CHAPTER VII

How the Submarine is being Fought--Destroyers the Great Menace--But Nets, Too, Have Played Their Part--Many Other Devices--German Officers Tell of Experience on a Submarine Caught in a Net--Chasers Play Their Part--The Depth-Bomb--Trawler Tricks--A Camouflaged Schooner Which Turned Out To Be a Tartar--Airplanes--German Submarine Men in Playful Mood

When the submarines first began their attacks upon British war-ships and merchant vessels the admiralty was faced by a state of affairs which had been dealt with more or less in the abstract, the only practical lessons at hand being those of the Russo-Japanese War, which conflict, as a matter of fact, left rather an unbalanced showing so far as the undersea boat and the surface craft were concerned; in other words, the submersible had by all odds the advantage.

But England tackled the problem with bulldog energy, utilizing to that end not only her immense destroyer fleet, but a myriad of high-speed wooden boats, many of which were built in this country. They were called submarine-chasers, and while the destroyer and the seaplane, as one of the most effective weapons against the submarine, came to the fore, the chaser is employed in large numbers by England, France, and the United States.

The great usefulness of the destroyer lay not only in patrolling the seas in search of the U-boats, but of serving in convoys, protecting passenger and freight vessels, and in rescuing crews of vessels that had been sunk. There may be other methods of reducing Germany's sum total of submarines which are equally--if not more--effective than the destroyer; but, if so, we have not been made aware of that fact. Certain it is, however, that aside from the destroyer, steel nets, fake fishing and merchant sailing vessels, seaplanes and chasers have played their important part in the fight, while such a minor expedient as blinding the eye of the periscope by oil spread on the waters has not been without avail.

The United States Navy appears to have figured chiefly through its destroyer fleet. It has been stated that half the number of sailors who were in the navy when we entered the war were sent to European waters. The system of training them involves a number of training-bases in Europe constantly filling up from American drafts. Each new destroyer that steams to Europe from our shores in due course sends back some of her men to form a nucleus for the crew of another new destroyer turning up in American waters. Their places are taken by drafts from the training-bases in Europe. The destroyer referred to as turning up in this country makes up her complement from the battleships and other naval units here. The training-bases in this country are established at Newport, Chicago, San Francisco, and Pelham Bay, N.Y. Here the men have many months' instruction. As their training approaches completion they are sent where needed, and thus the work of creating an immense army of trained seamen qualified for any sort of a task proceeds with mechanical precision.

Submarine hunting is very popular with our young jackies, and great is their satisfaction when some submarine falls victim to their vigilance, their courage, and their unerring eyes.

"But," said a young sea officer not long ago, "the submarine is a difficult bird to catch. He holds the advantage over the surface craft. He always sees you first. Even when he is on the surface he is nearly awash, and when submerged only his periscope appears above the water. The submarine is not after animals of our breed--destroyers--and when he can he avoids them. We may go several weeks without putting an eye upon a single U-boat. When we do there is action, I can tell you. We start for him at full speed, opening up with all our guns in the hope of getting in a shot before he is able to submerge. But you may believe he doesn't take long to get below the surface. Anyway, the sub doesn't mind gun-fire much. They are afraid of depth charges--bombs which are regulated so that they will explode at any depth we wish. They contain two or three hundred pounds of high explosive, and all patrol vessels and destroyers carry them on deck and astern. When we see a submarine submerge we try to find his wake. Finding it, we run over it and drop a bomb. The explosion can be felt under water for a distance of several miles, but we have to get within ninety feet of the hull to damage it. This damage may or may not cause the undersea boat to sink. Inside of ninety feet, though, there isn't much doubt about the sinking.

"Patrol duty is a grind. The sea where we work is filled with wreckage for a distance of 300 miles off shore, and you can take almost any floating object for a periscope. Yes, we shoot at everything; ours is not a business in which to take chances. Convoy work is more interesting and more exciting than the round of patrol. The advantage of the convoy over the picking up and escorting of a merchantman by a patrol-boat is that in the convoy from six to ten destroyers can protect from ten to thirty merchantmen, while under the patrol system one destroyer watches one merchant craft. Convoy trips take our destroyers away from their base from six to eight days, and they are all trying days, especially so in dirty weather. On convoy duty no officer, and no man, has his clothes off from start to finish. Too many things may happen to warrant any sort of unpreparedness. Constant readiness is the watch-word.

