Don’t think for a moment that Germany was the only country that had a
fleet of submarines. The reason that her U-boats came to be so well
known was because they had torpedoed the _Lusitania_ and sunk helpless
ships right and left no matter who was on them or what they carried.
England and France had fleets of submarines, too, but as their warships
had blockaded Germany’s ports there was nothing to torpedo. And when we
declared war on the Kaiser, Uncle Sam began to build submarines just as
he did chasers, merchant ships and everything else. Except airplanes,
did you say? There was no such fizzle made of building submarines as for
a time was made of building airplanes in the beginning of the war.
Within a short time after we got started our Navy Department was able to
turn out a brand-new submarine every two weeks. Think of it! Once the
kind and the size of the submarine we needed had been agreed upon by our
naval experts, that is, _standardized_ as it is called, machines and
jigs were made by which each part was stamped out of a solid sheet of
metal, and this was done, not in one or a dozen factories, but in
hundreds of factories scattered all over the country and each of which
made a single part.
These parts were shipped to docks at various ports on the Atlantic
seaboard and there artificers of all kinds were ready to assemble them,
that is, to put them together. Thus it was that in two weeks after the
ore was mined it was made into parts, assembled and the submarine was
ready for its perilous cruise.
While the building of submarines was thus speeded up there was another
factor that made for their efficiency as a destructive engine of war
which was just as important as the boats themselves and that was the
crews to man them. Aye, and there was the rub, for a crew could not be
trained for this highly specialized work in less than two months’ time
and sometimes it took three or four months.
Because the submarine job was considered an extra-hazardous one,
volunteers were called for to man the boats and as an inducement for
bluejackets to do so a good _bonus_, that is, extra pay was offered. Now
Bill Adams knew all about submarines, as I think I told you before, for
he had worked for the _Holland Submarine Boat Company_ long before the
world-war started.
“Let’s me and you go to it, matey,” he said, in one of his bursts of
patriotism; “it isn’t quite as soft a snap as we’ve got on this here
chaser but we gets more time ashore and then we helps our Uncle Sammy.
Besides I’ve made up me mind to buy me mother a flivver; all the
washladies in our neighborhood is ridin’ to and from work in them baby
land-tanks of Mr. Ford’s, and I guess what they can do she can do, eh,
matey?”
“Why not?” I allowed. “She’s got a better right to ride in a motor car
than a lot of those high-falutin’ women who live in glass conning towers
on Fifth Avenue and never had a son to fight for Uncle Sam. They take
everything and they give nothing.”
“Well, I wouldn’t quite say that, matey,” Bill answered thinking hard
within the limits of his ability; “I used to be a kind of anarchist
myself, I guess, as I always felt as how I’d like to throw a bomb--no,
not a bum--into some of them swell places, but I’ve got all over it.
Why? Because if it wasn’t for them big bugs, them rich Janes, there
wouldn’t be any _Red Cross_, see? Every last one of ’em that is over
eight and under eighty is handin’ out the coin, givin’ the glad hand and
workin’ like gobs holystonin’ the decks and scrapin’ cable for us guys
what’s in the navy and army. But I’m askin’ you, as man to man, matey,
will you volunteer with me for submarine duty?”
“I’m willing to try anything once, Bill, and I’ll take a chance with you
on this submarine deal,” I told him.
So Bill and I signed up for submarine service and after the crew to
which we belonged had had intensive training for several weeks we were
assigned to the _H-24_ and we went down to Newport to man her. There the
first time I saw her she was swinging from a crane high in the air for
this was the way they launch these sea babies. She was simply lifted
bodily from the dock where she was assembled, swung over the water and
gently deposited on the surface.
It was a good thing that I had had experience on a submarine chaser for
the quarters of this submarine were so small I couldn’t for the life of
me see how her complement of men, of whom there were 36, including
officers and seamen, could get into the boat, much less live and do
their work. I suffered a good deal at first because when we were all
inside her there wasn’t anywhere to go, not even out, when she was
submerged. In fact I felt very much as though I was riding in the
drawing room of a Pullman, or locked up in jail, which is about the same
thing.
