The Victory At Sea

IV

It was entirely characteristic of this strange war that the greatest exploit of any of the mystery ships was in one sense a failure—that is, it did not succeed in destroying the submarine which attacked it.

On an August day in 1917 the British "merchant steamer" Dunraven was zigzagging across the Bay of Biscay. Even to the expert eye she was a heavily laden cargo vessel bound for Gibraltar and the Mediterranean, probably carrying supplies to the severely pressed Allies in Italy and the East. On her stern a 2½-pounder gun, clearly visible to all observers, helped to emphasize this impression. Yet the apparently innocent Dunraven was a far more serious enemy to the submarine than appeared on the surface. The mere fact that the commander was not an experienced merchant salt, but Captain Gordon Campbell, of the Royal Navy, in itself would have made the Dunraven an object of terror to any lurking submarine, for Captain Campbell's name was a familiar one to the Germans by this time. Yet it would have taken a careful investigation to detect in the rough and unkempt figure of Captain Campbell any resemblance to an officer of the British navy, or to identify the untidy seamen as regularly enrolled British sailors. The armament of the Dunraven, could one have detected it, would have provided the greatest surprises. This vessel represented the final perfection of the mystery ship. Though seemingly a harmless tramp she carried a number of guns, also two torpedo tubes, and several depth charges; but even from her deck nothing was visible except the usual merchant gun aft. The stern of the Dunraven was a veritable arsenal. Besides the guns and depth charges, the magazine and shell-rooms were concealed there; on each side of the ship a masked torpedo tube held its missile ready for a chance shot at a submarine; and the forward deck contained other armament. Such was the Dunraven, ploughing her way along, quietly and indifferently, even when, as on this August morning, a submarine was lying on the horizon, planning to make her its prey.

As soon as the disguised merchantman spotted this enemy she began to behave in character. When an armed merchant ship got within range of a submarine on the surface she frequently let fly a shot on the chance of a hit. That was therefore the proper thing for the Dunraven to do; it was really all a part of the game of false pretence in which she was engaged. However, she took pains that the shell should not reach the submarine; this was her means of persuading the U-boat that it outranged the Dunraven's gun and could safely give chase. The decoy merchantman apparently put on extra steam when the submarine started in her direction at top speed; here, again, however, the proper manœuvre was not to run too fast, for her real mission was to get caught. On the other hand, had she slowed down perceptibly, that in itself would have aroused suspicion; her game, therefore, was to decrease speed gradually so that the U-boat would think that it was overtaking its enemy by its own exertions. All during this queer kind of a chase the submarine and the cargo ship were peppering each other with shells, one seriously, the other merely in pretence. The fact that a naval crew, with such a fine target as an exposed submarine, could shoot with a conscious effort not to hit, but merely to lure the enemy to a better position, in itself is an eloquent evidence of the perfect discipline which prevailed in the mystery ship service. Not to aim a fair shot upon the detested vessel, when there was a possibility of hitting it, was almost too much to ask of human nature. But it was essential to success with these vessels never to fire with the intention of hitting unless there was a practical certainty of sinking the submarine; all energies were focussed upon the supreme task of inducing the enemy to expose itself completely within three or four hundred yards of the disguised freighter.

In an hour or two the submarine landed a shot that seemed to have done serious damage. At least huge clouds of steam arose from the engine-room, furnishing external evidence that the engines or boilers had been disabled. The submarine commander did not know that this was a trick; that the vessel was fitted with a specially arranged pipe around the engine-room hatch which could emit these bursts of steam at a moment's notice, all for the purpose of making him believe that the vitals of the ship had been irreparably damaged. The stopping of the ship, the blowing off of the safety valve, and the appearance of the "panic party" immediately after this ostensible hit made the illusion complete. This "panic party" was particularly panicky; one of the lifeboats was let go with a run, one fall at a time, thus dumping its occupants into the sea. Ultimately, however, the struggling swimmers were picked up and the boat rowed away, taking up a position where a number of the Dunraven's guns could get a good shot at the submarine should the Germans follow their usual plan of inspecting the lifeboats before visiting the sinking merchantman.

