“CHEER UP AND GET BUSY!" ADMIRAL SIMS'S MOTTO. (By Frederic William Wile.)

Hokitika Guardian, 28 March 1918, Page 4

“CHEER UP AND GET BUSY!" ADMIRAL SIMS'S MOTTO. (By Frederic William Wile.)

President Wilson as Iced Congress to declare war on Germany on April 2, 1917. On April 9, having left. New York quietly nine days before, an admiral of the United States Navy slipped quietly into London and reported himself to the British Admiralty. His name was William Sowden Sims. On April MO, exactly t hree weeks later, American warships were at work in .British waters, with Admiral Sims in chief command. Sims’s mot to is “ Cheer up and get busy!” it was not, as pretty nearly everybody in England now knows, the first historic occasion of Admiral Sims’s arrival in this country. That happened on December M, 19.0, when Sims, at a luncheon in the Guildhall, said : “If the time ever comes when the British Empire is seriously menaced by an external enemy, it is my opinion that you may count upon every ship, every man, every dollar, j and every drop of blood of your kin- ! dred across the seas. Sims was not cut out for the ! Diplomatic Service, for his speciality is saying exactly what lie means, j From 1897 to-1900 he was American Naval Attache in Paris and Petrograd. Month after month, for four years, he bombarded Washington with reports proving that in comparison with modern European fighting craft the United Stales’ warships were jokes. Later, an officer in the new battleship Kentucky, bound for the Ear East, it- was Sims’s great good fortune to fall in with Admiral Sir Percy Scott on the China Station. He calls Scott “ the man who stood the I artillery egg on its end,” i.e., converted gunnery from guess-work into a. mathematical science. Sims studied reverentially at Scott’s feet, and returned to the United States determined henceforth to devote himself exclusively to teaching the American Navy “ how to shoot.” Every man in the United Slates Navy will tell you that Vice-Admiral Sims is the father of its present-day efficiency. Sims is Canadian born —Port Ontario was his birthplace f>9 years ago —but lie has lived all his life in the States and is “Yankee” in aspect, accent and temperament. Two Presi-* dents have signally distinguished him. Mr Roosevelt, I think, claims lo havei “discovered” him. Mr Wilson promoted Sims through two grades of senior officers to liis present post as Commander-in-Chief of American naval forces operating in the European water’s. Sims is about as handsome a North American and sailorrnan as you will find in a month’s cruise. Straight as a Cherokee, lie measures a good tjft 2in in height, his distinguishing feature being a wonderfully classic head and profile adorned ._\vith a close-cropped beard, now quite white. He confesses to a passion for tactful indiscretions like his immortal Guildhall speech. I heard the Yankee admiral in one of his * l indiscreet ” moments recently at a smoker of the American Navy League. This is what he said:— ‘‘ The greatest liopour of my life was conferred on me when 1 was permitted to hoist my flag as Commander-in-Chief of the Irish Station during the temporary absence of ViceAdmiral S'ir Lewis Bayly—one of the greatest sailors and finest gentlemen who ever wore naval uniform.”