SUBMARINE AGAINST SUBMARINE
I
It is not improbable that I have given a false impression concerning the
relative merits of the several methods which were developed for fighting
the submarine. Destroyers, patrol boats, subchasers, and mystery ships
all accomplished great things in solving the most baffling problem
presented by the war. The belief is general that the most successful
hunter of the submarine was the destroyer, and, so far as absolute
figures are concerned, this is true. Destroyers, with their depth
charges and their gunfire, sank more U-boats than any other agency. One
type of craft, however, proved a more destructive enemy of the submarine
than even the destroyer. That was a warship of whose achievements in
this direction little has so far been heard. The activities of the
German submarine have completely occupied public attention; and this is
perhaps the reason why few newspaper readers have suspected that there
were other than German and Austrian submarines constantly operating at
sea. Everyone has heard of the U-boats, yet how many have heard anything
of the H-boats, the E-boats, the K-boats, and the L-boats? The H-, E-,
and K-boats were British submarines, and the L-boats were American
submarines. In the destruction of the German under-water craft these
Allied submarines proved more successful than any kind of surface ship.
The Allied destroyers, about 500 in number, sank 34 German submarines
with gunfire and depth charges; auxiliary patrol craft, such as
trawlers, yachts, and the like, about 3,000 in number, sank 31; while
the Allied submarines, which were only about 100 in number, sank 20.
Since, therefore, the Allies had about five times as many destroyers as
submarines at work, it is evident that the record of the latter vessels
surpasses that of the most formidable surface anti-submarine craft.
Thus the war developed the fact that the most deadly enemy of the
submarine is the submarine itself. Underwater warfare is evidently a
disease in which like cures like. In a way this is the most astonishing
lesson of the naval operations. It is particularly interesting, because
it so completely demolishes all the ideas on this subject with which we
entered the war. From that day in history when the submarine made its
first appearance, the one quality which seemed to distinguish it from
all other kinds of warship was that it could not be used to fight
itself. Writers were fond of pointing out that battleship could fight
battleship, that cruiser could fight cruiser, that destroyer could fight
destroyer, but that submarine could not fight submarine. This supposed
quality, which was constantly emphasized, was what seemed to make the
introduction of this strange vessel such a dangerous thing for the
British Empire. For more than a hundred years the under-water boat was a
weapon which was regarded as valuable almost exclusively to the weaker
sea powers. In the course of the nineteenth century this engine of sea
fighting made many spectacular appearances; and significantly it was
always heralded as the one effective way of destroying British
domination at sea.
The inventor of the modern submarine was an undergraduate of Yale named
David Bushnell; his famous _Turtle_, according to the great British
authority, Sir William White, formerly Chief Naval Constructor of the
British navy, contained every fundamental principle of "buoyancy,
stability, and control of depth" which are found in the modern
submarine; "it cannot be claimed," he said in 1905, "that any new
principle of design has been discovered or applied since Bushnell.... He
showed the way to all his successors.... Although alternative methods of
fulfilling essentials have been introduced and practically tested, in
the end Bushnell's plans in substance have been found the best." The
chief inspiration of Bushnell's work was a natural hostility to Great
Britain, which was at that time engaged in war with his own country; his
submarine, invented in 1777, was intended to sink the British warships
which were then anchored off the American coast, break the
communications of Great Britain with her revolting colonies, and in this
way win our liberty. Bushnell did not succeed in this ambitious
enterprise for reasons which it is hardly necessary to set forth in this
place; the fact which I wish to emphasize is that he regarded his
submarine as an agency which would make it possible for the young United
States, a weak naval power, to deprive Great Britain, the dominant sea
power, of its supremacy. His successor, Robert Fulton, was inspired by a
similar ambition. In 1801 Fulton took his _Nautilus_ into the harbour of
Brest, and blew a merchant vessel into a thousand pieces; this dramatic
experiment was intended to convince Napoleon that there was one way in
which he could destroy the British fleet and thus deprive England of her
sea control. Dramatic as this demonstration was, it did not convince
Napoleon of the value of the submarine; Fulton therefore took his ship
to England and exhibited it to William Pitt, who was then Prime
Minister. The great statesman was much impressed, but he did not regard
the submarine as an innovation that should arouse much enthusiasm in
England. "If we adopt this kind of fighting," he said, "it will be the
end of all navies."
Despite his own forebodings, Pitt sent Fulton to St. Vincent, who was
then the First Lord of the Admiralty.
