Things are relative, though, and he believed Americans, though not perfect, were more industrious than many other people. He found the native Hawaiians, for instance, lazy, shiftless, undependable workers. They worked only until they were paid and then did not return to work the next day. His conclusion? “The white and yellow races are the only ones with mainsprings.”28
Despite all this negativism, and Hart did have more than a normal measure of it, he was personally very happy. On Thanks-giving, a day that had an almost religious significance for him, usually prompting some introspective comments in his diary, he wrote again about all he had to be thankful for. He had spent a successful year in his profession, had reasonably good health, healthy children, and “a dear wife who is still so misguided as to love me.” In summation, his luck had continued, and he regretted that “I am so heathen that I know not how to thank.”29
To ensure that his submarines continued on their positive course, he started the next month by taking them for a five-hundred-mile, ten-day cruise to Hilo. It was the first time such a lengthy training cruise had been attempted. There were exercises on and below the surface, practice maneuvers to attack or evade the tenders, which posed as enemy cruisers, and still other exercises pitting submarine against submarine. Not only was the cruise a success in itself, but it served to point up the excellent work that Hart had done. As the commander of the Pacific Torpedo Flotilla commented in his fitness report, “His work during this period deserves the highest commendation.” As an officer, the report continued perceptively, he was “quiet, unassuming but thorough with a determined spirit to overcome all difficulties” and was not unwilling to “put up a fight” when necessary.
With this kind of commendation it is little wonder that Hart was on the promotion list published on 6 January 1917. His joy was muted somewhat by the knowledge that some good men and good friends had been passed over. Moreover, since he had been in grade for seven years, it was no real surprise that he was going up. He did note and privately agree with the selection board’s decision not to promote his immediate commanding officer, Captain Clark, who had shown no interest in his strategic plan. It was an indication of Hart’s tenacity that, despite that rebuff, he went ahead and developed a “campaign order” without Clark’s support. He took his inspiration from the plans developed by German General Helmuth von Moltke, who had orchestrated the invasion of France in August 1914. On 17 January, when Hart finished his plans, he felt that the war could now begin and, like von Moltke, he would simply have to pull his orders from their pigeonhole, dispatch them to his ships, and all would roll automatically.
It was less than three months before that occasion arose, but before then Thomas Hart had his initiation in the war. The German gunboat Geier had been interned in the harbor at Honolulu since shortly after the war began in Europe.30 During the intervening months her captain and two-hundred-man crew had the run of the city, where they were the toast of the large German community. Although the men of the Imperial Navy were slightly overbearing, relations with the U.S. Navy were good, both sides entering boat races and other competitions enthusiastically. But on 3 February 1917 the United States severed diplomatic relations with Germany. Early the next morning, smoke was seen billowing from the Geier: she was being scuttled by her crew lest she fall into unfriendly hands. She could not be allowed to sit at her commercial berth on the waterfront and burn, so Lieutenant Commander Hart was ordered to take a boarding party, put out the fires, and take over the ship.
It sounded risky, since there was reason to believe the ship’s crew had set explosive charges. Quickly he boarded, giving the captain as his reason the fact that the ship was obviously endangering the waterfront; the U.S. Navy would take her over, he explained, and the crew would be interned ashore. But, he noted, he wanted all hands to stay on board until the ship had been searched for explosive charges and the harbor beneath her for mines. If there were to be an explosion, he wanted the Germans on hand for it.
The minesweeping took several hours and while it was going on Hart confronted another problem. What should be done about the Imperial German flag still flying at the Geier’s masthead? His boarding party clamored to haul it down, but did the United States, under international law, have the right to seize a German warship when she was not at war with Germany? Hart had not the foggiest idea. At that point he spotted his father-in-law, who was visiting the Harts and was on the waterfront watching the excitement. Knowing no one more likely to give sound advice, Tommy appealed to Admiral Brownson. “Don’t haul down that flag!” the admiral immediately replied. That was good enough for Hart; the flag continued to fly even as he towed the Geier to Pearl Harbor for a permanent and safe internment. Her crew, with their pets, their tubas, their souvenirs, and their only slightly dampened Teutonic arrogance, were marched off to hastily improvised camps. It was a “rather ticklish job,” Hart wrote, which did nothing to diminish his respect for Admiral Brownson’s quick thinking and good judgment.
Early the next morning Caroline contributed her part to making February memorable by giving birth to Thomas Comins Hart, or Tom as he was called. There was little time for even becoming acquainted with his youngest before Tommy took off for San Francisco to take his written examinations for promotion to commander. All went well and, despite the discovery that he had very poor color sense, which he had known for years, he was duly promoted.
He was back in Hawaii by the time the United States declared war on 6 April. Because of the preparations he had made, all that remained to be done was to change the status of the interned German sailors to that of prisoners of war and put warheads on his torpedoes. Then he settled down to wait. It was a long wait and more than a trifle anticlimactic. There really was very little to do other than exercise to keep up efficiency and hope that a German raider would appear in the area to make life interesting. About the most warlike thing he did was set his crews to cultivating a victory garden.
Finally, in May, came orders that at least moved him closer to the scene of hostilities. He was assigned as commander of the submarine base at New London, Connecticut, with additional duty as chief of staff to the commander of the Atlantic Fleet’s submarine force. Within three days the whole family was aboard a ship headed home. Hart was not happy with a shore detail, but to get it changed he would have to go to Washington. The chief of the Bureau of Navigation was his old friend and member of his wedding, L.C. Palmer, who heard him out patiently but could not, at the moment, offer him a more exciting billet.
The problem was that Hart was the victim of some rather sloppy detailing, which was to have long-range consequences. Since the previous commander of U.S. submarine forces, Rear Admiral Albert W. Grant, had not been moving as expeditiously as some would have liked to get American submarines into actual combat, he was to be replaced by Captain Samuel S. Robison.31 But before Grant turned over the command and before Robison could choose his own chief of staff, Hart had been selected for the billet. It was more than slightly awkward. Robison brought his former executive officer, Commander Arthur Japy Hepburn, a classmate of Hart, with him and made it clear that Hart’s duty commanding the base at New London was going to be his only duty. As Hart told Robison and Palmer, he was not qualified to command the major U.S. submarine base, since he really was not an experienced submarine officer, nor did he care to be stuck in the States with a war going on.
For the moment there was nothing to be done so he went, with what grace was possible, to New London, where he reported on 20 July. It was a big job, a sensitive situation, and, seemingly, a dead end. After plugging away unenthusiastically through the remainder of July and half of August, luck, or something much like it, came through. Either as a result of his continued pressure on Palmer, or possibly because Robison was as eager as Tommy to ease the personality situation, Hart was to be relieved. The Navy Department needed someone with long-range cruising experience in submarines to take an expeditionary force of boats across the Atlantic to conduct antisubmarine warfare against the Imperial Navy in the waters off the British Isles. Hart qualified. They wanted a volunteer—Hart more than qualified. Tommy Hart was going to war again.
When he arrived at the Philadelphia Navy Yard on 30 August he found that his submarines were still undergoing refit and repairs. He was not pleased by this