As when we were on the chaser, I was the wireless man and Bill was the
gunner whose business it was to work the rapid fire gun on deck. Bill
didn’t mind being in the close quarters of the submarine at all and I
took it that he must have been one of those kids who thought it great
fun to snake his way through a fifteen foot length of gas-pipe main that
was just big enough around to let his body pass providing he didn’t get
stuck.
Do you know I always thought I was a sailor until I went on my first
cruise in that submarine. But no, I’m no sailor and you can take it from
me there were precious few of the others of our crew besides the
commanding officer and Bill who were sure-enough tars of the old Neptune
stripe. I’ll bet you a dollar to a glass of grape-juice that of the
thirty-six men on board--or shall I say _in_ board--thirty of them were
sea-sick. Of all the rolling and pitching a boat ever did I’ll give the
cake to _H-24_.
Not only that but when we were running _light_, that is when she was as
high out of the water as she could get with all the water out of her
ballast tanks, and we had rough weather I had to strap myself in my
chair to keep from being thrown around the room. As one of the torpedo
men used to sing, “Mr. Captain, stop the ship I want to get out and
walk,” and, indeed, I would have given my pay and the bonus to boot to
have had my old job back again on the chaser. It was all Bill’s fault
and I didn’t mind telling him so either.
“I should worry, matey,” he would say, and that’s all the satisfaction I
could get out of him.
After the _rookies_ got over being seasick we went out on practise trips
when each man was taught all about the machinery and how to work it.
This was done so that in case a man was put out of action another could
take his place. It didn’t take me very long to get _hep_ to all the
tricks for I already knew the A B C of oil engines, which again came in
handy; storage batteries were right in my line and the rest of the
machinery was pie for me.
The _H-24_ has a hull that is very much like a huge catfish, that is it
has a blunt round head and the torpedo tubes, one on either side, look
for all the world like a pair of great eyes; the body tapers off
gracefully to a point at the tail and on this the direction rudder is
attached. Two horizontal rudders, or _hydroplanes_ as they are called,
by which the submarine is given its diving angle, are fastened one to
each side of her head and give the appearance of a pair of great lateral
fins.
Her hull is built up of thin but exceedingly strong sheets of steel and
these are riveted together in the same fashion as the hull of any steel
ship. When you consider that the hull of a submarine must be able to
stand a pressure of at least 200 pounds to the square inch--as much as a
high pressure steam boiler--without collapsing when it is fully
submerged it must be clear that the strongest steel plate which can be
made must be used.
A steel deck, or superstructure as it is called, covers the top of the
hull from bow to stern, nearly, and on its middle sets the _conning
tower_. A steering wheel and compass are fixed to the side of the
conning tower so that the boat can be steered from the outside when she
is running light or awash.
A short mast, called a _stanchion_, is also fixed to the conning tower
and this carries the signal lights and holds one end of the aerial, the
other end being fastened to the stern. It isn’t much of an aerial but as
our submarine was built for coast patrol cruising we were never very far
from shore.
The inside of the hull is partitioned off into rooms, or compartments,
and these can be shut off from each other by means of bulkhead doors and
so made watertight. The purpose of these watertight compartments is to
prevent the water from filling the whole boat if she should be unlucky
enough to be hit by a shell or rammed by a ship. To my way of thinking
watertight compartments seem to be of little use whether the boat be a
submarine or the largest ship. For instance when the _Titanic_ was
scrapped by an iceberg and the _Lusitania_ was hit by a U-boat torpedo
they both went down in a few minutes.
I won’t try to tell you what all the different compartments have in them
but some of them are most uncommonly interesting and these you should
know about. The first is the conning tower with its _periscope_. When
the submarine is running either light or awash and the weather is good
the commander can see what’s what around him from the deck or from the
_bridge_, as we call the top of the conning tower. When the weather is
rough or an enemy is nigh he takes a look around through the ports, that
is, watertight windows, in the conning tower.
Should, however, the boat be submerged and the captain wants to size up
the situation he permits only the top of her periscope to project out of
the water and through this he scans the sea. Whenever I got a chance I
used to look through the periscope. At first it was hard for me to make
out a vessel on the surface because the field of view was small and what
with the boat rolling from port to starboard it seemed to me I was
always looking at the water or the sky; but after awhile I got so I
could take in whatever there was to see in between times.
