A Submarine-ChaserFrom a photograph by Brown Brothers. A submarine-chaser.
A Torpedo-DestroyerFrom a photograph by Brown Brothers. A torpedo-destroyer.
This depth-bomb, by the way, is a wonderful invention, and with its perfection began thegreat 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 thetrawler 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 leastit 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 doorprotruded 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 werenot 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. Onegun 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 wherethey 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.
Perils and Triumphs of Submarine-Hunting—The Loss of our First War-Ship, The Converted Gunboat "Alcedo"—Bravery of Crew—"Cassin" Struck by Torpedo, But Remains in the Fight—Loss of the "Jacob Jones"—Sinking of the "San Diego"—Destroyers "Nicholson" and "Fanning" Capture a Submarine, Which Sinks—Crew of Germans Brought Into Port—The Policy of Silence in Regard to Submarine-Sinkings
Perils and Triumphs of Submarine-Hunting—The Loss of our First War-Ship, The Converted Gunboat "Alcedo"—Bravery of Crew—"Cassin" Struck by Torpedo, But Remains in the Fight—Loss of the "Jacob Jones"—Sinking of the "San Diego"—Destroyers "Nicholson" and "Fanning" Capture a Submarine, Which Sinks—Crew of Germans Brought Into Port—The Policy of Silence in Regard to Submarine-Sinkings
But as in the pursuit of dangerous game there is always liable to be two angles to any experience—or say, rather, a reverse angle, such as the hunted turning hunter—so in the matter of our fight against the submarine there are instances—not many, happily—where the U-boat has been able to deal its deadly blow first.
The first of our war-ships to be sunk by a submarine was the naval patrol gun-boatAlcedo, which was torpedoed shortly before 2 o'clock on the morning of November 5, 1917, almost exactly seven months after we entered the war. She was formerly G. W. Childs Drexel's yachtAlcedo, and Anthony J. DrexelPaul, an officer in the Naval Reserve, was on her at the time. The vessel was the flag-ship of one of the patrol-flotillas, and for months had performed splendid service in the North Sea.
The torpedo that sunk the vessel came without warning, and so true was the aim that the war-ship went down in four minutes, carrying with her one officer and twenty of the crew. Commander William T. Conn, U.S.N., who commanded the vessel, in telling later of the experience, paid a high testimonial to the coolness and bravery of the crew. Eighty per cent of the men were reserves, but regulars could have left no better record of courage and precision.
"Here," said Commander Conn, "is a story that indicates the kind of men we have in the navy. I had a young lad in my crew, a yeoman, and one day I sent for him and told him that if we were ever torpedoed he was to save the muster-roll, so that when it was all over it would be possible to check up and find who had been saved. Well, theAlcedowas torpedoed at 2 o'clock one morning, and in fourminutes she disappeared forever. Hours afterward, when we were waiting to be picked up, I saw my yeoman, and I said:
"'Son, where is my muster-roll?'
"'Here it is,' he replied, as he reached inside his shirt and pulled it out.... And that same boy, in the terrible minutes that followed the loss of our ship, found a broken buoy. He was holding on to it when he saw one of our hospital stewards, who was about to give in. He struggled to the side of the steward and with one hand held him above the water while with the other he clung to the buoy. He held on until both were saved."
While theAlcedowas the first war-vessel to be sunk by a submarine, the first war-ship to be stricken in torpedo attack was the destroyerCassin, one of the vessels that raced out of Newport to rescue the victims of the ravages of the German U-boat off Nantucket, in October, 1916. TheCassinwas on patrol duty and had sighted a submarine about four miles away. The destroyer, in accordance with custom, headed for the spot, and had about reached it when the skipper, Commander Walter H. Vernon, sighteda torpedo running at high speed near the surface, and about 400 yards away. The missile was headed straight for the midship section of the war-ship. Realizing the situation, the commanding officer rang for the emergency full speed ahead on both engines, put the rudder hard over, and was just clear of the torpedo's course when it broached on the water, turned sharply and headed for the stern of the vessel. Here stood Osmond Kelly Ingram, gunner's mate, at his gun. He saw that if the torpedo struck at the stern it would, aside from working initial damage, cause the explosion of munitions stored on the after deck.
Thereupon, knowing that the torpedo was going to strike about where he stood, he ran to the pile of munitions and tumbled them into the sea. The explosion occurred as he was at work, and he was blown into the ocean and lost. But he had not died in vain, for the secondary explosion that he feared was averted by his act of supreme sacrifice.
Fortunately, only one engine was disabled by the explosion, and the destroyer was thus permitted to remain under way. She zigzagged toand fro, hoping to get a chance at her assailant, and in about an hour the German submarine commander decided that it was a good time to come to the surface for a better look at the destroyer. As the conning-tower came into view theCassin'sgunners delivered four shots, two of which fell so close to the U-boat that she submerged and was not seen again. In the meantime the crew, with splendid team-work, set about repairing the damage and attending to the five men who were wounded, none seriously.
After a while British war-ships came up and theCassinreturned to port. Admiral Sims mentioned Commander Vernon and his officers in despatches to Secretary Daniels, and more than a score of the seamen were cited for coolness and efficiency.
