THE NAVY AND THE MINE
They sink, they slink, they seek the boat,
Grisly horns stuck through their skin,
Ready to sink all things that float,
These villain boxes shaped of tin.
The fisher sees the death therein,
But reaches down with his long fling,
And grasps the chain that holds them in,
And draws the fangs they hoped would sting.
_Anon._
The British Navy fights for the great ideals of the people, acting upon
the lines of old and loyal traditions; but, while doing so, it has
encountered the desperate devices of the enemy, who has used the latest
achievements of scientific and mechanical invention in such a manner
as to overthrow many preconceived methods and accepted conventions of
naval warfare. We have already spoken of the submarine. Now we shall
see what the mine is, and how it is dealt with by the Navy and the
services the Navy controls. It has been said, with much truth, that
the essence of war is violence and that moderation in war is futility.
It is also true, as we see, in the cruel operations of Zeppelins and
bomb-dropping aeroplanes, and not less in the attacks of submarines,
as directed by the Germans and their allies, that the non-military
populations suffer the horrors of war in much greater degree than was
the case in the wars even of recent times.
But the Germans, at the very beginning of the war, outraged neutral
sentiment by employing ostensible merchant and passenger vessels,
flying neutral flags, and without giving warning to the neutrals, in
the deadly work of scattering mines indiscriminately in the open sea
on the main lines of trade. They acted in direct contravention of the
rules of war as previously accepted. These disguised mining vessels
had traversed the trade routes as if pursuing peaceful purposes, thus
enjoying the immunities which had always been accorded to innocent
neutral vessels, and yet they had wantonly endangered the lives of all
who traversed the sea, whether neutral or enemy. The Admiralty were
soon able to declare publicly that this mine-laying under a neutral
flag, as well as reconnaissance conducted by trawlers and even by
hospital ships and neutral vessels, had become the ordinary methods
of German naval warfare. The later history of the war shows how far
the Germans were prepared to go in casting off any restraint in their
efforts to do injury to their enemies. They compelled the British
Admiralty to adopt counter-measures.
For years past the Germans had devoted unremitting attention to the
study and practice of mining and the production of very powerful types
of mines. In that respect they were undoubtedly ready. The state of
war between England and Germany began at 11 p.m. on August 4th, 1914,
and on the morning of the next day German mines were being laid on the
east coast of England. The _Königin Luise_, a former Hamburg-Amerika
liner of 2,163 tons, was caught in the act, off the Suffolk coast,
and was sunk by the light cruiser _Amphion_ and the Third Torpedo
Flotilla. On the next day the _Amphion_ herself, the first British
warship destroyed in the war, fell a victim to the mines she had laid.
This disguised mine-layer had initiated a practice, which has since
been many times followed in the war, of throwing mines overboard in the
track of pursuing vessels. It was resorted to by the retreating Germans
in the battle of the Dogger Bank. Here it may be remarked that the
Germans have always claimed the right to subject every consideration to
their necessity to win, though at The Hague Conference of 1907, Baron
Marschall von Bieberstein, the German delegate, said that conscience,
good sense, and the duty imposed by the principles of humanity
would constitute the most effective guarantee against abuse, and he
proclaimed—“_je le dis à haute voix_”—that German naval officers would
always fulfil “in the strictest fashion the duties which emanate from
the unwritten law of humanity and civilisation.”
Any technical description of German mines would be out of place here;
but it may be said that generally they approximate to a spherical
shape, and are provided with projecting “horns,” almost in the shape of
drumsticks, concussion with which is calculated to break a small phial
within, whose contents cause the detonation of the enormous charge of
T.N.T. explosive. Each mine is provided with a sinker, which drops to
the bottom, and is attached to the mine by a cable or sounding-line
paid out by special mechanism to any desired length, whereby the mine
may be kept at the intended depth below the surface. There are other
types of mines, and in particular one of cylindrical form, containing a
prodigious quantity of explosive and capable of the widest destruction.
This has probably been used only in special situations. The ordinary
mines can be laid with great rapidity by a specially fitted mine-layer,
provided with rotary gear, bringing mine after mine along a special
track to the dropping position. The drifting mines which the Germans
at the very beginning of the war set afloat in the main trade route
from America to Liverpool, _viâ_ the North of Ireland, can be laid with
still greater rapidity.
When mine-laying in British waters by surface boats was made extremely
risky, or almost impossible, the Germans resorted to the employment
of submarine mine-layers, one of which was exhibited in the Thames.
Vessels of this class, so far as they are known, probably carry a
maximum of twelve big mines in six shoots or air-locks, the lower mine
in each shoot being released by means of a lever, after which the
other drops into its place, ready to be let go in the same way. The
boat exhibited in London and elsewhere was of a rough, rudimentary
character, indifferently built, and her speed was probably not more
than six or eight knots. Undoubtedly many of the submarine mine-layers
are of better type. They are constantly at work especially on the east
coast of England, and some losses have resulted; but the effect of
their operations is nearly always overcome by the means adopted by the
Navy.
