SUBMARINE WARFARE
At the moment of writing these words the outcome of the greatest war
the world has ever known is believed by many to hang upon the
success with which the Allies can meet and defeat the campaign of
the German submarines. The German people believe this absolutely.
The Allies and their sympathizers grudgingly admit that they are
only too fearful that it may be true.
To such a marvellous degree of military efficiency has the ingenuity
of man brought these boats which so recently as our Civil War were
still in the vaguest experimental stage and scarcely possessed of
any offensive power whatsoever!
Nevertheless these machines had reached a degree of development, and
had demonstrated their dangerous character so early in the war that
it was amazing that the British were so slow in comprehending the
use that might be made of them in cutting off British commerce. It
is true that the first submarine actions redounded in their results
entirely to British credit. In September of 1914 a British submarine
ran gallantly into Heligoland Bay and sank the German light cruiser
_Hela_ at her moorings. Shortly after the Germans sought retaliation
by attacking a British squadron, but the effort miscarried. The
British cruiser _Birmingham_ caught a glimpse of her wake and with a
well-aimed shot destroyed her periscope. The submarine dived, but
shortly afterwards came up again making what was called a porpoise
dive--that is to say, she came up just long enough for the officer
in the conning tower to locate the enemy, then submerged again.
Brief, however, as had been the appearance of the conning tower, the
British put a shell into it and in a few minutes the submarine and
most of her crew were at the bottom of the sea.
Soon after followed the attack upon and sinking of the three
cruisers by the submarine under the command of Lieutenant Commander
Otto von Weddigen, the narrative of which we have already told. But
while after that attacks upon British armed ships were many,
successes were few. There were no German ships at sea for the
British to attack in turn, but some very gallant work was done by
their submarines against Austrian and Turkish warships in the
Mediterranean and the Dardanelles. All this time the Germans were
preparing for that warfare upon the merchant shipping of all
countries which at the end they came to believe would force the
conclusion of the war. It seems curious that during this early
period the Allies were able to devise no method of meeting this form
of attack. When the United States entered the war more than three
years later they looked to us for the instant invention of some
effective anti-submarine weapon. If they were disappointed at our
failure at once to produce one, they should have remembered at least
that they too were baffled by the situation although it was
presented to them long before it became part of our problems.
About no feature of the war have the belligerents thrown more of
mystery than about the circumstances attending submarine attacks
upon battleships and armed transports and the method employed of
meeting them. Even when later in the war the Germans apparently
driven to frenzy made special efforts to sink hospital and Red Cross
ships the facts were concealed by the censors, and accounts of the
efforts made to balk such inhuman and unchristian practices
diligently suppressed. In the end it seemed that the British, who of
course led all naval activities, had reached the conclusion that
only by the maintenance of an enormous fleet of patrol boats could
the submarines be kept in check. This method they have applied
unremittingly. Alfred Noyes in a publication authorized by the
British government has thus picturesquely told some of the incidents
connected with this service:
It is difficult to convey in words the wide sweep and subtle
co-ordination of this ocean hunting; for the beginning of any
tale may be known only to an admiral in a London office, the
middle of it only to a commander at Kirkwall, and the end of it
only to a trawler skipper off the coast of Ireland. But here and
there it is possible to piece the fragments together into a
complete adventure, as in the following record of a successful
chase, where the glorious facts outrun all the imaginations of
the wildest melodrama.
There were suspicious vessels at anchor, one moonless night, in a
small bay near the Mumbles. They lay there like shadows, but
before long they knew that the night was alive for a hundred
miles with silent talk about them. At dawn His Majesty's trawlers
_Golden Feather_ and _Peggy Nutten_ foamed up, but the shadows
had disappeared.
The trawlers were ordered to search the coast thoroughly for any
submarine stores that might have been left there. "Thoroughly" in
this war means a great deal. It means that even the bottom of the
sea must be searched. This was done by grapnels; but the bottom
was rocky and seemed unfit for a base. Nothing was found but a
battered old lobster pot, crammed with seaweed and little green
crabs.
Probably these appearances were more than usually deceitful; for
shortly afterward watchers on the coast reported a strange
fishing boat, with patched brown sails, heading for the suspected
bay. Before the patrols came up, however, she seemed to be
alarmed. The brown sails were suddenly taken in; the disguised
conning tower was revealed, and this innocent fishing boat,
gracefully submerging, left only the smiling and spotless April
seas to the bewildered eyes of the coast guard.
In the meantime signals were pulsing and flashing on land and
sea, and the U-boat had hardly dipped when, over the smooth green
swell, a great sea hawk came whirring up to join the hunt, a hawk
with light yellow wings and a body of service grey--the latest
type of seaplane. It was one of those oily seas in which a
watcher from the air may follow a submarine for miles, as an
olive green shadow under the lighter green. The U-boat doubled
twice; but it was half an hour before her sunken shadow was lost
to sight under choppy blue waters, and long before that time she
was evidently at ease in her mind and pursuing a steady course.
For the moment her trail was then lost, and the hawk, having
reported her course, dropped out of the tale.
[Illustration: Photo by U. & U.
_A British Submarine._]
The next morning in the direction indicated by that report
several patrol boats heard the sound of gunfire and overhauled a
steamer which had been attacked by a submarine. They gave chase
by "starring" to all the points of the compass, but could not
locate the enemy. A little later, however, another trawler
observed the wash of a submarine crossing her stern about two
hundred yards away. The trawler star-boarded, got into the wake
of the submarine and tried to ram her at full speed. She failed
to do this, as the U-boat was at too great a depth. The enemy
disappeared, and again the trawlers gathered and "starred."
