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The Administration's deliberations on the subject produced the decision that the U-53 had not ignored the German pledges. It came, saw, and conquered according to formula. It had first warned the vessels, gave enough time for the people on board to be "safely" transferred to boats, and there were American naval eyewitnesses to testify as to the regularity of its proceedings.
Admiral Knight and Admiral Gleaves, who had been keeping the Navy Department at Washington in touch with every phase of the situation, beginning with the arrival of the U-53 the preceding day, lost no time in sending destroyers forth to the rescue, while already there was the cheering word that the destroyer Batch was on the scene and engaged in rescue work.
It was claimed that the U-53 had made the trip from Wilhelmshaven in seventeen days. She was 213 feet long, equipped with two guns, four torpedo tubes, and an exceptionally strong wireless outfit. Besides her commander, Captain Rose, she was manned by three officers and thirty-three men.
Having no commerce of her own afloat, it was safe for Germany to sink any vessel anywhere. Kedzie began to wonder if she would ever dare to sail for he future ancestral home, and if she did how long her ship would last. On February 3d the U-53, which had sunk Strathdene's ship off Newport, sank an American freighter bound from Galveston to Liverpool.
Thus, what in the original instance was a test journey in the interests of German submarine activity the visit of the U-53 in October, 1916 as well as a threat to this country bore its fruit in the development of that test trip, and in the fulfilment of that threat.
On page eighty-eight he writes, "Our Embassy in Berlin expected just such a demonstration as was given by the U-53 in October when she sank six vessels off Nantucket, as a lesson of what Germany could do in our waters if war came." On page seventy-four he says further, "Throughout Germany the objection for the resumption of ruthless U-boat warfare of the Lusitania type grows stronger day by day.
The U-53 hung around through the daylight hours, and at sunset, with a farewell salute, put to sea. Did our naval officers think this was the last of her? Possibly, but probably not.
About three hours afterward, without having taken on any supplies, and after explaining her presence by the desire of delivering a letter addressed to Count von Bernstorff, then German Ambassador at Washington, the U-53 left as suddenly and mysteriously as she had appeared. This was the first appearance of a war submarine in an American port.
They had been still further amazed by the feats of the German undersea cargo carrier Deutschland that had made the trip to America and back, and the U-53 that suddenly popped into Newport one summer afternoon. The night dragged along. Now that they were fairly off, Jack and Ted preferred not to sleep, but rather to keep tabs on the maneuvers of the American fleet.
This included big U-boats, like the U-53, with a cruising radius of five thousand miles, and the smaller craft, with fifteen-day radius, for use against England, as well as supply ships and mine layers. But not all these were ready for use against the Allies and the United States at that time. About one hundred were waiting for trained crews or were being completed in German shipyards.
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