The Story of Our Submarines

tching 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 t

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, unt

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 followi

d 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

iend. 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 hit

e, but German mentality at any rate bears o

unters, 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 followin

f 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

uilding-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,

ould 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 perf

s. I will give them in their order, as they appeared to the officers concerned. It was "E 42" (Lieutenant C. Allen) that met the Germa

ace, sighted hostile sea-

Surfaced for observations.

d proceeded utmost speed to attack. Fired starboard bow tube (quarter shot).

, caused the Moltke to be towed in a ver

bs were dropped at me after the shot. C

attack in the Weser rive

("H 5") report

s moment "H 5," being bored with the patrol billet assigned to her, and thirs

avoid destroyer. 10.50: surface, proceeding east, sighted e

e Land Lights. 9.58 P.M.: sighted destroyer a

ed same. Torpedoed submarine with one torpedo amidship. Surface to look for survivors. Was put down immediately by destroyer, who

th-keeping difficult. I fired two torpedoes, allowing 1

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

report my slight transg

n 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

roceeded to the Weser, it is submitted that his skilful and successful attack on the German submarine, in spite of a defective periscope, and his sub

orated for this action, My Lords deciding that after tha

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 cruisin

ty. It is probable that only a small percentage of these were dropped on clear knowledge of his presence. Being an officer of good

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

y 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

found open to the sea. The submarine then came to the surface. Fuel was then blown, and aft

nd the bow cap are gone; the upper part of the hull in that vicinity as well as both starboard torpedo-tubes are wrecked. All

orward buoyancy destroyed. The luck that watches over the competent took her back unmolested by the enemy. Ther

sighting one Zeppelin, one seaplane, nineteen trawlers (sweeping in lines), and she also attacked, fired at, and missed a destroyer. Her port engine then

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

t. I don't know about faith moving mountains, but (I'm sorry to have to use the word,

in 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 p

ch refer to the best depth-charges

.D., appeared suddenly on port beam, distant 100 yards. Dived to 60 feet. Vessel

0 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

er, to a British destroyer screen, the submarine

-hand reports on our

ighted H.M.S. Pelican through her periscope. She increased to fu

ly more violent, shattering several lights and flooding the after-periscope. Heavy shock throughout the boat, but no serious damage. Order was given to

d 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 i

ilar experience, which had very little that was amusing about it. Her o

eet, at which depth the first heavy depth-charge exploded, and at the same time the after-hydroplanes ja

lanes, 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 op

well. The submarine authorities comment on the incident as follows: "In view of the small amount of conning-tower expos

om 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 (

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 l

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 pr

or 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 surf

pose. 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

ke 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 l

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 man?uvres. The first long trip of the war was "E 11's" thirty-one days in t

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 wh

e 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 merch

the possibilities and the future of this type of craft far more clearly than did Admiral Tirpitz. Our boats were