A BRITISH SUBMARINE BASE
Our submarine now returns to the surface. She is proceeding on patrol,
and her commander, as he bids us good-bye, recommends us to put into
the port from which he has just come, and see what a submarine base is
like. We take his advice, and return to our trawler. Her head is turned
westward and signals are made and answered. The skipper informs us that
we are about to pass through a mine-field where the mines are as thick
as herring-roe. It is some consolation to hear that ‘The Sweep’ has
already done its daily morning work, and that the channel is presumably
clear.
The East Coast of England, from Tynemouth to Thames mouth, is pierced
with some ten or a dozen estuaries, all more or less suitable for
flotilla bases. It is unnecessary to say how many of these are used by
our submarines, or which of them it is that we are about to enter. But
a short description can do no harm, because one of these bases is very
like another, and all are absolutely impervious to enemy craft. Even
if they could navigate the mine-field, so thickly strewn with both our
mines and their own, and so constantly and thoughtfully rearranged,
they would not find it possible to slip, as we are doing, past the
elaborate boom at the harbour mouth, or to escape being sunk by the
guns which dominate it, and the seaplanes which are constantly passing
over it.
And now that we are inside, it looks an even more dangerous place for
an intruder--a perfect hornets’ nest. Close to us on the left lies a
small pier, with buildings on a hill behind it--the Commodore’s house
and offices, seamen’s training-school, and gymnasium. At the pier-head
are two or three picket-boats; and a little further on, a light cruiser
with her observation balloon mounted. The vast sheds beyond are the
hangars of the Air Service. They are painted in a kind of Futurist
style, which gives them a queer look from below, but makes them, when
seen from a thousand feet up, either invisible or like a landscape of
high roads, cornfields, hay-stacks and groups of trees--objects quite
uninviting to any stray air-raider. But their best protection is the
efficiency of the machines and men inside them.
Over on the opposite side of the river stretches a long quay. The
background of it is a naval railway station; the ships lying in front
of it are partly supply ships, partly merchant vessels brought in under
convoy, and two of them are depot ships, moored permanently there, and
used as headquarters for the Submarine, Destroyer, and other services.
Out in the centre of the harbour lies a still larger depot ship, the
floating headquarters of the Admiral who is Commodore of the port; and
behind her, in two long lines, stretching away upstream into the far
distance, lies an apparently inexhaustible force of light cruisers,
destroyers, and destroyer-leaders, with here and there a submarine--one
is slung aloft in a dry-dock for overhauling. A side creek to the
left is crowded with trawlers and drifters, whose men are now ashore
‘between sweeps.’ At this hour of the day the place is at its fullest,
for the daily ‘Beef Trip,’ or food convoy, has just come in, and the
dozen destroyers which escorted it are all lying at their moorings, on
both sides of the main stream line. There they will be till to-night,
when at 7 o’clock to the second they will all slip away again into the
twilight like thin grey ghostly dogs, shepherding another flock of very
substantial sheep.
The trawler puts us aboard the depot ship; but the Admiral is not
there. A picket-boat takes us over to his pier, and we find him in
his chart-room, surrounded by maps marked with spots and figures in
different colours, quite unintelligible except to those who have the
key, and even to them no subject for conversation at large. But the
Admiral is a good talker, his mind is an encyclopædia of submarine
war and the working of a naval base, and he is amazingly quick in
separating the facts which interest you, and yet are fit for repetition
outside, from those which you must forget as soon as you have heard
them. He begins by explaining the daily routine of the port--the
mine-sweeping, which is done regularly twice a day, but at what times
the enemy can only guess, and the mine-laying, which is a game of brain
against brain, each side trying to see through the other’s devices
and catch him with their own. An elementary example would be the
obvious dodge of moving the enemy’s mine a short distance, instead of
removing it altogether--so that when next he comes that way, he shall
run into it unexpectedly, and perish by his own trap. But this, as I
have described it, is too simple a device to be successful, and the
ingenuity of our mine-layers has improved upon it by a dozen skilful
variations. Much can be done by studying carefully the habits of the
German mind. One officer, who is specially skilled in this matter, has
the credit of being able to make a U.C.-boat lay her eggs just where he
pleases, and of knowing exactly when it will be time to go and collect
them.
