← catalogue

The Story of Our Submarines

by John Graham Bower · English · Gutenberg #40765 · 331,736 chars · public domain (US)

The Project Gutenberg eBook of The Story of Our Submarines
    
This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and
most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions
whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms
of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online
at www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States,
you will have to check the laws of the country where you are located
before using this eBook.

Title: The Story of Our Submarines

Author: John Graham Bower


        
Release date: September 15, 2012 [eBook #40765]
                Most recently updated: October 23, 2024

Language: English

Other information and formats: www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/40765

Credits: E-text prepared by sp1nd and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team (http://www.pgdp.net) from page images generously made available by Internet Archive (http://archive.org)


*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE STORY OF OUR SUBMARINES ***

Note: Images of the original pages are available through
      Internet Archive. See
      http://archive.org/details/storyofoursubmar00bowerich





THE STORY OF OUR SUBMARINES

by

KLAXON

Author of 'H.M.S. ----,' 'On Patrol'







William Blackwood and Sons
Edinburgh and London
MCMXIX

All Rights reserved




THE STORY OF OUR SUBMARINES




I


I

There has naturally been a great deal of ink spilled during the War on
the subject of the U-boat. The British Submarines have worked unseen
and unheard of. Occasionally a few official lines have appeared in the
newspapers about them, but the very nature of the work they have been
doing has precluded any divulging of their activity. With the
permission of the Admiralty I am about to speak now of some of the work
they have done, and to give their own reports describing some of the
many occasions on which they have been in contact with the enemy.

On August 4, 1914, we had in our Submarine Service the following boats:
9 E class, 8 D class, 37 C class, 10 B class.

Of these, the B and C classes were 320 tons submerged displacement, and
were not suitable for the patrol round the mouth of the Bight. The D
and E boats were designed for that purpose, being of 600 and 800 tons
submerged displacement respectively. The B and C classes were used in
the War for local patrols, defence of the coasts and ports, and (as the
War progressed and they became obsolete), for instruction of new
entries of personnel.

Before I get on to the War itself I want to give a short description of
the entry and training of our personnel both before and after the War
began.

In peace time an officer who wished to join the Submarine Service had
first to receive a recommendation from his own Captain. He then had to
produce either a first-class certificate for his Torpedo examination
for Lieutenant, or, if he had not that qualification, a certificate
from the Torpedo-Lieutenant of his ship to the effect that he showed
special zeal in that branch of his duties. If his name was accepted it
was placed at the bottom of the candidates' list, and in due time,
after an interval which varied from year to year, he was appointed to
Fort Blockhouse, the Submarine Depot at Gosport. There the batch of new
officers were medically examined, and (the standard being high) the
unfit were weeded out and returned to their ships.

For the next three months he went through a course of practical
submarine instruction, his training period terminating in examinations
which provided another obstacle, the meshes of which prevented certain
candidates from proceeding further.

The officers of the class were then sent as "third hands" to different
boats to await vacancies as First Lieutenants. After two to four years
as First Lieutenant (the time varied with the number of new boats
built), an officer obtained command of an A boat (of 204 tons), from
which he rose by seniority to larger and more powerful commands.

The men entered in much the same way, being recommended, of first-class
character and of excellent physical standard. They went through a less
comprehensive training course, but had the same weeding-out to undergo,
so that as far as possible the "duds" were got rid of before they had
cost the country much in useless teaching.

In war-time it has not been possible to spare the time for the full
instructional courses, but the courses continued, although much
shortened. The shortage of personnel in the Navy generally cut down the
field from which volunteers were drawn, but in spite of this the
Submarine Service was able to keep up its voluntary entry, and to
continue to retain its standard by drafting back those who were by
nature or capabilities unfit for such work. The submarine sailor is a
picked man, and is the admiration of his officers. There is a Democracy
of Things Real in the boats which is a very fine kind of Democracy.
Both men and officers in a submarine know that each man's life is held
in the hand of any one of them, who by carelessness or ignorance may
make their ship into a common coffin; all ranks live close together,
and when the occasion arises go to their deaths in the same way. The
Fear of Death is a great leveller, and in submarines an officer or a
man's competency for his job is the only real standard by which he is
judged.

In the German Navy, before the War, the Submarine Service had not
received the attention it might have done. There, the submarine officer
did not hold the status in the eyes of his Navy that was held by his
destroyer or battleship brother. Since the accident to U-3 at exercise
practice, also, certain rules for exercise had been introduced, which
precluded practice attacks on target-ships going at high speed, and had
circumscribed the areas (by defining "safe" depths of water) in which
exercises might be carried out. In our Navy it had always been
recognised that risks must be incurred in peace, so as to ensure
greater safety in war. As far back as 1912 our submarines were
practising attacks on destroyers zigzagging at high speed, and were
diving in any waters, and generally reproducing war conditions as far
as possible. While even in 1904 the early boats on manoeuvres were
allowed to dive under surface ships, and destroyers were allowed to use
wire-sweeps against them.

For years before the War a Submarine Defence Committee of officers was
working to find the best antidote to the submarine menace, and
experiments were carried out by the Committee with our own boats. The
result of this was that, on the War coming, both the submarine officers
and those of our Navy whose task it was to deal with the U-boat had
considerable experience to begin on.

The British Submarine Flotillas, as shown in the preceding list,
comprised in 1914 far more small boats than sea-going ones. This was
altered later as the strategy of the War crystallised, but when the War
began it had never been expected that the enemy Fleet would remain so
inactive. The Navy's view had naturally been that the German had not
built such a fine Fleet if he wasn't going to use it, and so the
majority of our boats, instead of being designed for "Over There" work,
were designed for "half-way over." And very good boats the C boats
were, too. If the expected War of Movement had taken place, with a
North Sea dotted with racing cruisers, and ships of both sides looking
for a fight, every boat in our service would have been in the thick of
the trouble. As it was, the course of events very soon showed that the
ring round the Heligoland Bight--the blockading patrol--was to be the
chief station of our submarines in Home waters.

Both belligerents began to design and build at once. The German went
straight ahead on the one type, which, with variations, has served him
throughout the War--viz., the commerce-destroying medium-sized patrol
boat. To this type he later added the mine-laying submarine, and
towards the end of the War he evolved the large, commerce-destroying
cruiser boat.

Now, both before and during the War, we held a lead over our enemy in
the matter of submarine design. That statement is confirmed by the data
given by the U-boats arriving at Harwich as I write. Some time ago the
British Navy prepared an antidote to a design of submarine which it was
thought the enemy must, by logical reasoning, soon produce as being the
obvious thing for him to think of. Our antidote has not yet had a
chance to be used, as it was only recently that the German designers
got to that stage in their reasoning.

But what did we build? Well, we did not want commerce destroyers at
least; such work as the cutting of the Turkish communications in the
Sea of Marmora and the sinking of transports in the Baltic could be
done by our ordinary E boats. But we did want mine-layers, and we built
those. What else? Well, I must branch off into a dissertation on
submarines generally.

A submarine may be any kind of surface vessel, with the advantage added
to her of being able to dive. She need not necessarily be a diving boat
with a few torpedo tubes and a couple of guns. She may be anything. A
surface ship can only be one thing; you cannot have a cruiser-monitor
or a destroyer-battleship. But a submarine may be two things at once;
and a submarine can, as a result, act unsupported. Take the case of a
scouting submarine. What is the alternative? If we had no scouting
submarines we would have had to keep a ring of destroyers out to watch
the Bight. Those destroyers might, being out near the enemy's coast, be
attacked by enemy cruisers, so that it would be essential to keep our
cruisers out in support. Then if the enemy brought out--and so on--up
to the final result of our battle fleet being continuously at sea,
which would have been not only unnecessary wear and tear on the big
ships, but a good opportunity for the U-boats if they had cared to take
a chance. Take the case of the submarine mine-layer. She has the great
advantage, to begin with, of not only getting to her position unseen,
but of being able to lay her unpleasant cargo down unsuspected and
unobserved. Then, again, she does not need a supporting force to follow
her in case she meets with trouble. She does not look on a big enemy
ship as a trouble, should one interfere with her; she would rather
describe the big ship as a "gift." She is open to the usual
anti-submarine methods, and can be dealt with by destroyers, seaplanes,
and so on; but if she succumbs to their attacks--well, that is another
submarine gone, but it might have been a big surface ship.

By the nature of the German strategy our lines of design were
indicated. The chief type we needed were scouts--in other words, patrol
boats. We built these in considerable numbers, for the several types of
patrol boats we diverged into were capable of doing any of several
things. They could do the Heligoland Bight patrol, attacking the enemy
if met with, and reporting to the C.-in-C. what they saw on their
patrols; they could go out into the Atlantic to hunt U-boats on the
traffic lanes, or they could go to the Mediterranean to work in the
Adriatic. They were the general-utility craft of the Submarine Navy.

The mine-layers were of the patrol boat type, getting larger as the War
went on, but always with the torpedo-tubes (reduced in number) built
into them to allow them to become normal submarines when a chance
arose.

In the early part of the War there were some additions to the Submarine
Flotillas in the shape of V-W and F boats of 500 submerged tonnage.
These were experiments by the Admiralty in building boats of foreign
design, drawings being used of the Laurenti and Fiat firms. After these
boats had been tried and their best points copied into our own designs,
the standard British ideas were reverted to for war construction. The
building of these boats served its purpose in giving us an insight into
the lines upon which other nations were working, but foreign designs
were not continued owing to the better performances of our own boats.

The G and J class were patrol boats--the G's being of 975 ton submerged
displacement, and so larger and with more beam than the E boats; the
J's were 19-knot boats of 1820 tons submerged, and marked a great
advance in the big-submarine type. The year 1915 gave us the addition
of a number of E class, while the G's began to join up with the
Flotillas in November of that year. The first J boat commissioned in
the spring of 1916.

The H class were small patrol boats of American design--a design later
enlarged and improved in England. The L boats were enlarged and
improved E's, and are probably the finest patrol submarines in
existence.

The 4th August 1916 saw the commissioning of a boat which was a
revolution in submarine design. This was the first K boat. This class
was designed for the expected Fleet action; their qualities were to
be--that they should have several knots in hand over the speed of the
Battle Fleet, that they should be seaworthy and able to cruise with the
Fleet, and that they should have the necessary submarine qualities to
enable them to deal with the High Sea Fleet when it should be met.
These qualities they have; but it is regretted that the enemy gave them
no chance of trying their luck in action. They were used on patrol to
keep them from getting stale during the long wait for their "Day," and
their experiences on patrol, and when at sea on the periodic occasions
when the Fleet went hurrying out in reply to reported enemy activity,
have given invaluable data for future construction of large and fast
submarines. These boats are of 1880 tons (surface) and 2550 tons
(submerged) displacement. They have a speed of slightly over 24 knots
on the surface, can carry a good gun battery if required, and their
hulls being low and well stream-lined, and their torpedo armament
powerful, they can act both as destroyers by night or as submarines by
day.

These boats have a battery capacity sufficient for a day's Fleet
battle, but no more. They may be described as having great _strategic_
speed and capacity, but small tactical radius: that is, they can get
to the place where they are wanted quickly, but are circumscribed in
their capabilities of remaining submerged in that spot for long, or of
moving fast submerged for more than one attack without rising to
recharge their batteries. In submarine design as well as in that of
surface ships, you can't have everything; each type is a compromise.

At the other end of the scale we built the R boat. These were also
"specialists," but of opposite qualities. Of 500 tons (submerged) they
have a surface speed of about 8 knots, but a submerged speed of
14-1/2--a speed which will probably be slightly increased by
alterations. These boats only joined up in the summer of 1918, and the
enemy surrendered before they had really shown what they could do. A
boat of this type (they are perfectly stream-lined, and, inside, they
are all battery and torpedo tubes) can jog out to her assigned area at
her leisure--it is no use sending her to cut off or meet a definitely
reported enemy, as she wouldn't get there in time--and once in that
area she can use her diving batteries for days without having to
recharge them, should she be kept down by enemy hunters, and her high
submerged speed and radius make her very dangerous to any target
(U-boat or otherwise) which passes within periscope range of her.

There remains the submarine monitor, which will be described in due
course. I will interpolate here an account of a typical trial of a new
boat, using an E boat of the early 1916 vintage as an illustration.


II

The boat I would use as an illustration was in 1915 very new indeed.
She was just a standard E boat, with war-taught improvements and
additions, and with a war-taught complement of officers and a
half-taught complement of men. For a month the men had been given a
queer but useful course of instruction by being taken by their First
Lieutenant at "Diving Stations," in a disused shed in the building
firm's premises. On the walls and floor names and rough sketches of
most of the important valves and wheels of the boat herself had been
chalked, and though the men laughed and swore at the make-believe, they
had learnt a good deal of their drill and the probable sequence of
diving orders, without the work of the builders of the E boat being
interfered with. Except in the dinner hour, or during the infrequent
holidays, no drill could be carried out aboard owing to the crowds of
men working there. Overtime had been continuously worked, and nothing
could be allowed to interfere with the firm's sacred "date"--the day on
which the Admiralty had been promised delivery.

The day dawned clear and fine, with no wind and every promise of calm
spring weather. At six o'clock the submarine's whistle blew shrilly,
and a few tardy passengers approaching from the direction of the yard
gates broke into a run. As they climbed the iron rungs up to the low
grey-painted bridge, the gangway by which they had boarded was lifted
clear into the air and swung away to the basin-side by a hissing,
clattering, 10-ton crane, and at an order from the boat's Captain the
securing wires and hemp hawsers splashed into the oily still water. The
telegraph clanged decisively, and to an answering whirr and boil under
her stern the boat moved slowly ahead towards the open basin entrance.
She increased speed as she neared the narrow passage, and the whirling
eddies of a flooding tide outside came in view. As her stem came out
into the river she took a sharp sheer up-stream, then came quickly
round towards the open sea as the twenty degrees of helm that she was
carrying took effect on her. Little puffs of white and brown smoke
began to show round her stern as the engines were clutched in and
started, and in five minutes she was heading down-river at a fair
twelve knots, with the low sun glancing from her round hull and
lighting the queer mixture of Futurist painting that covered her.

She carried a matter of eleven people on her bridge--a bridge designed
to accommodate, perhaps, four or five. Her fighting complement was
thirty-one all told, but at this moment she held over fifty. Needless
to say, it was the passengers who seemed to take up most room. They
comprised overseers, foremen, chargemen, a manager or two, about a
dozen caulkers and engineers, and a pilot. In addition she carried an
overseer of overseers--a Commander from the submarine Commodore's
staff. He was present as schoolmaster, judge, and as friend to the
Captain of the boat, and his job was one the Captain of the boat was
not in the least envious of. The Captain knew that his crew were only
partially trained, that he himself was new to E boats, and that the
boat might not be all he hoped to find her in the way of reliability
and hull-strength, but he felt that at any rate he knew more or less
what the personnel, including himself, were like, while the Inspecting
Commander must be, or ought to be, the most nervous man in submarines,
with his job of travelling from trial to trial, unbroken by a chance of
a trip in a fully-tested boat with a fully-trained crew.

As they swung round the last river-buoy and saw the outer lightship
draw clear of the land, a destroyer overtook them, and passed on ahead
to lead them to sea. The boat was going thirty miles out to get deep
water for her hull-test, and it was not safe for a British boat to be
that distance, or even a third of that distance, from the mouth of a
British harbour unescorted, unless she was there on her war business.
This was not because of the enemy--far from it; it was to save her from
the enthusiastic but misguided attentions of the multitudes of
"Fritz-hunters" who drew no distinction between submarines of their own
or the enemy's flag. As she neared the light-vessel, the submarine
increased speed and some of the "yarning-party" on the bridge departed
below down the conning-tower. The programme included a full-speed
surface-trial which was to start from the lightship and finish at the
diving-ground, and for the next two hours the engineers and
engine-overseers were to be the only busy passengers. From the
engine-room bulkhead to the bows, the crew and officers moved to and
fro--testing, instructing, and, it should be added, grumbling
continuously, for the multitude of passengers were a considerable
handicap in the way of an efficient and (the great ideal) an unexciting
and placid diving-trial.

The inside of the boat was incredibly dirty from a naval point of view.
She had not been built at one of these yards where no workman can live
without a quid of tobacco in his cheek (in fact by the trials standard
of some yards she was clean), but it was obvious that she would take a
good month's scrubbing and polishing before she was, in her officers'
estimation, even sanitary.

At ten o'clock an order came from on deck, and a couple of sailors
ascended the conning-tower carrying a few rounds of 12-pounder
ammunition. The trials she was to do were to be complete and to
everybody's satisfaction, and the building firm, being a firm which
would sooner see their work over- than under-tested, had suggested a
few rounds from the bow-gun before the dive, with the idea that if the
gun-mounting was going to cause leaks through to the hull as a result
of recoil, it should be given the chance to do it now instead of later
when the boat was in enemy waters. A biscuit-tin was dropped, the boat
circled round, and at a range of a hundred yards the gunlayer proceeded
to miss the box completely. However, the shooting did not matter--the
gun had recoiled a few times and that was all that was required. The
fact of the gunlayer finding later that he had shipped the sights of
the H.A. gun on to his bow-gun before practice, was a merely trifling
incident among the errors that one might expect to occur on trials.

At eleven o'clock the destroyer, which had been jogging along a few
cables ahead, circled round and slowed up. The Submarine Captain rang
"Slow" on his telegraph, smiled encouragingly at the civilians who
still remained on the bridge, and made a pointing gesture with his
thumb at the open conning-tower lid. The civilians, with a nervous
straightening of bowler hats and several lingering looks at the sunlit
sea and sky, clambered slowly below, and the Captain remained watching
the whirling arms of the semaphore on the destroyer's bridge. He
dictated a reply to his signalman, then rang down "Stop," and, leaving
the lid open, descended to see what order his First Lieutenant was
producing out of the crowded chaos below.

From the foot of the conning-tower ladder he could see nothing but a
mass of humanity, mostly civilian, through which his uniformed crew
moved apologetically and bent double. He moved forward into the crowd
and assisted his officers in their efforts to station the passengers in
positions where they would be as much out of the way as possible, and
would at the same time be comfortable enough to lose their desire to
move about. At the end of five minutes comparative peace reigned, and
the crew were standing at their stations looking at their officers for
orders across a new deck of caps and tilted bowler hats.

The Captain took a sweeping glance fore and aft, then ascended the
conning-tower. He ordered the signalman below, looked across at the
destroyer through his glasses, and then descended, closing and locking
the lid above his head. As he re-entered the boat, he caught the eye of
the First Lieutenant. "Flood one, two, five, six, seven, and eight," he
ordered. "Slow ahead both--keep her level." The vent valves indicated
their opening with a snort and a roar of air, and the rush and gurgle
of flooding tanks cut off the chatter of the passengers, as the clang
of a closing breech-block brings silence to a gun's crew. A few seconds
later the Captain spoke again. "Flood three and four--take her down."
Each order was repeated by the First Lieutenant--an officer whose eyes
seemed to note the doings of every man in the boat at once. As the
Captain moved to the diving-gauge by the periscope to watch for the
first slow movement of the long black needle, the First Lieutenant's
hand shot out and gripped the neck of a seaman by the starboard pump,
and he spoke in a voice of concentrated, hissing rage. "_That's_ the
main line, you fool! Close it, quick, and don't you dare touch it till
I tell you!"

The gauge-needle quivered and began to rise. At eight feet the Captain
stepped back, and, taking the periscope training-handles, began to look
into the rubber-padded eye-piece, "Check at twenty feet," he said.
"Take the angle off now, coxswain." "Twenty feet, sir, horizontal." The
coxswain sat on a low heavy music-stool facing another white-faced
diving-gauge, his big brass hydroplane wheel moving a turn or two each
way under his hand. "Pump on Z internal--_don't_ start till I tell
you." The Captain was watching the hydroplane helm indicators beside
him, which showed, by the amount of "rise" helm they were carrying,
that the boat had a touch of negative buoyancy.