Our submarine had two periscopes, one of the older kind that you have to
turn around in order to see the whole horizon, and the other, which was
the latest style, showed the whole horizon at once with a magnified view
of the ship or other vessel in the distance in the center. This scheme
was a great invention as it prevented us from being attacked from behind
unawares. It was like having a third eye in the back of your head.
Inside the conning tower are also speaking tubes and an electric system
of lights and bells worked by pushbuttons and these run into all the
compartments; by means of these intelligence transmission systems our
captain could get in touch instantly with the chiefs of the crew in the
engine, diving, torpedo and wireless rooms.
There are also several instruments in the conning tower and among these
is a _depth meter_, that is, a device that shows just how far below the
surface of the water the boat is. An _inclinometer_ which points out the
angle at which the diving rudder, or hydroplane is set, and a
_tell-tale_, that is a bank of miniature lamps, each of which is
connected to a detector in a compartment. Now if the boat should spring
a leak the detector closes the current and the lamp is lit.
Then there is another electrical system that closes all the bulkhead
doors by electricity. The instant the tell-tale lamp lights up and shows
that a compartment is leaking the commander presses a button which rings
a bell in it and this warns any of the crew who may happen to be in it
to get out; by throwing a switch the current operating the motors which
work the bulkhead door is cut in and the door is screwed down
watertight. Should a shell put the conning tower out of commission the
boat can still be steered from the navigating room in her hull.
The power plant that drove the _H-24_ was a big 12-cylinder oil burning
engine that developed, I should say, about 3,000 horsepower and it
worked on the same general plan as a motor car engine. Now when the boat
runs light or awash the engine drives her propeller direct and at the
same time the engine runs a dynamo and this charges a large storage
battery.
But when the boat is running submerged the engine has to be shut down
because the burnt gases cannot exhaust into the water as the pressure of
the latter is too great. A powerful electric motor is coupled to the
propeller shaft and this is energized by the current from the storage
battery.
The ballast tanks into and from which water is pumped to make the boat
sink and rise is in the middle of the bottom of the hull. The torpedo
room is for’ard in the bow of the boat, our sleeping quarters aft of
this and my wireless room lay between our sleeping quarters and the
navigating room.
While life on the submarine was not exactly what you would call a
pleasure bout still we were all keyed up to the point where we wanted to
get in our fine work on the _boches_. Finally the time came when we
received orders to move and while only the officers knew where to or for
what purpose at the time of departure we were all let into the secret
after we had got under way.
At the beginning of the war the Germans had vessels of various sizes in
all parts of the world. Those that were in our ports were interned while
some of the smaller ones that were at sea became pirate ships,
technically known as _raiders_. They flew the flag of Germany when it
suited them to do so but they hoisted any flag that would best help out
their diabolical plans.
These raiders scoured the seven seas and whenever they ran across an
unarmed merchant ship bound for any port of the Allies they promptly
shelled and sunk her and, more often than not, without giving the
ill-fated crew enough time to take to the life boats. As Bill Adams used
to say, “I calls it murder.”
Of course if the raiders could have taken their prizes to their own
ports they would gladly have done so for Germany sorely needed whatever
cargoes they carried, but the raiders could not do this for the Allies
had blockaded every port of the Central Powers. This being true the next
best thing to do from the German point of view was to sink the ship and
drown the crew.
There were two or three of these German raiders steaming up and down our
Atlantic coast and they operated a few hundred miles off shore and out
of the beaten paths. It seemed likely that they worked, part of the time
at least, in conjunction with U-boats for whenever a ship went forth
armed a torpedo sank her but if she was unarmed the raider’s guns sent
her to the bottom.
Uncle Sam was getting mighty tired of this sort of business and so he
hatched up a little scheme. A small steamer, the _Henrietta_, was fitted
out without guns, painted a sea-gray and flew the stars and stripes when
she was sent to sea. Our submarine was sent with her, not exactly as a
convoy for she was not sailing for any overseas port but instead she was
sent out simply as a decoy.
