THE AMERICAN MINE BARRAGE IN THE NORTH SEA
I
Was there no more satisfactory way of destroying submarines than by
pursuing them with destroyers, sloops, chasers, and other craft in the
open seas? It is hardly surprising that our methods impressed certain of
our critics as tedious and ill-conceived, and that a mere glance at a
small map of the North Sea suggested a far more reasonable solution of
the problem. The bases from which the German submarines found their way
to the great centres of shipping were Ostend and Zeebrugge on the
Belgian coast, Wilhelmshaven and Cuxhaven on the German coast, and the
harbour of Kiel in the Baltic Sea. From all these points the voyage to
the waters that lay west and south of Ireland was a long and difficult
one; in order to reach these hunting grounds the German craft had either
to pass through the Straits of Dover to the south, or through the wide
passage-way of the North Sea that stretched between the Shetland Islands
and Norway, and thence sail around the northern coast of Ireland. We
necessarily had little success in attempting to interfere with the
U-boats while they were making these lengthy open-sea voyages, but
concentrated our efforts on trying to oppose them after they had reached
the critical areas.
[Illustration: THE NORTH SEA BARRAGE
Just how many German submarines were sunk in attempting to get by this
barrage will never be known, for it did its work silently without any
observers. It was probably a contributory cause of the mutiny which
demoralized the German fleet in the autumn of 1918.
Emery Walper Ltd. sc.]
But a casual glance at the map convinced many people that our procedure
was a mistake. And most newspaper readers in those days were giving much
attention to this map. Many periodicals, published in Great Britain and
the United States, were fond of exhibiting to their readers diagrams of
the North Sea; these diagrams contained one heavy black bar drawn across
the Straits of Dover and another drawn across the northern passage from
Scotland to Norway. The accompanying printed matter informed the public
that these pictures illustrated the one effective "answer" to the
submarine. The black bars of printer's ink represented barrages of mines
and nets, which, if they were once laid between the indicated spots,
would blow to pieces any submarine which attempted to force a way
across. Not a single German U-boat could therefore succeed in getting
out of the North Sea. All the trans-Atlantic ships which contained the
food supplies and war materials so essential to Allied success would
thus be able to land on the west coast of England and France; the
submarine menace would automatically disappear and the war on the sea
would be won. Unfortunately, it was not only the pictorial artists
employed on newspapers and magazines who insisted that this was the
royal road to success. Plenty of naval men, in the United States and in
Europe, were constantly advancing the contention, and statesmen in our
own country and in Allied countries were similarly fascinated by this
programme. When I arrived in London, in April, 1917, the great plan of
confining the submarines to their bases was everywhere a lively topic of
discussion. There was not a London club in which the Admiralty was not
denounced for its stupidity in not adopting such a perfectly obvious
plan. The way to destroy a swarm of hornets--such was the favourite
simile--was to annihilate them in their nests, and not to hunt and
attack them, one by one, after they had escaped into the open. What the
situation needed was not a long and wearisome campaign, involving
unlimited new construction to offset the increasing losses of life and
shipping, and altogether too probable defeat in the end, but a swift and
terrible blow which would end the submarine menace overnight.
The naval officers who expressed fears that, under the shipping
conditions prevailing in 1917, such a brilliant performance could not
possibly be carried out in time to avoid defeat, merely gained a
reputation for timidity and lack of resourcefulness. When the First Lord
of the Admiralty, Winston Churchill, in 1915 declared that the British
fleet would "dig the Germans out of their holes like rats," his remarks
did not greatly impress naval strategists, but they certainly sounded a
note which was popular in England. One fact, not generally known at that
time, demonstrated the futility of the whole idea. Most newspaper
critics assumed that the barrage from Dover to Calais was keeping the
submarines out of the Channel. That the destroyers, aircraft, and other
patrols were safely escorting troopships and other vessels across the
Channel was a fact of which the British public was justly proud. Yet it
did not necessarily follow that the submarines could not use the Channel
as a passage-way from their German bases to their operating areas in the
focus of Allied shipping routes. The mines and nets in the Channel, of
which so much was printed in the first three years of the war, did not
offer an effective barrier to the submarines. This was due to various
reasons too complicated for description in a book of this untechnical
nature. The unusually strong tides and rough weather experienced in the
vicinity of the Straits of Dover are well known. As one British officer
expressed it at the time, "our experience in attempting to close the
Strait has involved both blood and tears"--blood because of the men who
were lost in laying the mines and nets, and tears because the arduous
work of weeks would be swept away in a storm of a single night. In
addition, at this stage of the war the British were still experimenting
with mines; they had discovered gradually that the design which they had
used up to that time--the same design which was used in the American
navy--was defective. But the process of developing new mines in wartime
had proved slow and difficult; and the demands of the army on the
munition factories had prevented the Admiralty from obtaining a
sufficient number. The work of the Dover patrols was a glorious one, as
will appear when all of the facts come to public knowledge. But in 1917
this patrol was not preventing the U-boats from slipping through the
Channel. The Straits of Dover, at the point where this so-called barrage
was supposed to have existed, is about twenty miles wide. The
passage-way between Scotland and Norway is 250 miles wide. The water in
the Channel has an average depth of a few fathoms; in the northern
expanse of the North Sea it reaches an average depth of 600 feet. Mining
in such deep waters had never been undertaken or even considered before
by any nation. The English Channel is celebrated for its strong tides
and stormy weather, but it is not the scene of the tempestuous gales
which rage so frequently in the winter months in these northern waters.
