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Naval History and Heritage Command

Naval History and Heritage Command

Vice Admiral Sir Lewis Bayly, Commander, Southern Ireland, to Vice Admiral William S. Sims, Commander, United States Naval Forces Operating in European Waters.

 

Admiral Sims

Personal File.

Admiralty House,   

Queenstown

12. 7. 17.

My dear Admiral

          I quite understand, and of course what the Admiralty order will be done. But the escorts that have to be arranged for will take so many destroyers from here that it is not unlikely that we shall have to give up patrolling altogether when the convoys begin.

It is a strange commentary on our ‘command of the sea’ that we should be reduced to defending France’s from any oversea attack.1

Yours always            

Lewis Bayly        

By all means typewrite if you prefer.

 

Source Note: TLS, DLC-MSS, William Sims Papers, Box 22.

Footnote 1: Bayly is lamenting the transition in tactics from offensive submarine warfare to the use of destroyers as convoy escorts. See: Sims to Woodrow Wilson, 11 July 1917.