War in the underseas

Front matter

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The Last of a Pirate

Foreword

SEA-POWER strangled Germany and saved the world. Even when the Kaiser's legions were riding roughshod over the greater part of Europe its grip was slowly throttling them. Despite the murderous mission of mine and U-boat, it kept the armies of the Allies supplied with men and munitions, and scoured the world for both. When the British Fleet took up its war stations in the summer of 19 14 it became the Heart of Things for civilization. It continued to be so when the major portion of the swaggering High Sea Fleet came out to meet Beatty under the white flag in the chilly days of November 1918. It remains so to-day.

The officers and men of the Royal Navy whose march is the Underseas played a perilous and noble part in the Great Conflict. British submarines poked their inquisitive noses into the wet triangle of Heligoland Bight three hours after hostilities were declared ; they watched while the Men of Mons crossed the Channel to stay the hand of the invader ; they pierced the Dardanelles when mightier units remained impotent ; they threaded their way through the icy waters of the Baltic despite the vigilance of a tireless enemy ; they fought U-boats, a feat deemed to be impossible ; they dodged mines, land batteries, and surface craft, and depleted the High Sea Fleet of many valuable fighting forces. In addition, they had to contend with their own peculiar troubles — shoals, collisions, breakdowns, and a hundred and one ills which a landsman never suspects. Some set out on their duties and failed to come back. They lie many fathoms deep. Their commanders have made their last report. Sea-power has its price. I am under special obligation to several officers of British submarines for assistance willingly rendered, despite the arduous nature of their duties. Their generous enthusiasm exhibits that " real love for the Grand Old Service it is an honour and pleasure to serve in," as Admiral Beatty wrote to me the other

day.

Contents

I. Clearing the Decks .... 13

II. Life as a Latter-day Pirate . . 52

III. Germany's Submersible Fleet . . 69

Chapter I

" Society must not remain passive in face of the deliberate provocation of a blind and outrageous tyrant. The common interests of mankind must direct the impulses of political bodies : European society has no other essential purpose." — Schiller.

SURPRISE is the soul of war. The submarine illustrates this elemental principle, and its astounding development is the most amazing fact of the World Struggle. Given favourable circumstances it can attack when least expected, pounce on its prey at such time as may be most convenient to itself, and return to its lair without so much as being sighted. What has become a vital means to the most important military ends was once described by the British Admiralty as " the weapon of the weaker Power." To a large extent, of course, it is par excellence the type of vessel necessary to bidders for Sea Supremacy who would wrest maritime predominance from a stronger Power. On the other hand, it has rendered yeoman service to the British Navy, as many of the following pages will show. Germany, a nation of copyists but also of improvers, diverted the submersible from the path of virtue which previous to the outbreak of hostilities it was expected to pursue. It is safe to say that few people in Great Britain entertained the suspicion that underwater craft would be used by any belligerent for the purpose of piracy.

Up to August 1914 the submarine was intimately associated in the public mind with death and disaster — death for the crew and disaster for the vessel. It is so easy to forget that Science claims martyrs and Progress exacts sacrifice. These are two of the certainties of an uncertain world. The early stages of aviation also were notable for the wreck of hopes, machines, and men. To-day aircraft share with submarines and tanks the honour of having altered the aspect of war. The motor-car, once the laughing-stock of everybody other than the enthusiast, and now grown into a Juggernaut mounting powerful guns, is the foster-father of the three, for the perfection of the internal combustion engine alone made the submarine and the aeroplane practicable.

For good or for ill, the underwater boat has passed from the experimental to the practical. In the hands of the Germans it became a particularly sinister and formidable weapon. The truth is not in us if we attempt to disguise the fact. When there was not so much as a cloud the size of a man's hand on the European sky, and the Betrayer was pursuing the path of peaceful penetration all undisturbed and almost unsuspected, the submarine was regarded by many eminent authorities as a somewhat precocious weakling in the naval nursery. They refused to believe that it would grow up. Even Mr H. G. Wells, who has loosed so many lucky shafts, unhesitatingly damned it in his Anticipations. He saw few possibilities in the craft, and virtually limited its use to narrow waterways and harbours.