If the British navy had not succeeded in constructing an effective mine
barrier across the English Channel, what was the likelihood that success
would crown an effort to build a much greater obstruction in the far
more difficult waters to the north?
The one point which few understood at that time was that the mere
building of the barrage would not in itself prevent the escape of
submarines from the North Sea. Besides building such a barrage, it would
be necessary to protect it with surface vessels. Otherwise German
mine-sweepers could visit the scene, and sweep up enough of the
obstruction to make a hole through which their submarines could pass. It
is evident that, in a barrage extending 250 miles, it would not be
difficult to find some place in which to conduct such sweeping
operations; it is also clear that it would take a considerable number of
patrolling vessels to watch such an extensive barrier and to interfere
with such operations. Moreover, we could not send our mine-layers into
the North Sea without destroyer escort; that is, it would be necessary
to detach a considerable part of our forces to protect these ships while
they were laying their mines. Those responsible for anti-submarine
operations believed that in the spring and summer of 1917 it would have
been unwise to detach these anti-submarine vessels from the area in
which they were performing such indispensable service. The overwhelming
fact was that we needed all the surface craft we could assemble for the
convoy system. The destroyers which we had available for this purpose
were entirely inadequate; to have diverted any of them for other duties
would at that time have meant destruction to the Allied cause. The
object of placing the barrage so far north was to increase the enemy's
difficulty in attempting to sweep a passage through it and facilitate
its defence by our forces. The impossibility of defending a mine barrier
placed too far south was shown by experience in that area of the North
Sea which was known as the "wet triangle." By April, 1917, the British
had laid more than 30,000 mines in the Bight of Heligoland, and were
then increasing these obstructions at the rate of 3,000 mines a month.
Yet this vast explosive field did not prevent the Germans from sending
their submarines to sea. The enemy sweepers were dragging out channels
through the mine-fields almost as rapidly as the British were putting
new fields down; we could not prevent this, because protecting vessels
could not remain so near the German bases without losses from submarine
attacks. Moreover, the Germans also laid mines in the same area in order
to trap the British mine-layers; and these operations resulted in very
considerable losses on each side. These impediments made the egress of a
submarine a difficult and nerve-racking process; it sometimes required
two or three days and the assistance of a dozen or so surface vessels to
get a few submarines through the Heligoland Bight into open waters.
Several were unquestionably destroyed in the operation, yet the activity
of submarines in the Atlantic showed that these mine-fields had by no
means succeeded in proving more than a harassing measure. It was
estimated that the North Sea barrage would require about 400,000 mines,
far more than existed in the world at that time, and far more than all
our manufacturing resources could then produce within a reasonable
period. I have already made the point, and I cannot make it too
frequently, that time is often the essential element in war--and in this
case it was of vital importance. Whether a programme is a wise one or
not depends not only upon the feasibility of the plan itself, but upon
the time and the circumstances in which it is proposed. In the spring
of 1917 the situation which we were facing was that the German
submarines were destroying Allied shipping at the rate of nearly 800,000
tons a month. The one thing which was certain was that, if this
destruction should continue for four or five months, the Allies would be
obliged to surrender unconditionally. The pressing problem was to find
methods that would check these depredations and that would check them in
time. The convoy system was the one naval plan--the point cannot be made
too emphatically--which in April and May of 1917 held forth the
certainty of immediately accomplishing this result. Other methods of
opposing the submarines were developed which magnificently supplemented
the convoy; but the convoy, at least in the spring and summer of 1917,
was the one sure method of salvation for the Allied cause. To have
started the North Sea barrage in the spring and summer of 1917 would
have meant abandoning the convoy system; and this would have been sheer
madness.