So far everything was taking place according to programme; but presently the submarine reopened fire and scored a shot which gave the enemy all the advantages of the situation. I have described in some detail the stern of the ship—a variegated assortment of depth charges, shell, guns, and human beings. The danger of such an unavoidable concentration of armament and men was that a lucky shot might land in the midst of it. And this is precisely what now happened. Not only one, but three shells from the submarine one after the other struck this hidden mass of men and ammunition. The first one exploded a depth charge—300 pounds of high explosive—which blew one of the officers out of the after-control station where he lay concealed and landed him on the deck several yards distant. Here he remained a few moments unconscious; then his associates saw him, wounded as he was, creeping inch by inch back into his control position, fortunately out of sight of the Germans. The seaman who was stationed at the depth charges was also wounded by this shot, but, despite all efforts to remove him to a more comfortable place, he insisted on keeping at his post.

"'Ere I was put in charge of these things," he said, "and 'ere I stays."

Two more shells, one immediately after the other, now landed on the stern. Clouds of black smoke began to rise, and below tongues of flame presently appeared, licking their way in the direction of a large quantity of ammunition, cordite, and other high explosives. It was not decoy smoke and decoy flame this time. Captain Campbell, watching the whole proceeding from the bridge, perhaps felt something in the nature of a chill creeping up his spine when he realized that the after-part of the ship, where men, explosives, and guns lay concealed in close proximity, was on fire. Just at this moment he observed that the submarine was rapidly approaching; and in a few minutes it lay within 400 yards of his guns. Captain Campbell was just about to give the orders to open fire when the wind took up the dense smoke of the fire and wafted it between his ship and the submarine. This precipitated one of the crises which tested to the utmost the discipline of the mystery ship. The captain had two alternatives: he could fire at the submarine through the smoke, taking his chances of hitting an unseen and moving target, or he could wait until the enemy passed around the ship and came up on the other side, where there would be no smoke to interfere with his view. It was the part of wisdom to choose the latter course; but under existing conditions such a decision involved not only great nerve, but absolute confidence in his men. For all this time the fire at the stern was increasing in fierceness; in a brief period, Captain Campbell knew, a mass of ammunition and depth charges would explode, probably killing or frightfully wounding every one of the men who were stationed there. If he should wait until the U-boat made the tour of the ship and reached the side that was free of smoke the chances were that this explosion would take place before a gun could be fired. On the other hand, if he should fire through the smoke, there was little likelihood of hitting the submarine.

Those who are acquainted with the practical philosophy which directed operations in this war will readily foresee the choice which was now made. The business of mystery ships, as of all anti-submarine craft, was to sink the enemy. All other considerations amounted to nothing when this supreme object was involved. The lives of officers and men, precious as they were under ordinary circumstances, were to be immediately sacrificed if such a sacrifice would give an opportunity of destroying the submarine. It was therefore Captain Campbell's duty to wait for the under-water boat to sail slowly around his ship and appear in clear view on the starboard side, leaving his brave men at the stern exposed to the fire, every minute raging more fiercely, and to the likelihood of a terrific explosion. That he was able to make this decision, relying confidently upon the spirit of his crew and their loyal devotion to their leader, again illustrates the iron discipline which was maintained on the mystery ships. The first explosion had destroyed the voice tube by means of which Captain Campbell communicated with this gun crew. He therefore had to make his decision without keeping his men informed of the progress of events—information very helpful to men under such a strain; but he well knew that these men would understand his action and cheerfully accept their rôle in the game. Yet the agony of their position tested their self-control to the utmost. The deck on which they lay every moment became hotter; the leather of their shoes began to smoke, but they refused to budge—for to flee to a safer place meant revealing themselves to the submarine and thereby betraying their secret. They took the boxes of cordite shells in their arms and held them up as high as possible above the smouldering deck in the hope of preventing an explosion which seemed inevitable. Never did Christian martyrs, stretched upon a gridiron, suffer with greater heroism.