"All ready the pump, sir!"

"Start the pump--keep her _up_, coxswain."

"Coming up, sir--horizontal, sir."

"Stop the pump--close main line--close Z internal."

On an even keel the E boat ploughed along--her periscope top four feet
above the surface, and the periscope-wake bubbling and foaming on the
perfectly smooth sea. The watcher in the following destroyer saw the
wake die down till it was a barely visible ripple, as--her trim
correct--the Captain eased the boat's speed down to less than two
knots. Then the shining periscope began to disappear, slowly reducing
in height as the planes took the boat down for her deep hull test.

Inside her hull there was silence except for an occasional whisper from
one seated civilian to his neighbour. The gauge-needles crept slowly
round, and as the depth increased the little spot of daylight thrown by
the periscope eye-piece on to the pump-starter abreast of it changed
from yellow to green of ever-darkening shades till the last link with
the sun above them died away.

At ninety feet the Captain spoke again, and the hydroplane-wheels spun
as her downward way was checked. "Keep her at that," he said. "Mr
Ramage, will you send your men round now? We'll mark leaks before we go
further."

The foreman addressed rose from his seat and called to his half-dozen
caulkers sitting at hand. The boat dived easily on while the men passed
fore and aft painting red dabs on rivets and seams overhead where
trickles of water spoke of red-lead or packing which was not yet "set"
or in condition to face the pressures of active service. Their tour
over, the party settled back to their stations, and at a nod and
gesture from the Captain the hydroplane men tilted the bow slightly
down again for further descent. At a hundred and twenty feet the order
came for the motors to stop, and with failing headway the boat sank
gently down. One or two men (naval as well as civilian) reached out a
hand to grasp for support as they stood, for the moment before touching
bottom is always one of slight uncertainty; for, however reliable the
chart, it is yet possible to bounce roughly on these occasions on such
unexpected obstacles as isolated rocks or even wrecks. But there was no
need for bracing against the unexpected to-day. The boat touched and
slid on to a standstill so gently and imperceptibly that her Captain
watched the gauge for at least thirty seconds after she had landed,
with the suspicion that she might be only "statically trimmed" and that
she had a fathom or two farther yet to fall. Then he spoke--"Flood
A--hydroplanes amidships."

There came a bubbling roar from the vent of A, well forward, and then
the clang of a heavy "water-hammer" in the pipe as the tank filled. The
boat lay now as he intended her to do, bedded with negative buoyancy
and with her bows well down, so that her screws and rudder were clear
of the oozy mud in which she lay. "Carry on--all hands--and look for
leaks."

The caulkers did not linger over the task. They did not (and small
blame to them, for they were not case-hardened to the situation) relish
the idea of staying longer than was necessary at a hundred and
thirty-six feet by gauge and with a pressure of sixty pounds to the
square inch trying to force the round steel hull inwards on itself. In
a quarter of an hour they reported "All leaks located and marked."

But their ordeal was not yet over. The gloomy-eyed First Lieutenant (a
pessimist, as all First Lieutenants should be) had found a new leak
right aft, and the Captain was called into consultation over it. For
ten minutes more the two officers conversed and searched, then came
leisurely forward again. "That's all right, I think," said the Captain
cheerfully. "Anybody want to look round any more? I can stay down here
while they do--there's no hurry, you know."

There was an enthusiastic chorus from a group of overseers and
officials--"Not at all, not at _all_, we're _quite_ satisfied--quite...."
The Commander, who throughout the dive had sat unmoving by the
periscope, notebook in hand and his eyes half closed, allowed
himself a faint smile and a lazy yawn.

"Blow on A--fifty pounds--Blow one and two externals."

The air hissed and whined along the pipes, and the eardrums of those
aboard tingled to the rising pressure from overloaded relief valves.
For five minutes the hissing and roaring continued, then at a shouted
order the noise stopped. The First Lieutenant looked back from the
motionless gauge to the Captain. "Shall we put more on A, sir? Fifty
pounds won't have moved any out at this depth...."

"No--don't put any more on, I've got One and Two pretty near out and
the fifty will blow A as she rises. Then I'm going to fill One and Two
again and catch the trim before we break surface. She's stuck in the
mud, that's all, and we'll have to pull her out. Stand by the motors,
aft there!"

The passengers were fidgeting slightly, and the Commander, noting
the fidgeting, looked up and spoke, laughing, to the youthful
Captain--_apropos_ of absolutely nothing at all. The Captain laughed
back (for publication and as a guarantee of good faith) and turned to
the motor-room voice-pipe: "Slow ahead Port--half ahead Starboard"--a
pause filled by a dry humming from right aft where the big motors
purred. "Stop both--slow ahead Starboard--half astern Port"--another
droning pause, and then--"Stop Starboard--half astern Starboard." The
boat quivered, then with a lurch she pulled free and her bows rose
sharply. "Stop both--half ahead both--flood One and Two--flood
A--_Dammit_--hard-a-dive, coxswain."

The angle increased fast, faster than the forward tanks could fill, and
the boat rushed upwards with chests, men, and other loose impediments
sliding and slipping aft. At eighty feet she began to level slightly,
but the angle could not be taken off her in time,--the destroyer men
had a vision of a grey conning-tower foaming ahead for a few seconds,
surmounted by fifteen feet of silver periscope, before, to the drive of
her powerful screws, the boat dipped again till only the tops of the
hooded lenses showed as she settled at her diving depth.

"_Rotten_," observed the Captain gloomily to the First Lieutenant.
"I mustn't break surface like that when we get to the Bight, or we all
go West one-time,--I think that'll do for the dive, though. She'll be
tight as a drum when the firm's had another day or two at her. We'll do
the helm and speed trials now and then go in. Hands by the blows!
_Surface!_"


III

The Submarine Flotillas began to move to their war bases on the 29th
July. By the 4th August they were ready to begin their work. The VIII
Flotilla ("D" and "E" boats) were at Harwich, a port which throughout
the War has remained the chief Heligoland Bight Patrol base. The "C"
boats were spread all up the East Coast, with a Channel guard at Dover
and a large number of them at Leith.

The Heligoland Patrol started on the 5th. The boats of the VIII
Flotilla not patrolling in the Bight guarded, till the 13th August, a
line drawn across the northern entrance of the Channel (between the
Belgian and English shoals) till the Expeditionary Force was safely
over. During the passage of this force it was fully expected that the
enemy would show naval activity and make an attempt to hinder or
prevent the passage of troops. Precautionary measures were therefore
taken. That the enemy made no attempt to interfere or to dispute the
command of the Channel was a surprise to our War Staff, who based their
calculations on what an enterprising Naval Power would do in similar
circumstances. A possible reason for the enemy's sluggishness at this
time is that he does not appear to have at all expected to be at war
with England.

    "From Commodore (S),
    To Chief of War Staff, Admiralty.
    _7th August 1914_ (Midnight).

    "Propose to postpone oversea operations from Yarmouth, and to
    concentrate all submarines in area arranged until after transit of
    Expeditionary Force. How many days will passage occupy?"

On the 14th the patrol in the Bight continued.

The following despatch is a typical report of an E boat's trip into the
Bight during these early days of war:--

    H.M. SUBMARINE "E 6,"
    _15th August 1914_.

    SIR,--I have the honour to submit a report of the proceedings of
    Submarine "E 6" on August 6th and 7th, when working in the
    Heligoland Bight.

        _August 6th_--

        1 A.M. Slipped by _Amethyst_, 30´ N.N.E. from Terschelling
        Light vessel, proceeded N. 69 E., 12 knots, making for
        allotted area, and avoiding T.B.D. patrol.

        3 A.M. Dived to check trim; day breaking on rising; sighted
        two steam trawlers 4 to 5 miles to southward; dived away from
        them; 3 miles.

        4.25 A.M. Proceeded E. × S., 12 knots.

        6.30 A.M. Altered course S.E.

        7.25 A.M. Sighted German cruiser, _Stettin_ class, hull
        down, E.N.E., beam on, steering N. (approx.). Dived E. by N. 1
        mile to avoid being seen; cruiser too far off to attack.

        8.5 A.M. Rose. Sighted trail of smoke and yellow funnel,
        E.N.E.

        Dived to attack, course N. 30 W., full speed.

        8.55 A.M. Abandoned chase, enemy steaming very fast west
        (approx.).

        Dived to avoid steam trawler, which had passed over boat
        during attack.

        9.45 A.M. Rose. Proceeded to westward charging batteries.

        11.30 A.M. Stopped. Charged on surface.

        1.15 P.M. Proceeded S. 72 E., 12 knots.

        2.45 P.M. Dived to avoid steam trawler, remaining on course S.
        72 E.

        3.40 P.M. Rose.

        3.50 P.M. Sighted German large T.B.D., or flotilla cruiser, 10
        miles to northward, steaming very fast E. Too far off to
        attack.

        4.15 P.M. Proceeded S. 51 E., 12 knots.

        5.45 P.M. Position W. 3/4´ N. 23´ from Heligoland. Nothing in
        sight except numerous trawlers, chiefly sailing. Turned to N.
        60 W., 9 knots. Sea rough.

        8.10 P.M. Increased to 10-1/2 knots. Many trawlers in sight at
        nightfall.

        9.30 P.M. Stopped. Dived 50 feet on "grouper down" till--


        _August 7th_--

        2 A.M. Rose. Very dark; dived 50 feet.

        3.15 A.M. Rose.

        3.30 A.M. Proceeded under one engine, 8 knots, working round a
        large fleet of sailing trawlers making to southward; making
        for route of warships seen yesterday.

        6 A.M. Altered course 12 knots.

        7.45 A.M. Altered course S.E.

        8.15 A.M. Sighted German submarine on surface, S.E. 4 to 5
        miles distant, beam to beam. Dived to attack. At first thought
        she was stopped and had then dived, not sighting her through
        periscope till 8.45.

        8.45. A.M. Sighted her steaming west, 4 or 5 miles off.
        Followed, diving.

        9.30 A.M. Rose. Submarine not in sight. Followed, diving, for
        3/4 hour, in hopes of finding her stopped.

        10.30 A.M. Proceeded S. 56 E., 12 knots.

        12 noon. Stopped to let steam trawler pass across horizon,
        ahead.

        _Note._--Since about 7 A.M. I had given up the idea of trying
        to keep out of sight of trawlers, merely avoiding going within
        a mile of them.

        12.10 P.M. Proceeded.

        12.54 P.M. Altered course south, observed position being
        further north than intended. The steam trawler sighted at noon
        seemed suspicious of E 6, altering course so as to keep me in
        sight without getting close.

        3.30 P.M. Turned and steered for trawler, signalling her to
        show colours (German), and to stop. Trawler fitted with W/T.
        Crossed her bows and shaped course N. 87 W., 14 knots.
        Position then N. 43 W. 37´ from Heligoland. Trawler proceeded,
        apparently shaping course for Emden. Steered to avoid our
        T.B.D. patrol.


        _August 8th_--

        6.30 A.M. Made Swarte Bank Light-vessel. Proceeded to
        Lowestoft to report.

        _Note._--The Heligoland Bight contained a very large number of
        trawlers, chiefly sailing, including a few which were
        apparently Dutch; they became more numerous closer in to
        Heligoland. I did not notice W/T in any except the one I spoke.

    I have the honour to be, sir, your obedient servant,

    (Sd.) G. P. TALBOT,
    Lieutenant-Commander.

    The Commodore (S),
    H.M.S. _Maidstone_.

That is the sort of way the submarine officers describe their
experiences. The method is curt and unsatisfying somehow. I will try
and give an idea of a submarine captain describing a trip during, say,
the winter of 1915-1916, to an army brother:--

Yes, we got in yesterday. No--we had no luck. It's getting dull inside
there now; it's not so much fun if there are no big ships about and
only small craft chasing you. Well, you see, we left about 4 P.M. on
Monday and had a poor sort of trip across--blowing from the
north-east, so that we were head to sea, and even at eight knots we
took nearly every wave over the bridge. They're a fine sight though,
the E boats, when they're butting into it like that; they get out of
step so, and you can feel just about when they are going to take a
good one; you see more and more of her bow going dry as she goes
wrong, and then she puts a great length of herself over a hollow, and
that's the time to duck your head and hold tight to a rail, because
she comes down wallop just in time for the next one to roll right over
you. It was fairly clear, but devilish cold, and there were
snow-squalls about one to the half-hour. We gave Terschelling (the
corner, you know, round Holland into the Bight) a seventeen-mile
berth, as the tide sets in pretty strong there, and turned in for our
billet. My orders were to work between Heligoland and the mouth of the
Elbe. There are two ways of getting in, you see--close along the shore
in seven-ten fathom water, and over and under the minefields farther
out. We took the deep channel, as we don't do the other at night if we
can help it--over and under? Oh! you see, there's a minefield set for
submarines in one place--fairly deep laid, and farther on another set
for surface ships, so we go over one and dive under the other--anyhow,
they're both only reported fields, and their position isn't accurately
known, and also one doesn't quite know one's position if one doesn't
get sights or see Terschelling Light, so it's a matter of luck,
really. Well, we didn't get any excitements going in, except that my
R.N.R. officer pressed the button with his shoulder when he was coming
up to relieve me, and he and I only got down just in time to shut the
lid. You see, we run with mighty little buoyancy on patrol when we are
on the surface, and if you press the button you go down in a few
seconds at twelve knots or so. The button? why, that's what dives the
boat; if you press that (it's just under the conning-tower lid) it
rings the Klaxon horns fore and aft the boat, and then it's up to you
to come down quick because the crew know it means business, and they
don't waste any time. They open all vents and put her nose down, and
in a few seconds there's just a 'plop' on the surface and you're
looking at a gauge-needle going round down below. But if you come on
watch with too many lammies and clothes on, you may give the alarm by
mistake like my feller did.

"Well, we got better weather after we rounded Terschelling, and after
Borkum Riff it was nearly calm. We got to the billet and dived at 4
A.M.--thirty-six hours out from Harwich. The soundings were right
when we touched bottom--about 95 feet--so that checked our latitude a
bit. Then we all went to bed. It was pretty cold and jolly wet too,
as she leaks a bit overhead besides the usual sweating. What's
sweating? Why, when the hull's cold it sweats, you know--water runs
down the inside--condensation really, I suppose. Well, then we all
turned in, as I say, and I put a lot of blankets over me to dry my
wet clothes.... I was too tired to change, and as a result I was all
aches in the morning (that is, at daylight about three hours later).
I reckoned it would be getting grey about seven, so we rose then, and
after a few minutes at fifty feet, just to listen for propellers, we
broke surface. It was all clear and still fairly dark, so we charged
batteries for twenty minutes and ventilated.

"Then we went under and started diving patrol. I took first periscope
watch, as I wanted to fix position by steering north-west for
Heligoland. At eight o'clock the patrol trawlers came by. You see, they
have eighteen trawlers out between Schillig Road and the Island. They
work in pairs, each pair doing a sort of sword-dance, and making Saint
Andrew's Crosses along the line. They come out in the morning, and we
just sheer out of their way to let them by. Then at sunset they all
begin edging towards home (that's Wilhelmshaven), until the senior one
hoists a signal, and they speed up and hustle into bed. No, we don't
worry them--we haven't enough torpedoes to chuck them away on trawlers;
and anyhow, you may miss a chance at something big if you get seen on
your patrol. Those small craft don't see you unless you worry them. One
dives around all day with several of them in sight, but so long as one
doesn't show the periscope much, and doesn't get too close, they don't
see. If we once started strafing them, they'd keep a better look-out,
but nobody keeps a good look-out unless he's scared--so we don't scare
them.

"Well, that's about all we saw that trip. A destroyer passed--out of
range--on the third day, going about twenty-five knots, and we had some
trouble on the fourth. No, not dangerous, just aggravating. You see, we
got seen by some idiot, and they sent out the usual four torpedo-boats
in line abreast against us. They're just small high-bowed old boats,
and aren't worth a torpedo. They came fussing along and saw my
periscope at fairly long range, as it was flat calm. I went down to
ninety feet, and they let off squibs over us--just little depth charges
that didn't even break a light globe. Still, they kept me under till
dark, and when we came up then I knew I was going to have trouble and
worry getting my charge in, as they'd have all sorts of packets barging
round my patrol at night looking for me; so we thought it over, and
decided the best place to sit and charge would be on the shoals off the
Schillig Road boom defences, because they'd never look for us there.
Well, they didn't; we sat there and had an absolutely undisturbed
charge for the first time that trip. We saw a lot of small craft go by,
all heading out to sea to put in a hate against us; and the joke was
that we were only in six fathoms there, and couldn't have got the
whole boat wet if we _had_ been strafed into diving there. And what's
better, I was told to-day that some of their destroyers looking for us
that night had a scrap among themselves--he's such a jumpy feller the
Hun: they seemed to have damaged one packet pretty thoroughly,
according to the Intelligence people.

"Why do we have to sit up at night? But we don't. We only have to stay
up long enough to charge the batteries for next day, and then we pack
up and go to the bottom till morning. That's why winter's the best time
to patrol--for comfort, anyway. In December you can only see decently
through a periscope for about nine hours--then you come up and charge
and get to the bottom for dinner. In July it's more like work: you dive
twenty-one hours, come up and charge, and dive again about 2.30 A.M.
There's no time for a rest on the bottom, but if you're inside the
Bight it's quite exciting getting your charge in. You get put down in
the middle of the performance by black shapes coming right on top of
you. They're usually trawlers on patrol; but sometimes you see a big
bow wave, and that means a destroyer, and you crash-dive in a few
seconds. You see, a boat charging like that is like a crab with its
shell off; you never feel safe in a boat until you are submerged. On a
clear night you can deal with destroyers or any other craft, but these
pitch-black nights, or nights when it is foggy or snowing, are the
deuce. I never feel happy on those nights till we get to the bottom.
It gives me cold feet all the time when I'm on the surface inside
there. This trip we got put down at least once during each charge,
except the night I went into their front garden to hide. One night,
however, I thought we'd never get charged up; we kept getting put
under, so that it was a case of twenty minutes' charge and ten
minutes' dip for half the night. What's 'putting down' like? Well, you
see, when you decide it's dark enough to come up, and you've seen the
trawlers go home, you pass the word to 'Stand by for surface' and to
get the engines ready. All the hands wake up and get busy (they read
and sleep most of the day), and then when they report 'Ready' you blow
about five to ten tons out of the tanks, and you come up. There's a
routine for the business, you see, and they don't want telling much. I
open the lid as soon as it's clear of the surface, and a hand follows
me up on to the roof.