"At night difficulty and danger increase, chiefly because of the increased danger of collision. Collisions sometimes occur--what with the absence of lights, the zigzag course of the ships of the convoy, and the speed with which we travel. But as a rule the accidents are of the scraping variety, and all thus is usually well. The convoy is purely a defensive measure. The patrol is the offensive; in this the destroyers and other craft go out and look for the U-boats, the idea being to hound them out of the seas."

Then there are netting operations in which our sailors have played some part. The netting most often used is made of stout galvanized wire with a 15-foot mesh. This is cut into lengths of 170 feet, with a depth of 45 feet. On top of this great net are lashed immense blocks of wood for buoys. Two oil-burning destroyers take the netting, and hanging it between them as deep down in the water as it will go, are ready to seine the 'silverfish.' The range of a submarine's periscope is little over a mile in any sort of sea. Vessels that are belching clouds of smoke may be picked up at distances of from three to five miles, but no more. In other words, watchful eyes gazing through binoculars may see a periscope as far as that periscope sees. The destroyers, bearing their net between them, then pick up a distant periscope. They chart the submarine's direction (this may be told by the direction in which the periscope is cutting the water) and calculate her speed. Then they steam to a point directly ahead of the submarine, and the lashings are cut away from the net. While it thus floats in the submarine's path the destroyers speed away out of eye-shot. In a large majority of cases it is claimed the submarine runs into that net, or one like it. Results are a probable disarrangement of her machinery and her balance upset. She may be thrown over on her back. If she comes up she goes down again for good and all with a hole shot in her hull; if not, it is just as well, a shell has been saved.

Submarines occasionally escape by changing their course after the nets have been set; but there appears to have been no instance of the destroyers themselves having been picked up by the periscope. This because they set pretty nearly as low as a submarine, and with their oil-burning propulsion give forth no telltale cloud of smoke. Other nets are hung from hollow glass balls, which the periscope cannot pick up against the sea water. These nets are set in profusion in the English Channel, the North Sea, or wherever submarines lurk, and they are tended just as the North River shad fishermen tend their nets. When a destroyer, making the rounds, sees that a glass ball has disappeared, there is more than presumptive evidence that something very valuable has been netted.

Naval Lieutenant Weddingen, of the German submarine U-17, has related the following experience with the British net system. The U-17 had left her base early in the morning and had passed into the North Sea, the boat being under water with periscope awash. "I looked through the periscope," said Weddingen, "and could see a red buoy behind my boat. When, ten minutes later, I looked I saw the buoy again, still at the same distance behind us. I steered to the right and then to the left, but the buoy kept on following us. I descended deeply into the water, but still saw the buoy floating on the surface above us. At last I discovered that we had caught the chain of the buoy and that we were dragging it along with us.

"At the same time, also, I saw through the periscope that a strange small steamer was steering a course directly behind us and the buoy. At this time my sounding apparatus indicated that a screw steamer was in the vicinity. Observation revealed that five enemy torpedo-boats were approaching from the north. I increased the speed of the boat in the expectation of being able to attack one of them. The five torpedo-boats arranged themselves in a circle. I sank still deeper and got ready for eventualities.

"At this juncture my boat began to roll in a most incomprehensible manner. We began to rise and sink alternately. The steering-gear apparently was out of order. Soon afterward I discovered that we had encountered a wire netting and were hopelessly entangled in it. We had, in fact, got into the net of one of the hunters surrounding us.

"For an hour and a half the netting carried us with it, and although I made every effort to get clear of it, it seemed impossible. There was nothing to do but increase the weight in the submarine as much as possible so that I might try to break the netting. Fortunately, when we had started I had pumped in from five to six tons of water, filling all the tanks. I increased the weight of the boat to the utmost, and suddenly we felt a shock and were clear of the netting. I then descended as deeply in the water as I could, the manometer showing thirty metres. We remained under water for eighteen hours. When I wanted to ascertain where we were I noticed that my compass was out of order. For a time I steered by the green color of the water, but at last I had to get rid of the ballast in order to rise. I then discovered that the manometer continued to register the same depth, and was also out of order.

"I had, therefore, to be very careful not to rise too high and thus attract the attention of the torpedo-boats. Slowly the periscope rose above the surface, and I could see the enemy in front of me, and toward the left the east coast of England. I tried to turn to starboard, but the rudder did not work. In consequence, I had to sink again to the bottom of the sea, where I remained for six hours, at the end of which time I had succeeded in putting the compass in order, and also in repairing the steering-gear. But upon rising this time, we were detected by a torpedo-boat, which made straight for us, forcing me to descend again." (This apparently was before depth-bombs came into use.) "I remained submerged for two hours, then turned slowly outward, and at a distance of some fifty metres from the leading enemy craft, passed toward the open sea. At 9 o'clock in the evening we were able to rise and proceed in safety."