Our own mine-laying and coastal patrol would be more exciting if the
possible successes were not limited to an occasional submarine. It is a
little dull to be always laying traps for a flotilla that never comes.
The work of our coastal submarines is therefore monotonous; but it is
none the less invaluable. Besides making sure, it trains a continual
succession of crews for oversea work, and gives experience to young
commanders. The number of boats increases every year, and the flow of
volunteer entries keeps pace with it. The standard demanded is very
high, and it is fully maintained. The prize of efficiency is immediate
entry into the hardships and dangers of the oversea patrol.
There is no doubt that the hardships are more trying to our men than
the dangers. The oversea patrol is kept up through the winter. The
weather off the enemy’s coast is often very severe, and boats have to
be shut down for long periods. In summer, the work of diving patrols is
almost equally arduous, owing to the longer hours of daylight. Boats
must frequently be submerged for nineteen or twenty hours at a time;
and after the first twelve of these, the air, in spite of purifiers,
becomes oppressive to breathe--not even the head of a match will burn.
Then there are two special conditions tending towards depression.
First, the positive results are few, and form no measure of the work
or the risks. Results are obtained, but never in proportion to the
devotion and sanguine hopes of the Service. It is a baffling and trying
experience to live for days with your eye glued to a periscope--the
field of vision is contracted, and too close to the water. The
psychological effect of the strain would be bad in the case of any but
highly trained and selected officers--as one of them has said, the
sighting of a surface enemy is a relief seldom obtained. The Germans
are fortunate in the daily, almost hourly, sighting of targets. But
their officers, in consequence of continual heavy losses, are commonly
sent to sea undertrained, and their results are naturally poor in
proportion to the torpedoes expended.
The second of the two causes which would discourage any but the finest
spirit, is the fact that an almost complete silence broods over the
Submarine Service. Not only is the work done mostly in the deep-sea
twilight; but, however arduous and creditable it may be, it is seldom
recognised publicly. Rewards are given, but not openly. A commander may
reappear for a day or two among his friends, wearing the ribbon of the
D.S.O. or the V.C., or both, but little or nothing will be published of
the actions by which he won them. It is not only that information must
be kept from reaching the enemy--and naturally the German Admiralty is
always anxious to know how their boats are lost--but there is also a
settled custom in our Navy, a custom older than the Submarine Service,
by which ‘mention in despatches’ is confined to incidents during which
one or both sides have been under fire, from gun or torpedo. Custom in
the Navy is generally a sound rule; but in this particular instance,
the custom did not grow up to fit the case, and does not fit it. The
Admiral does not say anything on this point; but he tells us that
the real danger a submarine commander has to face is not the gun or
the torpedo. He may come off his patrol without having been shot at
by either, and yet may be entitled to the credit of having been in
action for days and nights on end. In fact, every minute that he is in
enemy waters he is in danger from mines, and from a host of formidable
pursuers--aeroplanes and Zeppelins with bombs, and fast anti-submarine
craft with depth-charges and explosive sweeps. No doubt all ships are
to some extent in danger from mines, but no other class of vessel is
asked to run the gauntlet on the enemy’s coast to anything like the
same extent. If surface ships are sent, they are sent for a single
operation, the ground is prepared for them as far as possible, the
period of exposure is short, and when the work is done the force is
withdrawn. But our submarines are, for days and weeks at a time, close
to known mine-fields and in areas most likely to hold new or drifted
mines. They are harassed by hunters to whom they can make no reply,
and particularly by aircraft, which can detect them even at sixty feet
below the surface. The areas in which they work are comparatively
narrow, and so closely patrolled by small craft that it is seldom
possible to come to the surface in daylight; navigation, too, is very
difficult, and the rapidly changing densities of the water off the
enemy’s coast make the trimming of the boat and the depth control a
matter of constant anxiety.
