Part 4 (1/2)
Admiral Sir David Beatty put it well when, in a speech delivered in Edinburgh, he spoke of our ”submarine sentinels who carried out the same services as the storm-tossed frigates of Cornwallis off Brest.”
The only British submarines that were adapted for the laying of mines were those of the Harwich Flotilla. Consequently, for a considerable time plenty of arduous, perilous work among the minefields fell to their lot.
The mine-laying submarines of the Harwich Flotilla were especially busy on the eastern side of the North Sea, where our great minefields were. Captains of submarines describe this portion of the sea as an ideal one for submarine work; for the depth of the water is generally of from twenty to thirty fathoms, at which depth a submarine can lie comfortably at the bottom without being subjected to an excessive pressure. Comfortable is, of course, a relative term. Most people would never be anything but extremely uncomfortable in the atmosphere of a submarine after she has been submerged for some hours. A fresh-air crank would die in it.
The great minefield which was declared by our Government in the summer of 1917, the preparation of which was a gigantic undertaking, extended from the Frisian Islands to about lat.i.tude 56 degrees north. The Dutch, for their own purposes, removed their lights.h.i.+ps from their coasts to the western side of this minefield, thus forming a line of lights running north and south, roughly along the 4th degree of east longitude. This our sailors facetiously named Piccadilly Circus. It was the business of the submarines to lay mines on the eastern part of this minefield, that is, near to the coast. Our surface mine-layers laid their mines further seaward; while still further west our large mine-laying s.h.i.+ps, one of which can carry as many as three hundred mines, laid their mines just inside Piccadilly Circus. Our submarines used to patrol regularly along Piccadilly Circus to look out for and attack enemy s.h.i.+ps, and at intervals went sh.o.r.ewards through the minefield in order to reconnoitre.
A mine-laying submarine used to adopt the following methods. She would get close under the enemy coast under cover of the night and then dive, to remain at the bottom until the morning. As soon as there was light enough she would rise until her periscope was above the surface, and ascertain her position by cross bearings of the sh.o.r.e taken through her periscope. Then she would move to the different positions at which she had to lay her mines, all the while using her periscope for the taking of cross bearings. When she had completed her work she would return home by night, travelling on the surface as before.
The patrolling submarines were bombed constantly by enemy Zeppelins and seaplanes, but with little effect. To the submarine the mine was by far the greatest danger, and no doubt the depth charge too accounted for some of our casualties. But, as I have said, in nearly all cases when a submarine is lost, no one knows what has happened.
She merely does not come back. The mine-laying of the Harwich submarines was chiefly directed against the enemy submarines, the mines being generally laid at about eight feet below the surface, so as to catch these craft while travelling on the surface. They were also laid at forty feet or more, so as to strike the submarines when travelling under water.
The Harwich Flotilla certainly did its full share of the work that made the North Sea too dangerous for the enemy pirates. Latterly the German submarines, in their anxiety to reach waters where they could carry out their operations in conditions of less danger, endeavoured to escape from the North Sea as quickly as possible, travelling on the surface. Many of these fell victims to our mines, and, if they dived, to our depth charges. During the first months of 1918 the British Navy definitely got the better of the submarine enemy, and so many German submarines did not return to their base that panic seized the sailors who manned the ”U” boats. We hear strange tales now of submarine crews that refused to join their s.h.i.+ps, and of press-gangs that were sent to sweep up what men they could find in the brothels and taverns of a German seaport before the s.h.i.+p could put to sea.
One of the duties of the submarines of the Harwich Flotilla was to watch for and attack the enemy submarines as they attempted to escape from the North Sea by one or other of the two swept channels used by them for this purpose, one channel being carried from Heligoland in a northwesterly direction, the other one running close under the Frisian Islands. Ingenious traps were laid for the enemy; they were allowed no respite. It was in vain that they frequently changed the direction of their channels. No sooner had they prepared a new channel across the minefields than our alert submarines discovered it and blocked it with mines.