"I have a look round, and if it's all clear I sing out below to start
the charge. They get on with it then, and the engines start bumping the
batteries up full bore, and at the same time we move slow ahead. I only
keep just the conning-tower out, and no more buoyancy, so we have men
on the hydroplane wheels to keep her from doing a dive accidentally,
and as we're moving ahead a little 'up helm' keeps her fairly dry. The
hand on deck does 'look-out' astern and I look out ahead; meanwhile the
people below carry on smoking (that's the chance they've been waiting
for all day). If the look-out sees anything at all he gives a yell and
points at it, and then jumps down inside the conning-tower. If I don't
like it when I turn round and see it, I press the button and follow him
down. If I see something first I hit the look-out, and he jumps down
and I follow. They're all on the top line below, so as soon as I press
the button and the horns sound (they make a din all over the boat) they
open the vents and put her bow down with the planes, and then by the
time I've closed the lid over my head the gauge is showing fifteen
feet, and she's going down at a big slant. If I'm slack on the lid I
get wet. If I'm too slack and the First Lieutenant thinks I'm not going
to get the top lid shut before she's under, he slams the lower doors
and either leaves me isolated in the tower or else swimming around on
the surface till he comes up later to look for me. (No--I've never got
left like that yet, but some people have been pretty near it. It's not
safe for the First Lieutenant to hang on too long for you--he might
fill the boat.) It's quite simple. With a well-trained crew anything's
safe, and you can cut it as fine as you like. When you've heard the
propellers from overhead[1] you just keep along at sixty feet for ten
minutes or so, and then you come up and get on with the work again. Oh!
I'm bored with all this talking. You ought to be able to run a trip
inside by yourself by now. But there's one thing always makes me mad,
that's the Heligoland leave-boat. She leaves the island on Friday
afternoons and she comes back on Monday morning. She's a big
flat-bottomed coal barge--too shallow draught to torpedo--and crammed
with men. You can't use a gun, because she's towed by a small tug with
a big gun forward and a little one aft; and besides, we're not allowed
to give away the fact that we're there by having a joke with small
craft. But it's devilish aggravating, all the same, to see the bloated
Hun going off for the week-end while we dive up and down for a week
waiting for something to turn up. We get our leave all right though. We
get three days to the half crew each trip, so that each of us gets
leave every other trip. The business is too exciting for me to take
leave seriously. I just go to all the revues and amusements I can if I
go up to town, and if it's winter-time like now, I get in three days'
shooting here. The local people are jolly nice to us, and even if they
haven't got a regular shoot going, one can get out to the marshes and
shoot duck. After the leave we come back and do a couple of days'
exercise-diving and torpedo practice, and then we go out again for
another trip. It's awfully interesting, because we work in the Huns'
front-yard in a way, and it seems so cheeky somehow. Makes us want a
drink? Well, I guess not. If you've got cold feet you don't want a
drink, because you daren't have it. That's why we don't carry any in
the boats. You see, the Owner here looks on us as so many race-horses
he's got in training, and if one of us shows symptoms of breathing a
bit short, he gets classed as a roarer, and leaves the job altogether
to repent in a big ship; there's lots more waiting to take our place,
and the Owner's got no what you'd call 'motherliness,' if he thinks
you're not all out for business. Hearing propellers? Oh yes, you can
hear them quite clearly from any quiet part of the boat; the fore
torpedo compartment is a good place for listening, and so is the space
abaft the main motors. You can hear what speed he's going, and when
you're used to them you can make out what kind of craft he is--trawler
or destroyer. The best time, though, is when you've finished a day's
patrol and charging and all, and gone on down to the bottom. I allow
the whole crew one cigarette apiece, and they have a concert. They
gather round the periscope and sing for an hour before turning in, and
the orchestra plays--(that's a concertina and a couple of
mandolines),--we've got quite a lot of talent in the boats. Smoking
like that overnight doesn't matter. If you keep the circulating fans
running the smoke all goes away while you're asleep. I don't know where
it goes to, 'cos it can't get out; but it goes somewhere. I allow the
officers a couple of cigarettes apiece during the day-time, and I smoke
whenever I feel scared--that gives me about nine cigarettes a day. Of
course you can't smoke at the end of a long summer's day; after about
fourteen hours' diving you can't get a cigarette to burn, and a match
goes out as soon as it's struck. But you can smoke a bit in the
forenoon without spoiling the air in the boat--and besides, on
occasions like when somebody is chasing you and dropping those little
depth bombs they use, and you've gone to ninety feet or so to keep
clear of them, it's a sort of guarantee of good faith if the skipper
walks away from the periscope and lights a fag. It looks contemptuous
somehow, and the sailors approve. You see, they never know the facts of
what's going on. Only the skipper knows the situation, and so they
watch you all the time. They spend a trip sitting or lying by their
stations, and obeying orders and trusting to their boss not to kill
them unnecessarily if he can help it. I tell you, the submarine sailor,
once he's past his probation time and been tested on patrol, is a hand
worth writing home about! Now, if you'll stop listening a minute and
struggle out of that chair, I'll take you round the boat. She's pretty
filthy still, but we'll get her clean again by to-morrow."

          [1] The date the speaker deals with is before the general use
          of the hydrophones in submarines.--KLAXON.




II

ANTI-SUBMARINE WORK


I

Before speaking of anti-submarine work, a very short description of the
German submarine and its variations in type is advisable.

A U-boat is not unlike our ordinary patrol-type submarine. She varies
in size and capabilities, but is generally a 16-knot (surface speed)
boat, with two guns--a 4·1-inch and a 22-pdr., two bow and two stern
torpedo-tubes, and about 800 tons surface displacement.

A U-B boat is a small patrol boat of about 500 tons surface
displacement; one 4·1-inch or 22-pdr. gun, one stern and four bow
torpedo-tubes, 13 knots surface speed. There is also a "Flanders," type
U-B class, of 250 tons and 8-1/2 knots speed. The latter class worked
from Ostend and Zeebrugge.

A U-C boat is about 400 tons; one 22-pdr. gun, 12 knots speed, one
stern and two bow torpedo-tubes. The Flanders type U-C's are of 180
tons and 7-1/2 knots speed. All U-C's are primarily fitted for
mine-laying.

The U cruisers are from 2000 to 3000 tons displacement, carry two
5·9-inch guns, have a speed of 16 knots, and in some cases are fitted
as mine-layers in addition to their torpedo equipment.

The number of slight divergencies from the main types is considerable.
Boats were built in standardised groups, and, during the second half of
the war, in great quantities. On November 11th, 1918, the position was,
roughly, as follows: 200 submarines in German hands, commissioned or
completing--135 (roughly) on the building slips. About 200 had been
destroyed up to that date.

In 1918 the average number of German submarines at sea--in the
Adriatic, Irish Sea, Channel, and North Sea--was (in the spring) 20, in
October, 24. The number available for service--excluding Mediterranean
boats, school boats, and boats out of date--was about 72; so that,
roughly, one-third were kept at sea, and the remainder resting or
repairing.

The medium-size German submarines are quite good-looking boats, but the
German mind showed itself clearly in the U cruisers. It has been an
axiom at sea since the days of the Vikings, that a thing that looks
ugly isn't good seamanship. British submarines are better stream-lined
than German boats, and have generally a more "varminty" and clean-run
look. The sight of a U cruiser in dry dock recalls to one's mind a pair
of pictures once published in 'La Vie Parisienne'--a Paris weekly which
has done as much to win the war as any other periodical. The first
picture showed a "seventy-five" gun, and standing beside it a girl
built on clearly thoroughbred lines, balancing a cartridge on her hand.
The second was of a squat 11-inch howitzer, accompanied by 'La Vie's'
interpretation of a homely German Frau clutching the great shell to her
portly figure. The two pictures illustrate rather well the ideas of our
own K-boat designers as compared with the mental state of the authors
of the German submarine cruisers.


II

It used to be a catchword of naval correspondents that "submarine
cannot fight submarine." Well, it is true, and it isn't. What can be
done is that one submarine submerged can torpedo another submarine on
the surface: in which case submarine No. 2 is not really a submarine at
the moment. Two submarines may meet and have a gun-action, with
possible damage to one or both of them, and much entertainment to their
crews; but in such a case neither boat would be acting as a submarine.

Throughout the war our boats have been on the look-out for, and ready
to engage, any enemy submarines met with. We have had boats, in
varying numbers, since the middle of 1915 engaged definitely in
submarine-hunting--that is, those boats that could be spared from the
all-important task of watching the Bight and its approaches. The
anti-submarine boats we sent out simply proceeded to areas where, by
inference or by "information received," U-boats might be expected to
be working. The ordinary patrol boats on passage to and from their
stations, or while watching at their stations for the coming of big
ships, often met with U-boats, and naturally took the chances the gods
gave them with gun, torpedo, stem, or whatever means seemed best at the
moment.

Of course, the torpedo was the usual weapon used. A hit on a big ship,
once the destroyer screen has been avoided, is comparatively easy; a
hit on a U-boat is mighty difficult. The attacker is looking at his
target with his eye (the top prism of the periscope) only a few inches
above water-level. His view of the enemy, therefore, is confined to a
square-looking conning-tower, with heavy "jumping wires" (sweep
deflectors) running down from it to a low grey line of hull. It is
therefore difficult to exactly estimate the enemy's speed or course,
and the short time at the attacker's disposal for deciding on his
deflection and turning to bring his tubes to bear does not allow of an
accurate calculation based on bearings of the passing target. In fact,
it is usually a case of "make up your mind and shoot quick." In
addition to the handicap of the target being small, there is the
knowledge that one must be far more careful to show only a little of
the periscope during the attack, as submarines are far more on the
_qui vive_ for periscopes than big ships are. For one thing, they
know what a periscope looks like; and for another, they have more
knowledge of what a torpedo can do against craft of small buoyancy.

The moral effect of the use of submarine against submarine was probably
greater than the direct effect. It discouraged U-boats from coming to
the surface to use their guns against merchant ships, and restricted
them to their torpedo armament, which was of course limited. A U-boat
on the surface had the same sensations as a man would have who fell
overboard crossing the Indian Ocean, where the sharks are always
keeping station astern of a ship: a feeling of impatience, and anxiety
to get back to where he came from. As an instance, I will mention the
case of U 81, who, while engaged in the congenial work of pumping
shells into an English merchant ship, received two torpedoes amidships
from "E 54," who had been following operations through her periscope
since U 81 first rose to the surface. "E 54" picked up seven survivors,
one of whom was the Captain. The latter officer was somewhat damaged by
the explosions, and was in danger of drowning until "E 54's" First
Lieutenant dived for him and brought him aboard. Another survivor was
the Warrant Officer, who, on being taken below, sent a message by "E
54's" coxswain to Commander Raikes, to the effect that it was advisable
to keep a good look-out and to submerge again soon, _as there was
another U-boat diving near at hand_. Commander Raikes would no doubt
have acted on the second part of this excellent advice had it not been
necessary for him to assist the damaged steamer into harbour. If one
once begins to quote cases, it is difficult to keep from irrelevance,
but I must note here that at the moment of the sinking of U 81, the
crew of the steamer had very wisely abandoned ship, and the change from
a U-boat in full view to a ditto E boat took place so suddenly that
there was a natural misunderstanding when "E 54" stood over to tow the
boats back to their ship. The steamer's crew were living too fast in
twenty minutes for the situation to be quite clear, and in view of
their knowledge of the way in which certain U-boats had dealt with
survivors, the fact that "E 54" had to actually chase the lifeboats is
comprehensible.

The following is from reports of captured U-boat's men:--

    "Several prisoners give clear evidence of the fear inspired by the
    possible presence of Allied submarines submerged when they
    themselves were on the surface. Besides the probable results of
    this method of attack, the apprehension of it constitutes a
    seriously demoralising influence."

From an officer:--

    "We knew that for every boat we had working in an area, you had two
    looking for us."

The latter statement shows an error in the officer's calculations. The
odds were very much the other way; but his error shows that moral
effect goes for a good deal in war.

In actions between submarines, guns have also been used, as have
rifles, pistols, and--at short range in the dark--verbal abuse; but no
definite sinkings on either side can be traced to these causes. In our
boats it was the rule to attack submerged, if possible--in the U-boats
it was rare to find an inclination to pursue a gun-action to its
logical end. A submarine, when nearly hit, can refuse action at any
time by diving. This, of course, forces the opponent left on the
surface to dive also, as it would be unhealthy then to remain on the
surface in that locality. Our submarines were always more lightly
gunned than the U-boats. Few of them carried more than one small
gun--and that one usually an anti-aircraft weapon. This was for two
reasons. Firstly, our boats are meant for warship-destroying as opposed
to commerce-destroying. The attacking of warships implies speed under
water (one should have, roughly, at least half the speed of the class
of ship one is after). Big guns are bad for stream-line, and therefore
militate against high submerged speed. Secondly, we were supplying guns
to Allies, our own Army, and to all our merchant ships and "mystery
ships," and the submarines had to take their turn at the supply with
the rest.

The British officer always had an inclination to use the ram if he got
a chance. A submarine can ram almost anything, and still, as the U.S.
Navy puts it, "Get away with it." Our boats have a ten-inch razor-edged
cast-steel stem fitted to them for net-cutting and other purposes. They
can also, by their system of compartments, stand damage forward to the
extent of a crushed bow, as far back as the bow hydroplanes, with no
great risk to themselves. Add to these things the delightful idea of
being able to thoroughly damage your ship and to be praised instead of
court-martialed for the action, and it is obvious that a number of
attempts along this line have been made. There is no record of one
having been successful to the extent of sinking an enemy, but in some
cases U-boats were damaged in this way. A curious case of accidental
ramming was that in which "E 50" (Lieutenant-Commander Michell), when
diving near the N. Hinder Light-vessel, sighted a periscope close
aboard on the bow. A moment later the two boats collided heavily at 25
feet by gauge. "E 50's" Captain, deciding that the other boat was
underneath him, put his hydroplanes "hard-to-dive," and flooded tanks
with the idea of carrying the enemy to the bottom (at that point 180
feet away) and crushing him. The U-boat, however, broke away, and after
showing her stern and conning-tower a moment on the surface, sank
again. It was later discovered that the enemy got home damaged. "E 50"
came out of the affair with the loss of her port-bow hydroplane and a
few dents. On such an occasion, there is no time to inspect your own
boat for damage before making up your mind if you should or should not
instantly rise to the surface. It is a natural action to bring your own
boat up as soon as possible, in case the chance of ever getting her up
at all goes by. The Captain of "E 50" acted on the rule that a dead
U-boat is a primary consideration, whatever one's natural inclinations
may be; his crew, though not consulted, were in full agreement with
him.

Again, I must quote an irrelevant incident. There were two of our
submarines in the Heligoland Bight patrol, diving in adjacent areas.
They both returned to harbour slightly damaged--one under the
impression that, while diving at 55 feet, he had been run over by a
surface vessel; the other reporting that, while diving at 25 feet, he
had bumped over a submarine. On meeting in harbour they found the times
of the mysterious collisions tallied to the minute.

In April 1915, the idea of using a fishing trawler as a decoy
originated in the _Vulcan's_ flotilla (C-class submarines)--based
on Leith. The U-boats had been sinking our fishing-boats at their
leisure, and it was clear that if a few U-boats were mysteriously lost
on this duty, it would be a discouraging thought for the remainder. It
must be remembered that a "missing" boat has a certain moral effect--a
boat openly sunk by gun fire, etc., serves only as an example for
others to be more careful. If a certain duty or a certain area becomes
unhealthy for U-boats without any explanation, it tends to make the
enemy chary of sending boats out on similar work, until the matter is
cleared up. Hence the secretiveness of the Admiralty during the war on
the losses of enemy submarines. Prisoners taken from U-boats were
prevented from explaining to anybody how their boats were sunk. It may
have been from humanity, or it may have been from the consideration
that U-boat prisoners were usually communicative in a useful way, but
orders were strict that as many prisoners as possible were to be saved
from the water when U-boats were sunk.

The _Vulcan's_ idea was of masterly simplicity. The U-boats found a
fishing fleet easy prey; therefore a fishing fleet with a "catch" on
it would get results. One trawler of each fleet was to tow, instead of
a trawl, a C-class submarine. The submarine would keep well submerged
at the end of the hawser, and need not necessarily keep a periscope
look-out, in view of the fact that the critical moment for her to slip
tow (a tow can be slipped while submerged) would be notified to her by
telephone from the trawler's bridge. Submarine "C 24" was the first to
show that the theory worked out in practice.

It will be seen, however, that she did the work under a considerable
handicap, and had the most aggravating experience a submarine can
have--that of doing an attack with "something wrong with the works."

Lieutenant Taylor, in command, reported:--

    "At 9.30 A.M., June 23rd, I heard a report which I took to be
    an     explosive signal from trawler _Taranaki_ to show my
    periscope, I being at 30 feet. I telephoned her for confirmation
    and got the answer, 'Submarine 1500 yards on port bow'; and then
    again, as trawler altered course, 'Submarine 1000 yards astern.'

    "I gave the order to slip, but the slipping gear jammed in 'C 24.'
    I then told _Taranaki_ to slip her end, which she did. I went
    ahead, helm hard a-starboard, to attack submarine astern. The boat
    immediately sank to 38 feet with 5° inclination, bow down. The trim
    then took some time to adjust, as I had at that time 100 fathoms of
    3-1/2-inch wire hawser, 100 fathom 8-inch coir hawser, and 100
    fathom telephone cable hanging from the bows. Eventually sighted
    enemy's conning-tower 1000 yards off. Closed to 500 yards,
    manoeuvred for beam shot, and fired 9.55 A.M. Torpedo hit enemy
    amidships. I then came to the surface and picked up 'U 40's'
    Captain. My propeller then refused to move, and it was found that
    there were 20 turns of telephone cable round the shaft...."

Lieut.-Commander Edwards (in trawler _Taranaki_) was, of course,
ignorant of the fact that "C 24" was somewhat hampered by these cables
hanging at the bow:--

    "... 9.30 A.M., June 23rd: Enemy submarine rose and fired a shot
    across my bows from 2000 yards range--shell burst 20 yards
    ahead--informed 'C 24' by telephone. 9.45: Slipped _Taranaki's_
    end of tow, as 'C 24's' slip had jammed. Got boat out to simulate
    abandoning ship and panic. Saw 'C 24's' periscope pass, attacking.
    9.55: Observed torpedo run and explode under conning-tower of
    enemy. An officer and a petty officer the only survivors...."

Lieut.-Commander Dobson, in command of "C 27," has an abrupt and almost
_blasé_ report to make of his sinking of "U 23":--

    "7.55 A.M., July 20th: Lieut. Cantlie in trawler _Princess Louise_
    telephoned to me that a hostile submarine was in sight 2000 yards
    on the port bow--telling me not to slip for a little while.
    Telephone then broke down [_It would--of course_].

    "At 8 A.M. I heard the sound of shots falling on the water and
    decided to slip, which I did. Turned to starboard to get clear of
    trawler and came to 18 feet for a look. Closed enemy to 500 yards,
    and fired port tube at 8.12. As I fired I observed enemy start her
    engines, and torpedo missed astern. I shifted my deflection and
    fired the starboard tube. Torpedo hit the submarine just abaft the
    conning-tower. I blew main ballast tanks and picked up seven
    survivors (Captain, two officers, and four men). The weather being
    too bad to get in tow again, I returned to harbour."

Lieutenant Cantlie, in the trawler, reports:--

    "7.55 A.M., July 20: Sighted hostile submarine three points on
    port bow, distant 2500 yards--informed 'C 27,' and told her not to
    slip yet. Hostile submarine steering across my bows. 7.56: Enemy
    opened fire, apparently trying to hit trawler. Telephone to 'C 27'
    broke down. 8.03 A.M.: Tow slipped. Enemy fired about seven shots
    altogether. Employed trawler's crew in hoisting out boat, rushing
    about the deck, and appearing to be in a panic. 8.10 A.M.:
    Observed 'C 27's' periscope on starboard quarter attacking enemy.
    8.12 A.M.: Observed 'C 27' fire a torpedo, which missed astern.
    Cleared away starboard gun for action. Enemy opened fire again on
    trawler, and commenced turning to port. I opened fire with my
    starboard gun, hoisting white ensign at the main. At the same
    moment second torpedo hit just abaft enemy's conning-tower. Column
    of water and smoke rose about 80 feet high. As it cleared away 30
    feet of bow of submarine at a large angle could be seen...."

