The Western Hemisphere May 1917 to January 1919

INTRODUCTION The British naval presence in the Western Hemisphere in 1917 was almost minimal. British strength had been run down following the general rapprochement with the United States between 1895 and 1903 and as a result of Admiral Fisher’s policy of concentrating the Royal Navy’s strength in the North Sea. Further slimming had taken place under the pressure of war and the C-in-C North America and West Indies, Vice-Admiral Browning, was left with a handful of superannuated cruisers and armed merchant cruisers. The South American squadron was similarly stretched and diluted. Attempts had been made, with little success, to persuade the Canadian Government to raise substantial naval forces for general imperial defence and Browning doubled as Naval Advisor to Ottawa. Despite this token presence, the British nevertheless sought to control all neutral and Allied shipping sailing from eastern seaboard and Caribbean ports, British naval officers installed in these ports acting as routing, and later as convoy, controllers. When the United States entered the war, the Navy Department was naturally desirous of controlling all shipping emanating from US ports and made approaches of this kind to the Admiralty at intervals. All were resisted by the Admiralty, supported by Sims, on the grounds that the British organisation was complete, experienced, efficient and effectively co-ordinated with that of the Admiralty itself [334, 335, 338, 413]. The Americans did not help their cause by resisting the introduction of convoy, thereby compelling the British to establish their own organisation (based on existing routing offices) in North American ports [338]. More palatable to the Admiralty was the American request for a British convoy officer to be attached to the Navy Department; with this, the Admiralty happily conformed [349–50, 353–4]. Most of the early contact between the British, French and American navies was entirely without friction and devoted initially to the solution of the surface raider problem (though unknown to the coalition, this was a declining problem as Germany channelled its resources increasingly into the U-boat campaign). Local commanders came to amicable agreements and friendly working arrangements on patrols and zones of responsibility, as well as the control of shipping should U-boats appear in these waters [336,337], 345–6, 348, 355, 361]. The extent of the U-boat threat in the Western Hemisphere was for some months a matter of dispute between Benson and the Admiralty and Sims.

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