There were others, however, who thought otherwise, and the controversy between the rival schools of thought was brought to a head by a fierce battle fought in Printing House Square. Sir Percy Scott, who had previously

i5 held more than a watching brief for the heavy fathers of the Fleet, bluntly told the nation through the columns of the Times that the day of the Dreadnought and the Super-Dreadnought was over. With a scratch of the pen he relegated battleships to the scrap-heap — until other experts brought their guns to bear on the subject. Almost on the conclusion of this war of words the war of actuality began. I do not think I am wrong in saying that the former ended in an inconclusive peace. Practice has proved the efficiency of both surface and underwater craft, but particularly of vessels that do not submerge.

Admiral Sir Percy Scott's prophecy remains unfulfilled. The big-gun ship has asserted itself in no uncertain language. It is interesting to note, however, that the ruling of one who took part in the discussion, and whose personal experience in the early stages of the evolution of a practical submarine entitled him to special consideration, has been entirely negatived. Rear- Admiral R. H. S. Bacon, 1

1 Now Vice-Admiral Sir Reginald H. S. Bacon, K.C.B., K.G.V.O., D.S.O.

the principal designer of the first British type, asserted that " the idea of attack of commerce by submarines is barbarous and, on account of the danger of involving neutrals, impolitic." It is obvious from this that the late commander of the Dover Patrol never contemplated any departure from the acknowledged principles of civilized warfare. The unexpected happened, as it is particularly liable to do in war. One of the main purposes of the enemy's submarines in the World War was piracy, unrestrained, unrestricted, and unashamed. It failed to justify Germany's hope.

Probably Lord Fisher was the first seaman holding high position to actually warn the British Government of the likelihood of Germany's illegitimate use of the submarine. Early in 19 14 he handed to Mr Asquith and the First Lord of the Admiralty a memorandum pointing out, among other things, that the enemy would use underwater boats against our commerce. 1 His prescience was forestalled thirteen years before by Commander Sir Trevor

1 Reply of Mr Bonar Law to Mr G. Lambert and Commander Bellairs in the House of Commons, 5th March, 191 8.

Dawson, who had prophesied that the enemy would attack our merchant fleet in much the same way as the Boers were then attacking the army in the Transvaal. " Submarine boats," he told a meeting of engineers, " have sufficient speed and radius of action to place themselves in the trade routes before the darkness gives place to day, and they would be capable of doing almost incalculable destruction against unsuspecting and defenceless victims."

Originally Germany was by no means enamoured of the new craft. Her first two submarines did not appear until 1905-6 ; Great Britain's initial venture was launched at Barrow-in-Furness in 1901. The latter, the first of a batch of five, was ordered on the advice of Lord Goschen. Even then the official attitude was sceptical, not altogether without reason. Mr H. O. Arnold-Forster, speaking in the House of Commons on the 18th March, 1901, after admitting that " there is no disguising the fact that if you can add speed to the other qualities of the submarine boat, it might in certain circumstances become a very formidable vessel," adopted what one might call a misery-loves-company attitude. " We are comforted," he averred, " by the judgment of the United States and Germany, which is hostile to these inventions, which I confess I desire shall never prosper."

Dr Flamm, Professor of Ship Construction at the Technical High School at Charlottenburg, who should and probably does know better, has aided and abetted certain other publicists in foisting on the public of the Fatherland the presumption that the submarine is a German invention. This is not the place for a full history of the underwater craft from its early to its latest stages, but perhaps it is permissible to give a few particulars regarding the toilsome growth of this most formidable type of vessel.

The first underwater craft of which there is anything approaching authentic record was the invention of Cornelius Drebbel, a Dutchman who forsook his own country for England. According to one C. van der Woude, writing in 1645, Drebbel rowed in his submerged boat from Westminster to Greenwich. Legend or truth has it that this " Famous Mechanician and Chymist" managed to keep the air more or less sweet in his craft by means of a secret " Chymicall liquor," and that the structure was covered with skin of some kind to make it watertight. Drebbel, who also professed to have discovered the secret of perpetual motion, is stated to have hit upon the idea of his invention by the simple process of keeping his eyes open. He noticed some fishermen towing behind their smacks a number of baskets heavily laden with their staple commodity. When the ropes were not taut the vessels naturally rose a little in the water. He came to the conclusion that a boat could be weighted in much the same way to remain entirely below the surface, and propelled by means similar to a rowing-boat. It is even said that King James travelled at a depth of from twelve to fifteen feet in one of the two vessels constructed by Drebbel, whose invention is referred to in Ben Jonson's Staple of News.

