Joseph Taussig - World War I - "We Are Ready Now, Sir."

"We Are Ready Now, Sir."

In July 1916, after serving in battleships, cruisers, destroyers, and on staffs afloat, Taussig was assigned command of Division 8, Destroyer Force, Atlantic Fleet. With Britain faring badly due to unchecked U-Boat attacks on commercial shipping in the North Atlantic, President Woodrow Wilson ordered Division 8 to Queenstown, Ireland in May 1917, the first group of American destroyers sent abroad during World War I. After a 9-day Atlantic crossing most of the time in a severe southeast gale, the destroyer division arrived at Queenstown with orders to cooperate with the British Navy. At a dinner in the Americans' honor the night of their arrival, the Commander in Chief of the Coasts of Ireland, Vice Admiral Sir Lewis Bayly asked Commander Taussig, "When will you be ready to go to sea?" Taussig replied in the now famous words; "We are ready now, sir, that is, as soon as we finish refueling." For an attack on a German U-Boat on 29 July 1917, he was awarded the Distinguished Service Medal, at that time the Navy's second highest valor award. In 1917, he was promoted to commander and returned to the U.S. in December to command the newly-commissioned destroyer Little. By May 1918, Little was in Europe, patrolling off the coast of France. The journal that Commander Taussig kept of his service in World War I was published in 1996 by the Naval War College Press under the title, "The Queenstown Patrol, 1917". With the war winding down, he was detached to the Bureau of Navigation in August 1918.