_Horton, E 9, and Others_
“_If the submarine had succeeded our Army in France would have
withered away._”—D. LLOYD GEORGE.
Previous pages have had much to say about U-boats. The northern mists,
from the obscurity of which the Grand Fleet occasionally emerged into
the broad sunlight of publicity, were as nothing compared with the fog
of war which veiled the hourly activities of British and Allied
submarines. Scouting is notoriously hazardous and necessarily private.
Our underseas craft had sufficient of it. In the performance of this
task they also tackled much other business, tracked and sent to the
bottom vessels of their own species though not of their own tribe,
wormed their way through waters sealed to surface ships, ferreted a
course through strings of floating mines, dodged unanchored infernal
machines, convoyed in safety hundreds of thousands of troops, and
stalked men-of-war. They proved themselves friends to all but the
Ishmael of the seas; and when opportunity served they snatched him from
a watery grave when he ought to have perished.
The first German warship to be sunk by a British submarine was the
_Hela_. She fell to E 9 on the 13th September, 1914. Heaven knows it was
not for lack of searching for legitimate prey that nothing had been
secured by our underwater craft ere the second month of the war. Like
Villeneuve’s ships before Trafalgar, if any German vessels occasionally
took an airing they also took good care to keep near home. The _Hela_, a
light cruiser of 2040 tons displacement, with a complement of 178, of
little consequence for fighting purposes because her heaviest guns were
15½-pdrs., was only six miles south of Heligoland when she was torpedoed
by Lieutenant-Commander Max K. Horton.
E 9, it may be well to note, had already won her spurs in the prelude to
the battle of Heligoland Bight. Two torpedoes were fired, with an
interval of fifteen seconds between. One hit. Greatly daring, about a
quarter of an hour later Horton took just the suspicion of a glance in
her direction through the periscope, and saw that she was heeling over
to starboard. When he again ventured to use his ‘eye’ there was no
_Hela_, and a trawler had gone to the rescue of her crew. “What we are
so proud about is that it is the first torpedo fired from a [British]
submarine that made a hit,” one of the crew wrote, “and it has been a
great competition among all our boats to get first one in, and of course
we consider ourselves ‘the cock of the submarine flotilla’ now.”
A number of German torpedo-boats hunted for E 9 during several hours
after the destruction of the cruiser. Yet the following day saw her
calmly at work examining the outer anchorage of the island fortress, “a
service attended by considerable risk.” An exceptionally heavy westerly
gale was blowing on the 14th and continued for a week. On a lee shore,
with short, steep seas, the lot of the submarines in the Bight was both
hazardous and unpleasant. “There was no rest to be obtained,” says the
Commodore, “and when cruising at a depth of sixty feet the submarines
were rolling considerably, and pumping—_i.e._ vertically moving about
twenty feet.” Officers and men were granted prize bounty amounting to
£1050 for sinking the _Hela_, an exploit which the crew regarded as
avenging the _Pathfinder_.
Further insight into the hazardous life of those who operated in the
Bight is afforded by the following extract from another official report:
“When a submarine is submerged, her captain alone is able to see what is
taking place. The success of the enterprise and the safety of the vessel
depend on his skill and nerve and the prompt, precise execution of his
orders by the officers and men under his command. Our submarines have
been pioneers in waters that have been mined. They have been subjected
to skilful and well-thought-out anti-submarine tactics by a highly
trained and determined enemy, attacked by gunfire and torpedo, driven to
lie at the bottom at a great depth to preserve battery power, hunted for
hours at a time by hostile torpedo craft, and at times forced to dive
under our own warships to avoid interfering with their movements. Sudden
alterations of course and depth, the swirl of propellers overhead and
the concussion of bursting shells, give an indication to the crew of the
risks to which they are being exposed, and it speaks well for the
_moral_ of these young officers and men, and their gallant faith in
their captains, that they have invariably carried out their duties
quietly, keenly, and confidently under conditions that might well have
tried the hardened veteran.”