The submarine may be said to have remained in this essentially elementary stage until 1775,

Clearing the Decks when David Bushnell, an American, launched a little one-man submarine after five years of planning and preparation. The shape of the vessel resembled a walnut held upright, the torpedo being carried outside near the top. At the bottom was an aperture fitted with a valve for admitting water, while a couple of pumps were provided for ejecting it. About 200 lb. of lead served as ballast, which could be lowered by ropes for the purpose of giving immediate increase of buoyancy should emergency require it. " When the skilful operator had obtained an equilibrium," Bushnell writes, " he could row upward and downward, or continue at any particular depth, with an oar placed near the top of the vessel, formed upon the principle of the screw, the axis of the oar entering the vessel ; by turning the oar one way he raised the vessel, by turning it the other way he depressed it." A similar apparatus, worked by hand or foot, whichever was the more convenient, propelled the submarine forward or backward. The rudder eould also be utilized as a paddle.

Bushnell provided his little wooden craft 21 with what he called a crown and we should designate a conning - tower. In this there were several glass windows. Neither artificial .light nor means of freshening the air was carried, though the submarine could remain submerged for thirty minutes before the condition of the atmosphere made it necessary to ascend sufficiently near the surface to enable the two ventilator pipes to be brought into action. The water-gauge and compass were rendered discernible by means of phosphorus.

The torpedo — Bushnell termed it a magazine — was an oak box containing 150 lb. of gunpowder and a clockwork apparatus which was set in operation immediately the affair was unshipped. It was attached to a wooden screw carried in a tube in the brim of the 1 crown.' Having arrived beneath an enemy vessel, the screw was fixed in the victim's hull from within the submarine, and the ' U-boat ' made off. At the time required the mechanism fired what to all intents and purposes was a gun-lock, and the torpedo blew up.

The wooden screw was the least successful 22 of the various appliances. An attempt was made in 1776 to annihilate H.M.S. Eagle, then lying off Governor's Island, New York. The operator apparently tried to drive his screw into iron, and quite naturally failed. Writing to Thomas Jefferson on the subject, Bushnell suggests that had the operator shifted the submarine a few inches he could have carried out his operation, even though the bottom was covered with copper. Two other unsuccessful trials were made in the Hudson River. Owing to ill-health and lack of means, the inventor then abandoned his submarine, though in the following year he attempted to ' discharge ' one of his magazines from a whaleboat, the object of attack being H.M.S. Cerberus. It failed to reach the British frigate, and blew up a prize schooner anchored astern of her. Washington was fully alive to the possibilities of Bushnell's invention, but was evidently of opinion that it was too crude to warrant his serious attention. Writing to Jefferson, he says : "I thought, and still think, that it was an effort of genius, but that too many things were necessary to be combined to expect much from the issue against an enemy who are always upon guard." Incidentally this was a remarkable testimonial to the men on look-out duty on the British vessels. Keen sight is still a recognized weapon against submarine attack.

In 1797 Robert Fulton, also an American, brought his fertile brain to bear on the submarine, possibly on hearing or reading of David Bushnell's boat. One would have anticipated that the era of the Revolutionary and Napoleonic wars would be propitious for the introduction of new plans and methods calculated to bring a seemingly never-ending state of hostilities to an end. Novel propositions were certainly brought forward ; few were utilized. Fulton, an artist by profession, simply bubbled over with ideas connected with maritime operations. Moreover, he had extraordinary tenacity and enthusiasm. Set-backs seemed to give him added momentum. He tried to do business with Napoleon in France, with Pitt in England, with Schimmelpenninck on behalf of Holland, not always without success, before returning to the United States and

Clearing the Decks running the steamer Clermont at five miles an hour on the Hudson.