Our second war-ship definitely known to be sunk by the German submarines was the destroyerJacob Jones, which was struck at 4.12 o'clock on the afternoon of December 6, last. The destroyer was on patrol, and nothing was known of the proximity of the submarine until the torpedo hit the vessel. TheJacob Jones,which was commanded by Lieutenant-Commander David Worth Bagley, a brother-in-law of Secretary Daniels and brother of Ensign Worth Bagley, who was killed on the torpedo-boatWinslowin the fight at Cardenas in the Spanish-American War, went down in seventeen minutes after she was struck. Gunner Harry R. Hood was killed by the explosion, but the remainder of the company got safely overside in rafts and boats. The submarine appeared after the sinking and took one of the survivors aboard as a prisoner. Lieutenant-Commander Bagley, with five others, landed in a small boat on the Scilly Islands while other survivors reached shore in various ways. TheJacob Joneswas regarded by superstitious navy men as something of a Jonah, she having figured in one or two incidents involving German spies while in this country.
The first and to date the only American war-ship lost in American waters as a result of submarine attack was the armored cruiserSan Diego—formerly theCalifornia—which was sunk by a mine off Point o' Woods on the Long Island coast on the morning of July 19,1918. Facts associated with the disaster, involving the loss of some fifty lives, are illuminated with the light of supreme heroism, gallantry, and utter devotion. In no single instance was there failure on the part of officers or crew to meet the unexpected test in a manner quite in accordance with the most glorious annals of the United States Navy.
Point will perhaps be given to this if we picture Captain Harley H. Christie pushing his way about the welter of wreckage in a barrel, reorganizing some 800 of his men, who were floating about on every conceivable sort of object, into the disciplined unit that they had comprised before they were ordered overside to take their chances in the ocean. Or again, taking the enlisted-man aspect of the situation, there was the full-throated query of a husky seaman, clinging to a hatch as theSan Diegodisappeared:
"Where's the captain?"
Then a chorus of voices from the water:
"There he is! See his old bald head! God bless it! Three cheers for the skip!"
There they all were, some 800 men, survivorsof a company numbering thirteen-odd hundred, in the water, out of sight of land, not a ship in sight—and twelve life-boats among them, cheering, singing, exchanging badinage and words of good hope.
TheSan Diego, which was one of the crack shooting-ships of the navy, and had made seven round trips to France in convoy work without ever having seen a submarine, was on her way from the Portsmouth, N.H., navy-yard, where she had been completely overhauled in dry-dock and coaled, to New York, where her crew were to have had short liberty, preliminary to another voyage to France. She carried a heavy deck-load of lumber which she was to take to France for the Marine Corps. She had in her bunkers some 3,000 tons of coal.
On the morning of July 19, the cruiser, shortly after 11 o'clock, had reached a point about seven miles southeast of Point o' Woods. The sun was shining brilliantly, but the coast-line was veiled in a heavy haze. There was a fair ground-swell running, but no sea. TheSan Diegowas ploughing along at a fifteen-knot clip, not pursuing the zigzag course which it is customaryfor vessels to follow in enemy-infested waters.
No submarine warning had been issued, and, as the vessel was only seven miles offshore, there may be no doubt that the officers of the war-ship did not consider the trip as any more hazardous than the hundreds of journeys she had made along our coast from port to port. The crew were engaged in the usual routine, with the added labor of getting the vessel ship-shape after the grimy operation of coaling at Portsmouth. The explosion came without warning at 11.15 o'clock. It was extremely heavy, accompanied by a rending and grinding of metal and by the explosion of the after-powder magazine, which destroyed the quarter-deck and sent the mainmast, with wireless attached, crashing overboard. The torpedo, or whatever it was, wrecked the engine-room, demolished the boilers, and put the electric dynamos out of order.
The thunderous explosion was followed immediately by the insistent whine of bugles and the clanging of alarm-bells, calling the crew to battle-stations. And the crew went quietly,without the slightest disorder. Down in the bunkers, four decks below, was an officer, with a party of seamen, setting things to rights after the coaling. As the explosion occurred and the vessel heeled, these men, as though instinctively, formed into a line, and then without excitement or hurry climbed the four upright steel ladders to the deck, the officer, of course, following last of all.
On deck the 6-inch starboard and port batteries were blazing away, not only at objects that might turn out to be periscopes or submarines, but in order to call assistance; for the wireless was out of commission, and there was not a sail or a hull in sight.
After a few minutes, the bugles sounded the order "Prepare to abandon ship." This applied to every one but the gun crews, who had to remain at their stations for at least five minutes after the process of abandonment was put into operation. The post of one of the gun-crew officers was in the fighting-top of the basket-mast forward, his duty being that of spotter of his crew. As he hurried along the deck to his station the crew lined up along theport rail with life-preservers and were jumping into the sea as ordered.
There were comrades who had been killed or maimed by the shifting deck-load of lumber; there were comrades who, in jumping into the sea, had struck their heads against the steel hull, breaking their necks, and yet there the rest stood in line, waiting for the orders that would send them overboard.
"Isn't this a crime," laughed one of the seamen, "just after I had got on my liberty blues and was all set for the high spots in New York!"
"Gripes! My cigarettes are all wet! Who's got a dry one?"
"Look out there, kid; be careful you don't get your feet wet."
Twelve life-boats were overside, set adrift in the usual manner to be filled after the men were in the water. Then, of course, the sea was littered with lumber and all sorts of debris which would keep a man afloat.
While the abandonment of the ship was under way, the officer who had been in the bunkers, and whose station was in the fighting-top,hurried upward to his post. The port guns were still being served, but their muzzles were inclining ever downward toward the water. In his battle-station this officer directed the firing of the port guns until their muzzles dipped beneath the surface of the sea. There were three officers with him in the fighting-top and three seamen. Below they saw the perfect order which obtained, the men stepping into the sea in ranks, laughing and cheering.