Thus in 1917 the North Sea barrage was not an answer to the popular
proposal "to dig the Germans out of their holes like rats." We did not
have a mine which could be laid in such deep waters in sufficient
numbers to have formed any barrier at all; and even if we had possessed
one, the construction of the barrage would have demanded such an
enormous number that they could not have been manufactured in time to
finish the barrage until late in the year 1918. Presently the situation
began to change. The principal fact which made possible this great
enterprise was the invention of an entirely new type of mine. The old
mine consisted of a huge steel globe, filled with high explosive, which
could be fired only by contact. That is, it was necessary for the
surface of a ship, such as a submarine, to strike against the surface of
the mine, and in this way start the mechanism which ignited the
explosive charge. The fact that this immediate contact was essential
enormously increased the difficulty of successfully mining waters that
range in depth from 400 to 900 feet. If the mines were laid anywhere
near the surface, the submarine, merely by diving beneath them, could
avoid all danger; if they were laid any considerable depth, it could
sail with complete safety above them. Thus, if such a mine were to be
used at all, we should have had to plant several layers, one under the
other, down to a depth of about 250 feet, so that the submarine, at
whatever depth it might be sailing, would be likely to strike one of
these obstructions. This required such a large number of mines as to
render the whole project impossible. We Americans may take pride in the
fact that it was an American who invented an entirely new type of mine
and therefore solved this difficulty. In the summer of 1917 Mr. Ralph C.
Browne, an electrical engineer of Salem, Mass., offered a submarine gun
for the consideration of Commander S. P. Fullinwider, U.S.N., who was
then in charge of the mining section of the Bureau of Ordnance. As a
submarine gun this invention did not seem to offer many chances of
success, but Commander Fullinwider realized that it comprised a firing
device of excellent promise. The Bureau of Ordnance, assisted by Mr.
Browne, spent the summer and autumn experimenting with this contrivance
and perfecting it; the English mining officers who had been sent to
America to co-operate with our navy expressed great enthusiasm over it;
and some time about the beginning of August, 1917, the Bureau of
Ordnance came to the conclusion that it was a demonstrated success. The
details of Mr. Browne's invention are too intricate for description in
this place, but its main point is comprehensible enough. Its great
advantage was that it was not necessary for the submarine to strike the
mine in order to produce the desired explosion. The mine could be
located at any depth and from it a long "antenna," a thin copper cable,
reached up to within a few feet of the surface, where it was supported
in that position by a small metal buoy. Any metallic substance, such as
the hull of a submarine, simply by striking this antenna at any point,
would produce an electric current, which, instantaneously transmitted to
the mine, would cause this mine to explode. The great advantage of this
device is at once apparent. Only about one fourth the number of mines
required under the old conditions would now be necessary. The Mining
Section estimated that 100,000 mines would form a barrier that would be
extremely dangerous to submarines passing over it or through it,
whereas, under the old conditions, about 400,000 would have been
required. This implies more than a mere saving in manufacturing
resources; it meant that we should need a proportionately smaller number
of mine-laying ships, crews, officers, bases, and supplies--all those
things which are seldom considered by the amateur in warfare, but which
are as essential to its prosecution as the more spectacular details.
I wish to emphasize the fact that, in laying such a barrage, it was not
our object to make an absolute barrier to the passage of submarines. To
have done this we should have needed such a great number of mines that
the operation would have been impossible. Nor would such an absolute
barrier have been necessary to success; a field that could be depended
upon to destroy one-fourth or one-fifth of the submarines that attempted
the passage would have represented complete success. No enemy could
stand such losses as these; and the _moral_ of no crew could have lasted
long under such conditions.
Another circumstance which made the barrage a feasible enterprise was
that by the last of the year 1917 it was realized that the submarine had
ceased to be a decisive factor in the war. It still remained a serious
embarrassment, and every measure which could possibly thwart it should
be adopted. But the writings of German officers which have been
published since the war make it apparent that they themselves realized
early in 1918 that they would have to place their hopes of victory on
something else besides the submarine. The convoy system and the other
methods of fighting under-water craft which I have already described had
caused a great decrease in sinkings. In April of 1917 the losses were
nearly 900,000 tons; in November of the same year they were less than
300,000 tons.[7] Meanwhile, the construction of merchant shipping,
largely a result of the tremendous expansion of American shipbuilding
facilities, was increasing at a tremendous rate. A diagram of these, the
two essential factors in the submarine campaign, disclosed such a
rapidly rising curve of new shipping, and such a rapidly falling curve
of sinkings, that the time could be easily foreseen when the net amount
of Allied shipping, after the submarines had done their worst, would
show a promising increase. But, as stated above, the submarines were
still a distinct menace; they were still causing serious losses; and it
was therefore very important that we should leave no stone unturned
toward demonstrating beyond a shadow of doubt that warfare as conducted
by these craft could be entirely put down. The more successfully we
demonstrated this fact and the more energetically we prosecuted every
form of opposition, the earlier would the enemy's general _moral_ break
down and victory be assured. In war, where human lives as well as
national interests are at stake, no thought whatever can be given to
expense. It is impossible to place a value on human life. Therefore, on
November 2, 1917, the so-called "Northern Barrage" project was
officially adopted by both the American and the British Governments.
When I say that the proposed mine-field was as long as the distance from
Washington to New York, some idea of its magnitude may be obtained.