We followed her at a distance of about a mile and as long as there were
no other ships in sight we ran light, though the way the waves broke
over her she seemed to be running awash most of the time. This made no
difference to us and it was a great relief to come up from our stuffy
holes and walk the deck. Of all my sea-going experiences I liked this
much the best.
Why? You know how a city chap with a drop of red blood in his veins
likes to get out in the woods and walk, eat and sleep on the ground. He
does it simply because he gets as close to nature as he ever can and
know about it. Well, when I walked the bit of deck of the _H-24_ I got
just as close to the sea as I could and yet stay above water and there
was a mighty fascination about it too.
We cruised about most of the time in a light condition, though we
occasionally had to submerge and tagged around after the _Henrietta_
which acted as a base, or mother-ship to us. It was a curious thing how
merchant ships that made every effort to keep out of the way of raiders
would run right into them and that the _Henrietta_ who was out for this
very purpose couldn’t meet up with anything more dangerous than a
sea-gull.
But hold, matey, what’s that the Captain of the _Henrietta_ sends over
by wireless? We can’t see the ship for we set too close to the water but
he can make it out very well with his glasses. We dive until we are
completely submerged but still following in the wake of the _Henrietta_
according to a prearranged scheme.
“Ship headed for us,” the _Henrietta’s_ Captain signaled our Commander
by our sound conduction system.
“She flies the French flag,” he sent to us next.
Then later on I got this and handed it to our commander:
“Believe she’s a German raider.”
Every man was at his post and ready and anxious to do his duty. When the
raider, which was the _Koln_ and one of the worst offenders of her kind,
was within half-a-mile of the _Henrietta_ she sent a shot over her bow
and signaled her to _stand by_. This she did and then the Captain of the
_Koln_ signaled that he would send his officers to examine her papers
and cargo--to get whatever gold she might have--and this he promptly
did. At the same time he had her guns trained on the helpless
_Henrietta_ to prevent her from trying to steam away or putting on all
speed and ramming her with her sharp bow.
Just as the officers of the _Koln_ were being lowered in a launch the
Captain of the _Henrietta_ signaled our commander just two words and
these were: “Torpedo her.”
[Illustration: “OUR TORPEDO PASSED THROUGH THE RAIDER’S HULL AND
EXPLODED INSIDE”]
We came to the surface about a thousand feet from and on the port side
of the _Koln_ and took her completely by surprise. Her gunners began
blazing away at us but they had evidently not been trained in the gentle
art of swatting submarines for the trajectory of their shells was way
too flat, that is it was not curved enough and with, possibly, two
exceptions they struck the water and instead of sinking they
_ricocheted_, that is they were thrown from it again on the same
principle that a flat stone skips along on the water when you throw it
nearly parallel to its surface.
Bill was right there with his semi-automatic and dropped a couple of
shells on the deck of the _Koln_. In less time than it takes to tell it
to you our commander had swung our submarine round so that one of her
torpedo tubes was pointed directly at the _Koln_ and gave the signal to
the officer of the torpedo crew to shoot the torpedo. He turned on the
compressed air which drives the torpedo from its tube and it shot out
and into the sea. We watched it with all eyes as it traveled like a blue
streak under its own power below the surface and dead on for the
broadside of the _Koln_.
The German crew saw the white trail it left behind and they must have
become panic-stricken for some of them jumped overboard, others manned
the life-boats and bungled the job so that two of the boats capsized
before they ever touched the water. In less than a minute the torpedo
struck the hull amidships, passed through it to the inside and exploded
with a terrific report.
It looked to me as if the whole ship was thrown bodily out of the water
by the sheer force of the explosion and then parted in her middle. As
she settled down on the water a great black cloud of smoke poured out of
her hold and when the air struck her she caught fire and was soon a
solid, seething sheet of flame. It was the most magnificent spectacle I
have ever seen from longitude 0 to 70 degrees west of Greenwich and from
the Equator to the Pole.
Different from the German idea of _kultur_, instead of letting the crew
of the _Koln_ drown, the Captain of the _Henrietta_ sent out boats and
stood by until all of them were picked up and on board his ship.
We then sailed back to our naval base where the German crew was taken
off and interned in a concentration camp until the war ended. Their
fighting days were over while on the other hand mine had just commenced.