from that of the Commander-in-Chief down, upon whose
activities they were not at liberty to submit the fullest and
the frankest reports. If anything could be done in a better
way, we certainly wanted to know it. Whenever any
specific problem of importance came up, it was always
submitted to these men for a report. The value of such a
report depended upon the completeness and accuracy of the
information available, and it was the business of the Intelligence Department of the staff to supply this. If the desired
information was not in their files, or the files of the Allied
admiralties, or was not up to date, it was their duty to obtain
it at once. The point is that the Planning Section had no
other duties beyond rendering a decision, based upon a
careful analysis of the facts bearing upon the case, which
they submitted in writing. There was no phase of the naval
warfare upon which the officers of the Planning Section did
not give us reports. One of their favourite methods was to
place themselves in the position of the Germans and to decide
how, if they were directing German naval operations, they
would frustrate the tactics of the Allies. Their records
contain detailed descriptions of how merchant ships could
be sunk by submarines, and these methods, our officers
believed, represented a great improvement over those used
by the Germans. Indeed, I think that many of these
reports, had they fallen into the hands of the Germans,
would have been found by them exceedingly useful. There
was a general impression, in our own navy as well as in the
British, that most of the German submarine commanders
handled their boats unskilfully and obtained inadequate
results. All these documents were given to the responsible
men in our forces, as well as to the British, and had a considerable influence upon operations. The British also
established a Planning Section, which worked harmoniously with our own.
A subject upon which our Planning Section liked to speculate was the possible sortie of the German fleet. The possibility of a great naval engagement filled the minds of most naval officers; and, after we had sent five of our battleships to reinforce Admiral Beatty's fleet, this topic became even more interesting to American naval men. Would the Germans ever come out? What had they to gain or to lose by such an undertaking ? What were their chances of victory? Where would the engagement be