[Illustration: Permission of _Scientific American_.
_Sectional View of the Nautilus._]
In the meantime, certain nets had been shot, and, though the
inclosed waters were very wide, it was quite certain that the
submarine was contained within them. Some hours later another
trawler heard firing and rushed toward the sound. About sunset
she sighted a submarine which was just dipping. The trawler
opened fire at once without result. The light was very bad and it
was very difficult to trace the enemy, but the trawler continued
the search, and about midnight she observed a small light close
to the water. She steamed within a few yards of it and hailed,
thinking it was a small boat. There was a considerable amount of
wreckage about, which was afterward proved to be the remains of a
patrol vessel sunk by the submarine. There was no reply to the
hail, and the light instantly disappeared. For the third time the
patrols gathered and "starred" from this new point.
And here the tale was taken up by a sailor who was in command of
another trawler at the time. I give it, so far as possible, in
his own words.
"About 4 o'clock in the morning I was called by Deckhand William
Brown to come on deck and see if an object sighted was a
submarine. I did so, and saw a submarine about a mile distant on
the port bow. I gave the order, 'Hard a-starboard.' The ship was
turned until the gun was able to bear on the submarine, and it
was kept bearing. At the same time I ordered hands to station,
and about ten minutes afterward I gave the order to fire. The
submarine immediately altered her course from W. to N. N. W., and
went away from us very fast. I burned lights to attract the
attention of the drifters, and we followed at our utmost speed,
making about eight knots and shipping light sprays. We fired
another shot about two minutes later, but it was breaking dawn,
and we were unable to see the fall of the shots. After the second
shot the submarine submerged. I hoisted warning signals and about
half an hour later I saw a large steamer turning round, distant
between two and three miles on our starboard beam. I headed
toward her, keeping the gun trained on her, as I expected,
judging by her action, that she had smelt the submarine. When we
were about a mile and a half from the steamer I saw the submarine
half a mile astern of her. We opened fire again, and gave her
four shots, with about two minutes between 'em. The submarine
then dodged behind the off quarter of the steamer."
He paused to light his pipe, and added, quite gravely, "When she
had disappeared behind the steamer I gave the order 'Cease fire,'
to avoid hitting the larger vessel."
I made a mental note of his thoughtfulness; but, not for worlds
would I have shown any doubt of his power to blast his way, if
necessary, through all the wood and iron in the universe; and I
was glad that the blue clouds of our smoke mingled for a moment
between us.
"I saw two white boats off the port quarter," he continued. "But
I paid no attention to them. I ordered the helm to be
star-boarded a bit more, and told the gunner to train his gun on
the bow of the steamer; for I expected the submarine to show
there next. A few minutes later she did so, and when she drew
ahead I gave the order to fire. I should say we were about a mile
and a quarter away. We gave him two more shots and they dropped
very close, as the spray rose over his conning tower. He altered
his course directly away from us, and we continued to fire. The
third shot smothered his conning tower with spray. I did not see
the fourth and fifth shots pitch. There was no splash visible,
although it was then broad daylight; so I believe they must have
hit him. A few moments after this the submarine disappeared.
"I turned, then, toward the two white boats and hailed them. The
chief officer of the steamer was in charge of one. They were
returning to their ship, and told me that we had hit the
submarine. We escorted them through the nets and parted very good
friends."
"But how did you get the scalp of this U-boat?" I asked.
"We signalled to the admiral, and sent the Daffy to investigate.
She found the place, all right. It was a choppy sea, but there
was one smooth patch in it, just where we told 'em the submarine
had disappeared; a big patch of water like wavy satin, two or
three hundred yards of it, coloured like the stripes on mackerel,
all blue and green with oil. They took a specimen of the oil."
"Did it satisfy the Admiralty?"
"No. Nothing satisfies the Admiralty but certainties. They count
the minimum losses of the enemy, and the maximum of their own.
Very proper, too. Then you know where you are. But, mind you, I
don't believe we finished him off that morning. Oil don't prove
that. It only proves we hit him. I believe it was the 'Maggie and
Rose' that killed him, or the 'Hawthorn.' No; it wasn't either.
It was the 'Loch Awe.'"
"How was that?"
"Well, as Commander White was telling you, we'd shot out nets to
the north and south of him. There were two or three hundred
miles, perhaps, in which he might wriggle about; but he couldn't
get out of the trap, even if he knew where to look for the
danger. He tried to run for home, and that's what finished him.
They'll tell you all about that on the 'Loch Awe.'"
So the next day I heard the end of the yarn from a sandy-haired
skipper in a trawler whose old romantic name was dark with new
significance. He was terribly logical. In his cabin--a
comfortable room with a fine big stove--he had a picture of his
wife and daughters, all very rigid and uncomfortable. He also had
three books. They included neither Burns nor Scott. One was the
Bible, thumbed by his grandfather and his father till the paper
had worn yellow and thin at the sides. The second, I am sorry to
say, was called _The Beautiful White Devil_. The third was an odd
volume of Froude in the _Everyman_ edition. It dealt with the
Armada.