"Pitt is the biggest fool in the world," remarked the head of the
victorious British navy. "Why does he encourage a kind of warfare which
is useless to those who are the masters of the sea, and which, if it
succeeds, will deprive them of this supremacy?"
The reason for St. Vincent's opposition is apparent. He formed the
conception of the submarine which has prevailed almost up to the present
time. In his opinion, a submarine was a vessel which could constantly
remain under the surface, approach great warships unseen and blow them
to pieces at will. This being the case, a nation which possessed two or
three successfully working engines of this kind could apparently wipe
out the entire British fleet. It therefore needed no argument to show
that this was a weapon which was hardly likely to prove useful to the
British navy. If the submarine could fulfil its appointed mission, it
would give the control of the sea to that nation which used it
successfully; but since Great Britain already controlled the sea, the
new type of war craft was superfluous to her. In the hands of a weak
naval power, however, which had everything to gain and nothing to lose,
it might supply the means of overthrowing the British Empire. Could one
submarine destroy another, it would present no particular menace, for
then, in order to control the sea, it would merely be necessary to build
a larger under-water fleet than that of any prospective enemy: but how
could vessels which spent all their time under the water, in the dark,
ever get a chance to come to blows? From these considerations it seemed
apparent to St. Vincent and other British experts of his time that the
best interests of the British Empire would be served, not by developing
the submarine, but by suppressing it. Fulton's biographer intimates that
the British Government offered Fulton a considerable amount of money to
take his submarine back to America and forget about it; and there is a
letter of Fulton's to Lord Granville, saying that "not for L20,000 a
year would I do what you suggest." But there seemed to be no market for
his invention, and Fulton therefore returned to America and subsequently
gave all his time to exploiting the steamboat. On the defensive powers
of the under-water vessel he also expressed the prevailing idea.
"Submarine," he said, "cannot fight submarine."
The man who designed the type of submarine which has become the standard
in all modern navies, John P. Holland, similarly advocated it as the
only means of destroying the British navy. Holland was an American of
Irish origin; he was a member of the Fenian brotherhood, and it was his
idea that his vessel could be used to destroy the British navy, blockade
the British coast, and, as an inevitable consequence, secure freedom for
Ireland. This is the reason why his first successful boat was known as
the _Fenian Ram_, despite the fact that it was not a "ram" at all. And
the point on which Holland always insisted was that the submarine vessel
was a unique vessel in naval warfare, because there was no "answer" to
it. "There is nothing that you can send against it," he gleefully
exclaimed, "not even itself."
Parliamentary debates in the late nineties indicated that British naval
leaders entertained this same idea. In 1900, Viscount Goschen, who was
then the First Lord of the Admiralty, dismissed the submarine as
unworthy of consideration. "The idea of submarine navigation," he said,
"is a morbid one. We need pay no attention to the submarine in naval
warfare. The submarine is the arm of weaker powers." But Mr.
Arnold-Forster, who was himself soon to become a member of the
Admiralty, took exception to these remarks. "If the First Lord," he
said, "had suggested that we should not build submarines because the
problems which control them are not yet solved, I should have hesitated
to combat his argument. But the First Lord has not said so: he has said
that the Admiralty did not care to undertake any project for submarines
because this type of boat could never be anything but the arm of the
feeble. However, if this boat is made practical, the nation which
possesses it will cease to be feeble and become in reality powerful.
More than any other nation do we have reason to fear the submarine. It
is, therefore, not wise to wait with indifference while other nations
work at the solution of this problem without trying to solve it
ourselves." "The question of the best way of meeting submarine attack,"
said Viscount Goschen at another time, "is receiving much consideration.
It is in this direction that practical suggestions would be valuable. It
seems certain that the reply to this weapon must be looked for in other
directions than in building submarine boats ourselves, for it is clear
that one submarine cannot fight another."
This prepossession dominated all professional naval minds in all
countries, until the outbreak of the Great War. Yet the war had lasted
only a few months when the idea was shown to be absurd. Practical
hostilities soon demonstrated, as already said, that not only was the
submarine able to fight another boat of the same type, but that it was
the most effective anti-submarine agency which we possessed--so
effective that the British Admiralty at once began the design of a
special type of hunting submarine having a high under-water speed.
