Through the United States Naval Representative in London, American admirals on duty at Brest and Gibraltar and naval attachés abroad, the representatives of the Allied navies in Washington, who were kept fully informed by their governments, and the diplomatic and naval missions, the Navy Department was enabled to reach its decisions with all the possible lights before it. It never had to depend upon any single source of information.
These conferences at Washington were of the utmost importance because all large policies had to be settled by the Navy Department. Officers abroad were in command of ships assigned to them, and in emergencies upon their own initiative employed their forces to the best advantage. The ships overseas never were under independent command, but, as distinctly stated in orders, constituted a "task force of the Atlantic Fleet." Their orders stated: "The individuality of the United States forces should be such that they may be continuously ready to change their areas of operations as may be made necessary or by orders of the Navy Department."
In the World War it was necessary for the Navy to maintain close relationship with the President, the Council of National Defense, the State and War Departments, the War Industries Board, the War Trade Board, the Shipping Board and other war agencies, and the supply system for Army as well as Navy. It was essential to be in constant touch with the plans for the sending of troops and to have daily interchange of views with representatives of Allied navies. Intimate contact made for prompt action. The efficiency secured and maintained would have been impossible if the naval control had ever passed from Washington.
The decisions to establish bases at Brest, at Gibraltar and in the Azores were made by the Navy Department in Washington after conference with Allied powers. The result of their establishment justified the action taken. Routing of ships called for joint action between Allied and American naval agencies working together on both sides of the Atlantic. The movement of vessels carrying troops and supplies was necessarily dependent upon daily conference with War Department officials in Washington. Admiral William V. Pratt, who was Assistant Chief of Operations during the war, thus stated the main naval duty: "Our total naval effort in this war consisted less in the operation of forces at the front than in a logistic effort in the rear, in which the greatest problems we had to contend with originated and had to be solved, here at home. It must be noted that in this war the main united naval effort was one of logistics."