"I was towin' my nets wi' the rest o' my group," he said, "till
about 3 o'clock i' the mornin' on yon occasion. It was fine
weather wi' a kind o' haar. All at once, my ship gaed six points
aff her coorse, frae S. E. to E. N. E., and I jaloused that the
nets had been fouled by some muckle movin' body. I gave orders to
pit the wheel hard a-port, but she wouldna answer. Suddenly the
strain on the nets stoppit.
"I needna tell you what had happened. Of course, it was
preceesely what the Admiralty had arranged tae happen when
gentlemen in undersea boats try to cut their way through our
nets. Mind ye, thae nets are verra expensive."
A different situation, however, has lately developed in the more
unequal fight between submarines and merchant vessels. There the
submarine unquestionably has gained and maintained supremacy. Two
factors are primarily responsible for this: lack of speed and lack
of armament on the part of the merchantman. Of course, recently the
latter condition has been changed and apparently with good success.
But even at best, an armed merchantman has a rather slim chance at
escape. Neither space nor available equipment permits a general
arming of merchantmen to a sufficient degree to make it possible for
the latter to attack a submarine from any considerable distance.
Then, too, what chance has a merchant vessel unprotected by patrol
boats to escape the torpedo of a hidden submarine? How successfully
this question will finally be solved, the future only will show. At
present it bids fair to become one of the deciding factors in
determining the final issue of this war.
The first authentically known case of an attack without warning by a
German submarine against an allied merchantman was the torpedoing of
the French steamship _Amiral Ganteaume_ on October 26, 1914, in the
English Channel. The steamer was sunk and thirty of its passengers
and crew were lost. A number of other attacks followed during the
remainder of 1914 and in January, 1915. Then came on February 3,
1915, the now famous pronouncement of the German Government
declaring "all the waters around Great Britain and Ireland,
including the whole of the English Channel, a war zone," and
announcing that on and after Feb. 18th, Germany "will attempt to
destroy every enemy ship found in that war zone, without its being
always possible to avoid the danger that will thus threaten neutral
persons and ships." Germany gave warning that "it cannot be
responsible hereafter for the safety of crews, passengers, and
cargoes of such ships," and it furthermore "calls the attention of
neutrals to the fact that it would be well for their ships to avoid
entering this zone, for, although the German naval forces are
instructed to avoid all violence to neutral ships, in so far as
these can be recognized, the order given by the British Government
to hoist neutral flags and the contingencies of naval warfare might
be the cause of these ships becoming the victims of an attack
directed against the vessels of the enemy."
This was the beginning of the submarine controversy between Germany
and the United States and resulted in a note from the United States
Government in which it was stated that the latter viewed the
possibilities created by the German note
with such grave concern, that it feels it to be its privilege,
and, indeed, its duty, in the circumstances to request the
Imperial German Government to consider before action is taken the
critical situation in respect of the relation between this
country and Germany which might arise were the German naval
forces, in carrying out the policy foreshadowed in the
Admiralty's proclamation, to destroy any merchant vessel of the
United States or cause the death of American citizens:--To
declare and exercise a right to attack and destroy any vessel
entering a prescribed area of the high seas without first
certainly determining its belligerent nationality and the
contraband character of its cargo would be an act so
unprecedented in naval warfare that this Government is reluctant
to believe that the Imperial Government of Germany in this case
contemplates it as possible.
After stating that the destruction of American ships or American
lives on the high seas would be difficult to reconcile with the
friendly relations existing between the two Governments, the note
adds that the United States "would be constrained to hold the
Imperial Government of Germany to a strict accountability for such
acts of their naval authorities, and to take any steps it might feel
necessary to take to safeguard American lives and property and to
secure to American citizens the full enjoyment of their acknowledged
rights on the high seas."
It is not within the province of this book to go in detail into the
diplomatic history of the submarine controversy between Germany and
the United States. Suffice it to say, therefore, that from the very
beginning the controversy held many possibilities of the disastrous
ending which finally came to pass when diplomatic relations were
broken off between the two countries on February 3, 1917, and a
state of war was declared by President Wilson's proclamation of
April 6, 1917.
The period between Germany's first War Zone Declaration and the
President's proclamation--two months and three days more than two
years--was crowded with incidents in which submarines and submarine
warfare held the centre of the stage. It would be impossible within
the compass of this story to give a complete survey of all the
boats that were sunk and of all the lives that were lost. Nor would
it be possible to recount all the deeds of heroism which this new
warfare occasioned. Belligerents and neutrals alike were affected.
American ships suffered, perhaps, to a lesser degree, than those of
other neutrals, partly because of the determined stand taken by the
United States Government. On May 1, 1915, the first American
steamer, the _Gulflight_, was sunk. Six days later the world was
shocked by the news that the _Lusitania_, one of the biggest British
passenger liners, had been torpedoed without warning on May 7, 1915
and had been sunk with a loss of 1198 lives, of whom 124 were
American citizens. Before this nation was goaded into war, more than
200 Americans were slain.
Notes were again exchanged between the two Governments. Though the
German government at that time showed an inclination to abandon its
position in the submarine controversy under certain conditions,
sinkings of passenger and freight steamers without warning
continued. All attempts on the part of the United States Government
to come to an equitable understanding with Germany failed on account
of the latter's refusal to give up submarine warfare, or at least
those features of it which, though considered illegal and inhuman by
the United States, seemed to be considered most essential by
Germany.
