SPEECH BY REAR-ADMIRAL SIMS.

Taihape Daily Times, 28 July 1919, Page 6

SPEECH BY REAR-ADMIRAL SIMS.

) _.....-_.. I CONDUCT OF WAR BY UNITED \, STATES GOVERNM.EN'I‘. I K PHILADELPHIA, Pennsylvania. ~—— } In a. series of speeches defending the 1: United States Governments eonduefl of the war, and in which he raked :the 1 loan slacker fore and aft, Rear-Admiral E ‘ William S. -Simms stirred enthusiasm in ’ several audiences in this city last week. ' He also told how co-operation! between the army and navy in their operations against the Germans resul.t- I cd in brushing away the old prejudices of those services for each other. ! “General =Perslling and :I yagrced i that there would be no friction what—l ever between the army and navy,” he said. “So when we found a couple of I officers who could not get along Wei didn"t have time‘ to investigate, but put I a. couple of new_uones in their places.” His admiratioh of the work of the! military arm of the service was ex-5 pressed in .11, eulogy of _Genelj_al Pel'sh~

I ing himself. “Never in history has there been a man who was up against such a job as Pershing,” he said-. “He : had to make over France as he found : it at the coast from peace to war. and had to do a job that Great Britain and France said he couldn’t do. And I want to say that John Pershing did a Very, excellent job, and that it is §Clll3ll‘Oly beneath contempt to hear ‘carping criticism because a few mistakes were maid.” ORIGIN OF DEPTH CHARGE. Admiral Sims‘ told an interesting story about the origin and -development of the depth charge, to which he gave Ecredit for the final victory over the lU—Boats. He said that on one occas- ! ion, while on 2. battleship with Admiral Jellicoe, which was passing a. submerggcd U-boat, the latter expressed regret ‘ that he did not have a mine he could drop on it. This reniark set a number of American_ofl”icers to ‘thinking, and the result was that the idea was em~| gbodied in a report. to the Admiraltyll The depth charge was develope-dl ishortly afterwards. 9 ’ f The Admiral declared. however, that ;Great' Briltain did prac'ticzlMy three‘.~ ' quarters of the work of “settling the '-“lb-” “W 0 had only a hundred -dc-i stroyers, while Great Britain had over i 400,” he said. “We had 160 ant.i—sub-i lrnarine craft. while England had 1000.. i I\a[A.GI\’ITUDE OF THE TASK. I “We have made mistakes here and gthere,” said the Admiral, “and we shall bear all about them in the ineviitable investigations that always come after the. war. But‘, if the investigators want to be real bo‘thersome, they can ‘easily learn that I spent more money ‘than was needed to win the war. I “However, the Germans didn’t tell ‘me six months before they were going [to quit, and if they had I should lprobably have been able to Spend just [as much as I did. I have made -,1. lot }of mistakes, but we were only sailor{men_ Remember, too, we were your i sailormen, and you put us there for the job we had .to do. And don’t forget 'tll7a2t we got all your‘ men over, and kept them fed. I “John Pershing and myself worked I together, and forthe first time in hisgtory the army and navy were not at } loggerheads. And when you hear carpiing critics telling how this was badly iddne, or that was outrageously execu-g ‘ted, remember it was a big job, and ;that We did it, anyway, possibly not] las well, as 'the critics could do, but the ‘best way" we knew how.”