The fact is that the popular mind, in its attitude toward this new type
of craft, is still too much under the spell of Jules Verne. There is
still the disposition to look upon the submarine as an insidious vessel
which spends practically all of its time under the water, stealthily
slinks along, never once betraying its presence, creeps up at will to
its enemy and discharges its torpedo. Yet the description which these
pages have already given of its operations shows the falsity of this
idea. It is important that we should keep constantly in mind the fact
that the submarine is only occasionally a submarine; and that for the
greater part of its career it is a surface boat. In the long journeys
which the German U-boats made from the Heligoland Bight around Scotland
and Ireland to those great hunting grounds which lay in the Atlantic
trade routes, they travelled practically all the time on the surface of
the water. The weary weeks during which they cruised around, looking for
their victims, they also spent almost entirely on the surface. There
were virtually only two circumstances which compelled them to disappear
beneath the waves. The first of these was the occasion on which the
submarine detected a merchant ship; in this case it submerged, for the
success of its attempt to torpedo depended entirely upon its operating
unseen. The second occasion which made it necessary to submerge was when
it spied a destroyer or other dangerous patrolling craft; the submarine,
as has been said, could not fight a vessel of this type with much chance
of success. Thus the ability to submerge was merely a quality that was
utilized only in those crises when the submarine either had to escape a
vessel which was stronger than itself or planned to attack one which was
weaker.
The time taken up by these disappearances amounted to only a fraction of
the total period consumed in a cruise. Yet the fact that the submarine
had to keep itself momentarily ready to make these disappearances is
precisely the reason why it was obliged to spend the larger part of its
time on the surface. The submarine has two sets of engines, one for
surface travel and the other for subsurface travel. An oil-engine
propels it on the top of the water, but this consumes a large amount of
air, and, for this reason, it cannot be used when travelling under the
surface. As soon as the vessel dives, therefore, it changes its motive
power to an electric motor, which makes no inroads on the oxygen needed
for sustaining the life of its crew. But the physical limitation of size
prevents the submarine from carrying large storage batteries, which is
only another way of saying that its cruising radius under the water is
extremely small, not more than fifty or sixty miles. In order to
recharge these batteries and gain motive power for subsurface travel,
the submarine has to come to the surface. Yet the simple fact that the
submarine can accomplish its destructive work only when submerged, and
that it can avoid its enemy only by diving, makes it plain that it must
always hold itself in readiness to submerge on a moment's notice and
remain under water the longest possible time. That is, its storage
batteries must always be kept at their highest efficiency; they must not
be wasted by unnecessary travelling under the water; the submarine, in
other words, must spend all its time on the surface, except those brief
periods when it is attempting to attack a merchant ship or escape an
enemy. Almost the greatest tragedy in the life of a submarine is to meet
a surface enemy, such as a destroyer, when its electric batteries are
exhausted. It cannot submerge, for it can stay submerged only when it is
in motion, unless it is in water shallow enough to permit it to rest on
the bottom. Even though it may have a little electricity, and succeed in
getting under water, it cannot stay there long, for its electric power
will soon be used up, and therefore it is soon faced with the
alternative of coming to the surface and surrendering, or of being
destroyed. The success of the submarine, indeed its very existence,
depends upon the vessel spending the largest possible part of its time
upon the surface, keeping its full supply of electric power constantly
in reserve, so that it may be able to dive at a moment's notice and to
remain under the water for the maximum period.
This purely mechanical limitation explains why the German submarine was
not a submarine in the popularly accepted meaning of that term. Yet the
fact that this vessel remained for the greater part of its existence on
the surface was no particular disadvantage, so long as it was called
upon to contend only with surface vessels. Even with the larger part of
its decks exposed the U-boat was a comparatively small object on the
vast expanse of the sea. I have already made clear the great
disadvantage under which destroyers and other patrolling vessels
laboured in their attempts to "hunt" this type of enemy. A destroyer,
small as it is, was an immensely larger object than the under-water
boat, and the consequence was that the lookout on a submarine,
proceeding along on the surface, could detect the patrolling vessel
long before it could be observed itself. All the submarine had to do,
therefore, whenever the destroyer appeared on the horizon, was to seek
safety under water, remain there until its pursuer had passed out of
sight, and then rise again and resume its operations. Before the
adoption of the convoy system, when the Allied navies were depending
chiefly upon the patrol--that is, sending destroyers and other surface
craft out upon the high seas to hunt for the enemy--the enemy submarines
frequently operated in the same areas as the patrol vessels, and were
only occasionally inconvenienced by having to keep under the water to
conceal their presence. But let us imagine that the destroyer, in
addition to its depth charges, its torpedoes, its guns, and its ability
to ram, had still another quality. Suppose, for a moment, that, like the
submarine, it could steam submerged, put up a periscope which would
reveal everything within the radius of a wide horizon, and that, when it
had picked up an enemy submarine, it could approach rapidly under the
water, and discharge a torpedo. It is evident that such a manoeuvre as
this would have deprived the German of the only advantage which it
possessed over all other war craft--its ability to make itself unseen.
