This volume derives from a long-term study, FDR’s Navy: Franklin D. Roosevelt and the United States Navy, 1913–1945. The Anglo-American naval relationship naturally forms a substantial part of this work, though it went through stormy waters quite as much as calm seas. The present collection traces only a small part of that developing relationship, though it is hoped ultimately to carry the story down to 1945.

The present harmonious and well integrated association between the Royal Navy and the US Navy is taken so much for granted that it is instructive to see how it all began, in such tentative and stuttering fashion, in the dark days of 1917. Several objects have governed the selection of documents. I have sought to show the nature and development of the relationship at both the policy-making and the operational levels and to illuminate both the harmonies and the disharmonies. The accent in 1917–18 was naturally on the means of defeating the U-boats and there was considerable disagreement over anti-submarine policies. An attempt has been made to illustrate cooperation in each of the major theatres – the North Sea, the Western Approaches, the Mediterranean and the Western Hemisphere. The documents reveal the often uncomplimentary thoughts of one service about the other and demonstrate something of the naval thinking on strategic and material issues of the day. Although a close and successful partnership at sea was established by the end of 1917, a spirit of suspicion and rivalry underlay the whole relationship and this surfaced quickly once the guns fell silent. Although the collection ends on a relatively happy note, there was in fact an uneasy truce from 1919 to the Washington Conference of 1921–22. The issue of parity was in large part resolved there, but the relationship was a generally hostile one throughout the 1920s and warmed up again only after the appearance of threats to world peace from the dictators.

The collection breaks new ground for the Society in that about half of the sources, inevitably, are American. Extensive use has been made of the Navy Department records at the National Archives and of the Papers of the Secretary of the Navy Josephus Daniels, Admirals W. S. Benson and W. S. Sims (Library of Congress) and Admiral W. V. Pratt (Naval Historical Center), all in Washington, DC. Further material has come from the Papers of President Franklin D.