaming helmets, who galloped down the elm-lined main streetwith requisitions for food and supplies.
Suddenly a shot was fired from Bert Osborne's livery stable, then anotherfrom White's drug store, then several others, and one of the Uhlansreeled in his saddle, slightly wounded. Whereupon, to avenge this attackand teach Long Islanders to respect their masters, the German fleet wasordered to shell the village.
Half an hour later George Edwards, who was beating up the coast in histrim fishing schooner, after a two weeks' absence in Barnegat Bay (hehad heard nothing about the war with Germany), was astonished to see aGerman soldier in formidable helmet silhouetted against the sky on theeleventh tee of the Easthampton golf course, one of the three that riseabove the sand dunes along the surging ocean, wigwagging signals to thewarships off shore. And, presently, Edwards saw an ominous puff of whitesmoke break out from one of the dreadnoughts and heard the boom of atwelve-inch gun.
The first shell struck the stone tower of the Episcopal church and hurledfragments of it against the vine-covered cottage next door, which hadbeen the home a hundred and twenty years before of John Howard Payne, theoriginal "home sweet home."
The second shell struck John Drew's summer home and set it on fire; thethird wrecked the Casino; the fourth destroyed Albert Herter's studio andslightly injured Edward T. Cockcroft and Peter Finley Dunne, who wereplaying tennis on the lawn. That night scarcely a dozen buildings in thisbeautiful old town remained standing. And the dead numbered more thanthree hundred, half of them being women and children.
Conquest of America: A Romance of Disaster and Victory, U.S.A., 1921 A.D. Page 5