No destroyer can accomplish any such magical feat as this: indeed, there
is only one kind of vessel that can do so, and that is another
submarine. This illustration immediately makes it clear why the Allied
submarine itself was the most destructive enemy of the German submarine.
When Robert Fulton, John P. Holland, and other authorities declared that
the under-water vessel could not fight its own kind, it is evident that
they had not themselves foreseen the ways in which their inventions were
to be used. They regarded their craft as ships that would sail the
larger part of the time under the waves, coming up only occasionally to
get their bearings and to take in a fresh supply of air. It was plain to
these pioneers that vessels which spent practically all their time
submerged could not fight each other, for the sufficient reason that
they could not see each other; a combat under these conditions would
resemble a prize-fight between two blindfolded pugilists. Neither would
such vessels fight upon the surface, for, even though they were supplied
with guns--things which did not figure in the early designs of
submarines--one boat could decline the combat simply by submerging. In
the minds of Fulton and Holland an engagement between such craft would
reduce itself to mutual attempts to ram each other under the water, and
many fanciful pictures of the early days portrayed exciting deep-sea
battles of this kind, in which submarines, looking like mighty sea
monsters, provided with huge glaring headlights, made terrific lunges at
each other. None of the inventors foresaw that, in such battles as would
actually take place, the torpedo would be used, and that the submarine
which was defeated would succumb to one of those same stealthy attacks
which it was constantly meditating against surface craft.
Another point of the highest importance is that in a conflict of
submarine against submarine the Allied boats had one great advantage
over the German. Hans Rose and Valentiner and Moraht and other U-boat
commanders, as already explained, had to spend most of their time on the
surface in order to keep their batteries fully supplied with
electricity, in readiness for the dives that would be necessary when the
Allied destroyers approached. But the Allied submarine commander did not
have to maintain this constant readiness; the reason, it is hardly
necessary to say, is that the Allied submarine had no surface enemies,
for there were no German surface craft operating on the high seas; the
Grand Fleet at Scapa Flow was carefully attending to that very essential
detail. Occasionally, indeed, our submarines were attacked by our own
destroyers, but accidents of this kind, though uncomfortably frequent,
were not numerous enough to interfere with the operation I have in mind.
The statement seems almost like a contradiction in terms, yet it is
entirely true, that, simply because the Allied submarines did not have
to hold themselves constantly ready to submerge, they could in fact
spend a considerable part of their time under the water, for they were
not compelled to economize electric power so strictly. This gave them a
great advantage in hunting the U-boats. British and American submarines
could fully charge their batteries, drop under water and cruise around
with enough speed to maintain a horizontal position at "periscope
depth," that is, a depth just sufficient to enable them to project the
periscope above the water whenever desired. This speed was so very
slow--about one mile an hour--that it could be kept up an entire day
without exhausting the electric batteries.
The net result was this: The German submarine necessarily sailed most of
the time on the surface with its conning-tower and deck exposed, whereas
the Allied submarine when on its hunting grounds, spent all of the
daylight hours under water, with only the periscope visible from time to
time for a few seconds. Just as the German U-boat could "spot" an Allied
destroyer at a great distance without being itself seen, so could the
periscope invariably see the German submarine on the surface long before
this tiny object came within the view of a U-boat conning-tower. Our
submarine commander could remain submerged, sweep the ocean with his
periscope until he had picked up the German enemy; then, still under
water, and almost invariably unseen, he could steal up to a position
within range, and discharge a torpedo into its fragile side. The German
submarine received that same treatment which it was itself administering
to harmless merchantmen; it was torpedoed without warning; inasmuch,
however, as it was itself a belligerent vessel, the proceeding violated
no principle of international law.
II
The Allied submarines, like many other patrol craft, spent much of their
time in those restricted waters which formed the entrances to the
British Isles. Their favourite places were the English Channel, St.