V

It was probably something of a relief when the expected explosion took place. The submarine had to go only 200 yards more to be under the fire of three guns at a range of 400 yards, but just as it was rounding the stern the German officers and men, standing on the deck, were greeted with a terrific roar. Suddenly a conglomeration of men, guns, and unexploded shells was hurled into the air. The German crew, of course, had believed that the vessel was a deserted hulk, and this sudden manifestation of life on board not only tremendously startled them, but threw them into a panic. The four-inch gun and its crew were blown high into the air, the gun landing forward on the well deck, and the crew in various places. One man fell into the water; he was picked up, not materially the worse for his experience, by the Dunraven's lifeboat, which, all this time, had been drifting in the neighbourhood. It is one of the miracles of this war that not one of the members of that crew was killed. The gashed and bleeding bodies of several were thrown back upon the deck; but there were none so seriously wounded that they did not recover. In the minds of these men, however, their own sufferings were not the most distressing consequences of the explosion; the really unfortunate fact was that the sudden appearance of men and guns in the air informed the Germans that they had to deal with one of the ships which they so greatly dreaded. The game, so far as the Dunraven was concerned, was apparently up. The submarine vanished under the water; and the Englishmen well knew that the next move would be the firing of the torpedo which could confidently be expected to end the Q-boat's career. Some of the crew who were not incapacitated got a hose and attempted to put out the fire, while others removed their wounded comrades to as comfortable quarters as could be found. Presently the wake of the torpedo could be seen approaching the ship; the explosion that followed was a terrible one. The concussion of the previous explosion had set off the "open-fire" buzzers at the gun positions—these buzzers being the usual signals for dropping the false work that concealed the guns and beginning the fight. The result was that, before the torpedo had apparently given the Dunraven its quietus, all the remaining guns were exposed with their crews. Captain Campbell now decided to fight to the death. He sent out a message notifying all destroyers and other anti-submarine craft, as well as all merchant ships, not to approach within thirty miles. A destroyer, should she appear, would force the German to keep under water, and thus prevent the Dunraven from getting a shot. Another merchant ship on the horizon might prove such a tempting bait to the submarine that it would abandon the Dunraven, now nearly done for—all on fire at one end as she was and also sinking from her torpedo wound—and so prevent any further combat. For the resourceful Captain Campbell had already formulated another final plan by which he might entice the submarine to rise within range of his guns. To carry out this plan, he wanted plenty of sea room and no interference; so he drew a circle in the water, with a radius of thirty miles, inclosing the space which was to serve as the "prize ring" for the impending contest.

His idea was to fall in with the German belief that the Dunraven had reached the end of her tether. A hastily organized second "panic party" jumped into a remaining lifeboat and a raft and rowed away from the sinking, burning ship. Here was visible evidence to the Germans that their enemies had finally abandoned the fight after nearly four hours of as frightful gruelling as any ship had ever received. But there were still two guns that were concealed and workable; there were, as already said, two torpedo tubes, one on each beam; and a handful of men were kept on board to man these. Meanwhile, Captain Campbell lay prone on the bridge, looking through a peephole for the appearance of the submarine, constantly talking to his men through the tubes, even joking them on their painful vigil.

"If you know a better 'ole," he would say, quoting Bairnsfather, "go to it!"

"Remember, lads," he would call at another time, "that the King has given this ship the V.C."

Every situation has its humorous aspects. Thus one gun crew could hardly restrain its laughter when a blue-jacket called up to Captain Campbell and asked if he could not take his boots off. He came of a respectable family, he explained, and did not think it becoming to die with his boots on. But the roar of the fire, which had now engulfed the larger part of the ship, and the constantly booming shells, which were exploding, one after another, like mammoth fire-crackers, interfered with much conversation. For twenty minutes everybody lay there, hoping and praying that the U-boat would emerge.

The German ultimately came up, but he arose cautiously at the stern of the ship, at a point from which the guns of the Dunraven could not bear. On the slim chance that a few men might be left aboard, the submarine shelled it for several minutes, fore and aft, then, to the agony of the watching Englishmen, it again sank beneath the waves. Presently the periscope shot up, and began moving slowly around the blazing derelict, its eye apparently taking in every detail; he was so cautious, that submarine commander, he did not propose to be outwitted again! Captain Campbell now saw that he had only one chance; the conflagration was rapidly destroying his vessel, and he could spend no more time waiting for the submarine to rise. But he had two torpedoes and he determined to use these against the submerged submarine. As the periscope appeared abeam, one of the Dunraven's torpedoes started in its direction; the watching gunners almost wept when it missed by a few inches. But the submarine did not see it, and the periscope calmly appeared on the other side of the ship. The second torpedo was fired; this also passed just about a foot astern, and the submarine saw it. The game was up. What was left of the Dunraven was rapidly sinking, and Captain Campbell sent out a wireless for help. In a few minutes the U.S. armed yacht Noma and the British destroyers Alcock and Christopher, which had been waiting outside the "prize ring," arrived and took off the crew. The tension of the situation was somewhat relieved when a "jackie" in one of the "panic" boats caught sight of his beloved captain, entirely uninjured, jumping on one of the destroyers.

