high seas offered a
peculiar facility for 'cut-and-run' tactics: the system of independent
sailings of the merchantmen provided them with a succession of victims,
timed in a progression that allowed of solitary disposal.
Notwithstanding the matured experience of submarine methods gained by
masters, the rapid evolution of counter-measures by the Royal Navy, the
courage and determination of all classes of seafarers, our shipping and
that of our Allies and the neutral nations was being destroyed at a rate
that foreshadowed disaster.

Schemes of rapid ship construction were advanced, lavish expenditure
incurred, plans and occupation designed--all to ensure a replacement of
tonnage at a future date. More material in point of prompt effect were
the efforts of the newly formed Ministry of Shipping to conserve
existing tonnage by judicious and closely controlled employment. All but
sternly necessary sea-traffic was eliminated: harbour work in loading
and unloading was expedited: the virtues of a single control enhanced
the active agency of the merchants' ships--now devoted wholly to State
service. Joined to the provisional and economic measures of the bureaux,
Admiralty reorganized their methods of patrol and sea-supervision of the
ships. The entry of the United States into the world war provided a
considerable increase of naval strength to the Allied fleets. Convoy
measures, that before had been deemed impracticable, were now possible.
Destroyers and sloops could be released from fleet duties and were
available as escorts. American flotillas crossed the Atlantic to protect
the sea-routes: Japanese war craft assisted us in the Mediterranean.

In the adoption of the convoy system the Royal Navy was embarking on no
new venture. Modern ships and weapons may have brought a novel
complication to this old form of sea-guardianship, but there is little
in seafaring for which the traditions of the Naval Service cannot offer
text and precedent. The constant of protection by convoy has remained
unaltered by the advance of armament and the evolution of strange war
craft: the high spirit of self-sacrifice is unchanged. When, in October
1917, the destroyers _Strongbow_ and _Mary Rose_ accepted action and
faced three German cruisers, their commanders--undismayed by the
tremendous odds--reacted the parts of the common sea-dramas of the
Napoleonic wars. The same obstinate courage and unconquerable sea-pride
forbade them to desert their convoy