George's Channel, which forms the southern entrance to the Irish Sea,
and the northern passage-way between Scotland and Ireland. At these
points, it may be remembered, the cargo ships could usually be found
sailing singly, either entirely unescorted, or escorted inadequately,
while on their way to join a convoy or to their destinations after the
dispersal of a convoy; these areas were thus almost the only places
where the German submarines had much chance of attacking single vessels.
The territory was divided into squares, each one of which was indicated
by a letter: and the section assigned to each submarine was known as
its "billet." Under ordinary circumstances, the Allied submarine spent
all its time, while patrolling, on its own particular "billet"; only in
case the pursuit of an enemy led it outside the "square" was it
permissible to leave. Allied submarines also hunted the U-boats in the
North Sea on the routes which the latter had to take in coming out or
returning through the passages in the German mine-fields of the
Heligoland Bight, or through the Skager Rack.
As previously explained, in the daytime the Allied submarine remained
under the water, its periscope exposed for a short time every fifteen
minutes or so, sweeping the sea for a distance of many miles. As soon as
darkness set in, the boat usually emerged, began taking in new air and
recharging its batteries, the crew seizing the opportunity to stretch
their legs and catch a welcome glimpse of the external world. The simple
fact that the Allied submarines spent the larger part of their time
under water, while the German spent the larger part of their time on the
surface, gave our boats a great military advantage over the foe, but it
likewise made existence in our submarine service more arduous. Even on
the coldest winter days there could be no artificial heat, for the
precious electricity could not be spared for that purpose, and the
temperature inside the submarine was the temperature of the water in
which it sailed. The close atmosphere, heavily laden also with the smell
of oil from the engines and the odours of cooking, and the necessity of
going for days at a time without a bath or even a wash, added to the
discomfort. The stability of a submerged submarine is by no means
perfect; the vessel is constantly rolling, and a certain number of the
crew, even the experienced men, are frequently seasick. This movement
sometimes made it almost impossible to stay in a bunk and sleep for any
reasonable period; the poor seaman would perhaps doze off, but a lurch
of the vessel would send him sprawling on the deck. One could hardly
write, for it was too cold, or read, for there was little light; and
because of the motion of the vessel, it was difficult to focus one's
eyes on the page. A limited amount of smoking was permitted, but the air
was sometimes so vitiated that only the most vigorous and incessant
puffing could keep a cigarette alight. One of the most annoying things
about the submarine existence is the fact that the air condenses on the
sides as the coldness increases, so that practically everything becomes
wet; as the sailor lies in his bunk this moisture is precipitated upon
him like raindrops. This combination of discomforts usually produced,
after spending a few hours under the surface, that mental state commonly
known as "dopey."
The usual duration of a "cruise" was eight days, and by the end of that
time many of the crew were nearly "all in," and some of them entirely
so. But the physical sufferings were the least discomfiting. Any moment
the boat was likely to hit one of the mines the Germans were always
planting. A danger which was particularly vexatious was that a British
or an American submarine was just about as likely to be attacked by
Allied surface craft as the Germans themselves. At the beginning,
recognition signals were arranged by which it was expected that an
Allied under-water craft, coming to the surface, could make its identity
known to a friendly warship; sometimes these signals succeeded, but more
frequently they failed, and the attacks which British and American
destroyers made upon their own submarines demonstrated that there was no
certainty that such signals would offer any protection. A rather grim
order directed all destroyers and other patrol craft to sink any
submarine on sight, unless there was positive information that a
friendly submarine was operating in the neighbourhood. To a large
extent, therefore, the life of our submarine sailors was the same as
that of the Germans. Our men know how it feels to have a dozen depth
charges explode around them, for not infrequently they have had to
endure this sort of thing from their own comrades. Mistakes of this
sort, even though not very numerous, were so likely to happen at any
time that whenever an Allied submarine saw an Allied destroyer at a
distance, it usually behaved just as a German would have behaved under
the same conditions: it dived precipitately to the safety of deep water.
Our men, that is, did not care to take the risk of a discussion with the
surface craft; it was more prudent to play the part of an enemy. One day
one of the American submarines, lying on the surface, saw an American
destroyer, and, cheered in their loneliness by the sight of such a
friendly vessel, waited for it to approach, making all the
identification signals carefully set down in the books. Instead of a
cordial greeting, however, about twenty rounds of projectiles began
falling about the L-boat, which as hastily as possible dropped to sixty
feet under the surface. In a few minutes depth charges began exploding
around him in profusion, the plates of the vessel shook violently, the
lights went out, and the end seemed near. Making a last effort, the
American submarine rose to the surface, sent up all the recognition
signals the officers could think of, and this time with success. The
destroyer approached, the commander shouting from the bridge:
"Who are you?"