"Gawd!" he shouted, in a delighted tone, "if there ain't the skipper still alive!"

"We deeply regret the loss of His Majesty's ship," said Captain Campbell, in his report, "and still more the escape of the enemy. We did our best, not only to destroy the enemy and save the ship, but also to show ourselves worthy of the Victoria Cross which the King recently bestowed on the ship."

They did indeed. My own opinion of this performance I expressed in a letter which I could not refrain from writing to Captain Campbell:

The records show that the mystery ships sank twelve submarines, of which Captain Campbell accounted for four; yet this was perhaps not their most important achievement. From the German standpoint they were a terribly disturbing element in the general submarine situation. Externally a mystery ship, as already described, was indistinguishable from the most harmless merchantman. The cleverness with which the Allied officers took advantage of the vicious practices of the submarine commanders bewildered them still further. Nothing afloat was sacred to the Hun; and he seemed to take particular pride in destroying small vessels, even little sailing vessels. The Navy decided to turn this amiable trait to good account, and fitted out the Prize, a topsail schooner of 200 tons, and placed her under the command of Lieut. William Sanders, R.N.R. This little schooner, as was expected, proved an irresistible bait. A certain submarine, commanded by one of the most experienced U-boat captains, attacked her by gun fire from a safe distance and, after her panic party had left, shelled her until she was in a sinking condition; many of her crew had been killed and wounded, when, confident that she could not be a Q-ship, the enemy came within less than 100 yards. It was promptly fired on and disappeared beneath the surface. The panic party picked up the German captain and two men, apparently the only survivors, who expressed their high admiration for the bravery of the crew and assisted them to get their battered craft into port. The captain said to Lieutenant Sanders: "I take off my hat to you and your men. I would not have believed that any men could stand such gun fire." For this exploit Lieutenant Sanders was awarded the Victoria Cross. Within about four days from the time of this action the Admiralty received an inquiry via Sweden through the Red Cross asking the whereabouts of the captain of this submarine. This showed that the vessel had reached her home port, and illustrated once more the necessity for caution in claiming the destruction of U-boats and the wisdom of declining to publish the figures of sinkings. Unfortunately, the plucky little Prize was subsequently lost with her gallant captain and crew.

So great was the desire of our people to take some part in the mystery ship campaign that I took steps to satisfy their legitimate ambition. As the Navy had fitted out no mystery ships of our own, I requested the Admiralty to assign one for our use. This was immediately agreed to by Admiral Jellicoe and, with the approval of the Navy Department, the vessel was delivered and named the Santee, after our old sailing man-of-war of that name. We called for volunteers, and practically all the officers and men of the forces based on Queenstown clamoured for this highly interesting though hazardous service. Commander David C. Hanrahan was assigned as her commander, and two specially selected men were taken from each of our vessels, thus forming an exceedingly capable crew. The ship was disguised with great skill and, with the invaluable advice of Captain Campbell, the crew was thoroughly trained in all the fine points of the game.

One December evening the Santee sailed from Queenstown for Bantry Bay to carry out intensive training. A short time after she left port she was struck by a torpedo which caused great damage, but so solidly was her hull packed with wood that she remained afloat. The panic party got off in most approved style, and for several hours the Santee awaited developments, hoping for a glimpse of the submarine. But the under-water boat never disclosed its presence; not even the tip of a periscope showed itself; and the Santee was towed back to Queenstown.

The Santee's experience was that of many mystery ships of 1918. The Germans had learned their lesson.