The success of this scheme of U-boat hunting depended, of course,
entirely on the secrecy maintained as to its existence; it was
therefore unfortunate that the prisoners from U 23 were allowed to mix
with interned German civilians who were about to be repatriated--a
mistake which was excusable in the midst of the general confusion
caused in the authorities' minds by the change from peace to war. At
that date the disposal of prisoners was out of the Admiralty's hands,
and on this mistake being discovered, steps were taken that prisoners
having secrets to tell should be prevented from telling them to
Germany. The trawler scheme of hunting, however, had to be given up for
some time.

In 1916 U-boats again became active against the fishing fleets on the
Dogger, and C boats were again sent out to work with the trawlers. On
August 28, "C 29" (Lieut. Schofield), while being towed submerged,
struck a mine off the Humber and was lost with all hands. The method
was continued for a few more trips, but the U-boats being by then too
careful, it was abandoned before the end of the year.

There were eighteen German boats in all sunk by torpedoes from our
submarines, while others were hit but were able to get home. I will try
to imagine a typical case of submarine _v._ submarine, in order to
give an idea of what lies behind the bare despatches of the victors.


III

The E boat was working a "beat" ten miles to the north of the North
Dogger Bank Lightship--a dull beat, too, as in 1918 the U-boat captains
had long ago given up the idea of passing near lightships in surface
trim. The patrol was not there for enemy submarine strafing, however.
The E boat was a unit of the watching semicircle that dived eternally,
from the Haaks light off the Dutch coast to Hiorn's Reef off Jutland,
watching for a cloud of smoke to the east that would tell of the coming
of the High Sea Fleet. The boat had been on the billet two days, and
had five more to wait before she started her run home to Harwich. She
had spent the short spring night jogging about on the surface at six
knots, charging her batteries, and at 4 A.M. she slowed up and slipped
under. It was her thirtieth patrol trip, and she expected it to be as
dull as most of the others had been; there was a kind of yawning,
done-it-all-before air in the way the crew took her under that
morning, that showed, besides good training, a familiarity with
intricate mechanism that had developed into something approaching
contempt. The boat settled to her day's dive at twenty feet, her
periscope moving slowly along at a speed of about two knots, leaving a
very faint rippling line on the smooth North Sea surface. The Captain
swung the periscope round, wiped the eyepiece with a nominally clean
chamois-leather pad, and then leaned back against the diving gauge,
finishing the fag-end of a cigarette. It was still twilight in the
world above him, and the bad light, combined with the fact that
periscopes are very apt to "fog" for some minutes after diving, when
the engines are still hot enough to make the air in the boat steamy,
would prevent him seeing anything clearly for twenty minutes. It was a
rule of his to keep the early morning periscope watch himself, as he
believed that if anything exciting was going to happen it would always
occur at dawn. Certainly, as far as U-boats go, his ideas were right,
as a boat on passage is humanly liable to hold on to her surface speed
and trim as long as there is a hint of darkness left to protect her,
and in submarine war it is the one that gets under earliest that lives
longest.

The Captain took another look through the periscope, and saw the
familiar level floor of the sea blending with the pink and grey of the
dawn just as he had seen it on so many previous mornings. He looked
forward along his boat and saw the sleeping forms of sailors all the
way along the battery deck cloths till his eye was attracted by a pair
of sea-boots that projected through the gap in the wardroom curtain.
Those were his First Lieutenant's boots, and his First Lieutenant, he
knew well, was snoring loudly beyond them. He threw his cigarette end
impatiently down the periscope well and began slowly moving the heavy
periscope round, shuffling around with it as he swept the clearing
horizon. It seemed a silly thing to be keeping the morning watch, of
all watches, when he had two young and lazy officers to work for him.
Their eyes were younger than his, and his were more valuable to the
country anyway. It seemed absurd that only he and four "diving hands"
should be awake, while all the rest snored. Why should he, an
experienced and skilled officer, be at work at half-past four on a dull
morning? Why, when he was a junior Lieutenant ... he straightened up
from the eyepiece....

"Call the First Lieutenant!"

An hour later the situation in the E boat was the same, except for the
fact that a gloomy officer in a soiled sweater and a pair of still more
soiled grey flannel trousers plodded round the periscope pedestal,
while a pair of stockinged feet showing through the curtain showed
whither the Captain's train of thought had led him. The crew still
dozed fore and aft the boat. At regular intervals the hydroplane motors
buzzed noisily as a turn of the wheels corrected her depth; from right
aft came the monotonous ticking of a main motor that slowly turned the
port propeller and urged the boat lazily along. In the wardroom the
Captain, supremely oblivious to a monotonous drip of leaking water from
a seam directly over his outthrown left hand, was back in the days
before the war, when the Berkeley Hounds had had three forty-five
minute bursts in a day, and he had ridden all three on the same horse.
In his dreams he seemed to hear the drumming of many horses' hoofs on
the sloping pastures, and the clash and tinkle of stirrups touching as
the crowded field fought for room at the first fence. Then he woke and
lay propped on one elbow, with a leg thrown over the side of his bunk,
while his heart missed two complete beats. He had not heard the order
of "action stations," that came from the periscope position, but he
knew well the only possible order that could send men rushing past him
to man the bow tubes. He pulled his sea-boots on as he sat up, then
jumped down and covered the distance aft to the periscope in half a
dozen swift strides. The First Lieutenant, his face alight with
suppressed emotions, stepped clear and spoke: "Fritz--bow-on, I
think--big one"--then dashed forward to superintend the men at the bow
tubes. All along the boat a clatter and ring of metal on metal told of
preparation for firing. Amidships a hiss and splutter of air showed
that the beam tubes were flooding, till a spurt of water coincided with
a sharp cry of "Tubes full, sir!" The Captain spoke into the voice-pipe
at his side, and the ticking sound from the main motors rose to a
steady hum. He lowered the periscope till the eyepiece was level with
the deck, and stood drumming his fingers against the hoisting wires.
The matter of seeing the tubes cleared away and of keeping the boat's
trim right lay now with his officers. His head was to be concerned only
with the attack and the shot. He alone would be to blame for a miss
now, and he had too well-trained a staff for him to need to worry over
any diving details during an attack. His brain was working outside the
boat in the early sunshine, where a big and confident U-boat was bound
out for her station in the Irish Sea. The enemy was heading straight at
him, and he himself was crossing her bow from port to starboard,
heading north. To get his bow tubes to bear meant a quick rush to the
north to get to a fair range, and then a turn to port till his head was
south and the enemy ran across his sights. He was, in view of the
glassy state of the sea, keeping his periscope out of sight as long as
possible, and intended to keep the instrument lowered till, on his
estimate of the U-boat's course and speed (gauged in his first rapid
glance) and his submarine sixth sense, he had turned inwards from a
point on his target's starboard bow. In sixty-five seconds from the
first sighting of the enemy, peace and quiet reigned again in the E
boat. Except for the occasional slight hiss and gurgle as a tube-vent
was tested, there was no sign to tell that the whole boat was on a
tiptoe of expectant emotion. Three minutes from his first order to
increase speed he starboarded his helm and--still with his periscope
lowered--began his turn through west to south. His hands fidgeted now
on the taut hoisting wires before him, and every nerve in his body
cried for a glance at the enemy just to check his mental estimate. His
first glance when his turn was half through would show him whether he
had judged rightly, or whether he had made a miscalculation which would
be heavy on his soul till the end of his days. But his nerves were well
in hand and his will strong; the repeater of the gyroscopic compass had
ticked slowly round under his gaze until it showed 275°--a trifle north
of west. Then the periscope rose with a sigh and a creak of straining
wires. He stooped and pressed his eye to the instrument as it rose,
waiting for the very earliest glimpse of the upper world. All along the
boat the men leaned from their stations to watch, for they knew exactly
what depended on the quick decision based on that first glimpse he had
taken. To his eye the green flickering circle lightened, paled, and
then changed to a clear pale-blue sky and a sparkling stretch of sea.
He had hoisted the periscope trained to south-west by south, and his
heart gave a jump in gratitude to the training that had given him
brains to judge rightly. The U-boat--very near and big--with a little
foaming line falling away from her bows, was sailing slowly across the
periscope, and he winced as he saw on her bridge the little group of
figures that seemed to be looking straight at his face. Instantly he
lowered the periscope and forced himself--for he felt that he ought to
whisper, in fear of his enemy hearing--to shout the order to "stand by
bow tubes." A few seconds later he spoke again as the periscope
rose--"Midships--steady on one-eight-five--stop starboard."

As the surface view showed again he carefully jerked the great
instrument a fraction round as he set it at his "deflection"--the
angle of lead ahead of the enemy, based on a guess at her speed, that
corresponds to the "swing in front" of a rabbit-shooter. Then he
lowered his hands from the training-handles lest he should be tempted
to move the instrument again, and with the order to fire trembling on
his lips, waited as the grey stem of the U-boat slid evenly into the
view, and the conning-tower and the vertical spider-hair line that
formed his actual sight drew together.

At the bow tubes three men and an officer crouched, the pulses of
certainly one of them working at abnormal pressure. The actual firing
of the tubes would come suddenly, electrically controlled by the
Captain sixty feet away. _Thud!_ the port bow torpedo left with a
faint roar and rattle--_Thud!_ the heavy ball of the starboard
firing-gear came down decisively, and another "18-inch short
range--high speed setting" went away on its last run. Two men by the
tubes jerked up the vents to let the water rush back into the space
that the torpedoes had left vacant, and each of the crouching group
held his breath in agonising expectation. It was really only ten
seconds (but it must have felt like a hundred) before the great
question was answered: and the answer was savagely and brutally clear.
A great clanging report shook the E boat, and the hull quivered as if
she had lightly touched something forward. A torpedo man leaned across
and closed the two spouting tube-vents, then looked aft and, grinning
with relief, sang a pæan of victory along the glittering tunnel of the
E boat--"_Wow!_" he said. "Good-bye-ee-ee!"


IV

The sinking of U-C 65 by "C 15" (Lieutenant E. H. Dolphin) provides an
odd case. There is a story behind the official despatch:--

    "2.43 P.M.: Sighted enemy submarine on the surface five points on
    the port bow. Dived and flooded both tubes.

    "3.12: Sighted submarine in periscope steering estimated course of
    N. 70 E, bearing 40° on starboard bow.

    "3.15: Fired double shot at 400 yards--one torpedo hit--the other
    appeared to pass under.

    "Submarine sank immediately--noise of explosion slight.

    "3.17: Surface--picked up five survivors of U-C 65."

The position was about 25´ south of Beachy Head. "C 15" was on patrol
in rather misty weather, and at the time of sighting the enemy both
boats were on the surface, U-C 65 steering home up Channel, "C 15"
steering N. by E. across her bows. Both boats saw each other at the
same time, and the German watched the English boat go under to attack.
The obvious reply was to either dive also or to alter course and pass
round the "danger-radius" of the torpedoes on the surface. The German
Captain had two mental handicaps--over-confidence and (having just
finished a long trip) over-anxiety to get home on leave. He decided not
to alter course or delay his passage, but explained to his First
Lieutenant that it was quite easy to dodge a torpedo if a good look-out
was kept and the helm moved quickly. The First Lieutenant appears to
have had philosophic doubts as to the wisdom of the proceeding, his
doubting being justified when, on seeing the firing-splash as "C 15"
fired, the Captain neatly dodged one torpedo and received the other
fairly amidships. Lieutenant Dolphin had fired two--"spread" slightly
for deflection; not having "declared to win" with either, the question
of which one hit did not trouble him. U-C 65 probably won a moral
victory, but--"C 15" sank her.

The C boats working round the N. Hinder Light-vessel were liable to
make sudden "contacts" with the enemy, usually in thick weather or at
night. Both sides would be trying to make the lightship to fix their
positions, and on occasions two belligerent submarines would make the
lightship together.

On March 1st, 1917, "C 19" (Lieutenant A. C. Bennett) was steering east
from the Hinder Light, when she sighted (by moonlight) a small
submarine right ahead steering straight at her. "C 19" decided that
this looked like another British C boat, several of which were in the
vicinity. Each boat turned to north and flashed a challenge. The German
then made I.M.I. (the Morse signal to "repeat," common knowledge to all
nations). The boats were then beam to beam at 100 yards' range, and the
German hailed in his own language. "C 19" had no gun, and was trying to
swing round to bring the bow tubes to bear, having no doubt as to what
to do in the matter. The enemy continued to make I.M.I., and turned
away to get out of the line of fire. This made it a stern-chase with "C
19" close up and gaining; the German then fired a starshell, and "C 19"
replied with rifles and automatic pistols. That was too much for the
Hun; he kicked his tail up and dived, with the bullets smacking on his
conning-tower as he went, and "C 19's" starboard torpedo--fired as he
dived--racing over the top of him. The U-boat's periscope showed once
on the bow, and "C 19" turned to ram and passed over it, without,
unfortunately, hitting anything solid. "C 19," on the 5th March, met
another Flanders Flotilla boat, this time with a heavy sea running,
which prevented torpedoes being fired with any hope of accuracy. The C
boat charged at once, using rifles and pistols as she came in. The
enemy dived, and "C 19" passed over her, the bump being slightly felt
below. It is possible that the German's periscope was damaged, but he
saved his skin by getting under in time.

On the 14th May 1917, in thick weather, "C 6" (Lieutenant Brookes) was
feeling for the Hinder Light-vessel. She found it at 7.30 A.M. close
aboard, and at the same time a German submarine found it, and,
appearing 300 yards away, dived at once. "C 6" went under also and
pursued by the use of hydrophones. In about half an hour the enemy's
motors were heard to slow up and stop, and "C 6," thinking he had gone
to the bottom to avoid the chase, came to the surface to get the mast
down, as it had been left standing in the hurry of getting under. The
visibility was only 200 yards, and there was nothing in sight. "C 6"
dived again, and, as she did so, heard the rattle and hum of
propellers as a torpedo missed her over the top. The German had
evidently come up for a look instead of taking bottom. The exasperated
"C 6" pursued by hydrophone for another quarter of an hour, but the
sound of the enemy's motors was then lost.

The list of "Contacts" with enemy submarines shows that in seven cases
the enemy was sunk less than five miles from a headland or navigational
mark. When proceeding between mine-fields, or when bound for dangerous
waters, it is natural for submarines to get a good departure or
landfall if possible, but all such strategic points are unhealthy to
approach. The following two cases illustrate this. In each of them the
U-boat Captain closed a light in order to get a good navigational
departure, and in each case his precaution had fatal results:--

    On the 5th April 1917, "C 7" (Lieutenant A. W. Forbes) was waiting
    at the Schouwen Bank gas-buoy, watching the channel that led to
    Zeebrugge. She lay on the surface with half-buoyancy, and was
    undoubtedly, as can be guessed from the despatch, on the "top-line"
    in the matter of being ready for action. Lieutenant Forbes' First
    lieutenant was on the sick-list most of the trip, so that he
    himself was pretty well worn out on his return to harbour by
    continual watch-keeping and anxiety.

        "3.32 A.M.: Sighted submarine on port quarter steering about
        north, distant 400 yards. Turned and at once fired port
        torpedo at a range of about 250 yards. Torpedo hit forward
        with loud explosion, sending up a large column of water.
        Submarine turned to port and sank in a few seconds. The night
        was very dark and misty, and no survivors or debris could be
        seen."

    In "E 52's" (Lieutenant P. Phillips) case, U-C 63 was caught as she
    passed a well-known light-buoy north of the Dover Net Barrage. "E
    52" (with her conning-tower only showing) attacked so as to keep
    the enemy against the moonlight. The only survivor was a Petty
    Officer, who gave the following account:--

        "The night being very cold, the Navigating Warrant Officer, who
        was on watch, sent the A.B. below to get some coffee. In the
        meantime the engineer of the boat came on the bridge and stood
        talking to the officer of the watch, who, in consequence,
        failed to keep a proper look-out. The Petty Officer himself,
        chancing to look to port, suddenly saw a submarine on the
        surface.... U-C 63 had just started to turn when she was struck
        by a torpedo amidships."

    And that survivor's statement would be a good thing to frame and
    put on every ship's bridge in war-time! The critical time when a
    bad look-out was being kept could not have been more than a few
    seconds, but it was long enough to cause death to all but one of
    the submarine's crew.

The U-boats during the war torpedoed five of our boats, viz.: "E 3" in
the Bight in August 1914, "E 20" in the Sea of Marmora in November
1915, "E 22" in April 1916 off Yarmouth, "C 34" off the Shetlands in
July of 1917, and "D 6" in the Channel in June of 1918. Of these, "C
34" was hit when almost under--the German U 52 firing at the top of his
conning-tower as it went down. "E 22" was attacked while beating up and
down waiting for orders to proceed to any threatened area on the day of
the Yarmouth raid. She saw U-B 18's periscope and tried to ram it,
actually bending down the enemy's bow "net-cutters" (the big steel saw
that stands up in the bows of U-boats). The German, however, passed
under her and got his torpedo in as she turned back.

As far as is known, none of our boats were sunk by enemy submarines
apart from the five named. On several occasions U-boats fired torpedoes
and used guns against our boats, but the low hulls of English
submarines provide very small targets. I suppose the majority of shells
fired at English submarines came from English guns. Certainly the boats
were far more nervous about approaching our own harbours than they were
of working in enemy waters. The shooting was usually wild and could be
treated as amusing, but on occasions fatal results precluded any
joking. The surface anti-submarine vessels drew no fine distinctions,
and the submarines at times used to deplore their own side's excessive
zeal. There is a short extract from a certain boat's signal-log which
begins, "Can you give me my position?" and which continues, punctuated
by nine rounds of gun-fire, by way of injured protests, to "What did
you do in the Great War, Daddy?" as, her identity established and the
patrol ship's attentions deflected, the submarine continued her way up
harbour.

Out on the patrol areas, however, a British boat diving had to stand
her chance. No surface ship could be expected to differentiate between
our own and enemy periscopes, and the potency of British depth charges
was highly spoken of by those of our boats that had experience of them.




III


The work of the submarines on the anti-submarine patrols, minelaying
trips, etc., was useful, and at times exciting; but it must be
remembered that the main duty of the flotillas lay in watching for the
enemy's fleet, and that this duty continued throughout the war. Boats
were stationed watching both the entrance to the Baltic and the several
exits from the Bight right up to the date of the signing of the
Armistice. For the first two years of the war the duty of these boats
was to attack the enemy if seen, and to signal afterwards that the
enemy had been met. The signalling question then was a secondary
consideration. The boats were considered less as scouts than as
torpedo-boats, especially in view of the fact that in the early part of
the war their wireless range was limited. When "E 23" (Lieut.-Commander
Turner) torpedoed the _Westfalen_ in August 1916, he rose to the
surface as the enemy drew out of sight and signalled the enemy's
position to the Commander-in-Chief. It is true that no decisive result
came of the signal, as the enemy turned home when barely clear of the
Bight, and the Grand Fleet's attempt to cut him off, as usually
happened, failed again; but that signal was the first clear "enemy
report" given by a unit of the Bight Patrol. It was then that new
long-range wireless sets were installed in all boats, amid the curses
of the submarine officers, who at that date were distinctly
narrow-minded on the question of how their boats could be most usefully
employed. They looked upon it as a personal insult that their limited
accommodation should be cut down by the extra instruments supplied, and
also that (this was where the shoe pinched) their splendid independence
on patrol should be lost to them now that Their Lordships could call
them up direct from the wireless at Whitehall. But they soon discovered
that the idea was right, and that their loss of independence weighed
nothing against the new strategic use which had been found for the
submarine as a fleet scout. Orders were issued that the boats were on
no account to fire at the enemy if he was seen coming out, until a
wireless signal had been made to Commander-in-Chief. This, of course,
implied that the boat could not attack the outward-bound High Sea Fleet
at all, as the signal would have to be made from surface trim, and by
the time it was acknowledged the chance of a torpedo attack would have
gone by. If the enemy was seen homeward bound, the submarines were at
liberty to fire at them; but outward-bound squadrons were safe from
under-water attack. A submarine officer was heard to explain the reason
for these orders by the light of his own logic: "The Commander-in-Chief
won't let us fire at them coming out, because he wants 'em for himself,
and thinks if we butt in it discourages them and they lose their
enthusiasm; I suppose he's right, but it looks a bit selfish...."