Nothing like it had ever been attempted before. The combined operations
involved a mass of detail which the lay mind can hardly comprehend. The
cost--$40,000,000--is perhaps not an astonishing figure in the
statistics of this war, but it gives some conception of the size of the
undertaking.
II
During the two years preceding the war Captain Reginald R. Belknap
commanded the mine-laying squadron of the Atlantic fleet. Although his
force was small, consisting principally of two antiquated warships, the
_Baltimore_ and the _San Francisco_, Captain Belknap had performed his
duties conscientiously and ably, and his little squadron therefore gave
us an excellent foundation on which to build. Before the European War
the business of mine-laying had been unpopular in the American navy as
well as in the British; such an occupation, as Sir Eric Geddes once
said, had been regarded as something like that of "rat catching"; as
hostilities went on, however, and the mine developed great value as an
anti-submarine weapon, this branch of the service began to receive more
respectful attention. Captain Belknap's work not only provided the
nucleus out of which the great American mine force was developed, but he
was chiefly responsible for organizing this force. The "active front" of
our mine-laying squadron was found in the North Sea; but the sources of
supply lay in a dozen shipyards and several hundred manufacturing plants
in the United States.
We began this work with practically nothing; we had to obtain ships and
transform them into mine-layers; to enlist and to train their crews; to
manufacture at least 100,000 mines; to create bases both in the United
States and Scotland; to transport all of our supplies more than 3,000
miles of wintry sea, part of the course lying in the submarine zone; and
we had to do all this before the real business of planting could begin.
The fact that the Navy made contracts for 100,000 of these new mines
before it had had the opportunity of thoroughly testing the design under
service conditions shows the great faith of the Navy Department in this
new invention. More than 500 contractors and sub-contractors, located in
places as far west as the Mississippi River, undertook the work of
filling this huge order. Wire-rope mills, steel factories, foundries,
machine shops, electrical works, and even candy makers, engaged in this
great operation; all had their troubles with labour unions, with the
railroads, and with the weather--that was the terrible winter of
1917-18; but in a few months trainloads of mine cases--great globes of
steel--and other essential parts began to arrive at Norfolk, Virginia.
This port was the place where the mine parts were loaded on ships and
sent abroad. The plant which was ultimately constructed at this point
was able to handle 1,000 mines a day; the industry was not a popular one
in the neighbourhood, particularly after the Halifax explosion had
proved the destructive powers of the materials in which it dealt. In a
few months this establishment had handled 25,000,000 pounds of TNT. The
explosive was melted in steel kettles until it reached about the density
of hasty pudding; with the aid of automatic devices it was then poured
into the mine cases, 300 pounds to a case, and thence moved on a
mechanical conveyor to the end of the pier. Twenty-four cargo vessels,
for the most part taken from the Great Lakes, carried these cargoes to
the western coast of Scotland. Beginning in February, 1918, two or three
of these ships sailed every eight days from Norfolk, armed against
submarines and manned by naval crews. The fact that these vessels were
slow made them an easy prey for the under-water enemy; one indeed was
sunk, with the loss of forty-one men; regrettable as was this mishap, it
represented the only serious loss of the whole expedition.
The other vital points were Newport, Rhode Island, where the six
mine-layers were assembled; and Fort William and Kyle of Lochalsh on the
western coast of Scotland, which were the disembarking points for the
ships transporting the explosives. Captain Belknap's men were very proud
of their mine-layers, and in many details they represented an
improvement over anything which had been hitherto employed in such a
service. At this point I wish to express my very great appreciation of
the loyal and devoted services rendered by Captain Belknap. An organizer
of rare ability, this officer deserves well of the nation for the
conspicuous part which he played in the development of the North Sea
Mine Barrage from start to finish. Originally, these mine-layers had
been coastwise vessels; two of them were the _Bunker Hill_ and the
_Massachusetts_, which for years had been "outside line" boats, running
from New York to Boston; all had dropped the names which had served them
in civil life and were rechristened for the most part with names which
eloquently testified to their American origin--_Canonicus_, _Shawmut_,
_Quinnebaug_, _Housatonic_, _Saranac_, _Roanoke_, _Aroostook_, and
_Canandaigua_. These changes in names were entirely suitable, for by the
time our forces had completed their alterations the ships bore few
resemblances to their former state. The cabins and saloons had been
gutted, leaving the hulls little more than empty shells; three decks for
carrying mines had been installed; on all these decks little railroad
tracks had been built on which the mines could be rolled along the lower
decks to the elevators and along the upper mine deck to the stern and
dropped into the sea. Particularly novel details, something entirely new
in mine-layers, were the elevators, the purpose of which was to bring
the mines rapidly from the lower decks to the launching track. So
rapidly did the work progress, and so well were the crews trained, that
in May, 1918, the first of these ten ships weighed anchor and started
for their destination in Scotland. Already our navy had selected as
bases the ports of Inverness and Invergordon, on Moray Firth, harbours
which were reasonably near the waters in which the mines were to be
laid. From Invergordon the Highland Railway crosses Scotland to
Lochalsh, and from Inverness the Caledonian Canal runs to Fort William.