At the end of 1797 the enterprising American proposed to the French Directory to construct a submarine, to be christened the Nautilus, or, as he frequently spelled it, the Nautulus. So great was his faith in the project for "A Machine which flatters me with much hope of being Able to Annihilate " the British Navy, that he was willing to be remunerated by results, viz., 4000 francs per gun for every ship of forty guns and upward that he destroyed, and half that amount per gun for smaller vessels. All captures were to become the property of " the Nautulus Company." A little chary of being caught red-handed by the enemy and dealt with as a pirate, he asked that he might be given a commission in the Service, which would ensure for him and his crew the treatment of belligerents. Pleville le Pelley, Minister of Marine, deeming that such warfare was " atrocious," and yet not altogether unkindly disposed toward it, refused the latter request, which would obviously give the submarine official sanction. The proposed payment by results he reduced by fifty per cent. All the arrangements were subsequently cancelled.

Nothing further was done until July 1798, when Bruix was Minister of Marine. Fulton renewed his proposition, and certain inquiries by scientists of repute were made at the instigation of Bruix. The report was distinctly favourable, but again there was disagreement as to terms. Fulton, impatient of delay, built the Nautilus. This little vessel, twenty feet long and five feet beam, was launched at Rouen in July 1800. On the trial trip the inventor and two companions made two dives in the boat, the time of submersion varying from eight minutes to seventeen minutes. Proceeding to Havre, Fulton made various improvements in the Nautilus, including the introduction of a screw propeller worked by hand, and the addition of wings placed horizontally in the bows for the purpose of ascending or descending. While at Havre the submarine remained below over an hour at a depth of fifteen feet with her crew and a lighted candle. On another occasion the Nautilus was submerged for six hours, air being supplied by means of a little tube projecting above the water.

For sailing on the surface the boat was fitted with a single jury-mast carrying a mainsail jib, which could be unshipped when submarine navigation was required. By admitting water she sank to the required depth, and was then propelled by the method already referred to. A glass dome, a compass, a pump for expelling the water when necessary, and a gauge for testing depth, which Fulton called a bathometer, constituted the ' works.' The torpedo was an apparatus made of copper filled with gunpowder, " arranged in such a manner that if it strikes a vessel or the vessel runs against it, the explosion will take place and the bottom of the vessel be blown in or so shattered as to ensure her destruction." x The weapon was to be fixed to the bottom of the victim by means of a barbed point on the chain used for towing it.

Fulton approached Napoleon, who authorized Forfait, the latest Minister of Marine,

1 Fulton's report, gth September, 1801. 27 to advance the sum of 10,000 francs for the purpose of perfecting the Nautilus. He also granted Fulton an interview. When, in the autumn of 1801, he expressed a wish to see the submarine, the vessel had been broken up. Here the matter ended, and the ingenious American turned his thoughts in the direction of steam navigation. The Nautilus was his one and only experiment in underwater craft. 1 The first ship to be actually sunk during hostilities by submarine was the Federal 13-gun frigate Housatonic, of 1264 tons. She went down off Charleston on the 17th February, 1864, during the American Civil War, as the result of being attacked by a spar-torpedo carried by the Confederate submarine Hunley, so named after her designer, Captain Horace L. Hunley. Unfortunately the underwater boat was also a victim, and she carried with her her fourth crew to meet with death as a conse-

1 Readers who wish for further details of Fulton will find them in Robert Fulton, Engineer and Artist, his Life and Works, by H. W. Dickinson, A.M.I.Mech.E. (London, 1913), and other documentary evidence in Projets et Tentatives de debarquetnent aux lies Britanniques, by Edouard Desbridre (Paris, 1902), vol. ii, pp. 255-259, 279-280.

quence of misadventure. On the first occasion the boat was swamped and eight men were drowned, on the second a similar disaster overtook her, with the loss of six of her crew, on the third she descended and failed to come up. Small wonder that the Hunley came to be known as ' the Peripatetic Coffin. '

The shape of the Hunley was cylindrical. For'ard and aft were water ballast tanks operated by valves, and additional stability was given by a sort of false keel consisting of pieces of cast iron bolted inside so as to be easily detachable should it be necessary to reach the surface quickly. On each side of the propeller, worked by the hand-power of eight men, were two iron blades which could be moved so as to change the depth of the vessel. The pilot steered from a position near the fore hatchway.