During the last two years of the war, the enemy gradually discovered
that such orders as these must have been given. The Naval Armistice
Commission to Germany has heard some interesting sidelights on the war
from the officers of the German Commission. A good deal of the
information volunteered has to be left unconfirmed owing to the lack
of opportunities for checking it, but in cases where it can be
corroborated by our own information, it can be seen that the Germans
see no object now in concealment or perversion of facts. The following
is from a German Commander, a dignified solemn-featured figure standing
rigidly on the bridge of an Allied destroyer, his face turned to the
bank of the Kiel Canal that slid past him--a man who felt clearly the
disgrace and humiliation that had come upon his country:--

"We wondered why, when we made an excursion, we were not fired at. We
knew you had submarines all round the Bight, and our ships even saw
periscopes, but no torpedoes came. We thought after a while that it was
an order--that we were being watched and reported, but left unmolested
till the Grand Fleet should come. I remember when we came out one night
and we heard the wireless speak by Hiorn's Reef. The operator heard it,
but we could not block the signals. If we had blocked we would have
been yet found--our position would have been known by the Directional
Wireless in England. We heard him sending by full power, and by the
nature of his signal (it was so short and quick) we knew the purport of
it. Then we went on, but all the time we knew it. We knew that we might
meet the Fleet. It is impossible to leave the Bight without being
reported. Then on the return by Hiorn's Reef the torpedo came and the
_Moltke_ was hit. She was badly damaged, but we towed her in. I do
not know if it was the same submarine that saw us go out. I do not
think so. You do not know? No? It was perhaps the same, but you had
many boats patrolling. The Zeppelins claimed many to be sunk with
bombs. It was not so? No? The flying men are all full of imagination.
It is the vibration of the engines that affects the eyes....

"... Yes, I was at the Skageraksclaght (the Jutland Battle). We were
not hit. Some ships were badly hit. One ship [probably the
_Seydlitz_--Author] had an artillery officer on board. It was his
holiday, and he spent it on board her with his friend. He said after
that he would prefer a year on the Western Front to twenty minutes'
naval bombardment. The doctors were all killed and the ship was on
fire. The shells came into both casualty stations. Did many English
ships receive hits from torpedoes? The _Marlborough_ only? That is
strange, for we fired many. Yes, the Emperor said it was a victory, but
if it had been a victory we would have known it without his having to
tell us so. The sailors were not persuaded so...."

(I seem to be quoting irrelevant matter here, but German mentality at
any rate bears on the submarine subject, even if indirectly.)

"... The _Tiger_ is not sunk? No? We thought not--we heard later that
it was a dummy _Tiger_ that was torpedoed. We were sure before that it
was the real ship that sank, and the officer that fired was decorated.
It is all right, because since then he has earned the decoration for
other things, so that he does not mind. A lot of things we did not
understand for long. Our submarines have seen your K-boats at sea.
They saw them through the periscope, and could read the numbers, but
they said they must be fast submarine-hunters, like the Americans were
written to be building. Then one day a U-boat saw through his
periscope a K-boat steaming, and then in one minute the K was
submerged, so we knew it was really a submarine. What was the
submarine that torpedoed the U 51 in the mouth of the Jahde river?
That was a fine attack. The U-boat was not yet out of the river on its
voyage. Did the English boat get home? Yes. I am glad--she had many
depth-charges to face. Your mine-laying submarines were dangerous.
They had a trick of following our mine-sweeping boats up the channel.
They did not lay mines until the channel was swept and reported free.
It was well organised ... and also the submarine that struck the mine
and yet got back. The captain of her is to be congratulated; we heard
of it and we thought she was very lucky--I think it was at Amrum bank
she struck the mine. I think it was an English mine; one of our mines
would have put her in pieces. I do not know why the Heligoland
trawlers did not see her as she was passing home to England...."

I must just hark back to the question of the U-boat here, as the
Inspection Commissions in Germany that are seeing to the handing over
or destruction of the U-boats bring back their reports here, and their
reports are full of interest, though perhaps they contain little that
is news to the Admiralty. There are now 135 German submarines in
England, and there are more to come yet. The building-yards of Germany
show that a huge effort was to have been made along the lines of
submarine war in the spring and summer of 1919. Every available yard
was working at full power at the date of the cessation of hostilities,
and the work was almost entirely on submarine construction. The only
other work being done was on new and more powerful destroyers and on
standard merchant ships--the latter for after-the-war reconstruction.
Yards that had never before done warship work of any kind were fully
employed on building small submarines. The big yards were given all the
new submarine-cruiser work to do. The submarine cruisers were a
comparative failure on trials, as were also the big submarine
mine-layers of the U 118 class; this must have been a sad
disappointment to the enemy, as one can judge by the number of big
boats preparing that he had set his heart on a campaign of thorough
frightfulness on the American coast in the spring. Work on the new big
surface ships had stopped in the spring of 1918, partly owing to the
shortage of nickel and chiefly owing to their whole stake having been
put on submarines and not on the Fleet. The German mentality never
seems to have grasped the fundamental rule of sea-fighting--that
commerce-destruction will never win a war, and that only the defeat or
mastery of the main enemy fleet can bring command of the sea.

Such yards as the two at Hamburg (Vulcan and Blohm & Voss) are typical
of the method of construction. On November 11 these two yards had
seventy-two submarines under construction. At the same time at Blohm
& Voss's yard the battle-cruiser _Mackensen_ lay abandoned in the
water just as she had been launched in the spring of 1918, and the
battleship _Ersatz Freya_ lay half-finished on the building-slip. The
submarines were on the slips in rows--each row representing a group of
perhaps seven boats of the same class. Lying alongside each row were
parts and fittings waiting to be built in: for instance, seven bows
(complete with sterns and torpedo-tube pads), seven sterns (complete
with hydroplane-guards, etc.), seven bow top-strakes, seven stern
top-strakes, etc.--in fact, one was reminded strongly of what one had
heard of American motor-car factories. The whole idea was of quick and
standardised production, and the two points that occurred at once to
the observer were--"There would have been a deuce of a rush of new
stuff into commission in the spring," and then, "How on earth were
they going to provide skilled crews for such a lot of boats all at
once?"

The latter question is still difficult to answer, even if one takes
into account a system of "compulsory volunteering," and also the fact
that standardised boats can be worked by standardised and
partly-trained men. What it would have come to was indicated by the
trend of U-boat war results in 1918. It would have implied a good deal
of real work being performed by a few experienced and trained crews,
and a lot of blank trips and half-hearted performances by a mass of
other crews, the mortality among the latter rising to a terrible
percentage. It will always be the same; a good personnel will do well
in any boat--a bad personnel will do badly, however good the boat is.

In the remarks quoted from a German officer, I have referred to three
incidents in connection with the activities of our own submarines. I
will give them in their order, as they appeared to the officers
concerned. It was "E 42" (Lieutenant C. Allen) that met the German
battle-cruisers on 25th April 1918, and, the enemy being homeward
bound, fired a torpedo into the _Moltke_ as she passed Hiorn's
Reef:--

    "A.M. 0630. While on surface, sighted hostile sea-plane--high up,
    but close.

    "Dived to 60 feet (4 bombs). Surfaced for observations. Saw smoke
    bearing N.E. Dived.

    "Sighted a battle-cruiser escorted by three torpedo-boats. Altered
    course, and proceeded utmost speed to attack. Fired starboard bow
    tube (quarter shot). Range 2000-2500 yards. Heard sound of
    explosion a long way off--possible hit."

    (The "possible hit," as a matter of fact, caused the _Moltke_
    to be towed in a very precarious condition all the way home.)

    "About 5 depth-charges and 20 lance-bombs were dropped at me after
    the shot. Courses as requisite for getting clear."

The next incident, of the attack in the Weser river, has a story behind
it.

Lieut. Varley ("H 5") reports as follows:--

    "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.

There are some first-hand reports on our own depth-charges:--

Submarine "D 7," February 10th, 1918 (Lieut. Tweedy), suddenly sighted
H.M.S. _Pelican_ through her periscope. She increased to full speed
and went down deeper, altering course from north to west.

    "3.48 P.M.: First explosion occurred, loud and violent, but no
    damage or inconvenience. Very shortly afterwards a second
    explosion. This was considerably more violent, shattering several
    lights and flooding the after-periscope. Heavy shock throughout
    the boat, but no serious damage. Order was given to 'blow
    externals.' While rising, a third explosion occurred of about the
    same intensity as the first. On breaking surface made recognition
    signals...."

The comment of authority on the incident blandly points out that by
more accurate judging of speeds, distances, etc., the estimated
distance of 150 yards between "D 7" and the second depth-charge could
have been much reduced and better results obtained. There is, of
course, no hint that the destroyer was to blame in the matter of
recognition. In all these cases it is the destroyer's duty to take it
for granted that any periscope is hostile, and the comments on these
reports usually show some sympathy with the surface ship's natural
disappointment at finding she has attacked one of her own side.

On 29th Feb. 1918, submarine "L 2" (Lieut.-Commander Acworth) had a
similar experience, which had very little that was amusing about it.
Her opponents were the United States' destroyers _Paulding_, _Davis_,
and _Trippe_.

    "... I lowered periscope and dived to 90 feet. Gun-shots being
    heard, I proceeded at full speed to 200 feet, at which depth the
    first heavy depth-charge exploded, and at the same time the
    after-hydroplanes jammed hard-up. We now took a tremendous
    inclination by the stern, the tail touching the bottom at 300 feet.

    "Four more very heavy explosions shook the boat. Bright flashes
    were seen in the boat, and she was at an angle of 45°, bow up. We
    were unable to correct this trim with the forward hydroplanes, so
    I gave the order to blow Nos. 5 and 6. This order was promptly
    obeyed, and the boat slowly commenced to rise, but at a tremendous
    angle. On breaking surface three destroyers opened a hot fire on us
    at a range of 1000 yards--one shot striking the pressure-hull just
    abaft the conning-tower. Recognition signals were made, and White
    Ensign waved, when firing ceased."

The American destroyers had sighted the top of the conning-tower of "L
2" as she "broke surface," diving in the rough swell. The submarine
authorities comment on the incident as follows: "In view of the small
amount of conning-tower exposed and the distance at which it was
sighted, it is submitted that these vessels made a most remarkably
efficient attack."

It is curious that both British and German submarine officers have the
same opinion of aircraft as anti-submarine weapons. Our boats looked on
Zeppelins as scouts only--as bombers they could be practically
neglected. The German seaplanes became dangerous towards the end of the
war from the fact that they carried machine-guns: their bombs were
trifling affairs. But any aircraft might locate a boat on patrol, and
then the boat might just as well not be there, because no target worth
a torpedo would be foolish enough to come within range of her, once the
warning had been given. Similarly, the Germans stated that what they
disliked most in the Irish Sea were the airships and seaplanes that
were always passing over them. They did not fear the bombs these craft
carried, but they did dislike having their own position continually
reported to the surface patrols, who, as a result, gave them little
rest. There is no doubt that the morale of submarine personnel is much
affected by continual nerve-strain. For a man to be able to keep up a
long patrol and retain his full faculties he must have some part of the
day or night free from worry, even if it is only a couple of hours
during which he may feel safe from aggression. In the Heligoland Bight
it was a tremendous relief to be able, at the end of a harassing day,
to sink to the bottom and retire from the war for a few hours. The
sense of relief and relaxation was extraordinarily grateful. It must be
remembered that, even if nothing is in sight through the periscope, the
officers and crew have still at the back of their minds the
recollection of the number of boats which have been lost, presumably by
mines, in the Bight, and of whose fate no explanation has ever been
forthcoming. If a submarine can be given no rest, day or night, from
the ever-present fear of death, she is soon in a state when over-tired
nerves will infallibly commit some mistake which will make her an
easier victim. In this connection aircraft may be described as an
infernal nuisance. You never can be certain if they have seen you or
not, and the tendency is to take it for granted that they have done so.
If you are then in enemy waters you must be on the _qui vive_ for
being hunted by the usual methods; if not in actual enemy local waters,
you feel that your chance of a target has gone for the day, and that
even if a target does come by, she will be well protected and on the
look-out for periscopes. On the whole, however, the German aircraft did
not do much, and they certainly did not make the British submarines
nervous. The game, in fact, rather worked the other way, as far as the
Zeppelins were concerned. It was easy to work out (the German being of
a methodical and regular nature), from the continued reports of our
boats of the times and rendezvous of Zeppelin patrols, just where a
Zeppelin might be expected to be found, and the resultant action by our
own aircraft brought two of these huge sea-scouts down in flames. It
should be mentioned that our boats are supplied with "sky-searcher"
periscopes, which can either sweep the horizon or swivel so as to watch
the motions of anything from the horizontal plane up to the zenith. A
seaplane is a different proposition. Submarine "C 25" was attacked by
five German seaplanes off Harwich on 6th July 1918. Several thousand
rounds of machine-gun ammunition were fired at her and a number of
bombs dropped. The bombs, even when they hit direct, did very little
damage, being of probably not more than 10 lb. weight. The incendiary
bullets from the machine-guns, however, killed the captain (Lieutenant
Bell) and five men, who from a position on the bridge were trying to
drive off the enemy with a Lewis gun. As the incident occurred close to
the English coast, the success of the enemy on this occasion may be put
down to the fact that the submarine, under the impression that the
aircraft must be friendly, made no attempt to dive until the bursting
of a couple of bombs on her hull rendered her incapable of submerging.

Seaplanes have the advantage of attack in that they are able, on
sighting a submarine on the surface, to come down volplané from the
clouds, the first intimation of their presence being given by the roar
of their engines as they level off close alongside. Submarine "E 4" was
nearly caught in this way once near Hiorn's Reef. She had just come
to the surface for a look round and to get latitude observations.
Lieut.-Commander Julian Tenison, her captain, was sitting comfortably
on the bridge-rail while the tanks were being blown below in order to
give the boat convenient buoyancy. The seaplane had dived down on
him in the path of the sun, and the _rip r.r.rip-room_ of the
switched-on engines 200 yards away brought Tenison to his feet with a
jump. He realised instantly that there was no time to get under before
the enemy could let go his bombs--the change from blowing to flooding
tanks would take far more than the usual 30 seconds which suffices to
submerge a boat under normal conditions. He reached down, pressed the
button of the "diving-hooter," and then stood up and enthusiastically
waved his cap to the seaplane pilot. The pilot shot past at a few
yards' range, giving a half-hearted wave in return, as a man responds
to a perfect stranger who salutes him in the street. As the machine
passed, Tenison jumped down below and pulled the lid to: the short
delay had been enough for the blows to be shut off and the vents to be
thrown open, and the boat was starting under. Through the periscope,
before the hull was down, he saw the machine turn ahead of him, coming
round on a wing-tip, and evidently now fully awake to the situation.
The boat drove under, and at eighteen feet three bombs burst on the
surface in quick succession over the forepart of the hull. Being the
usual small bombs no damage was done, but had they struck the hull
while it was still above water the chances for "E 4" would have been
poor. It is quite possible that the German pilot has not to this day
seen anything amusing in the incident.

Although Zeppelins did not, as far as is known, cause our submarines
any damage by bombing or other aggressive action, they were a great
nuisance, in that they often caused delay to the boats on passage to
their areas. One had to dive in order to avoid being reported; and it
was aggravating to be kept under by a great silver brute which appeared
to have nothing better to do than to cruise aimlessly round in a
five-mile circle overhead. It was therefore a great relief when a
chance occurred for a boat to get her own back and square accounts a
little. On the 9th May 1916, at 9.30 A.M., "E 31" (Lieut.-Commander
Fielman) observed a Zeppelin in difficulties, apparently sinking
towards the water. The airship was "L 7," which had been under fire,
and had received damage from our light-cruiser forces. She settled down
till the gondolas touched, and started to "taxi" towards home. "E 31"
rose ahead of her and opened fire with a bow gun. On the third hit the
Zeppelin burst into flames, and disappeared in thirty seconds or so.
Seven survivors were picked up, and "E 31" dived again and proceeded on
towards Harwich. At midnight a German four-funnelled cruiser was seen
coming right at them, and barely 200 yards away on the starboard bow.
Lieutenant Love, R.N.R., officer of the watch, acted swiftly. He put
the helm hard a-starboard and rang the diving alarm. The cruiser was
pretty smart in her actions also. She ported her helm to ram; but "E
31," being inside her turning circle, was missed by fifty yards. As she
passed, she switched on searchlights and opened "independent fire"
(_i.e._ "fire as fast as you can and as often as possible at whatever
you can see of the target"). One 5·9 shell hit the submarine's forward
superstructure two feet above the hull, but did not explode. As the
gauge reached sixty feet, "E 31" heard the cruiser pass overhead. It is
understood that the seven Zeppelin prisoners observed, as the boat
levelled off at the bottom to wait for quieter times overhead, that it
was a rotten war anyway, and that they would be glad when it was over.

One thing which the submarine service in war-time seems to engender, is
extraordinary impudence towards the enemy. This state of mind is based
partly on contempt and partly on complete confidence in one's crew and
boat. At the beginning of the war it was a marked feature in the work
of our boats; but later on, when the watching patrol was established,
things had to be taken more seriously, because it was inadvisable for
the presence of boats in the patrol areas to be known of by the enemy.
There are several instances which will illustrate the mental attitude
of our officers towards their foes before the patrol-ring was formally
established round the Bight. I would instance "E 5" (Lieutenant-Commander
Benning), who, on the 16th August 1915, seeing a German destroyer about
four miles off, near the mouth of the Elbe, came to the surface and
opened the conning-tower hatch "to attract her." The attraction was
apparently sufficient, as the destroyer charged at full speed. "E 5"
dived, turned outwards, and then, swinging in again, fired a torpedo as
the enemy rushed past. The destroyer, the sea being very smooth, saw
the firing-splash, and, by putting her helm hard a-port, dodged the
torpedo. She then ceased to be "attracted," and departed hurriedly.

