Visit of an American Admiral to the Dover Patrol, September 25th 1917

[MikeW]

I have the Monitor HMS Terror bombarding Ostende on the afternoon of September 25th 1917, with spotting being carried out as usual by No.2 Squadron RNAS. The RNAS Communique No.6 "sort of" implies  that this was laid on during the visit of an American Admiral - I am assuming the visit being to Dunkirk and/or the Dover Patrol.

Interestingly, Dunkirk took a retaliatory pasting that evening from the Leugenboom Gun.

Can anyone throw any light on who this American Admiral was? And the details of his visit?

 

Cheers,

Mike

[KizmeRD]

That would have been Admiral Mayo USN.

According to Admiral Bacon, writing in his book ‘The Dover Patrol’…..

“September 25th, Sir John Jellicoe, Admiral Sir Henry Oliver, and Admiral Philpotts arrived at Dover , and came with Admiral Mayo and his staff up the patrol line. It was a quaint experience for them. Half an hour after leaving Dunkirk in the Broke we lost sight of the shore. After an hour's steaming we sighted the Terror and destroyers in the open sea, and the motor-launches just starting their smoke-screen. Nothing else was in sight except a small monitor five miles away right out at sea, burning her searchlight for an aiming-mark. Really our visitors must have thought we were humbugging when the Terror opened fire and fired single rounds at fixed intervals. A few minutes afterwards, while steaming about in the Broke we had altered course three points, a splash came from a Tirpitz shell about 300 yards off; it fell very near the spot where we would have been if we had kept on our original course. I apologised to the American Chief of the Staff for not having kept on and brought the shell nearer. His reply was quaintly American in humour: "Don't mention it, Admiral; by the time we get to New York that shell will have been close alongside right enough!" The result of the Terror’s shooting was most successful, as all the rebuilding in the dockyard done by the Germans was again demolished”.

MB

[MikeW]

Thanks MB,

stupid of me not to look in Bacon's Dover Patrol - weirdly conjures up thoughts of Richard Gere playing Zack Mayo in An Officer & A Gentleman !!!

Mike