The torpedo, a copper cylinder containing explosive and percussion and primer mechanism, was fired by triggers. It was carried on a boom, twenty-two feet long, attached to the bow. The speed was seldom more than four miles an hour on a calm day. As there was no means of replenishing the air other than by coming to the surface and lifting one of the hatchways, it was obviously a fair-weather ship.

On the afternoon of the 17th February, 1864, the Hunley set out on her final trip. While attacking the submarine was only partly submerged, and one of the hatches was uncovered ; why will never be known. She made straight toward the Housatonic, with the evident intention of striking the vessel near the magazines with her torpedo. There was an explosion, the ship heeled to port, and went down by the stern. When divers examined the extent of her injuries the plucky little Hunley was found with her nose buried in the gaping wound in her victim's hull. Her crew were dead, but apparently the officer was saved.

Other submarines or partly submersible boats were used by the defenders of the Southern cause. They were usually termed 'Davids' because they were built to sink the Goliaths of the Federal Navy. The New Ironsides, the Minnesota, and the Memphis were all damaged as a result of their operations.

The only weapon of the submerged submarine is the torpedo. The World War brought no surprise in this direction. For surface work the calibre of the guns mounted on the disappearing platforms has increased very considerably. In 19 14 a 14-pdr. was considered ample armament. With added displacement, gun-power has grown enormously. Some German underwater craft in 1918 carried 5.9-in. guns — that is to say, weapons larger than those used by many destroyers.

During the past decade torpedoes and submarines have made almost parallel progress. Of the various types of the former, the Whitehead is first favourite in the Navies of Great Britain, Japan, Russia, and Austria-Hungary, while France uses both the Whitehead and the Schneider, and Germany was exclusively devoted to the Schwartzkopf (Blackhead) . The extreme effective range of each may be taken as from 10,000 to 12,000 yards. The essential difference between a torpedo and the usual run of naval ammunition for guns is that the torpedo retains its propellant, while the shell does not. The torpedo is really an explosive submarine mine forced through the water at a rate varying from 28 knots to 42 knots by twinscrews worked by compressed air engines. Any deviation from the course is automatically corrected by a gyroscope. Some torpedoes are now fitted with an apparatus which causes the torpedo to go in circles should it miss its mark and meet with the wash of passing ships. There is the added possibility, therefore, that the weapon may strike a vessel at which it was not aimed when a squadron is proceeding in line ahead.

To a certain extent the submarine has enabled the torpedo to come into its own. It is not at all an easy taslc to hit a rapidly moving ship from a platform also ploughing the water at a great rate. Among other things the speed and distance of the opponent have to be taken into consideration, and the missile aimed ahead of the enemy so that it and the target shall arrive at a given point at the same moment. The late Mr Robert Whitehead's invention, an improvement on that of Commandant Lupuis, of the Austrian Navy, who had sold his patent to the former, was tested by the British Admiralty at Sheerness in 1871. Although extremely crude when compared with its successor of to-day, the sum of £15,000 was paid for the English rights. It was first put to a practical test in the Russo-Turkish War of 1877, when Lieutenant Rozhdestvensky, who afterward suffered defeat at the hands of the Japanese in May 1905, sank a Turkish warship by its means.

Viscount Jellicoe has told us that the arrival of the submarine led to certain alterations in strategy. I quote from an interview which the former First Sea Lord granted to a representative of the Associated Press in the spring of 1917. Sir John, as he then was, said : " The most striking feature of the change in our historic naval policy resulting from the illegal use of submarines, and from the fact that the enemy surface ships have been driven from the sea, is that we have been compelled to abandon a definite offensive policy for one which may be called an offensive defensive, since our only active enemy is the submarine engaged in piracy and murder." Mr Winston Churchill, First Lord of the Admiralty in c 33

August 19 14, put the matter a little more bluntly. " But for the submarine and the mine," he wrote, " the British Navy would, at the outset of the war, have been able to force the fighting to an issue on their old battleground — outside the enemy's ports."