The island of Heligoland has been a wonderful source of inspiration to
the newspapers throughout the war. It has been described as being the
strategic pivot of the North Sea, and as the heavily-fortified base of
the High Sea Fleet. The importance of the place may be better gauged if
it is explained that it has just about the fighting value that an old
battleship would have if moored out head and stern on the shoal, but
with the disadvantage of the guns being unable to obtain "all-round"
training. The harbour has only enough depth of water for trawlers and
torpedo-boats; the High Sea Fleet couldn't get in if it wished to. If
we had had possession of it instead of the enemy, we would have lost
heavily in trying to keep it. Our position there would have been rather
as if the Germans had tried to hold the Shipwash Light-vessel off
Harwich; it would have been too exciting for words. At any rate
Heligoland is not a submarine base, and as long as there are far better
bases on the mainland, it is not likely to be used for that purpose. I
have heard it stated that U-boats use the island as an "advanced port"
which allowed them to shorten their journeys out on patrol. Such use of
the island would shorten a voyage by some thirty miles, but when the
voyage implies a mileage of perhaps 6000, a matter of thirty is hardly
worth noticing. From our submarines' point of view the place was useful
to take bearings of and to fix position on, and except for navigational
purposes they took little interest in it,--so little, in fact, that "E
2" (Lieut.-Commander Stocks), when she ran aground there, barely
referred to the incident in her log. Submarines are delightful things
to navigate in. A surface ship has a certain fixed draught, and she has
to keep that figure always before her mind's eye. A submarine never
approaches the coast or navigates in thick weather, unless trimmed down
until she is drawing several feet more than usual. When in this
condition a meeting with the shore does not matter much. If she slides
up on the land, she blows her tanks and slides off again, so that
grounding in a submarine comes to be looked on as a very ordinary and
matter-of-fact sort of business. "E 2" was cruising in a fog in the
Bight, and was trimmed down in case of accidents, when she came well on
to the beach under the western cliffs of Heligoland,--she was so close
to the gun-emplacement that the guns could not be depressed enough to
bear on her, which was certainly fortunate. The Germans were very
agitated. They ran about, hailing and bellowing at her and working
themselves up to a great state of mind. "E 2," however, blew her tanks
out and backed off; as she did so a torpedo-boat arrived and opened
fire on her. "E 2," finding salvos falling close aboard of her, decided
that there was hardly time to turn round and depart submerged in the
usual way, so she continued to go astern, and, reversing the
hydroplanes, dived off backwards--none of the shots hitting her; and,
in fact, the accurate estimation of deflection by the torpedo-boat, in
view of "E 2's" squid-like action, must have been difficult.

A matter that caused a good deal of amusement to our submarine service
throughout the war, and which probably made the Germans laugh also, was
the great "petrol myth." It is a story which is at least as good as the
Russian troops that travelled through England. Every part of the coast
was reported to be the scene of mysterious rendezvous between U-boats
and German spies, and at these meetings petrol cans changed hands--the
U-boats taking the full tins, and the spy, presumably, insisting on
getting the empty tins back, or else the sum of two shillings each in
lieu. Heaven knows who invented the story, but it sounds like a
"leg-pull," which had got out of hand and spread like a disease. For
one thing, submarines don't use petrol--they use Diesel engines and
heavy oil. For another thing, a submarine, depending on her size,
carries from 30 to 300 tons of fuel in her tanks. If a wicked German
spy was kind enough to take a couple of tins of petrol aboard a U-boat,
he would, presuming that the captain owned a motor bicycle, be gladly
welcomed; but his gift would hardly add to the radius of action of the
boat. A submarine can keep the sea longer than a surface ship can, and
has a much longer radius of action--the heavy-oil engine is economical
and efficient, and such things as special fuel-carrying tenders or
submerged fuel-tanks are unnecessary luxuries. It is true that U-boats
used on occasions the little creeks and bays of Scotland and the
Orkneys to shelter in, and in fact one boat landed some men on one of
the smaller Orkney islands and stole half a dozen sheep; but such
exploits are more matters of amusement than business. Our boats in the
Bight used to shoot duck occasionally (and the Frisian Islands are a
paradise for wild-fowl shooters in January--the birds are to be seen in
thousands at a time), and if there had been anything else worth
stealing on the very uninviting and ugly German coast, I'm certain that
nothing but the innate honesty of our submarine officers would have
prevented them from getting it.

As for the German spy scares, the Germans had a similar experience at
the beginning of the war. Quite a number of perfectly good Huns were
shot by enthusiastic amateur sentries, and the patriotic citizen felt
it a duty to let off what firearms he had at any car which drove fast
after dark, or which showed strong lights. The rumours of communication
between U-boats and spies on the coasts of Great Britain continued
throughout the war, while all the time the real German spies continued
to send their reports by letters, and the N.I.D. continued to open the
letters and substitute their own versions of the news. The fact is,
very little information got away to Germany except through the
newspapers. This country has the disadvantage, from an enemy spy's
point of view, of being an island; Germany has a neutral country on
each side of her: as a result, when the Armistice came, the Germans
could give us little news about their Navy--everything of interest
about it was already known at our Admiralty. There were some other
widely believed "facts" about submarines which are dying a very slow
death. They mostly came from the brains of the Press naval
correspondents. One was that a submarine could not keep the sea more
than a day or two. Of course, long before the war, even our little
C-class boats were spending ten days on manoeuvres. The first long trip
of the war was "E 11's" thirty-one days in the Sea of Marmora. Again,
it was solemnly proved when the _Hogue_, _Cressy,_ and _Aboukir_ were
sunk, that more than one U-boat must have been present, "as a submarine
cannot reload under water." I am mentioning these things, as it has
been a matter of surprise to the submarine services of all navies that
the boats have been looked on as new arrivals, and as weapons which
were completely new and untried in 1914. The fact is, the submarine
"arrived" long before the war, and has been used in annual manoeuvres
in our Navy since 1904. The first successful submarine attack, it
should be noted, was by the Confederate submersible which sank the
_Housatonic_ in the American Civil War--some fifty-seven years ago.

There is no doubt that the German submarine service had everything in
its favour. They had targets in plenty, in view of the fact that our
fleet kept the sea practically continuously at the beginning of the
war, and for about 25 per cent, of the time during the later stages.
The coasts of these islands are ideal for submarines to work round; the
shore is mostly steep-to, and the high landmarks make navigation easy.
The German coast is low and difficult to see; it is guarded by outlying
shoals and islands, and the visibility off-shore is usually poor; the
numerous rivers emptying into the Bight make diving conditions bad at
times owing to the alternate strata formed of fresh and salt water.
Altogether, the two sets of conditions used to make our submarine
service often wish that the two belligerent navies might change fleets,
bases, and strategic problems, and so give our boats a chance to show
how a weaker navy should carry out a war of attrition. Such a war could
undoubtedly have been fought very much more efficiently by the enemy if
he had concentrated on warship-targets only. There is a clause in a
German instructional book for submarine officers which directs the
young idea to "never attack a man-of-war if there is chance of usefully
attacking commerce" (or words to that effect). That sort of order is an
admission of defeat, as although the axiom, that "the object of
strategy is the defeat of the main forces of the enemy," was, I
believe, laid down by Napoleon, it is as old as the time of the first
battle between tribes of Palæolithic men. A defeat of the Grand Fleet
by direct naval action would have given Germany domination of the
world; but the works of the late Admiral Mahan do not seem to have been
understood in Berlin.

The great German commerce-destroying submarine navy is now no more. Its
fate will be a reminder to strategists of the future that a _guerre
de course_ never won a war yet, and that there is no easy road to
victory. It may be easier "to attack merchant ships rather than
men-of-war," but if the result is the surrender of one's own Navy, the
policy seems hardly profitable.

However, our own submarine strategy was, in spite of the enemy's
example, kept on correct lines; our leaders saw the possibilities and
the future of this type of craft far more clearly than did Admiral
Tirpitz. Our boats were built and used for military purposes only, and
their work was all part of the main strategical policy of the Navy.




IV


I

Facing each other across the southern part of the North Sea were the
opposing submarine bases of Harwich and Flanders. The boats from these
bases occasionally met and fought, but in the main their duties lay
well apart. Harwich boats worked off the Bight, while the Flanders
ports were bases for U-boats to start from on their way down channel to
the traffic routes. The losses of the Flanders boats were heavy--so
were the losses of the VIIIth Flotilla at Harwich, especially in 1916.
In that year the VIIIth Flotilla submarine officers passed a
self-denying ordinance to reduce their consumption of alcohol. (Now
what I am leading up to is a comparison of British and German
mentality, because I think the question of personnel to be infinitely
more important than that of material.) The fact is, that heavy losses
do affect those who are left to carry on the work. A boat comes back to
harbour with her officers and crew tired and glad to be home again;
they are perhaps met with, "Did you see anything of Seventy-six? He's
been overdue three days. He was next to you--off Ameland. You didn't
hear anything go up? Oh, well, you'll probably have that billet next
week and you may find out...."

Well, it _does_ affect people, and there is undoubtedly a great feeling
of relief at getting back to harbour safely. In the Navy, where wines
and spirits are free of duty, alcohol is cheap and obtainable, and
alcohol is a relief from worry and an opiate for tired nerves. But
the war has never seen a case of disciplinary action being necessary
to control our submarine officers. It is a difficult question to
approach in print, as the temperance argument seems to call out such
strongly-expressed opinions from the advocates pro and con; but while I
have no idea of holding up submarine officers as paragons of abstinence
(for I hardly know any who are teetotallers), there is no doubt that
they fully realised that only moderation could keep them efficient for
war.

Over in Flanders it was the rule for U-boats to base at Bruges, and
to use only Ostend and Zeebrugge as they passed through on their way
to and from the sea. At Bruges the U-boat officers had a mess at
the house of M. Catulle--a large, well-furnished, and comfortable
building near the docks. There the officers had made the cellars
(three inter-connected vaults) into an underground Rest for Tired
Workers. All around the walls are painted frescoes illustrating the
minds of the patrons. The frescoes are over two feet in depth, and
are well executed in the type of German humour one meets in the Berlin
comic papers. There are mines, projectiles, etc., with the conventional
faces and hats of John Bull, France, and other Allies; dancing with
the mines are torpedoes, some of which carry on them the faces of dead
U-boat officers. Beneath the frescoes are mottoes--such as, "Drink,
for to-morrow you may die"--"Life is short, and you'll be a long time
dead." Between the pictures are smaller paintings of monkeys drinking
champagne.

After dinner, according to witnesses, the officers would retire to
these cellars and drink. There is little ventilation, and the
atmosphere must have been fairly thick with smoke and fumes. Drinking
sometimes continued till 8 A.M.--a horrible hour at which to
be drunk. It is reported by Belgians that the officers got through four
thousand bottles of wine in three weeks. Taking the high estimate of an
average of twenty officers always present, this means ten bottles per
head a day--which is absurd. It is probable, however, that the
competitors broke or gave away a good many bottles. But there is no
doubt they went at it pretty fast; one officer was drunk and incapable
for five days on end, and (as apparently there was considered to be a
limit of four days for states of coma) on the fifth day was ordered to
sea by the Captain of the Flotilla "to cool his head." The whole
impression one gets from the local stories is one of fear, morbid
excitement, and drink. The pictures conjured up are unpleasant: the
early morning scene in the cellars when a few hiccoughing stalwarts
still sat over their wine--the guttural attempt at song--the pale glow
of electric lamps through swirling smoke--the reek of alcohol--the
litter of bottles--and the frightened face of the Belgian chambermaid
peering round the angle of the cellar stairs. "_Karl and Schmidt have
not returned--God punish the English! Open more bottles, fool, and let
us forget that our turn is coming!_"

How the flotillas were able to do efficient work at all is a puzzle;
but the Flanders Flotillas did the Allies a lot of harm. Had it not
been the custom of the officers to throw off restraint in harbour, we
might have suffered a good deal more--how much more only a student of
psychology can guess. But there is no doubt of this--and a comparison
of the Harwich and Flanders Flotillas shows it--the British take to
games to soothe their nerves and the Germans to drink.

It is possibly something to do with this trait that brought the major
part of the U-boat successes into the hands of a few special officers.
The greater part of the captains did little; a few "aces" compiled huge
lists of sunken tonnage to their credit (or otherwise). Judged by
British Admiralty standards of efficiency, those few are the only ones
who in our Service would have been retained at all.

However, it is time I went on with the doings of our own boats. Human
beings are so much more important in war than are machines, that it is
a temptation to describe them for preference. I would like to be able
to talk about the submarine seamen also, but there is no ground for
comparison between our own men and the German machine-made U-boat hand.
One thinks of the German men as just things that opened or closed
valves when barked at, and who never took any interest in what was
going on outside their particular stations, or in what the boat was
doing. Our sailors are--well, to put it "socially," they seem to belong
more to the middle than the lower class. They are certainly not
machine-made or dull, and they are not reluctant to act according to
their own judgment in the absence of an officer's orders.

During the war our submarines sank 54 enemy warships and 274 other
vessels. These figures do not, of course, include the many warships
which were damaged but which were got back into harbour, although they
include the U-boats which our submarines destroyed. German ships are
very well subdivided in compartments and take a lot of killing.
Certainly on a modern war-vessel one torpedo-hit is very little use;
it takes about four to make certain of sinking her. The _Moltke_
(battle-cruiser) was hit with one torpedo forward in the Baltic by
Commander Laurence, and again off Hiorn's Reef by Lieutenant Allen
(right aft this time); on each occasion she got home safely. Our own
light cruiser _Falmouth_ had to receive four torpedoes in succession
before she sank. The _Prinz Adalbert_ was torpedoed by Commander Horton
in the Baltic off Cape Kola and returned safely to Kiel (she could not
take a hint, however, and after a long interval for repair she went
east again and met Commander Goodheart of "E 8," who sank her).
Commander Laurence in "J 1" hit the _Kronprinz_ and _Grosser Kurfurst_
(battleships) in the North Sea, but both were got home safely. Our
later submarines were fitted with larger torpedoes and tubes, but the
boats fitted with eighteen-inch torpedoes made up the larger part of
our flotillas, and it was realised by both our own and the enemy
submarines that it took several hits with the smaller-size weapon to
finish off a large ship. Perhaps the clearest case on record is that of
the _Marlborough_, the ship being hit by a torpedo at the Jutland
battle and remaining in the line at the Fleet speed and continuing her
firing as if she had never been touched. Older ships, as both sides
found to their cost, were much more vulnerable. Probably the Turkish
ships were the easiest of all to put down, as it is doubtful if their
fatalistic officers troubled to keep the watertight doors closed.

It must be remembered that there is all the difference in the world
between a practice and a war attack. The war attack is usually
unexpected, and is done under conditions of light and weather which
make things chancy, to say the least of it. In a practice attack an
officer can afterwards usually plot on the chart for you every movement
his boat and the enemy made, and give reasons for all orders he gave.
After a war attack he would probably only be able to remember clearly
such things as the periscope hoisting gear giving trouble and the
hydroplane men appearing to be unaccountably deaf. I have mixed up
several boats' attacks in the following description, and it would not
be far wrong as an account of more.


II

The mist closed in in swirling clouds that came along the calm water in
lines a few hundred yards apart. One moment through the periscope the
captain of the L-boat could see across the yellow-green sea a band of
fog crossing his bows--the next, he could see nothing but the ripples
that spread and vanished astern a few feet from the top prism of the
instrument. It had been a poor visibility day since dawn, and now it
looked like being thick weather till dark. He called to the first
lieutenant and gave an order. The hydroplane wheels whirred and the
boat tilted up and climbed to the accompaniment of sighs and roars, as
a couple of external tanks were partly blown. The captain looked down
as he climbed the conning-tower ladder: "Slow ahead, port motor--put a
charge on starboard--stop blowing." He threw back the lid and met the
clammy touch of wet fog on his face. The boat was moving slowly east
through a calm sea with only her conning-tower and guns above water,
while a white line of foam running forward traced where her deck
superstructure ran a few inches below the surface. If she had been on
patrol anywhere but to the west of the Vyl Lightship the captain would
have taken her to seventy feet and kept a hydrophone watch, but that
billet is one that marks the end of a German swept channel, and he
wanted to watch from above for the first sign of the fog clearing. He
sat on the conning-tower lip, his sea-booted legs resting on the third
ladder-rung, and his head twisting this way and that as he stared at
the white wall of mist that was so close to him. He had sat there
barely a minute, and the booming roar of the big charging engine had
just begun sounding up the conning-tower when he slid forward and stood
on the ladder with his head and shoulders only exposed; he leaned out
to starboard trying to catch again the faint note of a syren that he
had felt rather than heard through the note of his own engine. Then
something showed dark through the fog, a grey blur with a line of foam
below, and the L-boat's lid clanged down, and through her hull rang the
startling, insistent blare of the electric alarm. The engine stopped,
the port motor woke to full speed, and the control-room was alive with
sound and rapid movement. She inclined down by the bow as the captain's
boots appeared down the ladder, and as he jumped to the deck his hasty
glance at the gauge showed her to be already at twelve feet. But twelve
feet by gauge means a conning-tower top still exposed, and as the tanks
filled and the internal noises died down a sound could be heard to
starboard--a noise of high-speed engines that swelled till it seemed
that every second would bring the crash and roar of water each man
could imagine so clearly. The gauge-needle checked at fifteen, then
swung rapidly up to thirty; the faces watching it relaxed slightly--for
the noise swelling through the boat told of destroyers, and destroyers
are shallow-draught vessels. The boat still raced on down, with the
gauge jerking round through 60-70-80.... "Hold her up, now--back to
seventy, coxswain"; the angle changed swiftly to "bow-up" as the
spinning wheels reversed and the boat checked at eighty-five; a pump
began to stamp and hammer as it drove out the water from a midship
tank, and as the trim settled, the big main motors were steadily eased
back to "dead slow." The first lieutenant looked up from the gauge and
spoke over his shoulder to the captain. "I made it twelve seconds to
twenty feet, sir; what was it that passed?"

"You're a cheery optimist with your twelve seconds. Your watch is
stopped, Number One. It's destroyers, and they didn't give us much room
either."

"Then d'you mean a fleet?"

"I mean I'm coming up to look in a quarter of an hour. I believe if it
wasn't foggy I'd see them on the horizon now; that was a screening
force that put us down. Here comes another."

Again the sound of a turbine-driven vessel came from the starboard
hand. It swelled to its maximum and then suddenly died to a murmur,
passing away to port. Twice more the warning came, and then fell a
silence of just five minutes by the captain's wrist-watch. "Bring her
up--twenty-four feet--and _don't_ break surface now." He turned
round to the periscope as the boat climbed and tested the raising gear,
making the big shining tube move a few feet up and down. As the gauge
moved to the 30 mark, the periscope rose with a rush, and he bowed his
head to the eye-piece in readiness for an early glimpse of the surface
world. At twenty-five feet a grunt of satisfaction and a quick swing
round of the periscope spoke of his relief at being able to see at all;
the fog was clearing and he was diving across one of the long lanes
made in the mist by the rising wind. He turned the boat through eight
points to keep her in the lane, turning up-wind to meet the clearer
visibility that was coming. As he steadied on the new course he
stiffened in his crouching attitude, staring to port: "_Action
Stations_--evolution now--get a move on."

The clatter and excitement of flooding tubes and opening doors lasted
hardly sixty seconds, but it was punctuated by several sentences from
the periscope position such as: "_Are_ you going to get those tubes
ready?" and less plaintively, "How much _something_ longer now?" The
captain's thoughts were out in the mist above him where his range of
view was bounded on two sides by faintly seen grey masses that rushed
past him at close range. The reports of, "Ready, bow tubes"; "beam
tubes ready, sir," came through the voice-pipes as the first lieutenant
hurried from forward, panting from his exertions. "All ready, sir,"
he said, and paused for breath. "What is it, sir; can you see?..."
The captain interrupted: "_Yes_," he said, "blinkin' mist and
battle-cruisers. Port beam, stand by; port beam, fire! Starboard
twenty-five; stop port, full speed starboard; look out forrard, Number
One, I'm going to let go the lot."

The first lieutenant vanished through the control-room door as the
familiar sound of a destroyer passing at short range began again to
fill the boat. At the periscope the captain swore silently and
continuously at the mist, the enemy, and the L-boat. He was between the
destroyer screen and the big ships; the whole High Sea Fleet seemed to
be coming by, and he had the very vaguest idea of their formation or
even of their course. His first torpedo had missed, and it was more
than likely the track of it would be seen. The L-boat spun round under
the drive of the screw and the helm she carried, and as two destroyers
of the screen converged on her periscope in high fountains of spray,
she fired her bow salvo of torpedoes at the nearest of the big dim
ships that crossed her bows. The range was short and the salvo ragged,
for one torpedo "hung in the tube" a few seconds before leaving, its
engines roaring and driving the water from the tube over the men abaft
it in a drenching shower. That torpedo hit the ship astern of and
beyond the target--the first bow torpedo to leave exploding right aft
on the target herself. The converging destroyers swerved outwards
slightly to avoid mutual collision, and the two "Wasserbomben" they
dropped as they turned were let go more in anger than with accurate
aim. Thirty feet down the L-boat, her forward tanks flooding and her
nose down at an angle of 15°, was driving her gauge round in an urgent
hurry to gain depth. Seventy--eighty--ninety-five. "Hold her up now.
Blow number two external. Stop both--_dammit_, hold her up, man.
Stop both--hold on, everybody!"