On the 6th of the succeeding month E 9 was ‘at it again.’ She was
patrolling off the estuary of the Ems, near the much-advertised island
of Borkum, which boasted some of the most powerful guns ever mounted for
coast defence. Presently the enemy’s torpedo-boat S 126 came along,
entirely unsuspecting.[26]
Horton was really after bigger game, but when out shooting pheasants one
does not disdain a pigeon if nothing else is available. He was keen on a
battleship, and only a little while before had spotted a fair-sized
cruiser, an excellent ‘second best.’ When enthusiasm was at its height,
and triumph reasonably sure, circumstances compelled him to dive. We are
not told what those circumstances were. Perhaps we should not be far
wrong if we ventured the opinion that they were intimately connected
with the noisome presence of fleeter craft whose pet particular prey is
the British submarine. When the officer had another opportunity to
observe what was going on in the upper world, the larger ship had gone
out of sight and a smaller vessel come into view.
Within a hundred yards of E 9 was S 126, followed at some distance by a
second T.B. Horton waited until the leader had travelled another 500
yards, ensuring a ‘comfortable’ range, and then fired. The commander
evidently believed in even numbers, for he discharged two ‘rooties’ at
his quarry, as he had done when attacking the _Hela_. It was just as
well that he did, for one missed. The other struck the enemy amidships
and worked deadly havoc. Coastguards on the Dutch island of
Schiermonnikoog, opposite Borkum, and some seven miles from the scene,
heard the roar of the explosion, and saw a great column of water shoot
up near the forepart of the ship. In three minutes all that remained of
S 126 was flotsam. She went down bow foremost, like a leaping salmon. As
the stern rose her men took to the water. Most of them appear to have
been rescued by a cruiser which came up a little later, but did not
consider it advisable to make a long stay. “Look at her!” Horton cried.
“The beggar’s going down!” as though it was the most surprising thing in
the world for a ship to sink after having a 21–in. torpedo plugged in
her side.
The second torpedo-boat, unwilling to run the risk of sharing her
consort’s fate, made off, leaving the shipwrecked crew of thirty-six to
fend for themselves. The lost vessel, launched in 1905, had a
displacement of 420 tons, and carried three 6–pdr. guns and three
torpedo-tubes.
[Illustration:
The Second Exploit of E 9
When Lieutenant-Commander Max K. Horton torpedoed S 126 in the mouth
of the Ems
E. S. Hodgson
]
When E 9 swung into Harwich safe and sound the crews of destroyers and
other craft based there knew that Horton and his gallant little band had
scored another hit. No wireless conveyed the intelligence. She was
displaying the White Ensign, plus two unofficial flags that are the
pride and glory of the Submarine Squadron. These little bits of bunting,
one yellow and the other white, bore the death’s-head and cross-bones so
intimately associated with the pirate of yester-year, and more
appropriate to the Huns. The former represented the ‘tuft’ of the
_Hela_, the latter that of the latest victim. The officers and crew
received further prize money to the tune of £350 for ‘digging out’
S 126. Horton was awarded the D.S.O., and noted for early promotion. On
the last day of 1914 he became Commander.
The news was spread abroad by Germany that the action had taken place in
Dutch territorial waters, within a mile of the shore. The Dutch Naval
Staff promptly contradicted this report, pointing out that sands extend
for two and a half miles from Schiermonnikoog, off which it was alleged
E 9 had committed this grave misdeed.
Horton’s succeeding _coup_ took place in the Baltic, and rightly belongs
to a later chapter. I introduce it here because it will better help us
to appreciate his worth.