The first measure set on foot by the Admiralty was to organise a
system of search for suspicious craft, and to declare the North Sea
a war area, within which it was dangerous for any vessel to navigate
except through channels indicated by the naval authorities. The Germans
replied with their now famous and futile blockade order of February,
1915. New regulations were issued from time to time regulating
navigation through the British mine-fields, and the result has been, in
association with the patrols, to exercise a very close supervision over
the navigation in home waters. As to distant mining operations of the
enemy, the First Lord of the Admiralty stated, on March 8th, 1917, that
they had been carried very far, and the P. & O. liner _Mongolia_, sunk
off Bombay on June 23rd, 1917, was not the only vessel mined in the
Arabian Sea. From time to time it has been announced that mails for and
from the East and Australia have been lost at sea.
It is an inspiring thing to turn from this picture of mines and the
scattering of them by the enemy to another picture—that of the gallant
and successful manner in which the Navy, and the mine-trawlers and
other vessels embodied in its service and employed in the ceaseless
patrols, have grappled with the deadly menace of the mine. Ever
patrolling the British coasts, ever facing death, often speeding
to the help of vessels mined, torpedoed, or otherwise in distress,
the glorious men who man these craft have inscribed their names in
letters of gold on the roll of British honour and fame at sea. It was
a marvellous thing, this embodiment of the vast mine-sweeping and
patrolling service in the work of the Navy in the war. From all the
coasts fishermen have come, with their trawlers converted from the
craft of winning fish at sea, to the sterner work of bringing up and
destroying the strange harvest of deadly mines which endanger all
life at sea. Many a trawler has been sunk by contact with her fatal
captures; others have been sunk by hostile fire and bombing by enemy
aeroplanes, but never have the brave seamen quailed in the service of
the country and the Allies, and in every port men are to be met whose
craft have been sunk under them, and who have hastened to sea again.
Hundreds of ships, drawn from the mercantile marine and the fisheries,
steam yachts, motor boats, armed launches, and vessels of other
classes, are employed in such dangerous work. They share the trials
of war, wind, and weather with the regular naval patrols. Sir Edward
Carson, when First Lord of the Admiralty, directed attention to the
magnificent work of the mine-trawlers of these patrols. The force
employed at the beginning of the war numbered about 150 small vessels,
but increased to 3,000 or more. The whole nation should understand
what mine-sweepers were doing. “The thousands of men engaged in this
operation are the men who are feeding the whole population of this
country, from morning till night, battling with the elements as well
as the enemy, facing dangers under the sea. A mine-sweeper carries
his life in his hands at every moment, and he does it willingly.”
Later again he expressed his thanks and the thanks of the nation for
the splendid work they had accomplished. Of all the seamen who had
so deservedly earned the gratitude of the country none had had more
arduous and dangerous duties to perform than the gallant fellows in the
patrols.
They have worked in reliefs day and night at sea, though sometimes
driven to port by the fury of the elements, and they brave every kind
of weather. As Admiral Bacon, commanding the Dover Patrol, has said,
with reference to the security with which thousands of merchantmen had
passed through the waters in his control, “no figures could emphasise
more thoroughly the sacrifice made by the personnel of the patrols and
the relative immunity ensured to the commerce of their country.” They
have trawled for mines not only in British but in distant waters. Their
magnificent work under fire, and attacked by bomb-dropping aeroplanes,
at the Dardanelles will never be forgotten.
An American correspondent, Mr. Gordon Brace, who sailed in a
mine-trawler to learn its work, concluded an article in the _New York
Tribune_ in these words:—
I looked at those men who go out day after day; who wear their
lifebelts continuously; who take their tea on the decks while
they peer over the rims of their cups for the death that lurks
in those sombre waters. I thought how fine was their devotion
to their duty; how great a part they are playing in the war—out
there alone, where their deeds are attended with no sounding
of trumpets, where they give to their work the same quality of
bravery as is required of the man in the trenches. And as I
glanced at the inscription over the cabin, which read “England
expects every man to do his duty,” I knew that England would not
be disappointed.
The practical methods by which the Navy and its brave mine-trawlers
conduct their operations are of great interest, but description
cannot go too far. The enemy is certainly well acquainted with all
British methods previous to the war; but mine-sweeping systems do not
stand still, but develop with the progress of armaments generally.
Mine-trawling is developed from the system of trawling for fish, which
before the war had reached a high degree of technical efficiency, and
in the application of that system to their work in the war the men
have attained great proficiency and become extraordinarily successful.
The trawl-net varies in size with the dimensions of the vessel using
it. An average size would be about 100 feet in length, with a spread
of from 80 to 90 feet. The principal features in fishing trawlers are
fore and after frameworks, with fairleaders, a towing-block, a powerful
steam-winch, and towing-warps. A trawler would pay out hundreds of
fathoms of heavy wire warp, the handling of which called for great
skill and dexterity. It was not a very difficult thing to adapt this
method of trawling to the sweeping for mines. The fishing trawler goes
unaided, but in mine-sweeping the trawlers work in pairs, and the
towing-warp is replaced by the sweeping-wire. Two trawlers, steaming
abreast at a certain interval, drag a weighted steel hawser which, upon
striking the mooring of a mine, brings the deadly catch to the surface,
where it is exploded by gunfire from a destroyer or by rifle fire from
an armed trawler or motor boat. The mine-sweepers have encountered
perils and hardships which have never been recorded, and fishing
trawlers pursuing their peaceful occupations have often incurred the
same risks.
Next after the destruction of the enemy’s fighting vessels comes
the destruction of his death-dealing mines, and the mine-trawlers,
confronted with an unparalleled task, attended with extreme peril, have
rendered magnificent service to England and her Allies.