Here is a human document, is it not? It is the experience of the tarpon at the undersea end of the line, or, in human terms, the hidden drama of man against man, drama of the sort made possible by the ingenuity of this modern age.

Submarine-chasers are shallow craft, capable of a speed of thirty-five miles an hour or more, mounting guns fore and aft. Some of our chasers measure more than 200 feet over all (Eagle class), while others measure 110 feet. The British, as already said, like the 80-footer, although using all sizes. Well, in any event, the chaser cruises about looking for surface waves. Now, the surface wave is the path marked by a submarine on the surface of the water. Even when she is fifty feet below the surface she leaves this palpable pathway up above. And few submarines travel at a depth of sixty feet. Then besides this track there are air-bubbles and spots of oil, all confirming the presence beneath the water of the U-boat.

So thereafter the chaser simply follows that surface wave until the submarine comes to the surface, as she must do sooner or later to get her bearings and look about for prey. When she does come up--she goes down for good. The hunt of the chaser has been aided in the past year or so by the depth-bomb, which did not exist in the first two and a half years of war. Equipped with this, she need not necessarily follow a surface wave all day; she simply drops the bomb down through this wave; at least she does under certain conditions.

This depth-bomb, by the way, is a wonderful invention, and with its perfection began the great decrease in submarine losses. The bomb is cylindrical and has in the top a well in which is fitted a small propeller. As the water comes in contact with the propeller the sinking motion causes it to revolve. As it revolves it screws down a detonator which comes in contact with the charge at ten, fifteen, twenty, or forty or more feet as designated by the hand of an indicator on the bomb. The hand of this indicator is, of course, set by the officer before the bomb is released either from a gun or from tracks along the deck.

Then there have been a number of tricks; some of them Yankee tricks, some of them the creatures of the equally fruitful British tar. One day in the North Sea a British patrol-vessel came across a trawler. It resembled the ordinary British trawler, but there were points of difference, points that interested the inquisitive--and suspicious--commander of the war-vessel. Chiefly there were a lot of stores upon her deck. She flew the Norwegian flag, and her skipper said he was neutral. But the British commander decided to take a chance. He arrested the crew, placed them in irons, and manned the trawler with a crew of French and English navy men.

The trawler hovered about in the same locality for three days, and then one morning, lo and behold, a periscope popped up close alongside. Seeing the waters clear of enemy ships, the U-boat came to the surface and frisked blithely up to the trawler. She was greeted by a shower of machine-gun bullets, and surrendered without ado. There was really nothing else for the surprised skipper to do. For when he had last seen that trawler she was the parent ship of the submarine flotilla operating in that vicinity. In all, before the week was over, that trawler had captured six submarines without the loss of a life, and no one injured.

Thereafter the parent-ship trawler was seized whenever the British could capture one, and the same expedient was tried. But after a time the Germans became wary of approaching parent-ships until they were convinced that their parenthood was more real than assumed.

Then one day after the Americans arrived a three-masted schooner was commandeered. They put a deck-load of lumber on her; at least it was an apparent deck-load. It was really a mask for a broadside of 3-pounder guns, different sections of the deck-load swinging open to admit of free play of the guns, as levers were pulled.

The schooner, commanded by a Maine skipper and his crew, was turned loose in the North Sea. Astern towed a dingy; from the taffrail flew the American flag. Before long out popped a submarine. Aha! A lumber-laden vessel--American! The German commander, grinning broadly, stepped into a gig with a bombing crew; torpedoes were not wasted on sailing-vessels.

"Get into your dingy," he cried, motioning toward the craft dangling astern.

The Maine skipper, in his red underclothes, besought, and then cursed--while the German grinned the more broadly. Finally, however, the irate--sic--skipper and his crew of five clambered into their dingy as ordered by the commander of the submarine. And then! No sooner had the schooner crew cleared the wind-jammer than the deck-load of lumber resolved itself into a series of doors, and out of each door protruded a gun. It was the last of that submarine, of course. The schooner got five submarines before another submarine happened to witness the destruction of a companion craft.