Presently this officer sent one of the seamen down the mast to get life-belts for the group of men in the spotting-station. By the time he returned the bugles were ordering the total abandonment of the vessel.
So the little group made their way, not to the deck, which was now straight up and down, but to the starboard side of the hull, upon which they could walk, the vessel then being practically on her beam ends. Trapped at their stations on the port side were members of the 6-inch port battery. One of them was seen by a comrade just before rising waters shut him from view. The sinking man nodded and waved his hand.
"Good-by, Al," he said.
As the officer who had been in the fighting-top jumped clear into the sea, the vessel began to go down, now by the head. Slowly the stern rose, and as it did so, he says, the propellers came into view, and perched on one of the blades was a devil-may-care American seaman, waving his hat and shouting.
The vessel, the officer says, disappeared at 11.30 o'clock, fifteen minutes after the explosion occurred. There was some suction as theSan Diegodisappeared, but not enough, according to the calculation of the survivors with whom I talked, to draw men to their death.
In the course of another hour, Captain Christie had collected as many of his officers as he could, and the work of apportioning the survivors to the twelve boats and to pieces of flotsam was carried on with naval precision. One man, clinging to a grating, called out that he had cramps. A comrade in one of the boats thereupon said the sailor could have his place. He leaped into the sea and the man with cramps was assisted into the boat.
While this was going on a seaplane from theBay Shore station passed over the heads of the men in the water. The seamen did not think they had been seen, but they had been, and the aviator, flying to Point o' Woods, landed and used the coast-guard telephone to apprise the Fire Island coast-guards of the disaster. From this station word was sent broadcast by wireless. In the meantime, Captain Christie had picked two crews of the strongest seamen and had them placed in No. 1 and No. 2 life-boats. These men were ordered to row south-west to Fire Island and summon assistance.
In one boat thirteen men were placed; in the other fourteen. As the captain got the boat-crews arranged, his barrel began to get waterlogged and became rather precarious as a support; whereupon a floating seaman pushed his way through the water with a ladder.
"Here, sir," he said, "try this."
Thus it was that Captain Christie transferred to a new flag-ship.
The boat-crews left the scene of the disaster at 12.35, and they rowed in fifteen-minute relays from that hour until quarter past three. Before they had gone four miles merchant shipswere rushing to the spot, as set forth in the wireless warning. These merchantmen got all of the men afloat in the water—or a vast majority of them—and took them to the naval station at Hoboken.
At the time of the disaster and for twenty-four hours thereafter there was some doubt whether or not theSan Diegohad been lost through contact with a mine, or was struck by a torpedo launched from a submarine. Submarine activities off Cape Cod the following Sunday, however, gave proof that the undersea boats had made their second hostile visit to our shores.
But later belief was that the cruiser was sunk by a mine planted by the submarine. One of our most illustrious exploits, indeed, occurred hardly a fortnight before the loss of theJones, when two destroyers, theNicholsonandFanning, steamed into their base with flags flying and German prisoners on their decks.
It was a clear November afternoon, and the destroyerFanningwas following her appointed route through the waters of the North Sea. Off to starboard the destroyerNicholsonwasplunging on her way, throwing clouds of black smoke across the horizon. Near by was a merchant vessel, and the destroyers were engaged in taking her through the dangerous waters to safety. The air was so clear that minutest objects on the horizon were easily picked up by the questing binoculars of the men on watch. Suddenly came a cry from one of the forward lookouts:
"Periscope, two points off the starboard bow!"
The call sounded from stem to stern, and instantly the alarm to general quarters was sounded while the helm was thrown hard over. The signalman bent over his flag-locker and, in compliance with the order of the commander, bent flags onto the halyards, giving the location of the submarine to theNicholson, while heliograph flashes from the bridge summoned her to joint attack. The waters were smooth, with a long swell, and the lookout had seen a scant eighteen inches of periscope, which had vanished immediately it fell under his vision. Undoubtedly the observer at the other end of the submarine's periscope had seen theFanningatabout the same time the presence of the undersea craft was detected. It had appeared about 400 yards from the destroyer's course.
In less time than it takes to tell, theFanning, with throttles suddenly opened, plunged into the waters where the periscope had last been seen. And at the proper moment the commander, standing tensely on the bridge, released a depth-bomb from its fixed place. The explosive, 300 pounds in weight, sank with a gentle splash into the rolling wake of the destroyer and, at the depth as regulated before the bomb was released, it exploded with a terrific report.
Up from the ocean rose a towering column of water. It hung in the air for a moment like a geyser, and then gradually fell back to the level of the sea. A score of voices proclaimed the appearance of oil floating upon the water. Oil is sometimes released by a submarine to throw an attacking destroyer off the scent; but this time there were bubbles, too. That was quite significant. Then while theFanningcircled the spot wherein the explosion had occurred, theNicholsonstormed up, cut across the supposedlurking-place of the submarine, and released one of her depth charges. She, too, circled about the mass of boiling, oil-laden water.
For several minutes the two destroyers wheeled in and out like hawks awaiting their prey, and then suddenly there was a cry as a disturbance was noted almost directly between the two craft. The rush of water grew in volume until, as the men of the destroyers watched with all the ardor of fishermen landing trout, the U-boat came to the surface like a dead whale.
