"11th July 1916: Fixed by Terschelling Light. Proceeded towards
Ems." (At this moment "H 5," being bored with the patrol billet
assigned to her, and thirsting for trouble, left her patrol to see
what was going on in Germany.--Author.)
"12th July, 2 A.M.: Dived off Borkum. 10.25 P.M.: dived to avoid
destroyer. 10.50: surface, proceeding east, sighted enemy patrol
vessel, but steamed round her without being seen.
"13th July, 1 A.M.: Sighted Wangeroog and Rote Land Lights. 9.58
P.M.: sighted destroyer about 2 miles N.W. from Aussen Jahde
Lightship.
"14th July, 12.34 A.M.: Dived--several destroyers of G 101
class in sight. Attacked same. 10 A.M.: sighted hostile
submarine--attacked same. Torpedoed submarine with one torpedo
amidship. Surface to look for survivors. Was put down immediately
by destroyer, who opened fire. 10.41: altered course N., and went
to bottom in 18 fathoms. Heard loud explosion. Destroyers sweeping
for us all day.
"During my attack there was just enough sea to make depth-keeping
difficult. I fired two torpedoes, allowing 10 knots speed. One
torpedo hit just before conning tower.
"Previous to this, on the 12th, the periscope had become very stiff
to turn, and would not lower as far as the jumping-wire. During
dark hours I endeavoured to rectify same, but while doing so was
forced to dive, and so lost all the tools and parts of the centre
bush, which left the periscope in the same condition throughout the
trip. While attacking, it took two men besides myself to turn the
periscope. For this reason I did not think it advisable to attack
the destroyers after having sunk the submarine. After torpedoing
submarine, I proceeded four miles north, and lay on the bottom in
18 fathoms. Many vessels were heard in close proximity. Several
explosions, one very heavy one. On one occasion a sweep-wire
scraped the whole length of the boat along the port side, and a
vessel was heard to pass directly overhead.
"I very much regret to report my slight transgression from
orders...."
The Navy, however, takes no cognisance of zeal, if misplaced. There is
a story of a sailor of the Napoleonic wars who took a fort from the
French single-handed. The resultant row with his Commanding Officer,
who had been waiting some hours with all his men drawn up in order to
carry out that identical duty in due military form, caused him to
remark that "He'd never take another fort for them as long as he
lived." The captain of the _Maidstone_, as is the way of the Service,
shielded his subordinate from the wrath of My Lords, who were
naturally aghast at an officer having left his assigned patrol area;
but having taken the responsibility for the fault of his bull-terrier,
he proceeded to lay into him thoroughly himself, while commenting
publicly as follows:--
"Lieutenant Varley is a very able and gallant submarine officer,
and although there is no possible excuse for his having disregarded
his orders and proceeded to the Weser, it is submitted that his
skilful and successful attack on the German submarine, in spite of
a defective periscope, and his subsequent conduct, especially
during the critical time when he was being swept for by destroyers
with explosive sweeps, may be taken into consideration."
It was, however, a year before Lieutenant Varley was decorated for this
action, My Lords deciding that after that interval the example he had
created would be forgotten.
I have mentioned the question of our own boats' experiences of
depth-charges. A few instances of both English and German
anti-submarine strafing may be of interest. At the beginning of the war
the German depth-charge was a thing of contempt, and its English
counterpart was nearly as useless. Submarines were sunk in those days
by what might be called "accidental" methods. The boat either made a
mistake and was then rammed or destroyed by gunfire, or else it met a
mine or ran into nets. Depth-charges were not big enough to be
dangerous, and it was not realised that even a big depth-charge must
explode very close to the boat's hull before actual damage is caused.
Moral effect is, of course, a different thing: there is a case of a
U-boat surrendering as a result of one rivet having been knocked out of
her hull by a comparatively distant explosion. That, of course, is a
matter of personnel; and the depth-charges we used often had a
remarkable effect, although no structural damage whatever had been
caused by them. When our big depth-charges were first supplied, patrol
boats and destroyers carried but few of them and were expected to be
sparing in their use--in fact, they were not supposed to use them
unless a fair chance was seen of an almost direct hit. Later, in 1917,
the supply exceeded the demand--at least the demand on the previous
scale--and anti-submarine vessels were supplied with just as many as
they could comfortably stow on their decks; while orders were issued
that any patch of water in which there was the faintest possibility or
suspicion of a U-boat being present was to be sprinkled with
depth-charges until there was no possibility of anything intact
remaining in range. It is a feature of life in submarines that one
always gives the hunters credit for seeing more than they do see: one
watches a Zeppelin through the periscope--a Zeppelin cruising at
perhaps five miles' range away--and one feels a sort of shrinking and
an inclination to slip down to ninety feet or so for a spell in the
certainty that one's periscope must have been seen. Of course it
hasn't, and it probably won't be. One meets a dark shape at night, and
one does a "crash dive" at once, heaving a sigh of relief as one sees
the gauge show sixty feet. One forgets that a submarine, besides being
a much smaller mark to see at night, keeps in all probability a far
better look-out than any other class of vessel. In the same way, the
explosion of a depth-charge usually sounds closer than it is, and the
submarine officer is inclined to jump to the conclusion that it is
directly aimed at him or at some indication of his wake. As a matter of
fact it is more probably aimed at an oil-patch or a piece of drift-wood
some half-mile off, and the ship dropping it has no real knowledge of
the submarine's proximity at all.