"American submarine _A L-10_."
"Good luck, old man," came a now familiar voice from the bridge. "This
is Bill."
The commander of the destroyer and the commander of the submarine had
been room-mates at Annapolis!
In other ways our submarine force passed through the same experiences as
the Germans. Its adventures shed the utmost light upon this campaign
against merchantmen which the Germans had depended upon to win the war.
The observer at the periscope was constantly spotting huge Allied
merchantmen making their way into port. The great ships sailed on,
entirely oblivious of the periscope and the eye of the British or
American watcher fixed upon them.
"How easy to sink her!" the observer would say to himself. This game in
which the Germans were engaged was a dangerous one, because of Allied
anti-submarine craft; but, when it came to attacking merchant ships, it
was the easiest thing in the world. After a few weeks in a submarine, it
grew upon our men that the wonder was not that the Germans had sunk so
many merchant ships, but that they had sunk so few. Such an experience
emphasized the conviction, which was prevalent in both the British and
American navies, that the Germans were not particularly skilful at the
occupation which seemed to be so congenial to them. Indeed, there are
few things in the world that appear so absolutely helpless as a great
merchant ship when observed through the periscope of an under-water
boat.
Whenever an Allied submarine met its enemy the contest was usually a
short one. The issue, one way or the other, was determined in a few
minutes. On rare occasions there were attempts to ram; almost
invariably, however, it was the torpedo which settled the conflict. If
our boat happened to be on the surface when it sighted the German,
which, however, was very seldom the case, the first manoeuvre was to
dive as quickly and as unostentatiously as possible. If it succeeded in
getting under before the U-boat discovered its presence, it then crept
up, guided only by the periscope, until it had reached a spot that was
within range. The combat, as was the case so frequently in this war, was
one-sided. The enemy submarine seldom knew its assailant was anywhere in
the neighbourhood; a merchant ship, from its relatively high bridge,
could sometimes see the torpedo approach and turn out of its way; but it
was almost impossible to see a wake from the low conning-tower or
periscope of a submarine, and no one except the observer had a glimpse
of the surface. The small size of the submarine was in itself a great
protection; we launched many torpedoes, but only occasionally scored a
hit. The missile would usually pass a few feet ahead or astern, or would
glide over or under the submerged hulk, perhaps a few inches only saving
it from destruction. Once an American torpedo hit its enemy squarely on
the side but failed to explode! If the torpedo once struck and
functioned, however, it was all over in a few seconds. A huge geyser of
water would leap into the air; and the submarine would sometimes rise at
the same time, or parts of it would fly in a dozen directions; then the
waters would gradually subside, leaving a mammoth oil patch, in which
two or three members of the crew might be discovered struggling in the
waves. Most of the men in the doomed vessel never knew what had struck
them.
Thus, early one evening in May, 1918, the _E-35_, a British submarine,
was patrolling its billet in the Atlantic, about two hundred miles west
of Gibraltar. About two or three miles on the port beam a long,
low-lying object was distinguished on the surface; the appearance was
nondescript, but, to the practised eye at the periscope, it quickly took
shape as an enemy submarine. As the sea was rather rough, the _E-35_
dived to forty feet; after a little while it ascended to twenty-six, put
up the periscope, and immediately saw, not far away, a huge enemy
submarine proceeding north at a leisurely pace, never once suspecting
that one of its own kind was on its trail. In order to get within range
and cut the German off, the Britisher dived again to forty feet, went
ahead for twenty minutes with all the speed it could muster, and again
came near enough to the surface to put up its periscope. Now it was
directly astern; still the British submarine was not near enough for a
sure shot, so again it plunged beyond periscope depth, coming up at
intervals during the next hour, each time observing with satisfaction
that it was lessening the distance between itself and its prey. When the
range had been decreased to two hundred and fifty yards, and when the
_E-35_ had succeeded in getting in such a position that it could fire
its torpedo, the missile was launched in the direction of the foe. But
this was only another of the numerous occasions when the shot missed.
