Chapter XXVI: To Victory on a Sea of Oil

ABILITY TO SECURE OIL AND TRANSPORT IT TO EUROPE WAS ESSENTIAL TO
SUCCESS--OUR NAVY PATROLLED CARIBBEAN AND GULF COASTS--TRANSPORTED
MATERIAL AND FURNISHED PERSONNEL TO LAY PIPE LINE ACROSS
SCOTLAND--AMERICA FURNISHED EIGHTY PER CENT OF OIL FOR ALLIED
FORCES.

"The Allies floated to victory on a sea of oil," was the epigrammatic way in which Lord Curzon expressed the truth that oil was essential for success in the World War. This was true particularly of the Navy's part in the war, for most of the naval force and the Shipping Board's ships were oil burners. That oil was necessary also for the army was emphasized when General Foch warned that "interruption of the petroleum supply would necessitate an entire change of campaign and if long continued might result in the loss of the war."

Long before 1914, Great Britain had felt dependence upon Mexican oil for its increasing oil-burning navy, and had made provision for securing it through acquisition of Mexican oil fields. American captains of industry had likewise large oil fields in Mexico. From the minute war was declared in 1914, Allied dependence was upon Mexican and American oil. Tampico and Port Arthur were strategic points in all Allied plans of campaign on sea or land. If this supply of oil had been interrupted, the war might have gone on much longer.

From the day the first German raider sank a British ship or a submarine fired at an Allied vessel, the British and French were zealous to protect the oil supplies in Mexico. They maintained patrol vessels in that region and kept ceaseless vigil of sea routes to protect this priceless agency of war. However great their need of ships on their own coast, they knew that if the oil supply failed at Tampico they would lose the only adequate available source of oil for all their operations.

The question has sometimes been raised why the Navy Department did not immediately upon the declaration of war send every patrol ship into European waters. One answer is Oil.

Before the United States entered the war, sensing, as the authorities did then, that oil might determine the outcome, a naval squadron, first under Admiral Wilson and afterwards under Admiral Edwin A. Anderson, was organized for patrol service in the Gulf and Caribbean as well as in the North Atlantic. Why? Again the answer was Oil, with a big O. The United States was importing millions of barrels of oil from Mexico for its own ships and industries. It could not permit any danger of cessation of this supply. Our dependence would be heightened when we entered the war. Gasless Sundays and other methods of conservation were practiced later in order that the Army and Navy in Europe might be well supplied.

At one time the sinking of the tankers was serious enough to alarm the Allied navies. The maintenance of fleets of Great Britain and America in the North Sea was dependent upon oil supplies, and always the U-boats were on the watch to torpedo oilers. They were so successful and the number of tankers was so small, compared to the need, that the American and British naval administrations decided to construct a pipe line across Scotland as the best new way to lessen the danger of losing tankers and to hasten the delivery of oil to the Allied fleet in the North Sea.

The Bureau of Navigation will enroll a force to lay the pipe line
(Glasgow, Scotland) to consist of seven officers and one hundred
men experienced in pipe line work. All material expense to be
borne by British Government and personnel expense by United States
Government.

That was the order I signed, April 5, 1918, in pursuance of which the Navy undertook to furnish the personnel, and, coöperating with the British, lay a pipe line across Scotland, thirty-six miles in length, following the course of the Clyde and Forth Canal, extending from Old Kilpatrick (St. Patrick's birth-place), to Grangemouth, Firth of Forth. Directions were also given that pipe and other material should be transported in American naval vessels. Priority orders were given by me for the material in order to expedite shipment and construction, and as soon as the necessary material was ready the naval force embarked and carried out the work under Commander W. A. Barstow. The pipe line was laid out by Mr. Forrest Towl, president of the Eureka Pipe Line Company, New York, and the naval personnel was able to complete the work in four months.

There were two intermediate pumping stations, and fuel oil could be pumped in a cold state at the rate of 100 tons per hour. At the Old Kilpatrick terminal sixteen large tanks were constructed, each with a holding capacity of 8,000 tons. At the opposite end the oil was pumped into large reservoirs, easily accessible to oil-burning ships at Grangemouth and Forth ports.

The U-boats seemed, as I have stated, to have some uncanny way of finding and sinking tankers carrying oil to Europe. When unable to hit transports and cargo ships, their aim at tankers seemed unerring, particularly when the ships were going around the north of Scotland to carry oil to the fleet in the North Sea. And oil was more valuable to the fleet than radium. In fact it was the prime essential. The construction of the pipe line became a pressing war need for three reasons:

1. To reduce the sinkings of tankers proceeding around the north of Scotland or up the English channel.

2. To secure quicker trans-Atlantic voyages by eliminating the necessity of the tankers going into the North Sea.

3. To increase the flexibility in the distribution of reserve stocks between the west and east coasts, and vice versa.

Its completion secured a continuous and adequate supply of fuel oil for the naval vessels operating in the area it served. The building of this pipe line appealed to the Navy Department. As soon as the plans were ready, the order, "Push it!", was sent to every bureau which could assist in hastening construction and furnishing the officers and men. The order was obeyed.

When the formal opening of the line was celebrated a telegram of thanks was sent to American Naval Headquarters at London. Admiral Tothill, the British Fourth Sea Lord, who turned on the steam that started the pumps going, in his speech stated that this line, the longest in Great Britain, had been completed in about six months time from placing of order in the States, and that the U. S. Navy had in that time enrolled a special unit to lay the pipe, and completed the work in a much shorter time than had been expected.

In his report Commander Barstow said that "during the past year the Allied governments' requirements amounted to 2,900,000,000 gallons, of which large total the United States has furnished 80 per cent, or about 2,320,000,000 gallons." The fact that eighty per cent. of the oil required had to be transported across the Atlantic shows the importance of the pipe line across Scotland which our Navy had a large part in constructing, and equally proves the value of the patrol of the Caribbean and Gulf Coast by our squadron in those waters.

In March, 1913, in answer to a letter from the Navy Department as to whether the Navy would be justified in constructing all its ships as oil burners, the Secretary of the Interior advised that the Geological Survey's estimates of the available source of oil showed that it was ample. The policy of "all oil-burners" was adopted by the Navy in 1913 and, when it was organized, the Shipping Board adopted the same policy. It was found that four ships burning oil will do the work of five ships burning coal. From the coal mine to the fireroom the use of oil saves fifty men per ship. Oil is the super-fuel. It does effectively and economically all that coal can do, and more. Its use makes possible the highest service of the two hundred and seventy-five destroyers built or contracted for during the war.

Foreseeing the larger use of oil for naval purposes, in the latter part of 1912, President Taft withdrew certain lands in California from public exploitation and set this land aside as Naval Reserves, No. 1 and No. 2. On April 30, 1915, President Wilson issued an order setting aside Naval Petroleum Reserve No. 3, in Wyoming. The preservation of these reserves intact for naval use is of such importance that the Government has fought the many adverse claims and refused the persistent applications of claimants and others to open wells on these reserves. It will soon be recognized that the nation which controls the oil supply of the world has an advantage in naval operations and in the carrying of water-borne commerce which will give it supremacy. The Navy Department appreciated this fact in 1913. After the war it recommended that this Government take steps not only to keep a large reserve of American oil stored in the ground but also to acquire wells in every part of the world where oil is produced.

The contest for oil is a contest for supremacy of the sea traffic and naval superiority. Naval need of oil and the need for a large merchant marine, demand that the United States Government shall adopt a new policy touching oil and other national resources. We have been so wasteful of resources as to endanger national strength. It required the World War to teach us the importance of large production of oil, and of tankers and storage in all parts of the world.