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United States Battleship Division Nine was a division of four, later five, dreadnought battleships of the United States Navy's Atlantic Fleet that constituted the American contribution to the British Grand Fleet during World War I. Although the U.S. entered the war on 6 April 1917, hesitation among senior officers of the U.S. Navy as to the wisdom of dividing the American battle fleet prevented the immediate dispatch of any capital ships for service in the war zone. Following a direct request from the British Admiralty and a series of high level staff meetings, American opinion changed, and Battleship Division Nine joined the Grand Fleet on 7 December 1917. Within that organization, the Division served as the Sixth Battle Squadron. While serving with the Grand Fleet, Battleship Division Nine was forced to adapt quickly to unfamiliar British methods and standards. New signals and maneuvers were adopted relatively smoothly, while more stringent gunnery standards proved more difficult to achieve. On a personal level, relations between American and British officers and men were notably cordial. Throughout 1918, the Division participated in all major Grand Fleet exercises and deployments, as well as conducting several detached convoy missions in the North Sea. Following the signing of the Armistice on November 11, 1918, Battleship Division Nine was present for the surrender of the German High Seas Fleet on November 21, 1918. On December 1, 1918, the Division departed from the Grand Fleet to return to the U.S. Although Battleship Division Nine's service was limited mainly to convoy duty and the maintenance of the blockade of the German coast, its presence greatly augmented the strength of the Grand Fleet, thus making major combat between the British and German fleets even more unlikely in 1918. By helping to keep the High Seas Fleet effectively blockaded in port, Battleship Division Nine played a role in ensuring Allied control of the oceans. ==Background== When the U.S. entered World War I on the side of the Allies on 6 April 1917, the war at sea was hanging in the balance. Having resumed unrestricted submarine warfare in February 1917, Germany had quickly inflicted staggering losses on the British merchant marine to an extent completely unknown to the American government, or indeed to anyone but a select few at the British Admiralty. At the first meeting between representatives of the two navies in April 1917, the British First Sea Lord—Admiral Sir John Jellicoe—had astonished the new American naval envoy—Rear Admiral William S. Sims—by informing him that Allied shipping loses had recently surpassed per month, and that the Admiralty did not see any immediate solution to the problem. Jellicoe announced that at present loss rates, Britain would be effectively starved into submission by November 1917. After a meeting at Scapa Flow later in July between Sims, Jellicoe, and Admiral David Beatty (commander of the Grand Fleet), the Admiralty requested that the U.S. Navy send four dreadnoughts and six destroyers to join the Grand Fleet. The Admiralty intended that the arrival of the American dreadnoughts would allow it to decommission five ships of the pre-dreadnought , freeing up four thousand officers and ratings to serve on new light cruisers, destroyers, and submarines then under construction. Despite the endorsement of Admiral Sims, the Navy Department initially rejected the British request. Like other navies of the late-19th and early-20th centuries, the U.S. Navy rigidly adhered to the doctrine of Alfred Thayer Mahan, whose first tenet was that under no circumstances should a battle fleet be divided. U.S. Chief of Naval Operations Admiral William S. Benson and Admiral Henry T. Mayo—Commander of the U.S. Atlantic Fleet—were particularly worried that if Britain fell, as developments at sea suggested it might, the U.S. Navy would be left to face the German High Seas Fleet completely on its own. Having already released precious destroyers for convoy duty, they were unwilling to further weaken the ability of the U.S. to defend itself through the scattering of the all-important battle fleet. Furthermore, Admiral Benson was uneasy about the prospect, ever-present in the early 20th century, of a second war breaking out with Japan. For the moment, the U.S. Navy would send destroyers to Europe, but no battleships. A series of high level meetings in London, beginning with Admiral Mayo's visit in August 1917 and culminating in a naval mission led by Admiral Benson in November, proved decisive in changing the viewpoint of the Navy Department. Despite Admiral Sims's frequent warnings of the severity of British losses to the U-boat campaign, it was not until both men had seen things with their own eyes that they truly understood the direness of the situation. On 10 November 1917, Admiral Benson cabled Secretary of the Navy Josephus Daniels, recommending the dispatch of four dreadnoughts for service with the Grand Fleet, noting "If, in any encounter, it should be indicated that the outcome would have been more favorable or more decisive had more Allied forces been available, it would be difficult to satisfactorily explain the absence of our ships."〔 On the advice of his trusted aide, Secretary Daniels agreed to dispatch the ships. The question now came down to which battleships to send. The Admiralty requested that the Americans send coal-burning dreadnoughts, as, due to the submarine blockade, the British were extremely short of the oil needed to fuel the latest classes of American dreadnoughts, the oil-burning and ships. As a result, Secretary Daniels decided to send Battleship Division Nine, made up of the coal-burners , , , and . Though they were not the newest American ships, they were still formidable; each was capable of a maximum speed and armed with ten or twelve or guns. Furthermore, they were commanded by an experienced and highly capable officer in Rear Admiral Hugh Rodman, a 37-year veteran who had been commended for valor at the Battle of Manila Bay, and was known both as an expert seaman and an extremely affable man.〔 Both of these characteristics would serve him in good stead in his new role as joint admiral and diplomat. After nearly five months of hesitation, the departure of the division was finally set for the last week of November.〔 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「United States Battleship Division Nine (World War I)」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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