Then came the German note of January 31, 1917, stating that "from
February 1, 1917, sea traffic will be stopped with every available
weapon and without further notice" in certain minutely described
"prohibited zones around Great Britain, France, Italy, and in the
Eastern Mediterranean."
The total tonnage sunk by German submarines from the beginning of
the war up to February 1, 1917, has been given by British sources as
over three million tons, while German authorities claimed four
million. The result of the German edict for unrestricted submarine
warfare has been rather appalling, even if it fell far short of
German prophesies and hopes. During the first two weeks of February
a total of ninety-seven ships with a tonnage of about 210,000 tons
were sent to the bottom of the sea. Since then the German submarines
have taken an even heavier toll. It has, however, become next to
impossible, due to the restrictions of censorship, to compute any
accurate figures for later totals, though it has become known from
time to time that the Allied as well as the neutral losses have been
very much higher during the five months of February to July, 1917
than during any other five months.
[Illustration: © U. & U.
_U. S. Submarine H-3 Aground on California Coast._]
The figures of the losses of British merchantmen alone are shown by
the following table:
Ships
Over 1,600 Under 1,600
Week ending-- Tons. Tons. Total.
March 4 14 9 23
March 11 13 4 17
March 18 16 8 24
March 25 18 7 25
April 1 18 13 31
April 8 17 2 19
April 15 19 9 28
April 22 40 15 55
April 29 38 13 51
May 6 24 22 46
May 13 18 5 23
May 20 18 9 27
May 27 18 1 19
June 3 15 3 18
June 10 22 10 32
June 17 27 5 32
June 24 21 7 28
July 1 15 5 20
July 8 14 3 17
July 15 14 4 18
July 22 21 3 24
July 29 18 3 21
Aug. 5 21 2 23
Aug. 12 14 2 16
Aug. 19 15 3 18
Aug. 26 18 5 23
Sept. 2 20 3 23
Sept. 9 12 6 18
Sept. 16 8 20 28
Sept. 23 13 2 15
Sept. 30 11 2 13
Oct. 7 14 2 16
Oct. 14 12 6 18
Oct. 21 17 8 25
Oct. 28 14 4 18
Nov. 4 8 4 12
Nov. 11 1 5 6
The table with its week by week report of the British losses is of
importance because at the time it was taken as a barometer
indicative of German success or failure. The German admiralty at the
moment of declaring the ruthless submarine war promised the people
of Germany that they would sink a million tons a month and by so
doing would force England to abject surrender in the face of
starvation within three months. During that period the whole
civilized world looked eagerly for the weekly statement of British
losses. Only at one time was the German estimate of a million tons
monthly obtained. Most of the time the execution done by the
undersea boats amounted to less than half that figure. So far from
England being beaten in three months, at the end of ten she was
still unshattered, though sorely disturbed by the loss of so much
shipping. Her new crops had come on and her statesmen declared that
so far as the food supply was concerned they were safe for another
year.
During this period of submarine activity the United States entered
upon the war and its government immediately turned its attention to
meeting the submarine menace. In the first four months literally
nothing was accomplished toward this end. A few submarines were
reported sunk by merchantmen, but in nearly every instance it was
doubtful whether they were actually destroyed or merely submerged
purposely in the face of a hostile fire. Americans were looked upon
universally as a people of extraordinary inventive genius, and
everywhere it was believed that by some sudden lucky thought an
American would emerge from a laboratory equipped with a sovereign
remedy for the submarine evil. Prominent inventors indeed declared
their purpose of undertaking this search and went into retirement to
study the problem. From that seclusion none had emerged with a
solution at the end of ten months. When the submarine campaign was
at its very height no one was able to suggest a better remedy for it
than the building of cargo ships in such quantities that, sink as
many as they might, the Germans would have to let enough slip
through to sufficiently supply England with food and with the
necessary munitions of war.
Many cruel sufferings befell seafaring people during the period of
German ruthlessness on the high seas. An open boat, overcrowded with
refugees, hastily provisioned as the ship to which it belonged was
careening to its fate, and tossing on the open sea two or three
hundred miles from shore in the icy nights of midwinter was no place
of safety or of comfort. Yet the Germans so construed it, holding
that when they gave passengers and crew of a ship time to take to
the boats, they had fully complied with the international law
providing that in the event of sinking a ship its people must first
be given an opportunity to assure their safety.
There have been many harrowing stories of the experiences of
survivors thus turned adrift. Under the auspices of the British
government, Rudyard Kipling wrote a book detailing the agonies which
the practice inflicted upon helpless human beings, including many
women and children. Some of the survivors have told in graphic story
the record of their actual experiences. Among these one of the most
vivid is from the pen of a well-known American journalist, Floyd P.
Gibbons, correspondent of the Chicago _Tribune_. He was saved from
the British liner, _Laconia_, sunk by a German submarine, and thus
tells the tale of his sufferings and final rescue:
I have serious doubts whether this is a real story. I am not
entirely certain that it is not all a dream and that in a few
minutes I will wake up back in stateroom B. 19 on the promenade
deck of the Cunarder _Laconia_ and hear my cockney steward
informing me with an abundance of "and sirs" that it is a fine
morning.