One German U-boat officer stated that in his last five trips he had
heard an average of 150 charges per trip exploded in his vicinity. It
is probable that only a small percentage of these were dropped on clear
knowledge of his presence. Being an officer of good morale this
profusion had not worried him, but with a less experienced captain some
direct results would probably have been gained.
In the notes taken from the conversation of the German officers, the
case of the English boat that met a mine at Amrum Bank is mentioned.
The case provides a good illustration of what a direct hit, even by a
full-sized mine, will _not_ do, when the morale of officers and
men is of the ideal standard, which every submarine service tries to
obtain. (I keep referring to "English boats"; in this case I mean by
that that the captain was Canadian, and most of the rest of the crew
Scotch or Colonial.) The report is written by the captain of the
_Maidstone_.
"Submarine 'H 8' (Lieut.-Commander B. L. Johnson, R.N.R.), when
diving at 60 ft. off Ameland Gat on March 22, 1916, heard a slight
scraping noise forward, which was followed by a violent explosion.
The submarine immediately sank by the bows and struck the bottom at
85 ft. with an inclination of 25° or 30°.... The captain reports
that although it appeared obvious to all that the boat was lost,
the officers and entire crew proceeded to their stations without
any sign of excitement, and all orders were carried out promptly
and correctly. I would submit that such conduct, in the face of
apparent certain death, is an example of which the whole Service
may be proud.
"Motors were put to full speed astern, and Nos. 2 and 3
ballast-tanks were blown--No. 1 being found open to the sea. The
submarine then came to the surface. Fuel was then blown, and after
some temporary repairs had been made, course was shaped for
Terschelling, and then Harwich.
"The damage to 'H 8' is serious, the mine having exploded against
the starboard forward hydroplane. Both forward hydroplanes and the
bow cap are gone; the upper part of the hull in that vicinity as
well as both starboard torpedo-tubes are wrecked. All bulkheads
appear to be strained, but luckily the one near the rear of the
torpedo-tubes, although leaking, did not give way...."
This boat came out of the Bight and back to Harwich at slow speed on
the surface and with a large part of her forward buoyancy destroyed.
The luck that watches over the competent took her back unmolested by
the enemy. There is a case where the run back of a damaged boat was
performed over a yet greater distance through enemy waters.
On the 21st June 1915 submarine "S 1" (Lieut.-Commander Kellett) was
ten miles north of Heligoland. She dived during the day on several
occasions, owing to sighting one Zeppelin, one seaplane, nineteen
trawlers (sweeping in lines), and she also attacked, fired at, and
missed a destroyer. Her port engine then broke down completely. On the
22nd, by Hiorn's Reef Light-vessel, she sighted a Zeppelin and a
Parseval. She worked on engine defects all day while diving.
On the 23rd the starboard engine broke down completely, and she
continued to work on defects. A Zeppelin was in sight nearly all day.
On the 24th she captured the German trawler _Ost_. She put a prize
crew of five hands with Lieutenant Kennedy on board, passed a tow-rope
over, and started back to Yarmouth. On the 25th the trawler's engine
broke down. "S 1's" crew refitted the HP piston, crossheads and
crankhead bearings, and at four knots speed the strange procession
proceeded on out of the Bight. On the 26th they stopped to refit the
trawler's L.P. cylinder (they must have been by this time thoroughly
sick and tired of engines and all to do with them), and proceeded. On
the 27th June they made a triumphant arrival.
There seems to be a special providence that watches over people who
won't admit defeat. I don't know about faith moving mountains, but (I'm
sorry to have to use the word, but my vocabulary is limited) it was
"guts" that brought "H 8" and "S 1" home safely.
Getting back to the question of depth-charges--one may pass over the
little explosive sweep-charges used by the Germans early in the war.
They were more like squibs than anything else. The Zeppelin bombs were
noisy, but burst on the surface only, and so were innocuous to a boat
below 30 or 40 feet depth. Later on, in 1917, the Germans began to use
depth-charges in their destroyers and patrol boats; but these weapons
were not only too light for useful results to be expected from them,
but were also dropped too vaguely and inaccurately for our boats to
have much respect for them.
I will quote some recent cases which refer to the best depth-charges
the enemy produced during the war:--
"Midnight, Oct. 2nd, 1918; 'L 15' (Lieut.-Commander Ward): Vessel,
apparently T.B.D., appeared suddenly on port beam, distant 100
yards. Dived to 60 feet. Vessel passed overhead (turbine engine).
Heard two loud explosions in quick succession."
"7.45 A.M., March 24th, 1918; 'E 44' (Lieut. Venning): Five
battleships (apparently of _Kaiser_ class) and a destroyer
(the latter zigzagging). Turned to attack on surface. The
destroyer turned towards me and fired a white Very's light. His
range was about 2000 and the big ships 4000 yards. All ships then
altered course. 7.50 A.M.: dived at full speed. Hit bottom hard at
64 feet, and proceeded along bottom at full speed. 7.53: one
depth-charge exploded astern. 7.55: another depth-charge exploded
astern. I stopped engines. 8.5 A.M.: went ahead 6 knots. 8.10:
destroyer passed overhead, and the sweep-wire was heard scraping
over the 'jumping wire.' 9.30 A.M.: eased to four knots. Sounds of
propellers died away. Under-water explosions were heard at
intervals till 11 A.M."
If this chance had been given, in such shoal water, to a British
destroyer screen, the submarine would certainly not have been so calm
about it.