Complaints to Captain Robison accomplished little, and before all was in readiness late summer had turned into early fall. The first consignment of U.S. submarines, four K-boats, accompanied by Commander Hart in the tender Bushnell, set sail for the Azores on 13 October 1917. The route was by way of Nova Scotia and thence across the North Atlantic to Ponta Delgada in the Azores. The submarines were supposed to be towed part of the way because they were not designed for eighteen-hundred-mile cruises across open ocean. Towing was fine when the weather was decent, but as any sailor knows, the North Atlantic can be treacherous in the fall. When winds and seas rise, as they did midway in the trip, tow lines part and problems multiply. However, after ten and a half days—a record—Hart and his charges arrived safely in the Azores.
With four submarines at least in the arena of the war, Hart turned back to pick up the rest of his command. With the experience of one crossing under his belt, he thought he would be able to make a quick turn-around voyage. He figured without the mediocre efforts of the workmen at the Philadelphia Navy Yard. When he arrived there, he found that the remaining submarines were not ready. For the next two weeks he fretted and stormed, trying to put some fire under the workmen in the yard. Whether this had any effect is hard to tell, but by 18 November his next detachment was ready for sea. When he had picked up more submarines at New London, his group consisted of seven submarines, three seagoing tugs, and the tenders Bushnell and Fulton. These boats plus the submarines already in the Azores were to base in the British Isles for the duration of the war, so there were serious good-byes to be said. Caroline, instead of breaking down in tears as she had every right to do, sent him off with a smile, a slap on the back, and a cheery “Good luck!” “Is there another woman who could thus have sent her man to war?” he wondered. As for himself, he was unable to speak.
This passage was a little different from the first. Hart decided to take the most direct route across the open Atlantic to make up lost time. Unfortunately he did not take enough account of two things: the shortcomings of the tugs and the weather. Bad weather set in four days out of New London. The barometric pressure dropped to 28.98 as Hart and his little fleet found themselves in the center of a real stem-winder of a gale, which served to point up the deficiencies of the tugs as well as of some of the submarines. Consequently, when Hart was forced to put in to Bermuda on 13 December, five of his submarines and two of his tugs were missing. He went through ten anguished days of searching before he found all but one of his charges: one of the tugs, perhaps prudently, had given up and returned to New York.
Hart and his detachment spent late December 1917 and early January 1918 in the Azores. Finally, after much muddling, which he attributed to the difficulties of operating an alliance, he was ordered to take his force to Queenstown, Ireland. This port proved unsatisfactory because it was also serving as headquarters of the surface patrol forces, so Hart’s operation was transferred to the base at Berehaven in Bantry Bay.
The place might well have been called “Barrenhaven.” Its shore line was surrounded by low peat hills broken here and there by rocky piles 800 feet to 1,000 feet high. The wind blew rain or snow from all points of the compass while heavy dark clouds usually obscured the sun. Technically Hart was serving under Rear Admiral William S. Sims, who commanded all American forces in European waters, but his immediate superior was Captain Martin E. Dunbar-Nasmith, RN. Hart soon became very fond of Nasmith who had an enviable war record, a quick wit, and a love of the outdoors that equaled his own. Rainy, blustery afternoons would often find the two captains—Hart’s temporary promotion came through on 1 February 1918—tramping over the hills or clambering over the rock piles around the bay.
As commander of the only U.S. submarine flotilla in the European theater, Hart could hardly wait to send his boats into action. The British had found that a submarine with her low profile was much better able to approach another submarine undetected than was a larger vessel. Hence the game was to send one ship-killer in search of another. First, the American crews absorbed all they could from the experience of their British cousins, then they worked up their boats under Hart’s stern eye, and finally they went out on their own. The first patrol was dispatched on 6 March, eleven months to the day after America entered the war. Much effort had gone into whipping the green crews with their cranky submarines into shape, so hopes were understandably high. Yet, time after time, opportunity passed just beyond their grasp. Sometimes they would not see the U-boat until she was already diving; sometimes they fired and missed; sometimes the boat commander forgot to fire a full spread of torpedoes. Despite the frustration of not chalking up any kills, they were gaining valuable experience.
Antisubmarine patrols were an exhausting, often unpleasant, way to learn a trade. They usually lasted eight days, long hours of which were spent submerged so as to avoid detection. “Arduous” was the term Admiral Sims later applied to his particular form of hazardous duty:
Even on the coldest winter days there could be no artificial heat, for the precious electricity could not be spared for that purpose, and the temperature inside the submarine was the temperature of the water in which it sailed. The close atmosphere, heavily laden also with the smell of oil from the engines and the odors of cooking, and the necessity of going for days at a time without a bath or even a wash added to the discomfort. The stability of a submerged submarine is by no means perfect; the vessel is constantly rolling, and a certain number of the crew, even the experienced men, are frequently seasick. This movement sometimes made it almost impossible to stay in a bunk and sleep for any reasonable period; the poor seaman would perhaps doze off, but a lurch of the vessel would send him sprawling on the deck. One could hardly write, for it was too cold, or read, for there was little light; and because of the motion of the vessel, it was difficult to focus one’s eyes on the page. A limited amount of smoking was permitted, but the air was sometimes so vitiated that only the most vigorous and incessant puffing could keep a cigarette alight. One of the most annoying things about the submarine existence is the fact that the air condenses on the sides as the coldness increases, so that practically everything becomes wet; as the sailor lies in his bunk this moisture is precipitated upon him like rain drops. This combination of discomforts usually produced, after spending a few hours under the surface, that mental state commonly known as “dopey.”32
Hart considered the experience his commanders were getting and the work he was doing with the British were well worth the effort and sooner or later, he knew, would pay off. After two months of patrolling without success came a telegram from Admiral William S. Benson, the chief of naval operations, via Admiral Sims, giving Hart the additional duty of surveying British methods of conducting submarine warfare, including upkeep and administration. Previously, what detailed observation there was had concentrated on material features such as batteries, power plants, and so on. Hart was to look into the practical matter of how the British actually fought their submarines.
He turned over the operation of his flotilla to his executive officer so that he could spend the next six weeks touring the British submarine command. What he found was instructive and much to his liking. It appealed to his innate conservatism to find that the British were frugal, wasting little space or time on comforts for their crews. The command organizations also fitted his tastes, being so run that individual commanders had considerable latitude. In his view the bureaucracy seemed streamlined in comparison with the American system. By and large, the British submarine command appeared to Hart an efficient, tight, businesslike outfit, filled with hard-working sailors willing to put up with a minimum of creature comforts. And whereas the officers and men of the Royal Navy might have lacked the broad experience that characterized the U.S. Navy, because they changed assignments less regularly, they knew their specialties thoroughly and performed efficiently. By the time he was back on board the Bushnell to celebrate his twenty-five years of naval service on 19 May, he felt he had a thorough understanding of how the British fought their submarine war as well as some examples of how the U.S. service could become more efficient.
In June he had an opportunity to pass on some of what he had learned to Captain Robison, now an