The gauge-needle went round with a rush; there was a heavy shock, and
the boat's bow sprang upwards (the captain, holding with one arm to the
periscope and bracing his feet, had a momentary vision in his memory of
a photograph of a tank climbing a parapet--a trivial recollection of a
Bond Street shop window); she rolled to starboard as the gauge-needle
jumped back from a hundred and twenty to the hundred mark, then bounced
again as her tail touched, rolled to port, and slid along the bottom
to rest on an even keel. _Whang-bang-whang._ The explosions of
depth-charges passed overhead and made the lights flicker; then a
succession of fainter reports continuing to the southward told of a
chase misled in the mist. A voice spoke from a tube at the captain's
side, "Did they hit, sir?"

The captain was feeling vaguely in his pockets. A reaction from the
tense concentration of the last few minutes was approaching, and the
habits of an habitual smoker were calling to him. "Yes, I think so," he
said; "but there were so many explosions I can't swear to it. We'll
know when we get in."

He took a cigarette from his case and lit it. The match burnt blue and
went out quickly; the cigarette gave him a mouthful of acrid smoke, and
also failed. The short time the conning-tower had been open before the
destroyers came had not cleared the air, and the work and excitement of
the crew in the attack had consumed as much oxygen as if the boat had
been diving for a summer's day. There is only one kind of cigarette
which will burn in bad air; a stoker kneeling by the main line
flooding-valve fumbled in his cap, and then held out a packet of five
of them to the captain. The officer took one with a grunt of thanks,
lit it, and spoke again. "Watch remain at diving-stations--fall out the
rest--torpedo hands reload."


III

I am just branching off to the Adriatic a moment to describe a patrol
trip by "E 21" (Lieutenant Carlyon Britton). In this account of British
submarine doings I have been avoiding such incidents as have been
already much better treated of by writers such as Rudyard Kipling and
Sir Henry Newbolt. There are, however, a good many incidents for which
they had not space in their accounts, and mention of such incidents
here will lay stress on the fact that submarine work was continuous
throughout the war, and was not a matter of spasmodic effort.

On the 30th June 1918 "E 21," being a unit of our flotilla working with
the Italian Navy, torpedoed and sank an Austrian ammunition transport
inshore close to Piana, one of the islands that fringe the Dalmatian
coast. She then fired at an escorting torpedo-boat (who dodged and
saved herself), and she was then bombed by an aeroplane without
receiving damage. On the 1st July she charged her batteries in
Mid-Adriatic and moved east towards Lissa Island. On arrival there she
dived up to St Giorgio harbour (I wonder what Tegetthof would have
thought of this sort of thing in 1864?), only turning back a mile from
the entrance when it was plain that there were no ships inside. She
moved on along the coast and looked into Civita Vecchia, but saw
nothing worth attack there. Between Brazza Island and Lesina Island
runs the Greco de Lesina Channel--a gap rather after the pattern of the
Dardanelles. E 21 dived to 130 feet to pass under the minefield which
guards the "narrows," and went through by compass and dead reckoning.
After four hours she rose and, being then well through the straits,
proceeded towards Makarska on the surface. At dawn she dived again and
did a sweep round the bay, finding no shipping in the harbours.
Returning that evening, she safely negotiated the minefield at 130 feet
depth and proceeded west and north to look at Zerovia Island, near the
locality where she had sunk the transport. She found nothing to fire at
there, and the weather getting misty and bad for periscope work, she
shaped course back to Brindisi on the 4th. She had been sent out to
catch Austrian transports, and having sunk one which was well out on
its way, and having been bombed for doing so, she had gone right back
along the traffic route to see if "running to heel" would provide
another chance, while at the same time her absence would give time for
the excitement off Piana to die down. On her return she found it had
died down to the extent of nothing being in sight; but her strategy had
nevertheless been sound and well conceived.

Aeroplane bombs around the Heligoland Bight became common in 1918. A
typical "Aircraft" report comes from "E 56" (Lieutenant Satow) in May
of that year. Her station was by the South Dogger Bank light:--

    "23rd May.--South Dogger, bearing north 3 miles at 1 A.M. 4.30
    A.M.: a Zeppelin in sight N.E.--a long way off. 10 A.M.: sighted
    seaplane in periscope two miles on port beam coming towards
    me--dived 60 ft.--altered course to west. 10.15: one bomb--dived
    to 90 ft.--up to periscope depth and continued patrol. 6.20 P.M.:
    three bombs--dived to 80 feet. 6.37: three bombs--altered course
    to N.E., depth 70 feet. 6.50: one bomb. 7.37 P.M.: at 80 feet six
    or seven bombs dropped, three of them close to boat.

    "26th May.--Sighted seaplane--dived 70 feet at 4.45 A.M. 9 A.M.:
    sighted seaplane--dived 80 feet. 9.38: five bombs dropped. 12.15:
    one bomb dropped. Heard propellers which passed on. 4 P.M.: two
    bombs dropped. 4.20: one bomb dropped. Heard propellers and sweep.
    4.40 P.M.: two bombs--propellers and sweep. 6.20 P.M.: one bomb a
    long way off--propellers heard--boat rolled in the wash of
    destroyers.

    "28th May.--4.45 A.M.: Sighted seaplanes bearing east. 3.20 P.M.:
    sighted Zeppelin bearing north.

    "All bombs mentioned in this report were small ones."

The attentions paid to "E 56" on the 26th call to mind the story of the
E-boat which did a "crash" dive to avoid similar machines. The captain
arrived at the foot of the conning-tower with a rush, his binoculars
preceding him with a heavy thud and his oilskin coming after him; as he
touched the deck three bombs exploded on the surface just over his
boat, the shock making him sit down suddenly. To the first lieutenant's
unspoken question of "What is it after us?" he answered with an absurd
giggle, and "They've evidently seen me!" Students of Captain
Bairnsfather's drawings will catch the allusion.


IV

I will conclude the accounts of typical submarine _v._ submarine
engagements by the case of "E 34" (Lieutenant Pulleyne) and a U-boat
off Harwich on the 10th May 1918.

"E 34" was returning to harbour after a trip. She was actually in the
swept channel leading into Harwich, and could pretty well take it for
granted that any vessel met with so near home would be friendly. As
boats get near their base it is usual to begin the cleaning-up work
which is so necessary after a trip, and to get ready generally for
harbour routine again. "E 34" saw a submarine ahead steering north,
and, treating her as hostile until her identity could be established,
dived at once to attack. Fifteen minutes later Lieutenant Pulleyne, in
no doubt at all about what his target's nationality was, fired both bow
tubes and sank her. He then rose, and proceeded to pick up the only
survivor, who happened to be the captain, and who was in pretty bad
condition from shock and immersion.

Captain (S.), H.M.S. _Maidstone_, comments on the affair as follows:--

    "I am pleased to be able to record that, with the two submarines
    meeting end on--the one in enemy waters and the other just
    returning to base after a somewhat difficult mine-laying
    operation--it was the submarine which might have been expected
    to have been least on the _qui vive_ which scored the success.
    This reflects great credit on Lieutenant Pulleyne and his ship's
    company, as it shows they were in all respects ready."

It is probable that this incident caused a number of our other officers
secretly to wonder whether, in "E 34's" place, they would have been
equally successful and prompt.

The captain of the U-boat was a charming prisoner. He was taken aboard
the _Maidstone_ and put in a cabin under medical care. His clothes
were dried and other clothes given him. When he had recovered he went
off to a prisoners' camp, from whence he wrote peremptory letters to
the _Maidstone_ officers accusing them of having stolen his
waistcoat, and presenting a bill for its value if not instantly
returned. The _Maidstone_ view of the matter was that they hadn't
got his beastly waistcoat, didn't believe he'd ever had one, and
wouldn't touch it with a barge-pole if he had. Considering they could
not have treated him with more consideration if he had been one of
themselves, and that incidentally they had saved his life--well, the
Hun _is_ a queer person and we'll never be able to understand him.

The story of the sinking of "E 14" (Lieut.-Commander White) in the
Dardanelles has already appeared in print, so I shall not tell it
again. But the thought of German submarine officers leads to
comparisons, and perhaps a submarine sailor had better give his views
about it here:--

    "Copy of letter received by H.M.S. _Adamant_ from Petty Officer R.
    A. Perkins (late of S/M "E 14"), Prisoner of War, No. 5456,
    Fabrique de Cement, Eski Hissar, Guebzeh, Asia Minor."

    "DEAR SIR,--No doubt the officers and men of the _Adamant_ and
    submarines would like to know what became of the captain and two
    officers. I am very sorry to say that Mr White was almost blown to
    pieces by a large shell which wounded three other men, and I
    believe it killed Mr Drew, as I was with both of them. I saw the
    captain's body, but nothing of Mr Drew, so I think he must have
    been killed and fell into the sea. Mr Blasset was last seen in the
    engine-room, so went down with the boat. It was a credit to us all
    to think that we had such a brave captain, and, sir, if only I
    could mention a few things about him; but owing to his coolness he
    saved the boat half a dozen times. It is a great pity that no
    officer was saved to tell the tale. I also mention A.B. Mitchell
    and Signalman Trimbell for gallantry in diving overboard and saving
    the life of Prichard, Ord. Tel., who was badly wounded, and would
    have lost his life had it not been for both of these men keeping
    him afloat until assistance arrived. I am glad to say that all men
    that were wounded were sent to hospital ten minutes after being
    captured, and were treated very well. The remaining five men,
    except Stoker Reed, have had a bad attack of fever since being
    captured. We are all sorry that so few men were saved, and, as I
    have said, our gallant captain. This is all I have to report."

Being the senior survivor, Petty Officer Perkins reports as such. If
his officers had lived I think it probable we would have heard
something to the credit of Petty Officer Perkins.

The escape of Lieut.-Commander Cochrane from Asia Minor is being
described in 'Maga.' The account of how he became a prisoner seems to
indicate that he was not likely to remain a submissive captive:--

    "6.30 A.M.: Passed Kilid Bahr at 200 yards--the periscope being
    fired on by the forts without result.

    "7.30: Sighted the buoys of the submarine net off Nagara Point.
    Dived to 100 feet and increased to 7-1/2 knots.

    "The bows cut through the net as the starboard propeller fouled
    and stopped the starboard motor. Went hard-a-port and port motor
    to full speed. Boat fell off to port and lay parallel to and much
    entangled in the net. I tried to turn the boat's head to south and
    pass through the net.

    "8.30 A.M.: A mine exploded a few hundred feet from the boat, no
    damage being done.

    "After about two hours manoeuvring the boat was turned to the
    southward, and repeated attempts to get clear were made at depths
    of from 60 to 130 feet by going full speed ahead and astern. Boat
    was now held by the net fore and aft.

    "10.30 A.M.: A mine was exploded close to the boat. The explosion
    was violent, but no damage was done to the hull. After this
    explosion the boat was much freer than before, _and in the hopes
    that further attempts to blow up the boat might result in
    completely freeing her_,[2] I decided to remain submerged at a
    good depth till after dark, when it might be possible to come to
    the surface and clear the obstruction. Burned all confidential
    papers.

          [2] The italics are mine.--AUTHOR.

    "By 2 P.M. battery power was much reduced and further attempts to
    get clear were given up for a time.

    "6.40 P.M.: A mine was exploded a few feet from the hull; the
    explosion was very violent--electric lights and other small
    fittings being broken. The motors were at once started in the hope
    that the net had been destroyed; but this was not the case. The
    presence of enemy craft on the surface having made it impossible
    to come to the surface after dark and so clear the obstruction, I
    decided to come up and remove the crew from the boat before
    blowing her up. The boat was brought to the surface without
    difficulty, and when the conning-tower was above water Lieutenant
    Scaife went on deck to surrender the crew. Fire was immediately
    opened on him from light guns on shore and three motor-boats which
    were lying round 'E 7.' As soon as the excitement had died down
    and the enemy officers had regained control of their men, two
    motor-boats came alongside and the officers and men were taken off
    without difficulty. This operation was carried out under the
    orders of German submarine officers. The boat was sunk as soon as
    she was clear of men, and a time-fuse having been fired,
    subsequently blew up.

    "Throughout the day the discipline and behaviour of the crew was
    excellent. This was particularly noticeable at the time of the
    third explosion. At this time the crew had been fallen out from
    their stations, and many of them were asleep. On being called to
    their stations every man went quietly to his place, although the
    violence of the explosion was such as to convince every one that
    the boat was badly damaged.

    "... Petty Officer Sims, L.T.O., was in charge of the
    after-switchboard, and continued throughout the day to work the
    starboard motor, although much hampered by smoke and pieces of
    molten copper, due to the damage received by the motor and
    starting resistances while freeing the propeller."

Lieut.-Commander Cochrane attempted to escape, but after covering 200
miles was, with Lieut.-Commander Stoker of "AE 2," captured ten miles
from the coast. They received a year's imprisonment, and on August 18,
1918, Lieut.-Commander Cochrane started his successful trip,
accompanied by seven military officers, back to England.




V


I

In 1916 we began to look to Germany to produce something very
unpleasant in the way of submarines. We were certain she would follow
the obvious course indicated by the lessons all belligerents were
learning, and produce the big U-cruiser. Very fortunately for us, she
produced nothing of the sort until well into 1918, when one small
U-cruiser did us a great deal of damage. The point was this--We were
worrying and chasing U-boats with trawlers, motor-boats, destroyers,
and numbers of other comparatively small and weakly-armed craft. If a
U-cruiser, armed with, say, four 6-inch guns, and armoured along her
top-strakes, had risen to fight her tormentors--well, it is clear that
our small patrol-vessel service would have become suddenly very
expensive. Each convoy would have required cruiser protection, and we
had not enough cruisers to provide this. In 1917, by our constructor's
reckonings, there was no reason why a German submarine could not have
been produced which could proceed safely to the East Indies (round the
Cape), and repeat (on a bigger scale) the exploits of the _Emden_.
Well, the Germans didn't do it; they produced U-cruisers with two 5·9"
guns apiece in 1918, but the type was unsatisfactory and unstable. It
is still a puzzle to us that the idea came to them so slowly. We had
K-class boats with the fleet in 1916 of 2600 tons, and had shown that a
big submarine was a working proposition. (The K boat, of course, is not
a cruiser-submarine; she is a fast and lightly-gunned type for use in
battle only, and she does not leave the fleet except when detached for
watching patrols.) We produced the M-class in 1917, and--for obvious
reasons--we kept the type as secret as possible until the Armistice.
The M boat is rather smaller than the K, and is of only seventeen knots
speed, but she has far better under-water capabilities than her big
companion. She carries, besides her torpedo armament, a 12-inch gun of
the normal battleship type. This gun can be carried loaded submerged by
the use of a watertight tampion and breech. The boat can rise in the
wake of an enemy, fire as she "breaks surface," and submerge again--all
in a matter of seconds.

The type was extremely successful, and one can only be thankful that
such boats were not on the enemy's side. They would have been the very
devil to deal with on the trade routes, and would have caused us to
reconsider very hurriedly our whole system of anti-submarine defence.
Of course, four 6-inch would be better than one 12-inch from a German
point of view, especially as a destroyer would be likely to attack
unscathed under the fire of one big gun, but our type was intended for
use against such things as enemy cruisers, and not for sinking merchant
ships. By the end of the war the enemy had arrived at the stage of
submarine design where one says, "We've got a type that works--let us
stick to it, and just add improvements." We passed that stage before
the war and are now in the confident (with reservations!) state of
feeling that we can turn out anything required to combine the
properties of under-water and surface craft. If submarines continue as
weapons of war, they will improve very considerably, and the range of
possibility of future types is so great that any prophecy now would be
rash. It must be remembered, however, that the depth of water in which
a boat is intended to operate limits her size. It is not only that the
distance from her keel to periscope is (in the case of a big boat) some
50 feet, but also that the great length of a big boat's hull means that
even a slight fore-and-aft inclination as she dives will add enormously
to her draught; a very long boat in twenty fathoms of water (the North
Sea average) would have to be careful not to get off an even keel, as
it might happen that in the presence of the enemy her bow or stern
would touch bottom, with the result of causing the whole boat to bounce
up to the surface. A submarine submerged is in a state of equilibrium,
in that she has little or no tendency to rise or sink if her motors are
stopped and the boat left to herself. I am afraid in this history that
I continue to speak of submarines as if everybody knew a good deal
about them. I use technical expressions and words as if I was dealing
with things like motor-cars. I will try and explain more clearly what I
mean by "bouncing to the surface," and will do so in the idea that
there are probably readers who know as much about diving boats as I do
of bimetallism.

A submarine is a surface ship which can be submerged and driven ahead
at a steady depth-line. She is built strongly in order to resist the
water-pressure when she is deep down. She is propelled on the surface
by (usually) heavy-oil Diesel engines. When submerged she cannot use
these, as they consume air, so she has an electric battery and motors
for use under water. The battery is charged when on the surface at her
convenience or by favour of the enemy. The Diesel engines are used for
this purpose, and they recharge the batteries through the motors, using
the latter as dynamos.

In old pictures of projected submarines of the seventeenth century one
sees that the principle of "trimming down" for submersion was known,
and that our present-day system of tanks was intended to be substituted
by pig-skins which fitted into cylindrical hollows in the hull. These
skins were emptied by screwing out a ram from inside (on the idea of
old-fashioned printing presses) which squashed the skins. Nowadays a
boat is all tanks along her lower half, the upper half being living
space and battery room, etc. These tanks are flooded through valves in
order to destroy the boat's buoyancy. The water is ejected from them
either by pumps or by the use of compressed air, the latter taking the
place of the old seventeenth-century screw-press idea. When the tanks
have flooded until the boat's buoyancy is all gone--_i.e._, until
you could press her down or lift her up with one hand--she is
"trimmed," and by going ahead and working the bow and stern hydroplanes
you can keep whatever depth-line is required. When submerged, a
look-out is kept through a periscope--a tube about thirty feet long
which has lenses all the way up, is watertight, and has an eyepiece
like an ordinary telescope at its lower end.

To dive, a boat opens her vents, puts "dive" helm on, and goes under
with her motors running. The flooding valves are kept open to save
time; in surface trim a boat is "hanging on the vents"--_i.e._, if
you open the vents (upper valves of the tanks) the water enters and she
goes down; until the vents are open the water cannot enter beyond a
certain point; when they do open the air in the tanks can get away and
the tanks fill up with a rush.

During a trip the "trim" of the boat alters continually. She is using
fuel, ammunition, food, and water, and calculation is necessary to
allow for this. Certain tanks are used for this compensating, so that
on all occasions when a rapid dive is necessary, there is nothing to do
but flood the big external tanks, and yet know that the boat will be in
hand when under. If mistakes are made, they will show at once. If too
much has been put into the "internals" to compensate, the boat will run
on down to the bottom in spite of "up helm" and full speed. If too
little, you have to flood internals according to an estimate of what is
needed as she ploughs along half-submerged; the latter case is one to
be avoided, as you may be killed by the enemy while flooding. The usual
war practice is to compensate on the "heavy" side--_i.e._, let her
go with a rush and blow tanks so as to catch her and hold her at sixty
feet; then you can bring her up to patrol depth at your leisure.