Yet not only are officers and men found in plenty to enter this
service of twilight and silence, but the keenness they show for it is
unfailing. The work itself is their one ambition, and their records
are astounding. Ask the Captain (S.) of this port. In two years he
has organised 370 cruises, lasting in all 1680 days, and extending
over a surface mileage of more than 200,000 miles. There was only
a single breakdown, and that ended in a triumph; for the Commander
got himself towed back by an enemy trawler, neatly captured for the
purpose. Another--Commander Talbot--made twenty-one cruises; Lieutenant
C. Turner, nineteen; Commanders Goodhart and Leir, seventeen each;
Commander Benning and Lieut. C. Moncreiffe, sixteen. More wonderful
still is the fact that the first two of these officers spent fifty-six
and sixty-five days respectively in enemy waters, and the other four
from thirty-six to forty-nine days each. The most interesting part
of their adventures cannot yet be told; but much may be guessed from
an outline or two. Commander Leir, for instance, was repeatedly in
action with Zeppelins, seaplanes, and anti-submarine craft, one of
which he sank. He was present at the action in the Heligoland Bight
in August 1914, and brought home some German prisoners. Commander
Benning was also repeatedly in action. Once, after torpedoing an armed
auxiliary cruiser, he was forced by enemy sweepers to dive into a
German mine-field. There he had to stay, with batteries exhausted, till
night gave him a chance of recharging. Another time he went down into a
mine-field of his own will, to lie in wait for an armed auxiliary. He
was there for three hours, but ambushed her successfully in the end,
close to the German coast. Lieut.-Commander Turner covered 20,000 miles
to his own score, and passed much of his time actually in the swept
channels, with enemy patrols in sight the whole day. Sometimes he came
up and fought them, sometimes they hunted him with depth-charges.
For those who sleep in beds and travel in buses, it is an almost
unimaginable life. ‘Yes,’ says the Admiral, ‘in this Service, officers
need a two-o’clock-in-the-morning courage every hour they are at sea:
and they have it.’
[Illustration: ‘Towed back by an enemy trawler.’]
The charts are put away. We move out, first to the gymnasium, where
physical drill is going on, then towards the great air-sheds. As we
approach the first of these, an officer meets us and hands a block to
the Admiral with the morning report upon it.
The Admiral’s face lights up as he reads. ‘A lucky chance--something
to interest you.’ The Beef Trip, it appears, which has just returned,
was escorted as usual by two seaplanes, flying ahead of the convoy. The
starboard one of these had sighted a submarine at 8.30 A.M. and swooped
towards her instantly. She was nearly submerged when the seaplane
passed over her, but the two big depth-charges which were dropped in a
flash, fell right into her wash and close to the conning-tower, which
disappeared in the explosion.
An excellent bit of work! But the face of the officer standing by shows
a distinct cloud. ‘What is it?’ Well, the fact is that the pilot of the
other seaplane, a mile and a half away to port, had an impression that
the submarine was British.
The pilot of the bomb-dropper is sent for and comes out at once--a
fair-haired and very young lieutenant, with an air of perfectly
undisturbed serenity. He is sure nothing is wrong--it is ‘only a
muddle.’ His companion pilot had certainly sighted and spoken a British
submarine some quarter of an hour earlier; but this was not the one.
Also another boat, E. 134, was out on patrol in that precise direction,
but she was not due in that spot till 11 o’clock, B.S.T., and it was
highly improbable she would be there so much before her time. Besides,
he knew the colour of a Hun conning-tower. Undoubtedly it was ‘only a
muddle.’ The explanation sounds a good one, but it is a speculation,
not a certainty; and on further inquiry, it appears that nothing has
since been heard of E. 134. The Admiral sends off the young pilot with
a word of good cheer; but when he has gone, he hands back the report
with a serious look. The incident has become too interesting. It is no
longer something to tell a visitor. We go into the sheds and spend the
remainder of our time in viewing the huge Americas and Handley-Pages.
The rest of the story comes after lunch, when we go to visit the
Captain (S.) in his depot ship. He has heard all about our pilot, and
our submarine too. E. 134 lay all night in her billet, resting on the
bottom at 140 feet and listening with all her hydrophones. In the
morning her watch was rewarded; she heard, first, the monotonous low
ticking of a German submarine’s motors passing near her on the outward
patrol--then at 8.30 the heavy dull boom of two explosions close
together--then not a sound more! Finally, at her appointed time, noting
that the U-boat had never stirred again, she rose to the surface and
came home in rear of the sweep. The muddle is cleared up, and in the
best manner.
[Illustration: ‘She was nearly submerged when the seaplane passed over
her.’]
