PULL TOGETHER
The Memoirs of Admiral Sir Lewis Bayly- For the President of the United States to write a more than formal Foreword to a British admiral's memoirs there is surely no precedent, but the action is explained by the unique respect and affection with which the late Admiral Bayly was regarded in America. Mr. Roosevelt, then Assistant Secretary of the Navy, first met him at Queenstown in July, 1918, when he was commanding a mixed American and British naval force which was operating in the Western Approaches to protect our joint convoys and trade routes against German sub- marines. Admiral Bayly had been in charge of this important patrol area, stretching from Mull to Ushant, for some time before the first American destroyers arrived in May, 1917. At once he began the task of welding the 92 U.S. warships into the existing organisation. To command an international force is never easy. In the Queenstown command it was especially, difficult, because of the type of operations involved, and because during much of the year the weather off the Irish coast is extremely severe. But Admiral Bayly treated the two navies exactly alike, and there was never any friction. When he was ordered a week's leave, his first in three years, he only took it on condition that Admiral Sims, U.S.N., took his place. (Thereupon rumours went round the South of Ireland that the country had been handed over to the U.S.A.!) By his inspiring leadership he built up an esprit de corps that surmounted all transatlantic differences, and Mr. Roosevelt recalls how, after only a year of naval co-operation, many young officers came to him in the Navy Department and pleaded, almost with tears in their eyes, for assignments to the Queens- town Command. When Admiral Bayly visited the United States privately in 1921 and 194 he was given a welcome without precedent. As a pioneer In torpedo tactics, Bayly was largely responsible for the efficiency of our destroyer arm in 1914, and commanded the most successful of the anti-submarine areas. But although his memoirs (Harrap, 15$.) date back to 1872, when the Navy used mast and sail, and smoking on board was forbidden, it is his work for Anglo-American friendship which gives Admiral Bayly's memoirs such unusual interest. The dream for which he worked during all the post-War years was to bring together the United States and the British Empire in a closer unity. It looks as though events are making his dream come true.
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