with preparation of submarine chasers for duty in the war zone and subsequently their operation in the Irish Sea and off the coast of Ireland." Post Armistice England After the Armistice was signed on November 11, 1918, Koehler was detached to the staff of Admiral William S. Sims, commanding U.S. Naval forces in Europe, with headquarters in London. The two months that Koehler spent on Sims' staff were far removed from the rough seas and fumes of the subchasers. "I have landed among the very smart and fashionable and the diplomatic set," he wrote his mother, "many of whom I already knew officially: and on the other hand through Lady Scott (wife of Captain Scott who discovered the South Pole), whom I have known a long time, I see a great deal of men like Bernard Shaw, Arnold Bennett and James Barrie, so I don't get too narrow in my ideas about things English. Mike Vanderbilt's sister, the Duchess of Marlborough, has been chaperoning me very carefully and on two occasions has had me all but married without consulting either me or the lucky girl! Rumors of this may reach you, but you are not to take them seriously. Of course, I always take all lovely women seriously--" Koehler spent Christmas 1918 at the baronial manor house at Cranmore, Somerset, as the guest of Lady Muriel Paget with a party of thirty-seven "diverse personalities" including Arthur Balfour, former Conservative British Prime Minister; Barrie, author of Peter Pan; and Lord Herbert John Gladstone, Liberal British statesman, member of Parliament and first governor general and high commissioner for South Africa. Gladstone, the son of "The Grand Old Man", Prime Minister William Gladstone, remained a close friend of Koehler for fifteen years, and circumspectly countenanced an ongoing affair of similar duration between his much younger wife, Dolly, and Koehler. Over the years of their friendship that lasted until Gladstone's death, his salutations evolved from, "My dear Commander", to "My dear Hugo", to "My dear Old Fellow", to "Dear Old Boy". In a letter to Mathilda, Koehler described the festivities, "One evening at dinner, James Barrie was told to construct the most wonderful play he had ever written. He did so the following morning; in the afternoon the play was rehearsed, and in the evening it was produced in seven acts, a tremendous success. It was wonderfully clever, for most of the actors had