THE SUBMARINE THAT FAILED.
Meanwhile our Grand Fleet was watching and waiting for the German Navy
to come out and fight. Our sailors seized many German merchant vessels
on the seas, and those that were in our ports were captured; but the
warships of the enemy were nowhere visible. We soon began to understand
that the Germans did not propose to risk their ships in battle for some
time to come. One of their military writers had recommended that they
should try to reduce our Navy to the strength of their own by means of
submarine[174] and destroyer[175] attacks before coming out to fight. On
the second day after war was declared, we discovered that they had
planned another method of sinking our ships without endangering their
own.
[Illustration: Floating Mine.]
Here is a little picture of what is known as a floating mine. It
consists of a hollow, pear-shaped case, containing an electric battery
and a large amount of gun-cotton, or some other high explosive. This
mine is thrown into the sea, and by means of an iron weight is made to
float three or four feet below the surface. If the mine is struck hard,
it will cant over sixty-five or seventy degrees. Then the mercury in a
little cup would overflow, and by so doing would complete an electric
circuit and explode the gun-cotton. So terrible is the explosive force
of gun-cotton, that it will tear asunder the biggest ship, and either
cripple it or send it to the bottom. Never before has any nation strewn
the open seas with such floating mines, and their use in this way is
against all the laws of war which are observed by civilized nations.
[Illustration: Sweeping up mines in the North Sea.]
The Germans soon discovered that large mine-layers ran a great risk of
being sunk by the guns of our warships, so they employed fishing-boats
and other small craft to lay these deadly engines in the sea. Many of
these ships flew the flag of a neutral Power, and thus pretended that
they were engaged on lawful and peaceful business. The North Sea became
a death-trap, and our Admiralty had to meet the danger by employing a
large number of trawlers to sweep up the mines.
The work is done in the following way. Two trawlers sailing parallel
with each other drag through the sea a steel hawser which is attached to
each of them. The hawser drags the mines along, and they are then picked
up. You can readily understand how dangerous this work is. The trawlers
themselves may strike a mine, and be blown up; or two mines drawn
along by the hawser may collide when they are near to the trawlers, in
which case the same result follows. Many gallant smacksmen have lost
their lives in trying to free the sea from this terrible peril. We ought
to think of them as heroes of the best and highest type. Always remember
that it is more glorious to save life than to destroy it.
On the 6th of August a flotilla of British destroyers, accompanied by
the light cruiser[176] _Amphion_,[177] sighted a German vessel off the
Dutch coast engaged in throwing out floating mines. The _Lance_, a
British destroyer, at once attacked this vessel, and in four shots
destroyed her bridge, tore away her stern, and sank her--all within the
space of six minutes. Some fifty members of the crew were saved by the
British boats. Though the mine-layer was at the bottom of the sea, she
had done her deadly work, and was soon to achieve a victory. As the
_Amphion_ was steaming towards Harwich, and was about thirty miles off
Aldeburgh, she struck one of the mines laid by the sunken ship, and was
instantly blown up. The bow of the ship was shattered, and in less than
twenty minutes she sank, with a loss of 131 lives. The captain, sixteen
officers, and 135 men were saved; but twenty German prisoners confined
in the bow were killed by the explosion of their own mine. Since the
_Amphion_ went down, many peaceful merchant ships and trawlers, both
British and neutral, have been sunk by these mines, as well as two other
British warships.
* * * * *
Here is a section of a submarine, a type of vessel which is now being
used for the first time in warfare. You see that it is shaped like a
rather fat cigar, tapering towards its after or tail end. In the centre
of the top of the hull we see a small conning-tower. At the stern there
is a propeller, and also a series of rudders which enables it to steer
to and fro, or up and down. If you study the picture, you will see what
the interior of a submarine is like. By means of tanks, which can be
filled with water or emptied, the submarine can sink or rise at will.
When she comes near an enemy, she sinks until only a short mast appears
above the surface. This mast is a hollow tube fitted with a lens and
mirrors, so arranged that images of objects outside the boat and above
the surface are thrown on to another mirror, where they are examined by
means of a magnifying glass. This "periscope," as the hollow mast is
called, is the eye of the submarine. It enables her to see when her hull
is beneath the waves. If she sinks altogether, or if the periscope
should be carried away, she is blind and can see nothing.
[Illustration: Section of a Submarine.]
Some submarines have a gun on deck, but their real weapon is the
torpedo. There is a picture of one on page 183. It is really a little
warship in itself, with its own hull, propeller, rudders, engines, and a
mass of gun-cotton in the place of guns. This explosive is stored in the
head of the torpedo, which is provided with a striker-rod of steel. When
this rod hits the target it is forced back and explodes a little charge,
which in its turn explodes the gun-cotton which lies behind it. A
torpedo is fired from a tube, and immediately it strikes the water its
engines begin to work. It then rushes towards its target at the rate of
forty or fifty miles an hour for a distance of three miles or more. By
means of a very remarkable piece of apparatus, it is steered back to its
line of fire if it should be turned out of its course. If the aim is
sure, and the torpedo hits its mark, the gun-cotton explodes with such
terrific force that it will sink or cripple the biggest ship afloat.
On ordinary warships a torpedo can be fired from a tube either above or
below water. The tube can be moved just like a gun, and so a correct aim
can be taken. The tubes of a submarine, however, are all below water,
and they are fixed so that the submarine itself must be moved into the
right position before it can discharge a torpedo with correct aim.
Submarines have been called, with good reason, "the deadliest things
that keep the sea." With only the thin periscope showing above the
waves, they can silently and secretly creep within range of a warship,
and send off a torpedo on its deadly errand. To detect the thin
periscope from the bridge of a warship is not easy, and during the
present war several gallant ships have been taken unawares and sent to
the bottom.