This did not mean that every other type of ship had been rendered obsolete or even obsolescent by the coming of the vessel that can float on or under the waves. Admiral von Capelle, Secretary of State for the German Imperial Navy, told the Main Committee of the Reichstag that the submarine was an " important and effective weapon," but added that " big battleships are not wholly indispensable. Their construction depends on the procedure of other nations." x For instance, the submarine has emphasized the importance of the torpedo-boat destroyer, which some seamen thought it would supersede. The T.B.D. has more than maintained its own. Not only is it useful for acting independently, righting its own breed, but as the safeguard of the battleships and battle-cruisers at sea,

1 Speech of 27th April, 1917.

and also as the keenest weapon against submarines, the naval maid-of-all-work has proved extraordinarily efficient. 1

In the general operations of naval warfare it cannot be said that the enemy U-boats were particularly successful. In the five battles that were fought the work of German submarines was negligible so far as actual fighting was concerned. In two of them, namely Coronel and the Falklands, they were unrepresented on account of the actions taking place many thousands of miles from European waters. This limitation of range of action is a difficulty that time and experiment were beginning to solve when hostilities came to an abrupt conclusion.

The battles of Heligoland Bight and Dogger Bank are profoundly interesting to the student of War in the Underseas. Sir David Beatty, who commanded the Battle Cruiser Squadron in the first big naval engagement in which submarines were used, while admitting that he did not lose sight of " the risk " from them, says in his dispatch that " our high speed . . .

1 In this connexion see particularly Chapter X.

made submarine attack difficult, and the smoothness of the sea made their detection comparatively easy." These two antidotes will be noted by the reader. The same distinguished officer, perched on the forebridge of the Lion in his shirt-sleeves while pursuing the German Fleet near the Dogger Bank, personally observed the wash of a periscope on his starboard bow. By turning immediately to port he entirely upset the calculations of the enemy commander, who was not afforded a further opportunity to torpedo the flagship. A like manoeuvre defeated a similar projected attack on the Queen Mary in the Bight. The helm is therefore a third instrument of defence. Apparently the service rendered by enemy U-boats at these two battles was worthless. If they fired at all they missed. On the other hand, any attempt to sink them likewise failed.

In the dispatches on the Battle of Jutland, which a well-known Admiral tells me were severely edited before publication, there are several references to enemy submarines, none to our own. The first attempted attack took place about half an hour after Sir David Beatty had opened fire, and immediately following the entry of the 5th Battle Squadron into the fight. The destroyer Landrail sighted a periscope on her port quarter. With the Lydiard she formed a smoke screen which " undoubtedly preserved the battle-cruisers from closer submarine attack." The light cruiser Nottingham also reported a submarine to starboard. We are also informed that " Fearless and the 1st Flotilla were very usefully employed as a submarine screen during the earlier part of May 31." The Marlborough, flagship of Vice-Admiral Sir Cecil Burney's First Battle Squadron, after having been torpedoed — whether by submarine or other craft is not mentioned — drove off a U-boat attack while proceeding to harbour for repairs. " The British Fleet," adds Sir John Jellicoe, " remained in the proximity of the battlefield and near the line of approach to German ports until 11 a.m. on June 1, in spite of the disadvantages of long distances from fleet bases and the danger incurred in waters adjacent to enemy coasts from submarines and torpedo craft." In the British list of enemy vessels put out of action, one submarine figures as sunk.

Admiral Beatty justly remarks that the German losses were " eloquent testimony to the very high standard of gunnery and torpedo efficiency of His Majesty's ships." Of the twenty-one vessels lost or severely damaged, it would appear as though nine were accounted for by torpedoes, although this does not necessarily mean that they had not been engaged by gunfire as well. At Dogger Bank, it may be recollected, a torpedo finally settled the Blilcher, which had already been rendered hors de combat by shell fired from more oldfashioned weapons.