It can be seen, then, that the description of a boat as "bouncing" is
not incorrect. When going to the bottom for the night it is a common
occurrence, if too rough a "landing" is made, to proceed like a
tennis-ball along the sand for a couple of hundred yards. It is a
curious thing that both in the Cattegat and the Sea of Marmora, boats
have been able to lie for the night with motors stopped at depths of
from thirty to seventy feet. In the Marmora the junction depth of the
salt and fresh water is about seventy. A boat trimmed with about two
hundred pounds of negative buoyancy out there will, if she stops her
motors, sink slowly through the upper layer of fresh (or brackish)
water, till she meets the denser salt below; on reaching this she will
be in a state of "positive" buoyancy, and after a little bouncing up
and down to find her "zero" stratum, she will settle at a steady depth.
The same sort of thing--a blessing in the Marmora--is a nuisance in the
Bight. A boat crossing the mouths of the German rivers may be at one
moment diving comfortably with zero helm on the hydroplanes--the next,
she meets a layer of fresh water from the Jahde ebb and is bumping on
the bottom with "hard-up" helm and the pumps working on the tanks.


II

The exploits of "E 11" in the Dardanelles have been published during
the war; this boat, however, did not begin her war career in the Sea of
Marmora--she had already shown her usual attitude of contemptuous
familiarity towards the enemy when on patrol in the Heligoland Bight.
On one occasion in 1914 she certainly met a "ghost"--_i.e._, something
which never gave any satisfactory explanation of what it was. "E 11"
was diving in sight of Heligoland, and having sighted a line of four
destroyers coming over her horizon, she turned in to attack them.
Suddenly her bow was jerked up to a startling angle, and tanks had to
be hastily flooded to prevent a "break surface." The boat then seemed
to go crazy--taking angles by the bow or stern apparently in defiance
of all laws of hydrostatics. The captain made up her mind for her by
running her down to the bottom in 65 feet and holding her there. In a
few minutes the sound of screws came from overhead, and the same sound
continued for several minutes. "E 11" was then dived up off the bottom,
but was found to be still in the same strange condition, taking up this
time an angle of 20 degrees up by the bow. She was once more taken down
and held to the bottom, while again screws passed by and curious noises
came from overhead. The noises went on for an hour, during which time
the officers and crew--with the business-like decision of the British
nation--had tea. When the noises had stopped "E 11" was again lifted,
when she showed a perfect trim and instant obedience to her
hydroplanes, proceeding along at her normal patrol depth as if she had
never given any trouble at all. Nothing was in sight through the
periscope except Heligoland, and the explanation of "E 11's" hysteria
is still her own secret.

The same boat, as was reported at the time, shared a Christmas dinner
with some representatives of the R.N.A.S. on the day of the 1914
Cuxhaven air raid. The Germans have not given us their version of what
happened, but from the following it will be seen that it is a pity that
they did not publish an uncensored story.

At 11 A.M. "E 11" was diving on her billet to the westward of
Norderney, when she saw through the periscope a seaplane coming out to
seaward and flying low. She came to the surface, and, having been
placed on that billet "according to plan," was not surprised to find
that the machine was British. The seaplane took the water safely, and
"E 11" took her in tow with the idea of saving the machine. The pilot
(carrying his confidential bomb-sight with him) was taken on board
first. Hardly had the tow started when two more seaplanes were seen
approaching from the direction of the shore, one of them flying very
groggily and looking like an imitation of a tumbler pigeon. "E 11"
stopped and the machines closed her; so did a large Schutte-Lanz type
airship, which was presumably in pursuit of them. Of the two seaplanes
the undamaged one came down comfortably close to the submarine, and
then all spectators stood up to watch the alighting of the other,
which was seen to have had its tail shot off and to be under the
nominal control of its ailerons only. Everybody held their breath as
the pilot brought the machine down, and there was a general groan of
sympathy as the crash came. She pitched nose first into the sea, and
it looked as though the pilot could hardly have survived; then a wet
figure was seen to climb slowly out of the wreck and perch
cross-legged on the tip of the broken tail. By this time the enemy
airship had arrived, and "E 11" realised that speed in picking up the
seaplane pilots was becoming more advisable every minute. An
additional complication chose this moment to turn up in the shape of a
U-boat,[3] which appeared on the surface about two miles away and then
dived--presumably to attack with torpedoes. "E 11" at this stage of
the war was unfortunately not fitted with a gun. She slipped tow from
Number One seaplane and fired several revolver bullets through its
floats to ensure its sinking. She then closed Number Two and took the
pilot and observer off her just as the airship arrived overhead at a
height of two hundred feet. The faces of the Germans in the gondolas
could be clearly seen, and the men in the middle car were displaying
considerable activity--probably wrestling with a faulty bomb-dropping
gear. Before the bombing business was in working order, however, the
light breeze had carried the airship down to leeward--much to the
relief of "E 11," who saw the enemy restart her engines in order to
make a sweep round and get into position again. "E 11" having
punctured the floats of Number Two seaplane with bullets, manoeuvred
alongside Number Three, and picked up a very wet pilot and mechanic.
By this time there was every probability of the U-boat having
approached inside easy torpedo range--in fact "E 11" was wondering why
the expected torpedoes were so slow in arriving. For this reason, and
also because the airship was now nearly back overhead again, any
further delay was rash, and so the pilot and mechanic were
unceremoniously hustled below, and "E 11" demonstrated to them what a
"crash-dive" was like from inside. The depth gauges had just reached
nineteen feet when two heavy explosions occurred on the surface,--the
enemy's bomb-dropping gear was working nicely again, but too late. "E
11" went under feeling a little hurt at having had to leave a job
unfinished; she had meant to sink Number Three seaplane before
leaving, and was unhappy at the idea of it being still of use to the
enemy. On rising sufficiently to use her periscope, however, she was
delighted to observe the Schutte-Lanz venting its hate in machine-gun
fire on the abandoned machine--an expenditure of ammunition which
continued until the sorely-tried raider sank. "E 11" was for a moment
inclined to come up to pass a polite signal of thanks to the enemy,
but, after consultation, it was decided that humour was wasted on
Germans, and so the boat was taken on to the bottom for a rest while
the Xmas dinner was disposed of. The five passengers shared the
dinner, and presumably enjoyed the day, but it blew half a gale and
more all the way home to Harwich, and the motion of an "E" boat takes
a lot of getting used to.

          [3] Later discovered to be another E-boat.

Everybody has read of the doings of this submarine in the Sea of
Marmora, and I will try to avoid writing about despatches already
published; but I think the actions between submarines and soldiers have
been perhaps only lightly touched on, in view of the fact that such
actions are so unique in their nature and circumstances.

In August 1915 "E 14" and "E 11" met at a rendezvous in the Marmora
with the intention of acting on "information received." "E 11" says:--

    "August 7th, 5 A.M.: Dived by Dohan Aslan Buoy, keeping watch on
    road.

    "11.30 A.M.: Observed troops on road leading towards Gallipoli.
    Rose to surface and opened fire, several shots dropping well
    amongst them, causing them to scatter. Observed column approaching
    along same road. Range of the road now being known from our
    position, dropped several shells among them. Column took cover in
    open order.

    "1.10 P.M.: Large column observed on road nearer Gallipoli,
    marching at high speed. Opened fire, but failed to stop progress
    of column, although a large number of dead and wounded appeared to
    be left alongside the road. This column was under fire for about
    half an hour, when we were forced to dive by shore guns.

    "3.20 P.M.: Rose to surface and opened fire at a considerable body
    of troops, apparently resting. They immediately dispersed, and
    subsequently opened a well-directed fire with a field gun. Dived."

"E 14" (her captain, Commander Boyle, was senior to Commander Nasmith
of "E 11") says:--

    "August 7th ... at 1.30 P.M.: I saw more dust coming down the
    road. Rose to the surface, and opened fire on troops marching
    towards Gallipoli. "E 11" was firing at the time I came up. I had
    stationed her to the north-east of Dohan Aslan Bank, and she first
    shelled the troops on a part of the road showing there, and then
    came down to my billet, where we both shelled them for the best
    part of an hour. I got off forty rounds, and about six of them
    burst in the middle of the troops. I had to put full range on the
    sights and aim at the top of the hill, so my shooting was not very
    accurate. "E 11" having a 12-pdr., did much more damage, and
    scattered the troops several times. Soon after 2 P.M. they started
    firing on us from the shore and out-ranging us."

"E 11" on August 18th:--

    "7 A.M.: Rose to surface near Dohan Asian Buoy to bombard troops,
    but they scattered before fire was opened.

    "8.30 A.M.: Rose to surface and opened fire on large convoy on
    road, several shells falling among them before they managed to
    scatter.

    "9 A.M.: Observed fire springing up where our shots had fallen.
    This rapidly increased in size, until in the afternoon and evening
    it had assumed very large proportions."

A U-boat was captured by cavalry in 1918, but that case was perhaps
exceptional. In the Napoleonic wars it was customary for English
frigates to fire at French troops marching along the coast-roads of
Spain, so that the E boats in the Marmora were only repeating history,
but they certainly showed that the new weapon was a most disconcerting
one for troops to have to reply to.

I do not intend to fill pages with unexplained despatches, but the
following extracts explain themselves, and, in any case, are too good
to be omitted from any submarine history.

"E 11" (Commander Nasmith):--

    "May 23rd, 5.50 A.M.: Observed Turkish torpedo-gunboat at anchor
    off Constantinople. Attacked and sank her with port-bow torpedo,
    striking her amidships on the starboard side. While sinking she
    opened fire with a 6-pdr. gun, the first round hitting the
    foremost periscope. Proceeded to position north of Kalolimno
    Island. Rose to surface, and prepared damaged periscope for new
    top.

    "10.30 A.M.: Hands to bathe.

    "May 24th, 10.30 A.M.: Observed small steamer proceeding to the
    westward. Examined vessel through periscope, and rose to surface
    on her port quarter. Signalled her to stop. No notice was taken.
    Brought her to a standstill by several rounds from a rifle
    directed at her bridge. Ordered crew to abandon the ship. This
    they carried out with reckless haste, capsizing all but one boat.
    Fortunately with this boat they were able to right the other two
    and pick up those swimming in the water. An American gentleman
    then appeared on the upper deck, who informed us that his name was
    Silas Q. Swing, of the 'Chicago Sun,' and that he was pleased to
    make our acquaintance. He then informed us that the steamer was
    proceeding to Chanak with Turkish marines, and that he was not
    sure if there were any stores on board.

    "Ran up alongside and put Lieutenant D'Oyly-Hughes on board with
    demolition party. He discovered a 6-inch gun lashed across the top
    of the fore-hatch--the forehold containing one large 6-inch gun
    mounting and several small 12-pdr. pedestals, the guns for which
    were probably at the bottom of the hold.

    "The after-hold was full of 6-inch projectiles, and on top of this
    were resting about fifty large white-metal cartridge-cases marked
    Krupp. The demolition charge was then placed against the ship's
    side in the after-hold, well tamped with 6-inch shells and
    cartridges. All hands returned to the boat and the charge was
    fired. The vessel exploded with a loud report, and a large column
    of smoke and flame shot up."

At 11.15 A.M. "E 11" dived into Rodosto harbour after a heavily-laden
store-ship. At 12.35 she torpedoed her as she lay alongside the pier.
In the afternoon she missed a paddle-steamer which managed to save
herself by beaching.

On the 25th "E 11" dived into Constantinople and torpedoed a steamer
alongside the arsenal. On the 28th she sank a large supply ship. On the
31st she torpedoed a large vessel lying in Panderma Roads. On June 2nd
she got another, which was probably--from the violence of the
explosion--laden with ammunition. On June 7th, on her way out of the
Sea of Marmora, "E 11" sank a large troopship and so finished her
cruise. I am quoting these statistics to point out what damage may be
done by a single submarine on an army's line of communication.

The moral effect (in such ways as delaying and scaring traffic) is, of
course, as great as the material, and probably far greater.

The Marmora submarines hardly deign to mention such small fry as dhows
and other sailing ships, but the list runs to a great length when put
together. Here are a few days' sinkings by "E 14" (Commander Boyle). On
June 20th she sank three dhows, on the 22nd one, on the 23rd a
two-masted sailing-ship, on the 24th two dhows, and on the 27th a
brigantine.

Nowadays a submarine on that sort of duty would have to expect all
kinds of retaliation and unpleasantness, but at that stage of the war
the anti-submarine work was feeble, and the enemy must have cursed at
his own impotence to defend his sea routes.

"E 12" (Commander Bruce) was the boat that had the battle at ten yards'
range with an armed tug in the Sea of Marmora. She came victorious out
of the action, having sunk her opponent. She had a habit of using her
one gun in a violent manner which caused much distress to the enemy. On
the 16th September 1916, on a trip up the Dardanelles, she torpedoed a
munition steamer in Burgas Bay. On the 18th, being then inside the
Marmora, she

    "Dived into Rodosto, but found nothing. Chased torpedo-boat of the
    'Antalia' class off Kalolimno Island. We both opened fire at about
    8000 yards, the torpedo-boat turning towards us. The fourth shot
    hit her aft, and she then turned and proceeded at high speed
    towards Constantinople, seeming to be on fire aft."

The Turkish anti-submarine craft must have been in the position of the
darkey who hooked the alligator--"Is dis nigger fishing, or is dis fish
a-niggerin'?"

"E 12" continues unmoved--

    "Proceeded into Mudania, bombarded Magazine outside town, hit it
    eight times, silenced the batteries which opened fire on us and
    damaged the railway. Sank two sail and proceeded towards Gulf of
    Ismid."

Nothing was seen in Ismid owing to fog, and so she tried the vicinity
of Marmora Island, where on the 21st she sank a steamer of 3000 tons
and six dhows. Things were dull till the 28th, when she sank three off
Ismid. On the 29th she met with anti-submarine work again.

    "Sank one sail off Rodosto. Destroyer came out, but returned again
    on sighting us, ... we were opened fire on from Sar Kioi. Opened
    fire on them and silenced their guns. Sank four sail three miles
    farther to the westward. Aeroplane dropped two bombs, the nearest
    falling 30 yards from our stern."

On the 5th October she sank a small steamer and seventeen sail in
Rodosto Bay. An aeroplane dropped a bomb at her with no success. On the
9th she chased a torpedo-boat on the surface, but was unable to get
within range. On the 12th she sank another steamer, and on the 17th
submarine "H 1" having come up the Dardanelles also, the two boats
chased a gunboat and, getting each side of her, gave her an unhappy
time. They hit her several times and she appeared to have lost control,
as she nearly went ashore on Kalolimno Point. Eventually she found
shelter in Panderma. "E 12" dived in after her, but owing to fog could
not see her. Both boats waited patiently all night in hopes of her
coming out, but were disappointed. On the 19th "E 12" fired on
Constantinople powder factory and had hit it three times before 5·9 in.
guns opened fire on her from the shore and made her dive.

On the 25th "E 12" returned down the Narrows. Her experience with the
net should be read, remembering that she was an old boat and not meant
to stand deep-water pressures.

She passed through the net at 80 feet depth and carried a portion of it
with her. This portion must have had some of the heavy weights attached
that had been holding the net down, for as the boat came through she
took a big angle down by the bow and sank.

The forward hydroplanes caught in the net jammed at "10° of dive." "E
12's" external tanks were blown out and full speed put on the motors.
The boat continued down, however, and as the pressure increased, the
conning-tower glass scuttles burst in and the conning-tower filled up,
the hull leaked forward, and the fore compartment had to be closed off.
By putting three men on the wheel the bow hydroplanes were moved a
little, and after ten minutes at 245 feet the boat started to rise.
They managed to check her at 12 feet, but found her almost
uncontrollable. Six patrol boats opened fire as the conning-tower
showed above water, and then the panting hydroplane men forced her down
again. The boat continued to dive badly (she was still towing the net
and sinkers), and twice she ran down to 120 feet. Both diving gauges
had failed and the gyroscopic compass had followed suit. The
conning-tower (magnetic) compass was flooded out and useless. Then at
80 feet she struck chain moorings off Kelid Bahr and scraped past. This
broke away the length of net she had been towing, and released of the
weight she rose at once, and before the tanks could be filled again
broke surface. The shore batteries and patrol vessels opened fire at
once, hitting the conning-tower full with a small shell and sending
other small shells and splinters through the bridge. As the boat went
down (the conning-tower being flooded already, the shell hole was
nothing to worry about) a torpedo fired from Kelid Bahr passed over
her, and another 50 yards astern of her. "E 12" continued her dive
towards home, her trim and control being then normal. She observed two
large explosions a couple of miles astern of her and saw the track of
another torpedo, but was not further molested, and joined the
Dardanelles Fleet a few hours later.

Submarine "H 1" (Lieutenant Pirie) has been mentioned as having worked
in company with "E 12." An "H" boat is, of course, much smaller and
less seaworthy than an "E," being of 400 tons and 150 feet length.
Before meeting "E 12" at the rendezvous, this boat had sunk a steamer.
Later she sank three more steamers and a dhow. As "E 12" was leaving
the Marmora first, she politely took "H 1's" mails out with her.

"E 7" (Commander Cochrane) made herself unpopular with the enemy in
July of 1915. She passed up the Dardanelles (being missed "overhead"
by a torpedo fired from Kelid Bahr) on the 30th June, and on 2nd July
sank a steamer and two dhows in Rodosto Bay. On the 3rd she sank a
brigantine, and on the 6th a 200-ton Zebec and another brigantine. On
the 7th she got a tug and a ferry-steamer and had an action on the
surface with a two- or three-gun gunboat which retired, leaving a dhow
to its fate. In the evening she chased a ferry-steamer ashore. In the
morning she sighted the same ferry-steamer under way and sank her. On
the 9th she got a Zebec, and on the 10th she dived into Mudania and
torpedoed a steamer alongside the pier. On the 11th she sank two
dhows, and on the 15th she dived into Constantinople and fired a
torpedo at the Arsenal (which is close to the water) in the hope of
detonating something. The explosion was very heavy when the torpedo
hit. She then dived out and came to the surface off Zeitunlik Powder
Mills, into which she fired twelve rounds. On the 16th she sank a
dhow, and at 9.30 A.M. on the 17th she opened fire on a railway
cutting a mile west of Kaya Burnu and blocked the line. She then
waited till she saw a heavy troop train going west, and chased at full
speed to pick up the fruits of her labours. The train entered the
cutting, and, as was expected, backed out again into Yarandje Station.
"E 7" settled down to work, and after twenty rounds had been fired,
three ammunition cars blew up. Later in the day she shelled another
train and hit several cars, without, however, doing so much damage.
She concluded an interesting day by sinking another dhow. On the 18th
she sank a brigantine, and was fired at by rifles from Mudania. She
replied by hitting a steamer with one shell, and the buildings from
which rifles were being fired with ten. Three shells fired into a
small shed on the beach produced heavy and satisfactory explosions. On
the 19th she sank four sail, and on the 21st one; on the 22nd she
fired again on a train rounding Kaya Burnu and on a stone railway
bridge. On the 24th she came back through the Narrows, presumably to
the immense relief of the Turks. On her next trip, as has already been
related, "E 7" was sunk and the crew captured. The coxswain was
imprisoned some 60 miles from the coast of Asia Minor. He made a small
canvas boat, _carried it with him_ to the beach across that 60
miles of hills and put to sea. He was blown back by a gale, however,
and recaptured on the day that his captain escaped from a camp 300
miles inland.

In these interminable lists of sinkings of unarmed vessels it may
appear to the reader as if the work had been done roughly and without
considerat

Showing first 200,000 characters. Full text: gutenberg.org/ebooks/40765