William Sowden Sims

William Sowden Sims (1858-1936), American admiral, commanded United States naval forces in European waters during World War I.

William Sims was born in Port Hope, Ontario, on Oct. 15, 1858. After graduating from the U.S. Naval Academy in 1880, he served in the Atlantic (1880-1888) and the Pacific (1889-1897). He was American naval attaché in Paris during the Spanish-American War. After additional service as attaché in St. Petersburg, Russia, and further duty at sea, he became inspector of target practice for the U.S. Asiatic fleet. He first came to public notice when he argued vigorously that gunnery was ineffective and in need of modernization. President Theodore Roosevelt made him his naval aide (1907-1909).

In 1909 Sims assumed command of the battleship Minnesota. His next assignment was as a student at the Naval War College in Newport, R.I. (1911-1913), to which he returned as president in 1917, after commanding the destroyer flotilla in the Atlantic.

In 1917, after Germany resumed unrestricted submarine warfare against noncombatant vessels, Rear Adm. Sims was dispatched to Europe to establish contact with the naval staffs of the Allies. On April 28 he assumed command of American naval forces in European waters, rising to vice admiral a month later. Sims urged the Navy Department to send all available antisubmarine craft to European waters to participate in convoys and offensive operations against German submarines. At the same time he struggled to build his organization in London. Rapidly gaining the confidence of the British Admiralty, he just as quickly created suspicion in Washington that he was unduly pro-British.

Various controversies with the Navy Department deeply angered Sims, but he remained at his post. Throughout 1917-1918 Sims tried to make the American fleet an effective adjunct of the British fleet, especially in the submarine war, and to provide naval support for the American Army in France. An advocate of close inter-Allied cooperation, he became a leading spirit in the Allied Naval Council, set up in 1917 to coordinate the naval operations of the Western coalition. His contribution to the victory at sea earned him the lasting praise and admiration of his European associates and promotion to full admiral.

After the war Sims resumed the presidency of the Naval War College (1919-1922). In 1920 he presented an angry report to Congress criticizing the wartime conduct of the Navy Department for its failure to react promptly against Germany's submarine warfare. He received a Pulitzer Prize for an account of his wartime service, The Victory at Sea (1920). He died in Boston on Sept. 28, 1936.

Further Reading

An excellent biography of Sims is Elting E. Morison, Admiral Sims and the Modern American Navy (1942). □

William Sowden Sims 1858–1936, American naval officer, b. Port Hope, Upper Canada (now Ontario), of American parents. After serving with the Atlantic and Pacific fleets, he was (1897–1900) naval attaché in Paris and St. Petersburg. While in Europe he sent numerous reports to the Navy Dept. urging the adoption of new ship designs and gunnery, and in 1902 he wrote to President Theodore Roosevelt criticizing the inefficiency of the navy. His letters had some effect and he was ordered to Washington, serving (1902–9) with the Bureau of Navigation and (1907–9) as naval aide to the President. After leading (1913–15) the Atlantic torpedo flotilla he was appointed (1917) rear admiral and president of the Naval War College. In World War I he commanded (1917–18) U.S. operations in European waters. He again became president of the Naval War College in 1919 and served there until 1922, when he retired. He was made full admiral by act of Congress in 1930. He wrote, with Burton J. Hendrick, The Victory at Sea (1920).

Bibliography: See biography by E. E. Morison (1942, repr. 1968).

Sims, William S. (1858–1936) commander of U.S. naval forces in Europe during World War I. Sims's Canadian family emigrated to the United States in 1872. Sims began his navy career as an instructor in naval navigation and as an intelligence officer; his expansive reports won the praise of Assistant Navy Secretary Theodore Roosevelt. Sims also reported on ordnance and on naval construction; he became an outspoken critic of the current class of navy battleships and encouraged the development of an alternative. After time spent at sea, in 1917 he became president of the Naval War College; when the United States entered World War I, he was appointed commander of all U.S. naval forces in Europe (1917–19) and made a temporary admiral. He continued to push for naval reforms and favored destroyers over the larger, less mobile battleships, and the use of supply convoys. His innovations drastically reduced Allied shipping losses in the waning days of the war.