Shortly after the Germans had occupied Libau, Russia’s most southerly
port in the Baltic, a certain mysterious submarine made her presence
felt in the Mediterranean of the North. An official bulletin from
Petrograd stated that the boat was British, and that she had sunk the
pre-Dreadnought _Pommern_ off Danzig on the 2nd July, 1915. The Censor
in London removed the reference to the nationality of the submarine, but
a little later it leaked out that E 9 had resumed operations and was
responsible for the disaster. In reply to a question put by Commander
Bellairs, Dr Macnamara answered that no official report had been
transmitted to the Admiralty, “but from a semi-official communication
received from the Russian Government it appears that the name of the
officer referred to is Commander Max K. Horton, D.S.O.,” which statement
was received with enthusiastic cheers by the House of Commons.
The _Pommern_ was completed in 1907, and displaced 13,200 tons. She
carried four 11–in. and fourteen 6.7–in. guns, and a crew of over seven
hundred officers and men. The _Pommern_ was the first German battleship
to be sunk in the war. The coveted Order of St George (Fourth Class) was
bestowed on the Commander by Tsar Nicholas. The German Government
vigorously denied that a battleship had been lost, but
All the King’s horses and all the King’s men
Couldn’t put Humpty Dumpty together again,
and all the contradictions in the world failed to resurrect the
_Pommern_.
The energetic E boats did not remain in obscurity very long. In the
following month the enemy endeavoured to secure naval control of the
Gulf of Riga. Their first attempt, made on the 8th August with nine
battleships, twelve cruisers, and a brave showing of torpedo-boats, was
a complete failure. It was followed up eight days later by a more
ambitious force. Favoured by heavy sea fog, the enemy cleared a channel
through the mines and net defences at the entrance within forty-eight
hours, and were then ready to penetrate farther. If we accept the
assertion of the Russians, the Germans paid dearly for their adventure.
Against their own losses of two gunboats and several torpedo craft they
assessed those of the Germans at two cruisers, and eight torpedo-boats
either sunk or badly damaged. In addition, the _Moltke_, a
battle-cruiser, was torpedoed by E 1. She was not mortally wounded, and
was towed back to harbour, where she remained until Beatty claimed her.
The Huns gained nothing and lost much in this attempt to dominate the
Gulf.
On the 19th August, 1916, Lieut.-Commander Robert R. Turner of E 23
attacked an enemy battleship. The vessel, a member of the _Nassau_
family, the first type of Dreadnought to be built in a German yard, was
powerfully armed with twelve 11–in., twelve 5.9–in., and sixteen 21–pdr.
guns, in addition to half a dozen submerged torpedo-tubes. The
displacement was 18,600 tons, and the speed 19–20 knots, but experts
held that the class was a failure when compared with our own earlier
Dreadnoughts.
The first torpedo fired by E 23 badly damaged the battleship. Of that
there is not the slightest doubt. Five destroyers immediately went to
her assistance. While these were engaged in escorting her, a second
torpedo hit the target, and the officer in command of the submarine
reported that he “believed she was sunk.” Then began a war of
contradiction. The Germans stated that one of their submarines had
attacked a British destroyer and a cruiser, both of which went down
shortly afterward. They admitted that the submarine was rammed, but
added the rider that she had returned to harbour ‘badly damaged.’ The
question of the loss of a second U-boat was carefully hedged. “The
statement can only be verified when all reports from our submarines are
to hand”—an ingenious ruse. The report anent British losses was without
foundation.
As in the above case, it is not always possible to ascertain the result
of a shot. Many other instances of likely losses could be cited. A
British submarine saw four battleships of the _Kaiser_ class off the
Danish coast. After making all ready to attack, the boat broke surface
of her own accord owing to the exceedingly heavy swell. This terrible
risk was run quite accidentally, but she got under again. Four torpedoes
were discharged at a range of 4000 yards at the third ship in the line.
Two explosions proved that the weapons had performed their tasks, and
the commander was of opinion that the third and fourth ships had both
been hit. He was about to verify his belief when a destroyer was heard
racing in his direction, followed by others. For two hours they
patrolled in search of the boat that had shot this ‘bolt from the blue.’