These two transportation lines--the Highland Railway and the Caledonian
Canal--served as connecting links in our communications. If we wish a
complete picture of our operation, we must call to mind first the
hundreds of factories in all parts of our country, working day and
night, making the numerous parts of these instruments of destruction and
their attendant mechanisms; then hundreds of freight cars carrying them
to the assembling plant at Norfolk, Virginia; then another small army of
workmen at this point mixing their pasty explosive, heating it to a
boiling point, and pouring the concoction into the spherical steel
cases; then other groups of men moving the partially prepared mines to
the docks and loading them on the cargo ships; then these ships quietly
putting to sea, and, after a voyage of ten days or two weeks, as quietly
slipping into the Scottish towns of Fort William and Kyle; then trains
of freight cars and canal boats taking the cargoes across Scotland to
Inverness and Invergordon, where the mines were completed and placed in
the immense storehouses at the bases and loaded on the mine-layers as
the necessity arose. Thus, when the whole organization was once
established on a working basis, we had uninterrupted communications and
a continuous flow of mines from the American factories to the stormy
waters of the North Sea.
The towns in which our officers and men found themselves in late May,
1918, are among the most famous in Scottish history and legend. Almost
every foot of land is associated with memories of Macbeth, Mary Queen of
Scots, Cromwell, and the Pretender. "The national anthem woke me," says
Captain Belknap, describing his first morning at his new Scottish base.
"I arose and looked out. What a glorious sight! Green slopes in all
freshness, radiant with broom and yellow gorse; the rocky shore mirrored
in the Firth, which stretched, smooth and cool, wide away to the east
and south; and, in the distance, snow-capped Ben Wyvis. Lying off the
entrance to Munlochy Bay, we had a view along the sloping shores into
the interior of Black Isle, of noted fertility. Farther out were Avoch,
a whitewashed fishing village, and the ancient town of Fortrose, with
its ruined twelfth-century cathedral. Across the Firth lay Culloden
House, where Bonnie Prince Charlie slept before the battle. Substantial,
but softened in outline by the morning haze, the Royal Burgh of
Inverness covered the banks and heights along the Ness River, gleaming
in the bright sunshine. And how peaceful everywhere! The _Canandaigua_
and the _Sonoma_ lay near by, the _Canonicus_ farther out, but no
movement, no signal, no beat of the engine, no throbbing pumps." The
reception which the natives gave our men was as delightful as the
natural beauty of the location. For miles around the Scots turned out to
make things pleasant for their Yankee guests. The American naval forces
stationed at the mining bases in those two towns numbered about 3,000
officers and men, and the task of providing relaxations, in the heart of
the Highlands, far removed from theatres and moving-picture houses,
would have been a serious one had it not been for the cordial
co-operation of the people. The spirit manifested during our entire stay
was evidenced on the Fourth of July, when all the shops and business
places closed in honour of American Independence Day and the whole
community for miles around joined our sailors in the celebration. The
officers spent such periods of relaxation as were permitted them on the
excellent golf links and tennis courts in the adjoining country; dances
were provided for the men, almost every evening, the Scottish lassies
showing great adaptability in learning the American steps. Amateur
theatricals, in which both the men from the warships and the Scottish
girls took part, cheered many a crew after its return from the
mine-fields. Baseball was introduced for the first time into the country
of William Wallace and Robert Burns. Great crowds gathered to witness
the matches between the several ships; the Scots quickly learned the
fine points and really developed into "fans," while the small boys of
Inverness and Invergordon were soon playing the game with as much
enthusiasm and cleverness as our own youngsters at home. In general, the
behaviour of our men was excellent and made the most favourable
impression.
These two mine-assembly bases at Inverness and Invergordon will ever
remain a monumental tribute to the loyal and energetic devotion to duty
of Captain Orin G. Murfin, U.S. Navy, who designed and built them;
originally the bases were intended to handle 12,000 mines, but in
reality Captain Murfin successfully handled as many as 20,000 at one
time. It was here also that each secret firing device was assembled and
installed, very largely by reserve personnel. As many as 1,200 mines
were assembled in one day, which speaks very eloquently for the
foresight with which Captain Murfin planned his bases.
III
But of course baseball and dancing were not the serious business in
hand; these Americans had come this long distance to do their part in
laying the mighty barrage which was to add one more serious obstacle to
the illegal German submarine campaign. Though the operation was a joint
one of the American and British navies, our part was much the larger.
The proposal was to construct this explosive impediment from the Orkney
Islands to the coast of Norway, in the vicinity of Udsire Light, a
distance of about 230 nautical miles. Of this great area about 150
miles, extending from the Orkneys to 3 degrees east longitude, was the
American field, and the eastern section, which extended fifty nautical
miles to Norway, was taken over by the British. Since an operation of
this magnitude required the supervision of an officer of high rank,
Rear-Admiral Joseph Strauss, who had extended experience in the ordnance
field of the navy, came over in March, 1918, and took command. The
British commander was Rear-Admiral Clinton-Baker, R.N.