I am writing this within thirty minutes after stepping on the
dock here in Queenstown from the British mine sweeper which
picked up our open lifeboat after an eventful six hours of
drifting, and darkness and baling and pulling on the oars and of
straining aching eyes toward that empty, meaningless horizon in
search of help. But, dream or fact, here it is:
The first-cabin passengers were gathered in the lounge Sunday
evening, with the exception of the bridge fiends in the
smoking-room. _Poor Butterfly_ was dying wearily on the
talking-machine and several couples were dancing.
About the tables in the smoke-room the conversation was limited
to the announcement of bids and orders to the stewards. This
group had about exhausted available discussion when the ship gave
a sudden lurch sideways and forward. There was a muffled noise
like the slamming of some large door at a good distance away. The
slightness of the shock and the mildness of the report compared
with my imagination was disappointing. Every man in the room
was on his feet in an instant.
I looked at my watch. It was 10.30.
Then came five blasts on the whistle. We rushed down the corridor
leading from the smoking-room at the stern to the lounge, which
was amidships. We were running, but there was no panic. The
occupants of the lounge were just leaving by the forward doors as
we entered.
It was dark when we reached the lower deck. I rushed into my
stateroom, grabbed life preservers and overcoat and made my way
to the upper deck on that same dark landing.
I saw the chief steward opening an electric switch box in the
wall and turning on the switch. Instantly the boat decks were
illuminated. That illumination saved lives.
The torpedo had hit us well astern on the starboard side and had
missed the engines and the dynamos. I had not noticed the deck
lights before. Throughout the voyage our decks had remained dark
at night and all cabin portholes were clamped down and all
windows covered with opaque paint.
The illumination of the upper deck, on which I stood, made the
darkness of the water, sixty feet below, appear all the blacker
when I peered over the edge at my station boat, No. 10.
Already the boat was loading up and men and boys were busy with
the ropes. I started to help near a davit that seemed to be
giving trouble, but was stoutly ordered to get out of the way and
get into the boat. We were on the port side, practically opposite
the engine well. Up and down the deck passengers and crew were
donning lifebelts, throwing on overcoats, and taking positions in
the boats. There were a number of women, but only one appeared
hysterical....
The boat started downward with a jerk toward the seemingly hungry
rising and falling swells. Then we stopped and remained suspended
in mid-air while the men at the bow and the stern swore and
tusselled with the lowering ropes. The stern of the boat was
down, the bow up, leaving us at an angle of about forty-five
degrees. We clung to the seats to save ourselves from falling
out.
[Illustration: Permission of _Scientific American_.
_Salvaging H-3, View I._]
[Illustration: Permission of _Scientific American_.
_Salvaging H-3, View II._]
[Illustration: Permission of _Scientific American_.
_Salvaging H-3, View III._]
"Who's got a knife? A knife! a knife!" bawled a sweating seaman
in the bow.
"Great God! Give him a knife," bawled a half-dressed, gibbering
negro stoker who wrung his hands in the stern.
A hatchet was thrust into my hand, and I forwarded it to the bow.
There was a flash of sparks as it crashed down on the holding
pulley. Many feet and hands pushed the boat from the side of the
ship and we sagged down again, this time smacking squarely on the
billowy top of a rising swell.
As we pulled away from the side of the ship its receding terrace
of lights stretched upward. The ship was slowly turning over. We
were opposite that part occupied by the engine rooms. There was a
tangle of oars, spars and rigging on the seat and considerable
confusion before four of the big sweeps could be manned on either
side of the boat.
The gibbering bullet-headed negro was pulling directly behind me
and I turned to quiet him as his frantic reaches with his oar
were hitting me in the back.
"Get away from her, get away from her," he kept repeating. "When
the water hits her hot boilers she'll blow up, and there's just
tons and tons of shrapnel in the hold."
His excitement spread to other members of the crew in the boat.
It was the give-way of nerve tension. It was bedlam and
nightmare.
We rested on our oars, with all eyes on the still lighted
_Laconia_. The torpedo had struck at 10.30 P. M. It was thirty
minutes afterward that another dull thud, which was accompanied
by a noticeable drop in the hulk, told its story of the second
torpedo that the submarine had despatched through the engine room
and the boat's vitals from a distance of two hundred yards.
We watched silently during the next minute, as the tiers of
lights dimmed slowly from white to yellow, then a red, and
nothing was left but the murky mourning of the night, which hung
over all like a pall.
A mean, cheese-coloured crescent of a moon revealed one horn
above a ragged bundle of clouds low in the distance. A rim of
blackness settled around our little world, relieved only by
general leering stars in the zenith, and where the _Laconia's_
lights had shone there remained only the dim outlines of a
blacker hulk standing out above the water like a jagged headland,
silhouetted against the overcast sky.
The ship sank rapidly at the stern until at last its nose stood
straight in the air. Then it slid silently down and out of sight
like a piece of disappearing scenery in a panorama spectacle.
Boat No. 3 stood closest to the ship and rocked about in a
perilous sea of clashing spars and wreckage. As our boat's crew
steadied its head into the wind a black hulk, glistening wet and
standing about eight feet above the surface of the water,
approached slowly and came to a stop opposite the boat and not
six feet from the side of it.
"What ship was dot?" The correct words in throaty English with a
German accent came from the dark hulk, according to Chief Steward
Ballyn's statement to me later.
"The _Laconia_," Ballyn answered.
"Vot?"
"The _Laconia_, Cunard Line," responded the steward.
"Vot did she weigh?" was the next question from the submarine.
"Eighteen thousand tons."