For this reason it is desirable to repeat and emphasize that the most important accomplishment of the mystery ships was not the actual sinking of submarines, but their profound influence upon the tactics of the U-boats. It was manifest in the beginning that the first information reaching Germany concerning the mystery ships would greatly diminish the chances of sinking submarines by this means, for it would cause all submarines to be wary of all mercantile craft. They were therefore obliged largely to abandon the easy, safe, and cheap methods of sinking ships by bombs or gun fire, and were consequently forced to incur the danger of attacking with the scarce and expensive torpedo. Moreover, barring the very few vessels that could be sunk by long-range gun fire, they were practically restricted to this method of attack on pain of abandoning the submarine campaign altogether.

CHAPTER VI

AMERICAN COLLEGE BOYS AND SUBCHASERS

I

Who would ever have thought that a little wooden vessel, displacing only sixty tons, measuring only 110 feet from bow to stern, and manned by officers and crew very few of whom had ever made an ocean voyage, could have crossed more than three thousand miles of wintry sea, even with the help of the efficient naval officers and men who, after training there, convoyed and guided them across, and could have done excellent work in hunting the submarines? We built nearly 400 of these little vessels in eighteen months; and we sent 170 to such widely scattered places as Plymouth, Queenstown, Brest, Gibraltar, and Corfu. Several enemy submarines now lie at the bottom of the sea as trophies of their offensive power; and on the day that hostilities ceased, the Allies generally recognized that this tiny vessel, with the "listening devices" which made it so efficient, represented one of the most satisfactory direct "answers" to the submarine which had been developed by the war. Had it not been that the war ended before enough destroyers could be spared from convoy duty to assist, with their greater speed and offensive power, hunting groups of these tiny craft, it is certain that they would soon have become a still more important factor in destroying submarines and interfering with their operations.

The convoy system, as I have already explained, was essentially an offensive measure; it compelled the submarine to encounter its most formidable antagonist, the destroyer, and to risk destruction every time that it attacked merchant vessels. This system, however, was an indirect offensive, or, to use the technical phrase, it was a defensive-offensive. Its great success in protecting merchant shipping, and the indispensable service which it performed to the cause of civilization, I have already described. But the fact remained that there could be no final solution of the submarine problem, barring breaking down the enemy moral, until a definite, direct method of attacking these boats had been found. A depth charge, fired from the deck of a destroyer, was a serious matter for the submarine; still the submarine could avoid this deadly weapon at any time by simply concealing its whereabouts when in danger of attack. The destroyer could usually sink the submarine whenever it could get near enough; it was for the under-water boat, however, to decide whether an engagement should take place. That great advantage in warfare, the option of fighting or of running away, always lay with the submarine. Until it was possible for our naval forces to set out to sea, find the enemy that was constantly assailing our commerce, and destroy him, it was useless to maintain that we had discovered the anti-submarine tactics which would drive this pest from the ocean for all time. Though the convoy, the mine-fields, the mystery ships, the airplane, and several other methods of fighting the under-water boat had been developed, the submarine could still utilize that one great quality of invisibility which made any final method of attacking it such a difficult problem.

Thus, despite the wonderful work which had been accomplished by the convoy, the Allied effort to destroy the submarine was still largely a game of blind man's buff. In our struggle against the German campaign we were deprived of one of the senses which for ages had been absolutely necessary to military operations—that of sight. We were constantly attempting to destroy an enemy whom we could not see. So far as this offensive on the water was concerned, the Allies found themselves in the position of a man who has suddenly gone blind. I make this comparison advisedly, for it at once suggests that our situation was not entirely hopeless. The man who loses the use of his eyes suffers a terrible affliction; yet this calamity does not completely destroy his usefulness. Such a person, if normally intelligent, gradually learns how to find his way around in darkness; first he slowly discovers how to move about his room; then about his house, then about his immediate neighbourhood; and ultimately he becomes so expert that he can be trusted to walk alone in crowded streets, to pilot himself up and down strange buildings, and even to go on long journeys. In time he learns to read, to play cards and chess, and not infrequently even to resume his old profession or occupation; indeed his existence, despite the deprivation of what many regard as the most indispensable of the senses, becomes again practically a normal process. His whole experience, of course, is one of the most beautiful demonstrations we have of the exquisite economy of Nature. What has happened in the case of this stricken man is that his other senses have come to fill the place of the one which he has lost. Deprived of sight, he is forced to form his contacts with the external world by using his other senses, especially those of touch and hearing. So long as he could see clearly these senses had lain half developed; he had never used them to any extent that remotely approached their full powers; but now that they are called into constant action they gradually increase in strength to a degree that seems abnormal, precisely as a disused muscle, when regularly exercised, acquires a hitherto unsuspected vigour.