The mines were laid in a series of thirteen expeditions, or
"excursions," as our men somewhat cheerfully called them. The ten
mine-layers participated in each "excursion," all ten together laying
about 5,400 mines at every trip. Each trip to the field of action was
practically a duplicate of the others; a description of one will,
therefore, serve for all. After days, and sometimes after weeks of
preparation the squadron, usually on a dark and misty night, showing no
lights or signals, would weigh anchor, slip by the rocky palisades of
Moray Firth, and stealthily creep out to sea. As the ships passed
through the nets and other obstructions and reached open waters, the
speed increased, the gunners took their stations at their batteries, and
suddenly from a dark horizon came a glow of low, rapidly moving vessels;
these were the British destroyers from the Grand Fleet which had been
sent to escort the expedition and protect it from submarines. The
absolute silence of the whole proceeding was impressive; not one of the
destroyers showed a signal or a light; not one of the mine-layers gave
the slightest sign of recognition; all these details had been arranged
in advance, and everything now worked with complete precision. The
swishing of the water on the sides and the slow churning of the
propellers were the only sounds that could possibly betray the ships to
their hidden enemies. After the ships had steamed a few more miles the
dawn began to break; and now a still more inspiring sight met our men. A
squadron of battleships, with scout cruisers and destroyers, suddenly
appeared over the horizon. This fine force likewise swept on, apparently
paying not the slightest attention to our vessels. They steamed steadily
southward, and in an hour or so had entirely disappeared. The observer
would hardly have guessed that this squadron from Admiral Beatty's fleet
at Scapa Flow had anything to do with the American and British
mine-layers. Its business, however, was to establish a wall of steel and
shotted guns between these forces and the German battle fleet at Kiel.
At one time it was believed that the mine forces on the northern barrage
would prove a tempting bait to the German dreadnoughts; and that,
indeed, it might induce the enemy to risk a second general engagement on
the high seas. At any rate, a fleet of converted excursion steamers,
laying mines in the North Sea, could hardly be left exposed to the
attacks of German raiders; our men had the satisfaction of knowing that
while engaged in their engrossing if unenviable task a squadron of
British or American battleships--for Admiral Rodman's forces took their
regular turn in acting as a "screen" in these excursions--was standing a
considerable distance to the south, prepared to make things lively for
any German surface vessels which attempted to interfere with the
operation.
Now in the open seas the ten mine-layers formed in two columns, abreast
of each other and five hundred yards apart, and started for the waters
of the barrage. Twelve destroyers surrounded them, on the lookout for
submarines, for the ships were now in the track of the U-boats bound for
their hunting ground or returning to their home ports. At a flash from
the flagship all slackened speed, and put out their paravanes--those
under-water outrigger affairs which protected the ships from mines; for
it was not at all unlikely that the Germans would place some of their
own mines in this field, for the benefit of the barrage builders. This
operation took only a few minutes; then another flash, and the squadron
again increased its speed. It steamed the distance across the North Sea
to Udsire Light, then turned west again and headed for that mathematical
spot on the ocean which was known as the "start point"--the place, that
is, where the mine-laying was to begin. In carrying out all these
manoeuvres--sighting the light on the Norwegian coast--the commander
was thinking, not only of the present, but of the future; for the time
would come, after the war had ended, when it would be necessary to
remove all these mines, and it was therefore wise to "fix" them as
accurately as possible in reference to landmarks, so as to know where to
look for them. All this time the men were at their stations, examining
the mines to see that everything was ready, testing the laying
mechanisms, and mentally rehearsing their duties. At about four o'clock
an important signal came from the flagship:
"Have everything ready, for the squadron will reach 'start point' in an
hour and mine-laying will begin."
Up to this time the ships were sailing in two columns; when they came
within seven miles of "start point," another signal was broken out; the
ships all wheeled like a company of soldiers, each turning sharply to
the right, so that in a few minutes, instead of two columns, we had
eight ships in line abreast, with the remaining two, also in line
abreast, sailing ahead of them. This splendid array, keeping perfect
position, approached the starting point like a line of racehorses
passing under the wire. Not a ship was off this line by so much as a
quarter length; the whole atmosphere was one of eagerness; the officers
all had their eyes fixed upon the stern of the flagship, for the glimpse
of the red flag which would be the signal to begin. Suddenly the flag
was hauled down, indicating:
"First mine over."