"Any passengers?"
"Seventy-three," replied Ballyn, "men, women, and children, some
of them in this boat. She had over two hundred in the crew."
"Did she carry cargo?"
"Yes."
"Well, you'll be all right. The patrol will pick you up soon."
And without further sound save for the almost silent fixing of
the conning tower lid, the submarine moved off.
There was no assurance of an early pick-up, even tho the promise
were from a German source, for the rest of the boats, whose
occupants--if they felt and spoke like those in my boat--were
more than mildly anxious about their plight and the prospects of
rescue.
The fear of some of the boats crashing together produced a
general inclination toward further separation on the part of all
the little units of survivors, with the result that soon the
small craft stretched out for several miles, all of them
endeavouring to keep their heads in the wind.
And then we saw the first light--the first sign of help
coming--the first searching glow of white brilliance, deep down
on the sombre sides of the black pot of night that hung over us.
It was way over there--first a trembling quiver of silver against
the blackness; then, drawing closer, it defined itself as a
beckoning finger, altho still too far away yet to see our feeble
efforts to attract it....
We pulled, pulled, lustily forgetting the strain and pain of
innards torn and racked from pain, vomiting--oblivious of
blistered hands and wet, half frozen feet.
Then a nodding of that finger of light--a happy, snapping,
crap-shooting finger that seemed to say: "Come on, you men," like
a dice-player wooing the bones--led us to believe that our lights
had been seen. This was the fact, for immediately the coming
vessel flashed on its green and red side-lights and we saw it was
headed for our position.
"Come alongside port!" was megaphoned to us. And as fast as we
could we swung under the stern, while a dozen flashlights blinked
down to us and orders began to flow fast and thick.
A score of hands reached out, and we were suspended in the husky
tattooed arms of those doughty British jack tars, looking up into
the weather-beaten, youthful faces, mumbling thanks and
thankfulness and reading in the gold lettering on their pancake
hats the legend "H. M. S. Laburnum."
Of course, the submarine fleets of the various navies paid a heavy
toll too. It has become, however, increasingly difficult to get any
accurate figures of these losses. The British navy, it is known, has
lost during 1914, 1915, and 1916 twelve boats, some of which
foundered, were wrecked or mined while others simply never returned.
The loss of eight German submarines has also been definitely
established. Others, however, are known to have been lost, and their
number has been greatly increased since the arming of merchantmen.
In 1917 it was estimated that the Germans lost one U-boat a week and
built three.
Just what sensations a man experiences in a submerged submarine that
finds it impossible to rise again, is, of course, more or less of a
mystery. For, though submarines, the entire crew of which perished,
have been raised later, only one record has ever been known to have
been made covering the period during which death by suffocation or
drowning stared their occupants in the face. This heroic and
pathetic record was written in form of a letter by the commander of
a Japanese submarine, Lieutenant Takuma Faotomu, whose boat, with
its entire crew, was lost on April 15, 1910, during manoeuvres in
Hiroshima Bay. The letter reads in part as follows:
[Illustration: © International Film Service, Inc.
_U. S. Submarine D 1 off Weehawken._]
Although there is, indeed, no excuse to make for the sinking of
his Imperial Majesty's boat and for the doing away of
subordinates through my heedlessness, all on the boat have
discharged their duties well and in everything acted calmly until
death. Although we are departing in pursuance of our duty to the
State, the only regret we have is due to anxiety lest the men of
the world may misunderstand the matter, and that thereby a blow
may be given to the future development of submarines. While going
through gasoline submarine exercise, we submerged too far, and
when we attempted to shut the sluice-valve, the chain in the
meantime gave way. Then we tried to close the sluice-valve, by
hand, but it was too late, the rear part being full of water, and
the boat sank at an angle of about twenty-five degrees.
The switchboard being under water, the electric lights gave out.
Offensive gas developed and respiration became difficult. The
above has been written under the light of the conning-tower when
it was 11.45 o'clock. We are now soaked by the water that has
made its way in. Our clothes are very wet and we feel cold. I
have always expected death whenever I left my home, and therefore
my will is already in the drawer at Karasaki. I beg,
respectfully, to say to his Majesty that I respectfully request
that none of the families left by my subordinates shall suffer.
The only matter I am anxious about now is this. Atmospheric
pressure is increasing, and I feel as if my tympanum were
breaking. At 12.30 o'clock respiration is extraordinarily
difficult. I am breathing gasoline. I am intoxicated with
gasoline. It is 12.40 o'clock.
Could there be a more touching record of the way in which a brave
man met death?
* * * * *
More interest in submarine warfare than ever before was aroused in
this country when the German war submarine U-53 unexpectedly made
its appearance in the harbour of Newport, R. I., during the
afternoon of October 7, 1916. About three hours afterwards, without
having taken on any supplies, and after explaining her presence by
the desire of delivering a letter addressed to Count von Bernstorff,
then German Ambassador at Washington, the U-53 left as suddenly and
mysteriously as she had appeared.
This was the first appearance of a foreign war submarine in an
American port. It was claimed that the U-53 had made the trip from
Wilhelmshaven in seventeen days. She was 213 feet long, equipped
with two guns, four torpedo tubes, and an exceptionally strong
wireless outfit. Besides her commander, Captain Rose, she was manned
by three officers and thirty-three men.
