Todd war diary, 3 August 1914-29 February 1916 / Arthur Todd - Page 346
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[Page 346]
CHAPTER 12.
So on August 9th we took up our position in sight of new York's skyscrapers. The scheme was to have two or three ships on the patrol at the one time spread along about sixty miles of coast north and south of New York. The ships did ten days at sea and then had four or five days in harbour. Our business was to examine all shipping leaving or entering the port. Most skippers on being stopped took it as a personal insult and submitted to an examination with a very bad grace. The Americans were particularly angry, and one can quite sympathise with them in feeling hurt at being searched in sight of their home port by a foreign man-o'-war. Still a war was on, and the right of search was granted by international agreement. When a ship was sighted a stop signal was hoisted, and usually after a bluff about not reading the signal or pretending not to see it the ship hove to. We sent a boat's crew aboard if the weather was reasonably good, and while one officer inspected the ship's papers and had a look at the cargo another lined up the crew and looked for enemy subjects. Quite often Huns were caught disguised as Swedes and Danes, having in their possession neutral papers which which had been either forged