We discuss the dead submarine and ask whether she would be, or would
have been, more formidable when used against a convoy than against
a single ship. The Captain (S.) who has already been torpedoed once
himself, thinks there can be no doubt on this subject. ‘A single ship
is much more easily approached than a convoy--she has only one set
of eyes on the look-out, from one position, and the enemy can stalk her
without fear of being trodden on from other quarters. Convoys ought
to escape nearly every time, and they do. Look at the record of this
port--not one loss in two years.’ This opinion is based on experience,
but the matter looks different from the point of view of the convoy
escort, whose responsibility weighs upon him every day afresh. This we
discover when we pass on to visit a destroyer-leader, at a later hour
in the evening. She is being got ready for the night’s work and it
is now just six, but her captain assures us that what remains of his
time is entirely ours. He takes us down to his own room, an elegant
and almost spacious apartment, very unlike anything to be seen in a
destroyer of the ordinary type; and he, too, answers our question
positively. ‘Which is easiest--to hit a single ship or a convoy? The
question answers itself--a submarine ought to get at least one bird
out of a covey every time! She does not do it, perhaps; but look at
the trouble we take to prevent her. Think of all the work put in by
the auxiliary patrol to keep the sea fairly clear to start with--armed
yachts, trawlers, whalers, drifters, motor-launches, mine-sweepers,
net-drifters and motor-boats, out day and night all round the whole
coast of the U.K. That is their routine work; and besides that they
supply escorts to individual ships of special value and to ocean
convoys, when they have arrived at their port of initial entry, and
are to be taken on elsewhere. Then there are the various kinds of
protective devices for the ships themselves--the dazzle-painting, the
smoke-boxes on broads, and the smoke-boxes for floating behind you.
And since we _are_ talking of these things, there is the work of the
destroyers and trawlers on regular convoy.’ This is, of course, the
captain’s own job, and we naturally hint a desire that he should pursue
the subject.
‘There is no difficulty about it--the Germans already know all that
they can ever know of our convoy system--how it is organised in the
form of group-sailings on definite routes, and worked, as far as
possible, at night, with extra protection given by daylight and during
moonlight hours--above all, how successful it is, and how, little by
little, they have given up the chase of mercantile convoys for the
attack of transports and single ships of great size and value. In one
month, for instance, of the present year, 690 vessels were convoyed
from England to France, of which only three were attacked, and only two
sunk, including one small sailing ship. More astonishing still, out
of 693 convoyed from France to England in the same month not one was
touched, or even attacked. Then there are the Dutch and Scandinavian
lines.’
We should like to know exactly how it is done, and especially what part
the destroyers play in the game. Briefly, but very sharply, the picture
is drawn for us. You see a fine August day, off the coast of Scotland,
with white summer clouds over a rippling sea; a compact convoy of eight
ships sailing in two columns, with a ninth lagging on the left, three
times her proper distance to the rear. Their speed is slow; they are
flanked on both sides, fore and aft, by armed trawlers, with one just
ahead of the two columns, and they are covered by two fast destroyers.
The first of these is ahead of the convoy, zigzagging continuously
from side to side across the whole front. The second is zigzagging in
another direction. Suddenly, from this second destroyer, a signal is
seen to fly. Her look-out has spotted the wake of a periscope 1000
yards away on her starboard bow, moving to cut off the convoy, from the
right column of which it is already not more than 1500 yards distant. A
torpedo fired at this moment should cross the convoy formation exactly
in the middle, and would have an excellent chance of sinking either of
the centre ships in either column--it could hardly miss all four. But
the destroyer has in a moment altered course 8 points to starboard,
and is prolonging this zigzag directly towards the enemy at thirty-odd
knots, with her forward guns blazing. The U-boat captain, no doubt,
longs to take his shot into the brown; but he has less than one minute
in which to perform the more urgent duty of saving his own ship. Down
he goes, with a depth-charge after him, and is not seen or heard of
again in this story. The convoy calls up its lame duck and goes safely
to its destination.
‘Yes,’ says the Captain, ‘we get them through, and it all looks very
simple; but it’s mostly a matter of ten seconds, and you can’t grow fat
on a daily margin of ten seconds.’
‘But the Admiral has something to say on your report?’
‘The Admiral writes outside, “Good look-out and prompt action of
_Swallow_ probably averted a casualty to the convoy.” He has to write
that most days--he must be tired of writing it.’
It is now two minutes to seven. As we drop into our picket-boat, the
destroyer slips silently from her moorings and fades away down stream
with eleven other thin grey phantoms.