Had the German submarine been a surface ship, it would have seen the
wake and probably escaped by flight; but still it sailed nonchalantly on
its way, never suspecting for a moment that a torpedo had missed its
vitals by only a few feet. Soon the _E-35_ crept still closer, and fired
two torpedoes simultaneously from its bow tubes. Both hit at the same
time. Not a glimpse of the German submarine was seen from that moment. A
terrific explosion was heard, a mountain of water rose in the air, then
in a few seconds everything was still. A small patch of oil appeared on
the surface; this gradually expanded in size until it covered a great
area; and then a few German sailors came up and started swimming toward
the British vessel.
We Americans had seven submarines based on Berehaven, Ireland, whose
"billets" were located in the approaches to the Irish Sea. The most
spectacular achievement of any one of our boats was a curious mix-up
with a German submarine, the details of which have never been accurately
ascertained, but the practical outcome of which was indisputably the
sinking of the German boat. After a week's hard work on patrol, the _A
L-2_ was running back to her base on the surface when the lookout
sighted a periscope. The _A L-2_ at once changed her course, the torpedo
was made ready to fire, when the quiet of the summer afternoon was rent
by a terrific roar and explosion. It was quite apparent that something
exceedingly distressing had happened to the German submarine; the
American turned, and made a steep dive, in an attempt to ram the enemy,
but failed. Listening with the hydrophone, the _A L-2_ could hear now
the whirring of propellers, which indicated that the submarine was
attempting to gain surface and having difficulty in doing so, and now
and then the call letters of the German under-water signal set, which
seemed to show that the vessel was in distress and was sending appeals
for aid. According to the Admiralty records, a German submarine
operating in that area never returned to port; so it seems clear enough
that this German was lost. Commander R. C. Grady, who commanded the
American submarine division, believes that the German spotted the
American boat before it was itself seen, that it launched a torpedo,
that this torpedo made an erratic course (a not infrequent trick of a
torpedo) around our ship, returned and hit the vessel from which it
started. There are others who think that there were two German
submarines in the neighbourhood, that one fired at our boat, missed it,
and that its torpedo sped on and struck its mate. Probably the real
facts about the happening will never be explained.
Besides the actual sinkings to their credit, the Allied submarines
accomplished strategic results of the utmost importance. We had reason
to believe that the Germans feared them almost more than any other
agency, unless it was the mine. "We got used to your depth charges,"
said the commander of a captured submarine, "and did not fear them; but
we lived in constant dread of your submarines. We never knew what moment
a torpedo was going to hit us." So greatly did the Germans fear this
attack that they carefully avoided the areas in which the Allied
under-water boats were operating. We soon learned that we could keep any
section free of the Germans which we were able to patrol with our own
submarines. It also soon appeared that the German U-boats would not
fight our subsurface vessels. At first this may seem rather strange;
certainly a combat between two ships of the same kind, size, and
armament would seem to be an equal one; the disinclination of the German
to give battle under such conditions would probably strike the layman
as sheer cowardice. But in this attitude the Germans were undoubtedly
right.
The business of their submarines was not to fight warships; it was
exclusively to destroy merchantmen. The demand made upon the U-boat
commanders was to get "tonnage! tonnage!" Germany could win the war in
only one way: that was by destroying Allied shipping to such an extent
that the Allied sea communications would be cut, and the supplies of men
and munitions and food from the United States shut off. For this
tremendous task Germany had an inadequate number of submarines and
torpedoes. Only by economizing to the utmost extent on these vessels and
these weapons could she entertain any hope of success. Had Germany
possessed an unlimited quantity of submarines and torpedoes, she might
perhaps have profitably expended some of them in warfare on British
"H-boats" and American "L-boats"; or, had there been a certainty of
"getting" an Allied submarine with each torpedo fired, it would have
been justifiable to use these weapons, small as was the supply. The fact
was, however, that the Allies expended many torpedoes for every
submarine sunk; and this was clearly a game which Germany could not
afford to play. Evidently the U-boats had orders to slip under the water
whenever an Allied submarine was seen; at least this was the almost
invariable procedure. Thus the Allied submarines compelled their German
enemies to do the one thing which worked most to their disadvantage:
that is, to keep submerged when in the same area with our submarines;
this not only prevented them from attacking merchantmen, but forced them
to consume their electric power, which, as I have already explained,
greatly diminished their efficiency as attacking ships.
