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| USS Wakulla (1918) in dazzle camouflage |
We were in the harbor of a famous Southern port [in England] on board the leader of a destroyer flotilla ready to start on one of its ordinary cruises as escort to merchant convoys. It was a cold, bleak stormy day, with a cross sea running in the Channel. One after the other the members of the flotilla cast off from the buoys, and slipped silently seaward. In the outer harbor were the huge merchantmen we were to escort into the comparative safety of the broad Atlantic. They were a strange motley-looking crowd, with a camouflage appearance of the weirdest description, calculated to send Futurist artists into ecstasies. These weird-looking vessels followed the destroyers in single file out of harbor at slow speed until well out into the Channel. There they were formed up and made into as compact a crowd as possible. A destroyer in front and others on each flank constituted a protective screen. After we had got well out and had lined up our escort full speed ahead was ordered, but that was full speed for the convoy only. The destroyers were at about halfspeed, and this was partly expended in zigzagging. To and fro, without a moment’s respite, the leader proceeded in front of the convoy, always about 500 to 600 yards ahead, as though showing to timid followers that it was perfectly safe to follow where we led. On the flanks other destroyers kept up the same zigzag procedure, and astern yet another zigged and zagged and did her best to keep the rearmost ships up to the full convoy speed.