If you had been following one of these ships, you would probably have
been surprised at the apparent simplicity of the task. The vessel was
going at its full speed; at intervals of a few seconds a huge black
object, about five feet high, would be observed gliding toward the
stern; at this point it would pause for a second or two, as though
suspended in air; it would then give a mighty lurch, fall head first
into the water, sending up a great splash, and then sink beneath the
waves. By the time the disturbance was over the ship would have advanced
a considerable distance; then, in a few seconds, another black object
would roll toward the stern, make a similar plunge, and disappear. You
might have followed the same ship for two or three hours, watching these
mines fall overboard at intervals of about fifteen seconds. There were
four planters, each of which could and did on several trips lay about
860 mines in three hours and thirty-five minutes, in a single line about
forty-four miles long. These were the _Canandaigua_, the _Canonicus_,
the _Housatonic_, and the _Roanoke_. Occasionally the monotony of this
procedure would be enlivened by a terrible explosion, a great geyser of
water rising where a mine had only recently disappeared; this meant that
the "egg," as the sailors called it, had gone off spontaneously, without
the assistance of any external contact; such accidents were part of the
game, the records showing that about 4 per cent. of all the mines
indulged in such initial premature explosions. For the most part,
however, nothing happened to disturb the steady mechanical routine. The
mines went over with such regularity that, to an observer, the whole
proceeding seemed hardly the work of human agency. Yet every detail had
been arranged months before in the United States; the mines fell into
the sea in accordance with a time-table which had been prepared in
Newport before the vessels started for Scotland. Every man on the ship
had a particular duty to perform and each performed it in the way in
which he had been schooled under the direction of Captain Belknap.
The spherical mine case, which contains the explosive charge and the
mechanism for igniting it, is only a part of the contrivance. While at
rest on board the ship this case stands upon a box-like affair, about
two feet square, known as the anchor; this anchor sinks to the bottom
after launching and it contains an elaborate arrangement for maintaining
the mine at any desired depth beneath the surface. The bottom of the
"anchor" has four wheels, on which it runs along the little railroad
track on the launching deck to the jumping-off place at the stern. All
along these railroad tracks the mines were stationed one back of
another; as one went overboard, they would all advance a peg, a mine
coming up from below on an elevator to fill up the vacant space at the
end of the procession. It took a crew of hard-working, begrimed, and
sweaty men to keep these mines moving and going over the stern at the
regularly appointed intervals. After three or four hours had been spent
in this way and the ships had started back to their base, the decks
would sometimes be covered with the sleeping figures of these exhausted
men. It would be impossible to speak too appreciatively of the spirit
they displayed; in the whole summer there was not a single mishap of any
importance. The men all felt that they were engaged in a task which had
never been accomplished before, and their exhilaration increased with
almost every mine that was laid. "Nails in the coffin of the Kaiser,"
the men called these grim instruments of vengeance.
IV
I have described one of these thirteen summer excursions, and the
description given could be applied to all the rest. Once or twice the
periscope of a submarine was sighted--without any disastrous
results--but in the main this business of mine-laying was uneventful.
Just what was accomplished the chart makes clear. In the summer and
autumn months of 1918 the American forces laid 56,571 mines and the
British 13,546. The operation was to have been a continuous one; had the
war gone on for two years we should probably have laid several hundred
thousand; Admiral Strauss's forces kept at the thing steadily up to the
time of the armistice; they had become so expert and the barrage was
producing such excellent results that we had plans nearly completed for
building another at the Strait of Otranto, which would have completely
closed the Adriatic Sea. Besides this undertaking the American
mine-layer _Baltimore_ laid a mine-field in the North Irish Channel, the
narrow waters which separate Scotland and Ireland; two German submarines
which soon afterward attempted this passage were blown to pieces, and
after this the mine-field was given a wide berth.
Just what the North Sea barrage accomplished, in the actual destruction
of submarines, will never be definitely known. We have information that
four certainly were destroyed, and in all probability six and possibly
eight; yet these results doubtless measure only a small part of the
German losses. In the majority of cases the Germans had little or no
evidence of sunken submarines. The destroyers, subchasers, and other
patrol boats were usually able to obtain some evidences of injury
inflicted; they could often see their quarry, or the disturbances which
it made on the surface; they could pursue and attack it, and the
resultant oil patches, wreckage, and German prisoners--and sometimes the
recovered submarine itself or its location on the bottom--would tell the
story either of damage or destruction. But the disconcerting thing about
the North Sea barrage, from the viewpoint of the Germans, was that it
could do its work so secretly that no one, friend or enemy, would
necessarily know a thing about it. A German submarine simply left its
home port; attempting to cross the barrage, perhaps at night, it would
strike one of these mines, or its antenna; an explosion would crumple it
up like so much paper; with its crew it would sink to the bottom; and
not a soul, perhaps not even the crew itself, would ever know what had
happened to it. It would in truth be a case of "sinking without a
trace"--though an entirely legitimate one under the rules of warfare.