They failed to find her. Two depth charges nearly did, but not quite,
and a sweep dragged ominously over her hull. Puzzle: Did the battleships
founder? The Marineamt in Berlin knows but does not say. In fifty-one
months of conflict British submarines successfully attacked forty-three
enemy warships.
A British submarine, referred to in a Dutch official communication as
C 55, was patrolling in the North Sea on the 27th July, 1917, when she
picked up a German steamer. This was the _Batavier II_, of 1328 tons
net, proceeding in the direction of Hamburg. The North Sea, or ‘German
Ocean’ as those who dwell on its eastern fringe fondly call it, had not
been darkened by a mercantile ship of that nationality for many long
months, and even the _Batavier II_ was British-built and had been
captured from the Dutch. The submarine overhauled her, and after having
sustained damage by gunfire, she was captured, her crew escaping in
their boats. A prize crew took possession of the vessel and endeavoured
to bring her to port. The idea had to be abandoned because she made so
much water. The opening of her sea-cocks speedily sent her beneath the
waves. Twenty-eight survivors of the steamer’s crew were subsequently
landed at Texel.
According to the Dutch Navy Department, the steamer was towing the
motor-ship _Zeemeeuw_ at the time, and at the opening of the engagement
both vessels were outside territorial waters. When they were abandoned
they had again entered the three-mile limit. The prize crew succeeded in
getting the _Batavier II_ outside, but owing to her disability and a
strong current she again drifted within the Dutch sphere of influence. A
Dutch torpedo-boat then hoisted the signal “Respect neutrality,” and the
submarine retired. The _Zeemeeuw_ was taken in tow and conducted to
Nieuwediep.
Less than a month later the _Renate Leonhardt_, another German steamer,
attempted to run the blockade. Instead she ran ashore near the Helder,
and after being refloated was met on the high seas by a British
submarine, which made short work of her. The crew were picked up and
taken to Holland.
Let me close this chapter with a contrast. Fiendish brutality
characterized the behaviour of most German U-boat commanders. It
mattered not whether the ship attacked was sailing under the colours of
the Allies or of neutrals. To them war was a biological necessity, a
phase in the development of life, to be waged relentlessly and vitriolic
ally. The more cruel the method, the shorter the conflict. That was the
Prussian theory, and the Great Conflict proved it false. To the German
the neutral country was only neutral when it was working for the
Fatherland. Often enough, even in these circumstances, he preferred to
regard it as an open enemy. The lanes of the ocean are strewn with the
wrecks of neutral craft and dead men assassinated by “our sea-warriors”
in their hideous attempt at world-conquest. I quote a report received
from the commander of a British submarine. The statements are
corroborated by the neutrals of the world:
“On the morning of March 14 [1917] His Majesty’s submarine E —, when
proceeding on the surface in the North Sea, sighted two suspicious craft
ahead. On approaching them, however, she found them to be ship’s boats
sailing south, and containing some thirty members of the crew of the
Dutch steamship _L. M. Casteig_, which had been torpedoed and sunk by a
German submarine some distance to the northward over twenty-four hours
previously.
“After ascertaining that there was both food and water in the boats, E —
took them in tow at once, and proceeded toward the Dutch coast at the
greatest possible speed consistent with safety, in view of the state of
the weather. Some four hours later the Norwegian steamship _Norden_ was
sighted, and as she showed some natural reluctance about approaching the
submarine, not knowing that it was a British one, the boats containing
the Dutch crew cast off the tow and pulled toward her. E — kept the
boats in sight until they were seen to have been picked up by the
_Norden_, and then proceeded on the course which had been interrupted
for this act of mercy.”
Mercy as a biological necessity of war! It is a suggestive thought, of
British origin. It compares favourably with the treatment of forty of
the crew of the s.s. _Belgian Prince_, who were lined up on U 44 and
drowned as the submersible plunged. About a fortnight later Paul
Wagenführ, the instigator of this diabolical outrage, was drowned with
his confederates. U 44 was their coffin.