Some figures given by Sir Eric Geddes the other day show how effective was the work done by our submarine mine-layers. During the first six months of 1918 over a hundred German boats were caught by the mines laid by our submarines off the German North Sea coast, and in one month alone the mine barrier across the Channel below Ostend trapped seventeen German submarines. On the other hand, the Germans also were very vigilant. Their Zeppelin patrols, especially during last summer, were efficient, and were successful in discovering the position of the channels which we had swept across the German minefields.
There can be no doubt that the Zeppelins were of considerable service to the Germans in the North Sea; not that they did much damage with the bombs that they dropped--indeed, I have heard of one instance only of a bomb falling on a s.h.i.+p of the Harwich Force--but for a time our patrols were persistently followed by these scouting aircraft, flying overhead out of range of our guns, signalling our movements to the Huns. To our submarines working on the further side of the North Sea they were also a source of trouble, for over there the sea is much clearer than on our side, and a submarine below the surface is, as a rule, easily to be distinguished by a Zeppelin hovering above it.
Before the end of the war, however, the activities of the Zeppelins were much reduced by the action of our own aircraft.
The fact remains that, in the long struggle between the German and British submarines in the North Sea, the work done by the latter was the most efficient and destructive, and broke the nerve of the enemy submarine crews, whereas the _moral_ of our men remained unshaken to the end. The men of the soulless German Navy were brave enough at first, with the bravery inspired by an ineffable conceit and arrogance. They had been taught that the German Navy was in every respect superior to the British--in s.h.i.+ps, guns, personnel, and skilful leaders.h.i.+p. It had been impressed upon their submarine crews that within a few months the unrestricted piracy of the German submarine would bring England to her knees. Undeceived at last, they lost heart, and the submarine crews were the first to set the example of mutiny to the German Navy, the first to refuse to face the enemy that they had been taught to despise.
Later, the crews of the High Sea Fleet followed the example set by the submarines. When at last, after long waiting, that fleet was ordered to put to sea and make a fight of it, the s.h.i.+ps' companies would not obey their officers, and the fleet had to remain in port.
Our Navy had no spectacular victory; there was no knock-out blow; for the enemy had had enough of it and threw up the sponge.
CHAPTER IX
FINE SUBMARINE RECORDS
CHAPTER IX
FINE SUBMARINE RECORDS
Some narrow escapes--Sinking a Zeppelin--The doings of the E9--Sinking of the _Prince Adalbert_--The decoy trawler.
That the patrolling and mine-laying on the enemy coast was work of a highly dangerous nature goes without saying. The first of our mine-laying submarines was launched in 1916 and joined the Harwich Flotilla. The new experiment was watched with great interest by naval men, but the history of that s.h.i.+p seemed of evil augury for the future of these craft. On her first voyage something went wrong, and she returned to port three days overdue, having caused much anxiety as to her fate. From her second trip she never returned.
While it is seldom that anything is known of the fate of our lost submarines, numerous are the records of the narrow escapes from destruction. It was not at all unusual, for example, when diving off the German coast, for a submarine to find herself in difficulties among the shoals. Thus one of the Harwich submarines, when diving close to the mouth of the Ems river, struck a sandbank with her stem, and slid up it until her conning-tower was well out of the water. Here she stuck firmly. At this critical moment two German destroyers were seen to come out of the Ems and approach her. Efforts were made in vain to wriggle her off the bank, and it looked much as if she would be numbered among our submarines that did not come back. But, as luck would have it, the Germans pa.s.sed by without perceiving her.
Ultimately, a.s.sisted by a rising tide, the submarine was got off the bank stern first, b.u.mped along the bottom to the safety of deeper water, and lived to tell the tale and fight another day.
On Christmas Day, 1914, one of our small submarines, the S1, forming part of the submarine force that was acting in conjunction with the Harwich Force during the Cuxhaven air raid, found herself in a perilous position. While diving to the bottom early that morning she struck an obstacle and knocked off her forward drop-keel. Relieved of this heavy weight, she shot to the surface. The order was given to fill her empty tanks with sea-water; but this failed to destroy her buoyancy, and it was found impossible to bring her below the surface.
To remain with a submarine that refused to sink, so near to the enemy sh.o.r.e, was to invite disaster; so the only thing possible was done.