Next day when the schooner approached a submarine the undersea boat let drive with a torpedo, and the joyous days of that particular wind-jammer were at an end. But thereafter the Germans seldom tried to bomb a sailing craft.

Airplanes have played their important part in the work of our navy in combating the submarine. Seaplanes are sent on patrol from regular bases or from the deck of a parent-vessel, a steamship of large size. Flying at a height of 10,000 feet, an airplane operator can see the shadow of a submarine proceeding beneath the surface. Thus viewing his prey, the aviator descends and drops a depth-bomb into the water. Our airmen have already won great commendation from the British Admiralty and aerial commanders. Whatever may have been the delays in airplane production in this country, the American Navy has not been at fault, and Secretary Daniels's young men went into British seaplanes when American planes were not at hand. From British Admiralty sources have come many tales of the skill and courage of the American aviators. There was one recent instance noted of an American pilot scouting for submarines who spotted a periscope. He dropped a bomb a few feet astern and a few feet ahead of that periscope, both bombs falling perfectly in line with the objective. He circled and then dropped a bomb in the centre of a disturbance in the water. Up came oil in great quantities.

Another American pilot managed the rare feat of dropping a bomb precisely upon the centre of the deck of a submarine, and had the unhappy experience of seeing it fail to explode--as recently happened in the submarine fight off Cape Cod, near Chatham.

In hunting for the submarines the American destroyers have patrolled an area as wide as that bounded roughly by the great V formed by New York, Detroit, and Knoxville, Tenn. And while patrolling they have become skilled in the use of the depth charges, in establishing smoke screens so as to hide vessels of a convoy from the periscope eye, and in marksmanship. One gun crew not long ago saw the spar of a sunken ship which they at first took to be a periscope. They shattered that spar at a distance of 2,000 yards--more than a mile.

Filled with the enthusiasm of each new encounter with the enemy, the Americans have not been slow to build upon their experience, devising more effective methods against the next affray. For example, two officers working on designs for new destroyers have introduced many new ideas gained from their experiences in submarine-hunting. Suggestions relating to improved gun-fire and the like are always arising from the men of the fleet, and often they are accepted and applied.

A new appliance--I don't know by whom invented--is an improved microphone, by which the revolutions of a propeller are not only heard, but the direction also is indicated, while the force of the under-water sound-waves are translated on an indicator in terms of proximity. The great drawback to this is that the submarines are also equipped with microphones of the sort--or at least are said to be.

It is usually a grim business on both sides; but occasionally a bit of humor comes out of the seas. A case in point was the message received almost every night by an American destroyer in European waters. The radiogram said:

"My position is ---- degrees north, and ---- degrees west. Come and get me; I am waiting for you."

"HANS ROSE."

Now Hans Rose was the name of the German submarine commander who visited Newport, October, 1917, as we have already narrated. Twice the destroyer proceeded swiftly to the location, but never did Hans Rose keep his appointment. If he had the American sailors would not have given Captain Rose's crew beer upon that occasion, as they did when Rose and his U-boat dropped into Newport harbor.

Then there is a submarine commander known throughout the American flotilla as "Kelly." He commands a mine-laying submarine, which pays frequent visits to the district patrolled by the American destroyers. When he has finished his task of distributing his mines where they will do the most harm, he generally devotes a few minutes to a prank of some sort. Sometimes, it is a note flying from a buoy, scribbled in schoolboy English, and addressed to his American enemy. On other occasions Kelly and his men leave the submarine and saunter along a desolate stretch of Irish shore-line, always leaving behind them a placard or other memento of their visit.

But the most hazardous exploit, according to gossip of American forecastles, was a visit which Kelly made to Dublin, remaining, it is said, for two days at one of the principal hotels, and later rejoining his boat somewhere on the west coast.

His latest feat was to visit an Irish village and plant the German flag on a rise of land above the town. One may imagine how the Irish fisherfolk, who have suffered from mines, treated this flag and how ardently they wished that flag were the body of Kelly.

But Kelly and his less humorously inclined commanders have been having a diminishing stock of enjoyment at the expense of the Allied navies in the past year. Senator Swanson, acting chairman of the Naval Committee in Congress, said on June 6, after a conference with Secretary Daniels and his assistants, that the naval forces of the Entente Powers had destroyed 60 per cent of all German submarines constructed, and that they had cut the shipping losses in half. Lloyd George in his great speech last July, said that 150 submarines had been sunk since war began and of this number 75 were sunk in the past 12 months. Truly an extraordinary showing.