* * * * *
Now let me tell you the story of a submarine that failed.
On the 9th of August a flotilla of German submarines was in the North
Sea. Their narrow gray bodies were furrowing the waves at a speed of
about fifteen knots an hour. On the little deck of each of them stood a
commander, sweeping the horizon through powerful glasses for signs of
the enemy. Down below men were standing by the motors, examining the
gauges, filling the compressed air chambers, and making sure that the
torpedoes were "ship-shape."
Yonder is Submarine U 9. Suddenly her commander closes his glasses with
a snap. He has sighted the funnels of British cruisers, and the hour of
action has arrived. The long-expected signal rings out below, and the
commander leaves the tiny deck and withdraws into the interior through a
hatch, which is carefully closed behind him. He takes his place in the
conning-tower, where, under his hand and eye, is all the apparatus
needed for steering and controlling the boat.
A valve is opened, and air is allowed to escape from the water-ballast
tanks in the bottom of the vessel. Water flows in, and the submarine
sinks until she is running "awash," with the base of the conning-tower
only just clear of the waves. She is now ready to dive. This she must do
before getting within range of the cruisers out yonder. There are
hundreds of keen eyes on the British warships, and even the
conning-tower of a submarine a mile away will be seen. A wheel is
moved, the boat tilts downward slightly at the bows, and in a few
moments the water is swirling round the windows of the conning-tower.
Diving has begun. Down, down she goes. Presently the wheel is moved
again, and the boat returns to an even keel. The only part of her that
now shows above the water is the periscope.
The commander glues his eyes to the mirror which gives him a view of the
sea around. The images of the cruisers grow larger and larger; one of
them, H.M.S. _Birmingham_, is now within range. He moves his boat so
that the torpedo tube at her bow points directly towards the
_Birmingham_. His hand hovers over the switch which will launch a
torpedo on its death-dealing errand. Why risk missing to avoid the
slight danger of discovery? Another five hundred yards, and then----
The fateful moment has come. His hand slightly trembles with excitement
as he prepares to make the trifling movement which may send some
hundreds of men to a watery grave, and a gallant ship, worth more than a
million of money, to the bottom.
[Illustration: This picture gives an excellent view of a torpedo and its
tube on board a destroyer. The tube, you will observe, can be trained
like a gun, and thus a correct aim can be taken.]
[Illustration: This diagram gives a section of a torpedo, which has been
well described as a complete little warship. It has engines to drive it
along; rudders to steer it; a special apparatus to make it return to the
line of fire, if it should swerve; a supply of explosives to damage the
enemy, and apparatus for firing the explosive at the right moment. A
torpedo such as is used in our navy costs £1,000. Warships at anchor
have steel nets around them as a protection against torpedoes. Some
torpedoes, however, are fitted with a pair of powerful wire cutters,
which enable them to pierce the net and strike the ship.]
He presses the button; a flap opens in the tube in the bows; a valve
admits compressed air into the rear end of it, and a shining torpedo
leaps forward towards the quarry.
_Crash!_ The image in the periscope has disappeared, and the submarine
rocks slightly. The periscope has been sighted by a keen eye on the
_Birmingham_, and a superb shot has carried it away. The submarine is
now as blind as the giant after Ulysses had bored into his one eye. The
biter has been bitten. It cannot remain under water, for a touch of the
cruiser's steel bow will be the stroke of doom. If it comes up, a storm
of shell will rage about it. The commander has a choice of perils.
Desperately he decides to come up and endeavour to fire another
torpedo.
The horizontal rudders are set in motion; compressed air is admitted to
the ballast chambers, and some of the water is blown out. The
conning-tower rises above the level of the water; but, before she can
use her sting, all is over. The cruiser's quick-firing guns have been
waiting, and the moment the deck appears a four-inch shell is discharged
at it. The armour at the base of the conning-tower is cleft through as
though it were a biscuit-box. Water rushes in, and a minute later the
ill-fated craft, a marvel of ingenuity, lies on the bottom, twenty
fathoms deep. There it will rust away long after the war in which it
played such a brief part has passed into history.
* * * * *
Such is the story of how H.M.S. _Birmingham_ sank the German submarine U
9. Some accounts tell us that the periscope was not shot away, but that
when the torpedo from the submarine missed its mark, the cruiser made a
rapid turn and drove straight at her, crumpling her to pieces by the
terrible force of its weight and speed. This is the method which our
cruisers usually adopt when attacked by submarines. They steam rapidly
in a zigzag course, so as to disconcert those who are aiming the
torpedo, and, at the first sign of the submarine's presence, charge down
upon her and sink her.
[Illustration: A cruiser ramming a submarine.]
[Footnote 174: See p. 181.]
[Footnote 175: Destroyers are fast warships, smaller than cruisers, and
are meant to act against torpedo boats of the enemy. They also engage in
scouting and patrol work. Some of them have a speed of more than 40
knots, and carry 105 men. All are armed with quick-firing guns and
torpedoes.]
[Footnote 176: War vessels built mainly for speed. They were originally
used for scouting, but nowadays they are little inferior in strength and
gun power to battleships. A battle cruiser is really a battleship with
high speed. The _Lion_, for example, has a tonnage of 26,350 tons, and
steams over 30 miles an hour. She carries eight 13.5-inch guns, and
sixteen 4-inch guns. The _Lion_, the _Tiger_, the _Queen Mary_, and the
_Princess Royal_ are the most powerful battle cruisers in existence.]
[Footnote 177: _Am-fī´on._]