But the Americans were cautious. While stricken the undersea craft might show fight. So with guns and torpedo-tubes trained upon the submarine, they waited. But there was no fight in that boat. The depth charges had done their work thoroughly. While the visible portion of the hull appeared to have been uninjured, it was perfectly clear that the vessel was not under perfect control. Her ballast-tanks were damaged, which accounted for a bad list.
The explosions of the depth-bombs had hurled her to the bottom, where she retained sufficientbuoyancy to catapult to the surface. As the conning-tower came into sight theNicholsonfired three shots from her stern gun. The U-boat then seemed to right herself, making fair speed ahead. TheFanningheaded in toward her, firing from the bow gun. After the third shot the crew of the German vessel came up on deck, their hands upraised.
While approaching the craft both the destroyers kept their guns trained for instant use, but, as it turned out, precautions were unnecessary. Lines were thrown aboard the submersible and were made fast; but the U-boat, either stricken mortally or scuttled by her crew, began to settle. Lines were hastily cast off, and the boat sought her long rest upon the bottom of a sea to which no doubt she had sent many harmless vessels.
The crew of the U-boat, all of whom had life-preservers about their waists, leaped into the water and swam to theFanning; most of them were exhausted when they reached the destroyer's side. As the submarine sank, five or six men were caught in the wireless gear and carried below the surface before they disentangledthemselves. Ten of the men were so weak that it was necessary to pass lines under their arms to haul them aboard. One man was in such a state that he could not even hold the line that was thrown to him.
Chief Pharmacist's Mate Elzer Howell and Coxswain Francis G. Connor thereupon jumped overboard and made a line fast to the German. But he died a few minutes after he was hauled aboard.
Once aboard, the prisoners were regaled with hot coffee and sandwiches, and so little did they mind the change to a new environment that, according to official Navy Department report, they began to sing. They were fitted with warm clothes supplied by the American sailors, and in other ways made to feel that, pirates though they were, and murderers as well, the American seafaring man knew how to be magnanimous.
The submarine bore no number nor other distinguishing marks, but her life-belts were marked on one side "Kaiser," and on the other "Gott." TheFanningsteamed to port at high speed, and at the base transferred the prisoners underguard, who as they left the destroyer gave three lusty hochs for theFanning'smen. Then theFanningput out to sea a few miles, and after the young American commander had read the burial service, the body of the German seaman who had died was committed to the depths. The commander of theFanningwas Lieutenant A. S. Carpender, a Jerseyman, who in his report gave particular praise to Lieutenant Walter Henry, officer of the deck, and to Coxswain Loomis, who first sighted the submarine.
This was by no means the first time a submarine had been sunk by an American destroyer, but in accordance with the British policy, the Americans had withheld all information of the sort. However, this was such a good story, and the capture of prisoners so unusual, that by agreement between the Navy Department and the British Admiralty, the salient details of this encounter were given to the public.
The idea of secrecy was devised by the British at the very outset, the purpose being to make the waging of submarine warfare doubly objectionable to the men of the German Navy. It is bad enough to be lost in a naval engagement, butat least the names of the ships involved and the valor of the crews, both friend and enemy, are noted. But under the British system, a submarine leaves port, and if she is sunk by a patrol-vessel or other war-ship, that fact is never made known. The Germans know simply that still another submarine has entered the great void.
It adds a sinister element to an occupation sufficiently sinister in all its details. There may be no doubt that the policy of silence has had its effect upon the German morale. That crews have mutinied on the high seas is undoubted, while we know of several mutinies involving hundreds of men that have occurred in German ports—all because of objections to submarine service. It is even said that submarine service is now one of the penalties for sailors who have offended against the German naval regulations, and there are stories of submarines decked with flowers as they leave port, a symbol, of course, of men who go out not expecting to return—all for the glory of the man known throughout the American Navy as "Kaiser Bill."
It is thus unlikely that such success as might—ormay—attend the efforts of our coast-patrol vessels to dispose of the submarines which come here will not be published unless the highly colored complexion of facts warrants it. One may imagine that service in a submarine so far from home is not alluring, and still less so when submarines sent to the waters of this hemisphere are heard from nevermore.
Just how unpopular the service has been may be adduced from chance remarks of German submarine prisoners who come to this country from time to time. The men of the U-boat sunk by theFanningmade no effort to conceal their satisfaction at their change of quarters, while Germans in other cases have told their British captors that they were glad they had been taken.
There is the story of the storekeeper of the German submarine which sunk several vessels off our coast last June. He said he had formerly served on a German liner plying between Hoboken and Hamburg, and his great regret was that he had not remained in this country when he had a chance. Life on a submarine, he said, was a dog's life.
Even under peace conditions this is so. The men are cramped for room, in the first place. In a storm the vessel, if on the surface, is thrown almost end over end, while the movement of stormy waves affects a boat even thirty feet below the water-level. Cooking is very often out of the question, and the men must live on canned viands. They have not even the excitement of witnessing such encounters as the vessel may have. Three men only, the operating officers, look through the periscope; the others have their stations and their various duties to perform. If a vessel is sunk they know it through information conveyed by their officers. There was a story current in Washington before we entered the war, of a sailor, a German sailor who had had nearly a year of steady service on a submarine. He was a faithful man, and as he was about to go ashore on a long leave, his commanding officer asked what he could do for him.
"Only one thing," was the reply. "Let me have one look through the periscope."