This illustration applies to the predicament in which the Allied navies now found themselves. When they attempted to fight the submarine they discovered that they had gone hopelessly blind. Like the sightless man, however, they still had other senses left; and it remained for them to develop these to take the place of the one of which they had been deprived. The faculty which it seemed most likely that they could increase by stimulation was that of hearing. Our men could not detect the presence of the submarine with their eyes; could they not do so with their ears? Their enemy could make himself unseen at will, but he could not make himself unheard, except by stopping his motors. In fact, when the submarine was under water the vibrations, due to the peculiar shape of its propellers and hull, and to its electric motors, produced sound waves that resembled nothing else in art or nature. It now clearly became the business of naval science to take advantage of this phenomenon to track the submarine after it had submerged. Once this feat had been accomplished, the only advantage which the under-water boat possessed over other warcraft, that of invisibility, would be overcome; and, inasmuch as the submarine, except for this quality of invisibility, was a far weaker vessel than any other afloat, the complete elimination of this advantage would dispose of it as a formidable enemy in war.

A fact that held forth hopes of success was that water is an excellent conductor of sound—far better than the atmosphere itself. In the air there are many crosscurrents and areas of varying temperature which make sound waves frequently behave in most puzzling fashion, sometimes travelling in circles, sometimes moving capriciously up or down or even turning sharp corners. The mariner has learned how deceptive is a foghorn; when it is blowing he knows that a ship is somewhere in the general region, but usually he has no definite idea where. The water, however, is uniform in density and practically uniform in temperature, and therefore sound in this medium always travels in straight lines. It also travels more rapidly in water than in the air, it travels farther, and the sound waves are more distinct. American inventors have been the pioneers in making practical use of this well-known principle. Before the war its most valuable applications were the submarine bell and the vibrator. On many Atlantic and Pacific points these instruments had been placed under the water, provided with mechanisms which caused them to sound at regular intervals; an ingenious invention, installed aboard ships, made it possible for trained listeners to pick up these noises, and so fix positions, long before lighthouses or lightships came into view in any but entirely clear weather. For several years the great trans-Atlantic liners have frequently made Nantucket Lightship by listening for its submarine bell. From the United States this system was rapidly extending all over the world.

American inventors were therefore well qualified to deal with this problem of communicating by sound under the water. A listening device placed on board ship, which would reveal to practised ears the noise of a submarine at a reasonable distance, and which would at the same time give its direction, would come near to solving the most serious problem presented by the German tactics. Even before the United States entered the war, American specialists had started work on their own initiative. In particular the General Electric Company, the Western Electric Company, and the Submarine Signal Company had taken up the matter at their own expense; each had a research department and an experimental station where a large amount of preliminary work had been done. Soon a special board was created at Washington to study detection devices, to which each of these companies was invited to send a representative; the board eventually took up its headquarters at New London, and was assisted in this work by some of the leading physicists of our universities. All through the summer and autumn of 1917 these men kept industriously at their task; to such good purpose did they labour that by October of that year several devices had been invented which seemed to promise satisfactory results. In beginning their labours they had one great advantage: European scientists had already made considerable progress in this work, and the results of their studies were at once placed at our disposal by the Allied Admiralties. Moreover, these Admiralties sent over several of their experts to co-operate with us. About that time Captain Richard H. Leigh, U.S.N., who had been assigned to command the subchaser detachments abroad, was sent to Europe to confer with the Allied Admiralties, and to test, in actual operations against submarines, the detection devices which had been developed at the New London station. Captain Leigh, who after the armistice became my chief-of-staff at London, was not only one of our ablest officers, but he had long been interested in detection devices, and was a great believer in their possibilities.