The operations of Allied submarines also greatly diminished the value of
the "cruiser" submarines which Germany began to construct in 1917. These
great subsurface vessels were introduced as an "answer" to the convoy
system. The adoption of the convoy, as I have already explained, made it
ineffective for the Germans to hunt far out at sea. Until the Allies had
put this plan into operation, the relatively small German U-boats could
go two or three hundred miles into the Atlantic and pick off almost at
will the merchant ships, which were then proceeding alone and
unescorted. But now the destroyers went out to a point two or three
hundred miles from the British coast, formed a protecting screen around
the convoy, and escorted the grouped ships into restricted waters. The
result of this was to drive the submarines into these coastal waters;
here again, however, they had their difficulties with destroyers,
subchasers, submarines, and other patrol craft. It will be recalled that
no destroyer escort was provided for the merchant convoys on their way
across the Atlantic; the Allies simply did not have the destroyers for
this purpose. The Germans could not send surface raiders to attack these
convoys in mid-ocean, first, because their surface warships could not
escape from their ports in sufficient numbers to accomplish any decisive
results, and, secondly, because Allied surface warships accompanied
every convoy to protect them against any such attack. There was only one
way in which the Germans could attack the convoys in mid-ocean. A fleet
of great ocean-going submarines, which could keep the sea for two or
three months, might conceivably destroy the whole convoy system at a
blow. The scheme was so obvious that Germany in the summer of 1917 began
building ships of this type. They were about 300 feet long, displaced
about 3,000 tons, carried fuel and supplies enough to maintain
themselves for three or four months from their base, and, besides
torpedoes, had six-inch guns that could outrange a destroyer. By the
time the armistice was signed Germany had built about twenty of these
ships. But they possessed little offensive value against merchantmen.
The Allied submarines and destroyers kept them from operating in the
submarine zone. They are so difficult to manoeuvre that not only could
they not afford to remain in the neighbourhood of our anti-submarine
craft, but they were not successful in attacking merchant vessels. They
never risked torpedoing a convoy, and rarely even a single vessel, but
captured a number by means of their superior gunfire. These huge
"cruiser submarines," which aroused such fear in the civilian mind when
the news of their existence first found its way into print, proved to be
the least harmful of any of the German types.
The Allied submarines accomplished another result of the utmost
importance. They prevented the German U-boats from hunting in groups or
flotillas. All during 1917 and 1918 the popular mind conjured up
frightful pictures of U-boat squadrons, ten or fifteen together, lying
in wait for our merchantmen or troopships. Hardly a passenger crossed
the ocean without seeing a dozen German submarines constantly pursuing
his ship. In a speech which I made to a group of American editors who
visited England in September, 1918, I touched upon this point. "I do not
know," I told these journalists, "how many submarines you gentlemen saw
on the way over here, but if you had the usual experience, you saw a
great many. I have seen many accounts in our papers on this subject. If
you were to believe these accounts, you could only conclude that many
vessels have crossed the ocean with difficulty because submarines were
so thick that they scraped all the paint off the vessels' sides. All of
these accounts are, of course, unofficial. They get into the American
papers in various ways. It is to be regretted that they should be
published and thereby give a false impression. Some time ago I saw a
letter from one of our men who came over here on a ship bound into the
English Channel. This letter was written to his girl. He said that he
intended to take the letter on shore and slip it into a post box so that
the censor should not see it. The censor did see it and it eventually
came to me. This man was evidently intent on impressing on his girl the
dangers through which he had passed. It related that the vessel on which
he had made the voyage had met two or three submarines a day; that two
spies were found on board and hanged; and it said, 'When we arrived off
our port there were no less than eighteen submarines waiting for us. Can
you beat it?'"
Perhaps in the early days of the war the German U-boats did hunt in
flotillas; if so, however, they were compelled to abandon the practice
as soon as the Allied submarines began to operate effectively. I have
already indicated the circumstances which reduced their submarine
operations to a lonely enterprise. In the open sea it was impossible to
tell whether a submarine was a friend or an enemy. We never knew whether
a submarine on the surface was one of our own or a German; as a result,
as already said, we gave orders to attack any under-water boat, unless
we had absolute knowledge that it was a friend. Unquestionably the
Germans had the same instructions. It would therefore be dangerous for
them to attempt to operate in groups, for they would have no way of
knowing that their supposed associate was not an Allied or an American
submarine. Possibly, even after our submarines had become exceedingly
active, the Germans may have attempted to cruise in pairs; one
explanation of the strange adventure of the _A L-2_, as said above, was
that there were two U-boats in the neighbourhood; yet the fact remains
that there is no well-established case on record in which they did so.
This circumstance that they had to operate singly was a strategic point
greatly to our advantage, especially, as I shall describe, when we began
transporting American troops.