In the past year the Allies have been employing their own submarines in the war against theGerman undersea peril. This has been made possible by the perfection of the listening device before referred to by which the presence of a submarine and other details may be made known. But it is a dangerous business at best, and not largely employed, if only for the reason that patrol-vessels are not always likely to distinguish between friend and foe. We have in mind the tragic instance of the American cruiser which fired upon a submarine in the Mediterranean, killing two men, only to find that the vessel was an Italian undersea boat. Of course our deepest regrets were immediately forthcoming, and were accepted by the Italian Government in like spirit.
Our Battleship Fleet—Great Workshop of War—Preparations for Foreign Service—On a Battleship During a Submarine Attack—The Wireless That Went Wrong—The Torpedo That Missed—Attack on Submarine Bases of Doubtful Expediency—When the German Fleet Comes Out—Establishment of Station in the Azores
When the German fleet of battleships and battle-cruisers sallies forth into the North Sea for a final fight against the British Grand Fleet, they will find American dreadnoughts and superdreadnoughts ready and eager to lend the material weight of their assistance to the Allied cause. A substantial number of our capital ships, under command of Rear-Admiral Hugh Rodman, are with the Grand Fleet, and have been for some months. Both in Washington and in London a German sea offensive on a grand scale has long been regarded as a possibility, and the admiralty authorities at the Entente capitals are anxious for the supreme test, and confident concerning its outcome. We have already noted Admiral Beatty's actionin assigning American battleships to the place of honor in the line of sea-fighters which went forth to meet a reported German attack some time ago. It was a false report, but the honor done our naval fighters stands.
The expansion of the United States Navy has also included an enormous increase in our battleships and battle-cruisers; definite details are withheld, but it is not too much to say that we are thoroughly equipped to assist Great Britain very vitally in this respect. In the summer of 1917 Secretary Daniels announced that the Atlantic Fleet—our Grand Fleet—had been reorganized into two divisions, officially known as "forces." Battleship Force One had as commander Vice-Admiral Albert W. Grant, and Battleship Force Two was commanded by Vice-Admiral DeWitt Coffman. Admiral Henry T. Mayo remained as commander-in-chief.
"There are," said Secretary Daniels in announcing the new arrangement—July 18, 1917—"as many battleships in commission as we ever had before; in fact, every battleship we have is in commission. The whole purpose of the new organization is to keep our battleshipfleet in as perfect condition as possible, to put it in the highest state of efficiency and readiness for action."
Eventually an appreciable number of our best fighters were sent to the Grand Fleet—which, however, is by no means to be understood as implying that our own coasts are unprotected. Not at all. The Navy Department has a view-point which embraces all possible angles, and nothing in the way of precaution has been overlooked. At the same time it has been the theory of Secretary Daniels that the way to beat the submarine and the German Navy in general was to go to the base of things, "to the neck of the bottle," and this as much as anything—more, in sooth—accounts for the hundreds of war-ships of various sorts that now fly our flag in the war zone.
The orders dividing the fleet into two "forces" and despatching a representation of our greatest fighters to the North Sea was preceded by a period of preparation the like of which this country—perhaps the world—never saw. The Atlantic Fleet was, indeed, converted into a huge workshop of war, turning out its finishedproducts—fighting men. A visitor to the fleet, writing under date of May 14, expressed amazement at the amount of well-ordered activity which characterized a day on every one of the battleships. Here were men being trained for armed-guard service on merchantmen, groups of neophytes on the after deck undergoing instruction on the loading-machines; farther along a group of qualified gunners were shattering a target with their 5-inch gun. Other groups were hidden in the turrets with their long 14 and 12 inch guns, three or two to a turret. Signal-flags were whipping the air aloft—classes in signalling; while from engine-room and fighting-tops each battleship hummed with the activities of masters and pupils teaching and learning every phase of the complicated calling of the modern navy man.
And there were days when the great fleet put to sea for target practice and for battle manoeuvres, the turrets and broadsides belching forth their tons upon tons of steel and the observers aloft sending down their messages of commendation for shots well aimed. It is the statement of those in a position to know thatnever were jackies so quick to learn as those of our war-time personnel. Whether the fact of war is an incentive or whether American boys are adapted, through a life of competitive sport, quickly to grasp the sailorman's trade, the truth remains that in a very short space the boy who has never seen a ship develops swiftly into a bluejacket, rolling, swaggering, but none the less deft, precise, and indomitable.
"They come into the navy to fight," said one of the officers of the fleet, "and they want to get into the thick of it. We turn out qualified gun crews in three months—and that is going some." A large majority of the new men of the fleet come from farms, especially from the Middle West. More than 90 per cent of the seamen are native-born, and on any ship may be heard the Southern drawl, the picturesque vernacular of the lower East or West side of New York City, the twang of New England, the rising intonation of the Western Pennsylvanian, and that indescribable vocal cadence that comes only from west of Chicago.
Not only gunners were developed, but engineers, electricians, cooks, bakers—what-not?They are still being developed on our home ships, but in the meantime the fruits of what was done in the time dating from our entrance into the war to the present summer are to be noted chiefly in the North Sea, where our vessels lie waiting with their sisters of the British Fleet for the appearance of the German armada.
Let us transfer ourselves for the time being from the general to the particular: in other words, to the deck of a great American dreadnought, which, together with others of her type, has been detached from the Atlantic Fleet and assigned to duty with Admiral Beatty's great company of battleships and battle-cruisers. This battleship has entered the war zone, en route to a certain rendezvous, whence all the American units will proceed to their ultimate destination in company.