Early the next morning, October 8, it became evident what had
brought the U-53 to this side of the Atlantic. At the break of day,
she made her re-appearance southeast of Nantucket. The American
steamer _Kansan_ of the American Hawaiian Company bound from New
York by way of Boston to Genoa was stopped by her, but, after
proving her nationality and neutral ownership was allowed to
proceed. Five other steamships, three of them British, one Dutch,
and one Norwegian were less fortunate. The British freighter
_Strathend_, of 4321 tons was the first victim. Her crew were taken
aboard the Nantucket shoals light-ship. Two other British
freighters, _West Point_ and _Stephano_, followed in short order to
the bottom of the ocean. The crews of both were saved by United
States torpedo boat destroyers who had come from Newport as soon as
news of the U-53's activities had been received there. This was also
the case with the crews of the Dutch _Bloomersdijk_ and the
Norwegian tanker, _Christian Knudsen_.
Not often in recent years has there been put on American naval
officers quite so disagreeable a restraint as duty enforced upon the
commanders of the destroyers who watched the destruction of these
friendly ships, almost within our own territorial waters, by an
arrogant foreigner who gave himself no concern over the rescue of
the crews of the sunken ships but seemed to think that the function
of the American men of war. It was no secret at the time that
sentiment in the Navy was strongly pro-Ally. Probably had it been
wholly neutral the mind of any commander would have revolted at this
spectacle of wanton destruction of property and callous indifference
to human life. It is quite probable that had this event occurred
before the invention of wireless telegraphy had robbed the navy
commander at sea of all initiative, there might have happened off
Nantucket something analogous to the famous action of Commodore
Tatnall when with the cry, "Blood is thicker than water" he took a
part of his crew to the aid of British vessels sorely pressed by the
fire of certain Chinese forts on the Yellow River. As it was it is
an open secret that one commander appealed by wireless to Washington
for authority to intervene. He did not get it of course. No
possible construction of international law could give us rights
beyond the three-mile limit. He had at least however the
satisfaction when the German commander asked him to move his ship to
a point at which it would not interfere with the submarine's fire
upon one of the doomed vessels, of telling him to move his own ship
and accompanying the suggestion with certain phrases of elaboration
thoroughly American.
The rapid development of submarine warfare naturally made it
necessary to find ways and means to combat this new weapon of naval
warfare. Much difficulty was experienced, especially in the
beginning, because there were no precedents and because for a
considerable period everything that was tried had necessarily to be
of an experimental nature.
To protect harbours and bays was found comparatively easy. Nets were
spread across their entrances. They were made of strong wire cables
and to judge from the total absence of submarines within the
harbours thus guarded they proved a successful deterrent. In most
cases they were supported by extensive minefields. The danger of
these to submarines, however, is rather a matter of doubt, for
submarines can dive successfully under them and by careful
navigating escape unharmed.
The general idea of fighting submarines with nets was also adopted
for areas of open water which were suspected of being infested with
submarines. Recently, serious doubts have been raised concerning the
future usefulness of nets. Reports have been published that German
submarines have been fitted up with a wire and cable cutting
appliance which would make it possible for them to break through
nets at will, supposing, of course, that they had been caught by the
nets in such a way that no vital parts of the underwater craft had
been seriously damaged. A sketch of this wire cutting device was
made by the captain of a merchantman, who, while in a small boat
after his ship had been torpedoed, had come close enough to the
attacking submarine to make the necessary observations. The sketch
showed an arrangement consisting of a number of strands of heavy
steel hawsers which were stretched from bow to stern, passing
through the conning tower and to which were attached a series of
heavy circular knives a foot in diameter and placed about a yard
apart. Even as early as January, 1915, Mr. Simon Lake, the famous
American submarine engineer and inventor, published an article in
the _Scientific American_ in which he dwelt at length on means by
which a submarine could escape mines and nets. One of the
illustrations, accompanying this article, showed a device enabling
submarines travelling on the bottom of the sea to lift a net with a
pair of projecting arms and thus pass unharmed under it.
[Illustration: © International Film Service, Inc.
_Submarine Built for Spain in the Cape Cod Canal._]
Many other devices to trap, sink or capture submarines have been
invented. A large number of these, of course, have been found
impracticable. Others, however, have been used with success. Few
details of any of these have been allowed to become known.
The most dangerous power of submarines, is their ability to approach
very closely to their object of attack without making their presence
known to their prey. This naturally suggested that a way be found to
detect the presence of submarines early enough to make it possible
to stave off an attack or even to assume the offensive against the
underwater boat. A recent invention, the perfection of which is due
to the work of Mr. William Dubilier, an American electrical
engineer, and of Professor Tissot, a member of the French Academy of
Science, is the microphone. Few details are known about this
instrument except that it records sound waves at as great a distance
as fifty-five miles. This would permit in most cases the calling of
patrol boats or the use of other defensive means before the
submarine would be able to execute an attack.
At the present moment it would appear that the most dangerous enemy
of the submarine yet discovered is the airplane or the dirigible.