The German records disclosed anywhere from forty to fifty submarines
sunk which did not appear in the records of the Allies; how these were
destroyed not a soul knows, or ever will know. They simply left their
German ports and were never heard of again. That many of them fell
victims to mines, and some of them to the mines of our barrage, is an
entirely justifiable assumption. That probably even a larger number of
U-boats were injured is also true. A German submarine captain, after the
surrender at Scapa Flow, said that he personally knew of three
submarines, including his own, which had been so badly injured at the
barrage that they had been compelled to limp back to their German ports.
The results other than the sinking of submarines were exceedingly
important in bringing the war to an end. It was the failure of the
submarine campaign which defeated the German hopes and forced their
surrender; and in this defeat the barrage was an important element.
That submarines frequently crossed it is true; there was no expectation,
when the enterprise was started, that it would absolutely shut the
U-boats in the North Sea; but its influence in breaking down the German
_moral_ must have been great. To understand this, just place yourself
for a moment in the position of a submarine crew. The width of this
barrage ranged from fifteen to thirty-five miles; it took from one to
three hours for a submarine to cross this area on the surface and from
two to six hours under the surface. Not every square foot, it is true,
had been mined; there were certain gaps caused by the spontaneous
explosions to which I have referred; but nobody knew where these
openings were, or where a single mine was located. The officers and
crews knew only that at any moment an explosion might send them to
eternity. A strain of this sort is serious enough if it lasts only a few
minutes; imagine being kept in this state of mind anywhere from one to
six hours! Submarine prisoners constantly told us how they dreaded the
mines; going through such a field, I suppose, was about the most
disagreeable experience in this nerve-racking service. Our North Sea
barrage began to show results almost immediately after our first
planting. The German officers evidently kept informed of our progress
and had a general idea of the territory which had been covered. For a
considerable time a passage-way, sixty miles wide, was kept open for the
Grand Fleet just east of the Orkney Islands; the result was that the
submarines, which had hitherto usually skirted the Norwegian coast, now
changed their route, and attempted to slip through the western
passage-way--a course that enabled them to avoid the mine-field. When
the entire distance from the Orkneys to Norway had been mined, however,
it became impossible to "run around the end." The Germans were now
obliged to sail boldly into this explosive field, taking their chances
of hitting a mine. Stories of this barrage were circulated all over
Germany; sailors who had been in contact with it related their
experiences to their fellows; and the result was extremely demoralizing
to the German submarine flotilla. The North Sea barrage was probably a
contributory cause of the mutiny which demoralized the German fleet in
the autumn of 1918.
I think I am therefore justified in saying that this enterprise was a
strong factor in overcoming the submarine menace, though the success of
the convoy system had already brought the end in sight, and had thus
made it practicable to assign, without danger of defeat, the tonnage
necessary to lay the barrage and maintain and augment it as long as
might be necessary. The Germans saw the barrage not only as it was in
the autumn of 1918, but as it would be a few months or a year hence. We
had started a steady stream of mines from hundreds of factories in the
United States to our Scottish bases; these establishments were
constantly increasing production, and there was practically no limit to
their possible output. We had developed a mine-laying organization which
was admittedly better than any that had been hitherto known; and this
branch of the service we could now enlarge indefinitely. In time we
could have planted this area so densely with explosives that it would
have been madness for any submarines even to attempt a passage. To be
sure, the Pentland Firth, between the Orkneys and Scotland, was always
open, and could not be mined on account of its swift tides, but besides
being a dangerous passage at best it was constantly patrolled to make it
still more dangerous.
The loyal devotion to duty and the skilful seamanship which our officers
displayed in this great enterprise were not only thoroughly in keeping
with the highest traditions of the navy, but really established new
standards to guide and inspire those who will follow us. These gallant
officers who actually laid the mines are entitled to the nation's
gratitude, and I take great pleasure in commending the work of Captain
H. V. Butler, commanding the flagship _San Francisco_; Captain J. Harvey
Tomb, commanding the _Aroostook_; Captain A. W. Marshall, commanding the
_Baltimore_; Commander W. H. Reynolds, commanding the _Canandaigua_;
Captain T. L. Johnson, commanding the _Canonicus_; Captain J. W.
Greenslade, commanding the _Housatonic_; Commander D. Pratt Mannix,
commanding the _Quinnebaug_; Captain C. D. Stearns, commanding the
_Roanoke_; Captain Sinclair Gannon, commanding the _Saranac_; and
Captain W. T. Cluverius, commanding the _Shawmut_.
This splendid squadron, of which the flagship was the _San Francisco_,
was organized by Captain R. R. Belknap and, by order of the Secretary
of the Navy, was placed under his direct command; and he was therefore
responsible for all preparations, tactics, general instructions, special
instructions for each mine-laying "excursion," the intricate navigation
required, and in fact all arrangements necessary for the successful
planting of the mines in their assigned positions.
FOOTNOTE:
[7] Complete statistics of shipping losses, new ship construction for
1917 and 1918, will be found in Appendices VIII and IX.