Our Navy at war — Context and Discussion

A Secretary’s Perspective on the Home Front War

Daniels frames the war as one fought not only in European waters but also off the American coast. He writes that from May to September 1918, the Navy was “as much in active war service in home waters as it was in Europe.” This claim is supported by a lengthy account of the sinking of the passenger steamer Carolina on June 2, 1918, off New Jersey. The narrative includes precise times, radio messages, and the behavior of the submarine commander, who reportedly signaled: “If you don’t use wireless I won’t shoot.” The description of survivors being rowed ashore at Atlantic City, where “thousands along the Boardwalk were amazed,” grounds the war in a specific American place. Daniels emphasizes that despite such attacks, no convoy was lost off the U.S. coast during that period.

The Voice of Official Reportage

The prose is declarative and often dramatic, as when Daniels describes the Carolina sinking “with the American ensign and signals flying” and “clouds of fire and steam” rising. Yet the account also includes bureaucratic details: the radio operator’s decision to stop transmitting, the captain’s order to abandon ship using the signal “A.B.,” and the careful tally of survivors. This blend of official language and vivid scene-setting suggests a work intended both as a record for posterity and as a morale-boosting narrative for a domestic audience. The catalog subject “World War, 1914-1918 – Naval operations, American” is amply illustrated, but the excerpts also reveal a secondary interest in the human drama of individual sinkings.

What the Excerpts Leave Unsaid

The provided text covers only a small portion of a 141,100-word book. While the table of contents promises chapters on topics like “The Navy That Flies” and “Women in the Navy,” the excerpts focus almost entirely on the Carolina incident. Readers should not assume that the entire book is as granular as this passage. The catalog subject “music” appears in the secondary topics but is not evident in the excerpts; its role in the full work remains unclear. Similarly, the dedication’s claim that “not one soldier on an American troop-ship lost his life on the way to France” is a striking assertion that the excerpts do not substantiate. The book likely contains much more strategic and logistical analysis than the sample suggests.

Readers approaching Our Navy at War should expect a mix of high-level policy discussion and on-the-ground reporting, filtered through the lens of a cabinet secretary. The excerpts show a writer who is both a participant and a chronicler, but the full scope of the work—especially its treatment of topics like radio, oil, and the Coast Guard—can only be guessed at from the table of contents. This is a document of its time, offering a contemporary official view of the U.S. Navy’s role in the Great War.

Reading Josephus Daniels’ account of the war at sea, I kept thinking about the quiet endurance of ordinary men, and how that same steady spirit appears in The War History of the 4th Battalion, the London Regiment (Royal Fusiliers), 1914-1919 — Key Ideas to Explore. The Secretary’s official perspective felt distant, but the soldiers’ records felt closer—like remembering a photograph left in a drawer.