Some figures as to the mortality among submarines due to the efforts
of aircraft have been published in an earlier chapter. The chief
value of aircraft in this work is due to the fact that objects under
the water are readily discernible at a considerable depth when
viewed from a point directly over them. An illustration familiar to
every boy is to be found in the fact that he can see fish at the
bottom of a clear stream from a bridge, while from the shore the
refraction of the water is such that he can see nothing. From the
air the aviator can readily see a submarine at a depth of fifty feet
unless the water is unusually rough or turbid. The higher he rises
the wider is his sphere of vision. With the lurking craft thus
located the airman can either signal to watching destroyers or may
bide his time and follow the submarine until it rises to the
surface, when a well placed bomb will destroy it. Both of these
methods have been adopted with success. For a time the submarines
were immune from this form of attack because of the difficulty of
finding a bomb which would not explode on striking the surface of
the water, thus allowing its force to be dissipated before it
reached the submarine, or else would not have its velocity so
greatly checked by the water that on reaching the submarine the
shock of its impact would not be great enough to explode it at all.
Both of these difficulties have been overcome. The new high
explosives have such power, taken in connection with the fact that
water transmits the force of an explosion undiminished to a great
distance, that many of them exploding at the surface will put out of
action a submarine at a considerable depth. Furthermore bombs have
been invented, which being fired, not merely dropped from an
airplane, will go through the water with almost undiminished
momentum and explode on striking the target, or after a period fixed
by the assailant. Other bombs known as "depth bombs" are fitted with
flanges that revolve as they sink, causing an explosion at any
desired depth.
About the actual achievements of the airplane as a foe to submarines
there hangs a haze of mystery. It has been the policy of the Allied
governments to keep secret the record of submarines destroyed and
particularly the methods of destruction. But we know that a few have
met their fate from bolts dropped from the blue. In _The Outlook_
Lawrence La Tourette Driggs, himself a flying man of no contemptible
record, describes the method and result of such an attack. After
recounting the steps by which a brother airman attained a position
directly above a submerged submarine preparatory to dropping his
bomb, he says:
Down shot his plummet of steel and neatly parted the waters ahead
of the labouring submarine. But it did not explode. I could see a
whirling metal propeller on the torpedo revolve as it sank. It
must have missed the craft by twenty feet.
Suddenly a column of water higher than my position in the air
stood straight up over the sea, then slipped noiselessly back. By
all that is wonderful how did that happen?
As we covered the spot again and again in our circling machines,
we were joined by two more pilots, and finally by a fast clipper
steam yacht. The surface of the water was literally covered with
oil, breaking up the ripple of the waves, and smoothing a huge
area into gleaming bronze. Here and there floated a cork belt,
odd bunches of cotton waste, a strip of carpet, and a wooden
three-legged stool. These fragments alone remained to testify to
the _corpus delicti_.
"Philip," I said half an hour later, as the hot coffee was
thawing out our insides, "what kind of a civilized bomb do you
call that?"
"That bears the simple little title of trinitrotoluol; call it T.
N. T. for short," replied Sergeant Pieron.
"But what made it hang fire so long?" I demanded.
"It's made to work that way. When the bomb begins sinking the
little propeller is turned as it is pulled down through the
water. It continues turning until it screws to the end. There it
touches the fuse-pin and that sets off the high explosive--at any
depth you arrange it for."
I regarded him steadfastly. Then I remarked, "But it did not
touch the submarine. I saw it miss."
"Yes, you can miss it fifty yards and still crush the submarine."
He took up an empty egg shell. "The submarine is hollow like
this. She is held rigidly on all her sides by the water. Water is
non-compressible like steel. Now when the T. N. T. explodes, even
some distance away, the violent expending concussion is
communicated to this hollow shell just as though a battering ram
struck it. The submarine can't give any because the surrounding
water holds her in place. So she crumples up--like this."
Pieron opened his hand and the flakes of egg shell fluttered down
until they struck the floor.
Gunfire undoubtedly is still the most reliable preventive against
submarine attacks. Comparatively small calibred guns can cause
serious damage to submarines even by one well directed shot.
Submarines have been sunk both by warships and merchantmen in this
way and many more have been forced to desist from attacks. Not every
merchantman, of course, can be equipped with the necessary guns and
gunners. Neither equipment nor men can be spared in sufficient
quantities. But the efficiency of gun protection has been proved
beyond all doubt by many authentic reports of successful encounters
between armed merchantmen and submarines in which the latter were
defeated.
Ramming, too, has been advocated and tried. It is, however, a
procedure involving considerable danger to the attacking boat. For
one thing all the submarine has to do is to dive quick and deep
enough and it is out of harm's way. Then, too, the chances are that
the submarine can launch a torpedo in time to reach the ramming
vessel before the latter can do any damage.
[Illustration: _A Critical Moment._
_Painting by John E. Whiting._]
There have been reports of submarine duels between Austrian and
Italian submarines in the Adriatic in which it was claimed that in
each at least one submarine was destroyed, and, at least, in one
instance both the duellists were sunk. Generally speaking the fact
has been established, however, that submarines cannot fight
submarines with any degree of success, except in exceptional cases
and under exceptional conditions.
Since the outbreak of the war between the United States and Germany
the question of combating the submarine has become more acute than
ever. The latest development has been along negative rather than
affirmative lines. It has apparently been decided that none of the
devices, known at present and capable of destroying submarines, is
sufficient either alone or in combinations to defeat the submarines
decisively. The best means of balancing as much as possible the
losses which German submarines are inflicting on the shipping
facilities of the Allies at the present seems to be the unlimited
and prompt building of large fleets of comparatively small ships. If
this can be accomplished in time, the German submarines undoubtedly
will find it impossible to destroy a tonnage sufficient to exert any
great influence on the final outcome of the war.