The British, of course, received Captain Leigh cordially and gave him the necessary facilities for experimenting with his devices, but it was quite apparent that they did not anticipate any very satisfactory results. The trouble was that so many inventors had presented new ideas which had proved useless that we were all more or less doubtful. They had been attempting to solve this problem ever since the beginning of the war; British inventors had developed several promising hydrophones, but these instruments had not proved efficient in locating a submarine with sufficient accuracy to enable us to destroy it with depth charges. These disappointments quite naturally created an atmosphere of scepticism which, however, did not diminish the energy which was devoted to the solution of this important problem. Accordingly, three British trawlers and a "P"[6] boat were assigned to Captain Leigh, and with these vessels he spent ten days in the Channel, testing impartially both the British and American devices. No detailed tactics for groups of vessels had yet been elaborated for hunting by sound. Though the ships used were not particularly suitable for the work in hand, these few days at sea demonstrated that the American contrivances were superior to anything in the possession of the Allies. They were by no means perfect; but the ease with which they picked up all kinds of noises, particularly those made by submarines, astonished everybody who was let into the secret; the conviction that such a method of tracking the hidden enemy might ultimately be used with the desired success now became more or less general. In particular the American "K-tubes" and the "C-tubes" proved superior to the "Nash-fish" and the "Shark-fin," the two devices which up to that time had been the favourites in the British navy. The "K-tubes" easily detected the sound of large vessels at a distance of twenty miles, while the "C-tubes" were more useful at a shorter distance. But the greatest advantage which these new listening machines had over those of other navies was that they could more efficiently determine not only the sound but also the direction from which it came. Captain Leigh, after this demonstration, visited several British naval stations, consulting with the British officers, explaining our sound-detection devices, and testing the new appliances in all kinds of conditions. The net result of his trip was a general reversal of opinion on the value of this method of hunting submarines. The British Admiralty ordered from the United States large quantities of the American mechanisms, and also began manufacturing them in England.

About the time that it was shown that these listening devices would probably have great practical value, the first "subchasers" were delivered at New London, Conn. The design of the subchaser type was based upon what proved to be a misconception as to the cruising possibilities of the submarine. Just before the beginning of the Great War most naval officers believed that the limitations of the submarine were such that it could not operate far from coastal waters. Hardly any one, except a few experienced submarine officers, had regarded it as possible that these small boats could successfully attack vessels upon the high seas or remain for any extended period away from their base. High authorities condemned them. This is hard to realize, now that we know so well the offensive possibilities of submarines, but we have ample evidence as to what former opinions were. For example, a distinguished naval writer says that at that time "The view of the majority of admirals and captains probably was that submersible craft were 'just marvellous toys, good for circus performances in carefully selected places in fine weather.'" He adds that certain very prominent naval men of great experience declared that the submarine "could operate only by day in fair weather; that it was practically useless in misty weather"; that it had to come to the surface to fire its torpedo; that its "crowning defect lay in its want of habitability"; that "a week's peace manœuvres got to the bottom of the health of officers and men"; and that "on the high seas the chances [of successful attack] will be few, and submarines will require for their existence parent ships." The first triumph of Otto Weddingen, that of sinking the Cressy, the Hogue, and the Aboukir, did not change this conviction, for these three warships had been sunk in comparatively restricted waters under conditions which were very favourable to the submarine. It was not until the Audacious went to the bottom off the north-west coast of Ireland, many hundreds of miles from any German submarine base, that the possibilities of this new weapon were partially understood; for it was clear that the Audacious had been sunk by a mine, and that that mine must have been laid by a submarine. Even then many doubted the ability of the U-boats to operate successfully in the open sea westward of the British Isles. Therefore the subchaser was designed to fight the submarine in restricted waters; Great Britain and France ordered more than 500 smaller (80-foot) vessels of this type, or of approximately this type, built in the United States; and just before our declaration of war the United States had designed and contracted for several hundred of a somewhat larger size (the 110-foot chasers) with the original idea of using them as patrol boats near the harbours and coastal waters of our own country. Long before these vessels were finished, however, it became apparent that Germany could not engage in any serious, extensive campaign on this side; it was also evident that any vessel as small as the subchaser had little value in convoy work, notwithstanding the excellence of its sea-keeping qualities; and we were all rather doubtful as to just what use we could make of these new additions to our navy.