It is night. It is a black night. The stars are viewless and the ocean through which the great steel hull is rushing, with only a slight hiss where the sharp cutwater parts the waves, is merely a part of the same gloom. Aloft and on deck the battleship is a part of the night. Below deck all is dark save perchance a thin,knife-like ray emanating from a battle-lantern. The lookouts, straining their eyes into the black for long, arduous stretches, are relieved and half-blind and dizzy they grope along the deck to their hammocks, stumbling over the prostrate forms of men sleeping beside the 5-inch guns, exchanging elbow thrusts with those of the gun crews who are on watch.
The trip this far has been a constant succession of drills and instruction in the art of submarine fighting—all to the tune of general alarm and torpedo defense bells. And the while preparations for sighting the enemy have never been minimized. They involved precautions not dissimilar to those on board a destroyer or other patrol-vessel, but were of course conducted on a vastly greater scale. As suggesting an outline of measures of watchfulness, we may regard this battleship as the centre of a pie, with special watches detailed to cover their given slice of this pie. These slices are called water sectors, and each sector, or slice, extends at a given angle from the course of the ship out to the horizon. Of course as the vessel is constantly moving at a rapid rate, the centreof the pie shifts, too. In this way every foot of water within the great circle of the horizon is under constant supervision night and day by a small army of lookouts, armed with binoculars and gun telescopes.
And so our battleship goes on through the night. On the bridge all is quiet. Officers move to and fro with padded footfalls, and the throb of the great engines is felt rather than heard. The wind begins to change, and presently the captain glancing out the door of the chart-house clucks his chagrin. For the night has begun to reveal itself, thanks, or rather, no thanks, to the moon, which has torn away from a shrouding mass of clouds and sends its rays down upon the waters of the sea. It had been a fine night to dodge the lurking submarine, but now the silver light of the moon, falling upon the leaden side of the battleship, converts her into a fine target.
"Nature is certainly good to the Germans," chuckles an officer to a companion, taking care that the captain does not hear.
"Yes," comes the sententious reply. The lookouts grow more rigid, for whereas formerlythey could see nothing, objects on the water are now pencilled out in luminous relief.
Deep down below the water there is a listening "ear"—a submarine telephone device through which a submarine betrays its presence; any sound the undersea boat makes, the beating of the propellers, for instance, is heard by this ear, and in turn by the ear of the man who holds the receiver.
Presently the man who is on detector watch grows tense. He listens attentively and then stands immobile for a moment or so. Then he steps to a telephone and a bell rings in the chart-house where the captain and his navigating and watch officers are working out the courses and positions.
"I hear a submarine signalling, sir," comes the voice from the depths to the captain who stands by the desk with the receiver at his ear.
"What signal?" barks the skipper.
"MQ repeated several times. Sounds as if one boat was calling another." (The sailor referred to the practice which submarines have of sending subaqueous signals to one another,signals which are frequently caught by listening war-ships of the Allies.)
The captain orders the detector man to miss nothing, and then a general alarm (to quarters) is passed through the great vessel by word of mouth. This is no time for the clanging of bells and the like. The lookouts are advised as to the situation.
"I hope we're not steaming into a nest." The captain frowns and picks up the telephone. "Anything more?" he asks.
"Still getting signals, sir; same as before; same direction and distance."
Down to the bridge through a speaking-tube, running from the top of the forward basket-mast comes a weird voice.
"Bright light, port bow, sir. Distance about 4,000 yards." (Pause.) "Light growing dim. Very dim now."
From other lookouts come confirmatory words.
"Dim light; port bow."
"The light has gone."
"It's a sub, of course," murmurs an officer. "No craft but a submarine would carry a night light on her periscope. She must be signalling."A thrill goes through the battleship. In a minute the big steel fighter may be lying on her side, stricken; or there may be the opportunity for a fair fight.
The captain sends an officer below to the detector and changes the course of the ship. Every one awaits developments, tensely.
The wireless operator enters the chart-house.
"I can't get your message to the —— (another battleship), sir. I can't raise her. Been trying for ten minutes."
The officer who has been below at the detector comes up and hears the plight of the wireless man. He smiles.
"In exactly five minutes," he says, "you signal again." The radio man goes to his room and the officer descends to the detector. In precisely five minutes he hears the signal which had bothered the man on detector watch. He hurries to the bridge with the solution of the incident. The wireless had become disconnected and its signals had come in contact with the detector. So there was no submarine. Everything serene. The battleship settles down to her night routine.
The dark wears into dawn, and the early morning, with the dusk, is the favorite hunting-time of the submarine, for the reason that then a periscope, while seeing clearly, is not itself easily to be discerned. The lookouts, straining their eyes out over the steely surge, pick up what appears to be a spar. But no. The water is rushing on either side of it like a mill race. A periscope.
There is a hurry of feet on the bridge. The navigating officer seizes the engine-room telegraph and signals full speed ahead. While the ship groans and lists under the sudden turn at high speed, the ammunition-hoists drone as they bring powder and shell up to gun and turret. From the range-finding and plotting-stations come orders to the sight-setters, and in an instant there is a stupendous roar as every gun on the port side sends forth its steel messenger.
Again and again comes the broadside, while the ocean for acres about the periscope boils with the steel rain. It is much too hot for the submarine which sinks so that the periscope is invisible. From the plotting-stations come orders for a change of range, and on the sea amile or so away rise huge geysers which pause for a moment, glistening in the light of the new sun, and then fall in spray to the waves, whence they were lifted by the hurtling projectiles. The shells do not ricochet. "Where they hit they dig," to quote a navy man. This is one of the inventions of the war, the non-ricochet shell. One may easily imagine how greatly superior are the shells that dig to those that strike the water and then glance. Then comes the cry:
"Torpedo!"
All see it, a white streak upon the water, circling from the outer rim of shell-fire on a wide arc, so as to allow for the speed of the battleship. With a hiss the venomous projectile dashes past the bow, perhaps thirty yards away. Had not the battleship swung about on a new course as soon as the vigilant lookout descried the advancing torpedo, it would have been a fair hit amidships. As it was, the explosive went harmlessly on its way through the open sea. A short cheer from the crew marks the miss, and the firing increases in intensity. The battleship so turns that her bow is in the direction of the submarine, presenting, thus, amark which may be hit only through a lucky shot, since the submarine is a mile away. Accurate shooting even at a mile is expected of torpedo-men when the mark is a broadside, but hitting a "bow-on" object is a different matter.
Two more torpedoes zip past, and then over the seas comes bounding a destroyer, smoke bellying from her funnels. She is over the probable hiding-place of the submarine, and a great explosion and a high column of water tell those on the battleship that she has released a depth-bomb. Suddenly a signal flutters to the stay of the destroyer. The crew of the battleship cheer. There is no more to fear from that submarine, for oil is slowly spreading itself over the surface of the ocean—oil and pieces of wreckage.
The dawn establishes itself fully. The battleship resumes her course toward the appointed rendezvous.
Our navy has always held the idea that the Germans could be routed out from their submarine bases, has believed that, after all, that is the one sure way of ridding the seas of theKaiser's pirates for good. It may be assumed that the recent attacks of the British upon Ostend and Zeebrugge, as a cover to blocking the canal entrances through sinking old war-ships, were highly approved by Vice-Admiral Sims. Secretary Daniels has considered the advisability of direct methods in dealing with the German Navy. No doubt the temptation has been great, if only because of the fact that with the British and American and French navies combined, we have a force which could stand an appreciable amount of destruction and yet be in a position to cope with the German fleet. Yet, of course, that is taking chances. And:
"It is all very well to say 'damn the torpedoes,'" said Secretary Daniels, in discussing this point, "but a navy cannot invite annihilation by going into mined harbors, and ships can do little or nothing against coast fortifications equipped with 14-inch guns. Experience at Gallipoli emphasizes this fact. And yet"—here the secretary became cryptic—"there is more than one way to kill a cat. No place is impregnable. Nothing is impossible."
The British showed how damage might bedealt naval bases supposedly secure under the guns of fortifications, but something more than a sally will be necessary to smoke out the German fleet, or to root out the nests of submarines along the coast of Belgium. Again, there is the theory that eventually the Germans will come out and give battle. There is a psychological backing for this assumption, for the irksomeness of being penned up wears and wears until it is not to be borne. At least this seems to have been the case in blockades in past wars, notably the dash of Admiral Cervera's squadron from Santiago Harbor.
But when the Germans come it will be no such forlorn hope as that—at least not according to the German expectation; what they expect, however, and what they may get are contingencies lying wide apart.
In connection with our far-flung naval policy the establishment of a naval base on the Azores Islands was announced last spring. The arrangement was made with the full consent of Portugal, and the design was the protection of the Atlantic trade routes to southern Europe. Guns have already been landed on the island,and fortifications are now in process of construction. The station, besides being used as a naval base for American submarines, destroyers, and other small craft, will serve as an important homing-station for our airplanes, a number of which have already been assembled there.
The establishment of this station greatly simplifies the task of protecting the great trade routes, not only to southern Europe and the Mediterranean, but also returning traffic to South American and southern Gulf ports in the United States.
Great Atlantic Ferry Company, Incorporated, But Unlimited—Feat of the Navy in Repairing the Steamships Belonging to German Lines Which Were Interned at Beginning of War in 1914—Welding and Patching—Triumph of Our Navy With the "Vaterland"—Her Condition—Knots Added to Her Speed—Damage to Motive Power and How It Was Remedied—Famous German Liners Brought Under Our Flag
In an address delivered not long ago, Admiral Gleaves, commander-in-chief of the United States Cruiser and Transport Force, referred to "The Great Atlantic Ferry Company, Incorporated, but Unlimited." He referred to our transport fleet, of course, a fleet which, under naval supervision and naval operation, has safely transported more than a million of our soldiers to France. When the history of the war finally comes to be written, our success in the handling of oversea transportation will not be the least bright among the pages of that absorbing history.
When the European nations first went to war in 1914 I happened to be at the Newport NavalTraining Station, and I asked an officer what would happen if we went into the war.
"Not much," he said. "We would stand on our shores and the Germans on theirs and make faces at each other."
Events have proved that he was not looking into the future wisely, not taking into account the enormous energy and get-things-doneness of Secretary Daniels and his coadjutors. Not only did the Navy Department send our destroyer fleet to the war zone—the Allied officers, believing co-operation of the sort not feasible, had neither requested nor expected this—but performed many other extraordinary feats, among them the equipping of transports to carry our men to France, and the conduct of the service when they were ready.
We had only a fair number of American steamships adapted for the purpose, but lying in our ports were interned German and Austrian vessels aggregating many hundreds of thousands of tons. From 1914 until we entered the war commuters on North River ferry-boats seemed never weary of gazing at the steamships lying in the great North German Lloyd and Hamburg-Americanline piers in Hoboken. There was a small forest of masts and funnels appearing above the pier sheds, while many a graceful stern protruded out beyond the pier lines into the river.
Among them was the greatVaterland, the largest vessel in the world, and the outward and visible expression of that peaceful maritime rivalry between Great Britain and the German Empire, which in the transatlantic lanes as in the waters of all the seven seas had interested followers of shipping for so many years. There was, so far as passenger traffic was concerned, the rivalry for the blue ribbon of the sea—the swiftest ocean carrier, a fight that was waged between Great Britain and Germany from the placid eighties to the nineties, when the Germans brought out theDeutschland, and later theKaiser Wilhelm der Grosse, theKaiser Wilhelm II—all champions—whose laurels were to be snatched away by theMauretaniaand theLusitania—the two speed queens—when war ended competition of the sort.
But the contest in speed had, to an extent, been superseded by the rivalry of size, a strugglebegun by the White Star Line when the greatOceanicslipped past quarantine in the early 1900's, and carried on by that line, by the Atlantic Transport Line, and by the German companies with unceasing vigor. Great carrying capacity and fair speed were the desiderata, and the studious Germans were quick to see that it was a far more profitable battle to wage, since speed meant merely advertising, with a more or less slight preponderance in the flow of passenger patronage to the line which owned the latest crack greyhound, whereas size meant ability to carry greater cargoes, and thus enhanced earning capacity.
So great hulls were the order of the years preceding 1914. There came the newBaltic, the newCymric, the newAdriaticof the White Star Line, and for the Germans there came theAmerikaand other craft of that type. Finally there was theTitanicand her ill-fated maiden voyage; the CunarderAquitania, and theVaterland, and theImperator, which bore the German ensign. These facts, presented not altogether in chronological order, are necessary to give the reader an idea of the manner inwhich the Americans were taking back seats in the unceasing fight for commercial maritime supremacy. It is quite likely, so far back was our seat, that the Germans held little respect for our ability, either to man or to fit the immense number of German vessels in our harbors. In truth, the events that followed our entrance into the war showed just how supreme the contempt of the Germans was for our knowledge of things nautical.
We are about to record just how erroneous that attitude of the Germans was, but wish first to point out that they had failed to take into consideration the fact that at Annapolis is situated a school of the sea that asks nothing of any similar school in the world, and that they had also failed to note that, while we had not gone in heavily for shipping, we have been rather effective in other lines which in event of emergency might be brought to bear upon the problem of correcting such deficiencies as might exist in our store of modern nautical tradition.
Well, while the German waged their unrestricted warfare on the sea, those German vessels lay at Hoboken and at other ports of thecountry, gathering the rust and barnacles of disuse. Then one day Congress spoke definitely, and the next morning North River ferry voyagers saw lying off the German docks a torpedo-boat destroyer flying the American flag. Some days later the American flag floated over the taffrails of theVaterland, theKaiser Wilhelm II, and other Teutonic craft. Their employment in the way of providing transportation of our soldiers, of course, was contemplated. In fact, the accession to our marine of such a large number of hulls seemed to provide for us all the necessary means which otherwise we would have lacked.
But not so fast. When our officers began to look over these German craft they found that they were in a woful condition, not so much because of disuse as because of direct damage done to them by the German crews who had been attached to the ships ever since they were laid up in 1914. There is evidence in Washington that the German central authorities issued an order for the destruction of these ships which was to be effective on or about February 1, 1917—simultaneous, in other words.with the date set for unrestricted warfare. There is not the slightest doubt that the purpose of the order was to cause to be inflicted damage so serious to vital parts of the machinery of all German vessels in our ports, that no ship could be operated within a period of time ranging from eight months to two years, if at all.
But the Germans miscalculated, as already set forth. We took over the 109 German vessels in April, and by December 30 of that year, 1917, all damage done to them had been repaired and were in service, adding more than 500,000 tons gross to our transport and cargo fleets. In general the destructive work of the German crews consisted of ruin which they hoped and believed would necessitate the shipping of new machinery to substitute for that which was battered down or damaged by drilling or by dismantlement.
To have obtained new machinery, as a matter of fact, would have entailed a mighty long process. First, new machinery would have had to be designed, then made, and finally installed. These would have been all right if time was unlimited.But it was not; it was, on the other hand, extremely limited. The army wished to send troops abroad, the Allies were pleading for men, and the only way to get them over in time to do anything was to do quick repair jobs on the damaged vessels. But how? Investigation revealed how thorough the work of the German seamen—now enjoying themselves in internment camps—had been. Their destructive campaign had been under headway for two months, and they had thus plenty of time in which to do all sorts of harm, ranging from the plugging of steam-pipes to the demolition of boilers by dry firing.
The Shipping Board experts were the first to go over the German craft, and as a result of their survey it was announced that a great deal of new machinery would have to be provided, and that a fair estimate of the work of remedying the damage inflicted would be eighteen months. But this was too long, altogether so. The officers of the Navy Bureau of Steam Engineering took a hand, and finally decided that it would be possible to clear the ships for service by Christmas of that year. (As a matterof record, the last of the 109 ships was ordered into service on Thanksgiving Day.)
To accomplish the purposes they had in mind, the Navy Department engaged the services of all available machinery welders and patchers, many of whom were voluntarily offered by the great railroad companies. Most of the time that was required was due not so much to actual repair work as to the devious and tedious task of dismantling all machinery from bow to stern of every ship in order to make certain that every bit of damage was discovered and repaired. In this way all chance of overlooking some act of concealed mutilation was obviated.