The work of pushing the design and construction of these boats reflects great credit upon those who were chiefly responsible. The designs were drawn and the first contracts were placed before the United States had declared war. The credit for this admirable work belongs chiefly to Commander Julius A. Furer (Construction Corps) U.S. Navy, and to Mr. A. Loring Swasey, a yacht architect of Boston, who was enrolled as a lieutenant-commander in the reserves, and who served throughout the war as an adviser and assistant to Commander Furer in his specialty as a small vessel designer, particularly in wood. It speaks well for the ability of these officers that the small subchasers exhibited such remarkable sea-keeping qualities; this fact was a pleasant surprise to all sea-going men, particularly to naval officers who had had little experience with that type of craft. The listening devices had not been perfected when they were designed, and this innovation opened up possibilities for their employment which had not been anticipated; for these reasons it inevitably took a large amount of time, after the subchasers had been delivered, to provide the hydrophones and all the several appliances which were necessary for hunting submarines. Apparently those who were responsible for constructing these boats had a rocky road to travel; with the great demand for material and labour for building destroyers, merchant ships, and for a multitude of war supplies, it was natural that the demands for the subchasers in the early days were viewed as a nuisance; the responsible officers, therefore, deserve credit for delivering these boats in such an efficient condition and in such a remarkably short time. That winter, as everyone will recall, was the coldest in the memory of the present generation. Day after day the poor subchasers, coated with ice almost a foot thick, many with their engines wrecked, their planking torn and their propellers crumpled, were towed into the harbour and left at the first convenient mooring, where the ice immediately began to freeze them in. As was inevitable under such conditions, the crews, for the most part, suffered acutely in this terrible weather; they had had absolutely no training in ordinary seamanship, to say nothing of the detailed tactics demanded by the difficult work in which they were to engage.

I do not think that the whole lot contained 1 per cent. of graduates of Annapolis or 5 per cent. of experienced sailors; for the greater number that terrible trip in the icy ocean, with the thermometer several degrees below zero, and with very little artificial heat on board, was their first experience at sea. Yet there was not the slightest sign of whimpering or discouragement. Ignorant of salt water as these men at that time were, they really represented about the finest raw material in the nation for this service. Practically all, officers and men, were civilians; a small minority were amateur yachtsmen, but the great mass were American college undergraduates. Boys of Yale, Harvard, Princeton—indeed, of practically every college and university in the land—had dropped their books, left the comforts of their fraternity houses, and abandoned their athletic fields, eager for the great adventure against the Hun. If there is any man who still doubts what the American system of higher education is doing for our country, he should have spent a few days at sea with these young men. That they knew nothing at first about navigation and naval technique was not important; the really important fact was that their minds were alert, their hearts filled with a tremendous enthusiasm for the cause, their souls clean, and their bodies ready for the most exhausting tasks. Whenever I get to talking of the American college boys and other civilians in our navy, I find myself indulging in what may seem extravagant praise. I have even been inclined to suggest that it would be well, in the training of naval officers in future, to combine a college education with a shorter intensive technical course at the Naval Academy. For these college men have what technical academies do not usually succeed in giving—a general education and a general training, which develops the power of initiative, independent thought, an ability quickly to grasp intricate situations, and to master, in a short time, almost any practical problem. At least this proved to be the case with our subchaser forces. So little experience did these boys have of seafaring that, as soon as they had completed their first voyage, we had to place a considerable portion in hospital to recover from seasickness. Yet, a few months afterward, we could leave these same men on the bridge at night in command of the ship. When they reached New London they knew no more of seamanship and navigation than so many babies, but so well were these boys instructed and trained within a few weeks by the regular officers in charge that they learned their business sufficiently well to cross the Atlantic safely in convoy. The early 80-foot subchasers which we built for Great Britain and France crossed the ocean on the decks of ocean liners; for it would have been a waste of time, even if international law had permitted it, to send them under their own power; but all of the 110-footers which these young men commanded crossed the ocean under their own power and many in the face of the fierce January and February gales, almost constantly tossed upon the waves like pieces of cork. As soon as they were sufficiently trained and prepared to make the trip, groups were despatched under escort of a naval vessel fitted to supply them with gasolene at sea. Such matters as gunnery these young men also learned with lightning speed. The most valuable were those who had specialized in mathematics, chemistry, and general science; but they were all a splendid lot, and to their spirit and energy are chiefly due their remarkable success in learning their various duties.

"Those boys can't bring a ship across the ocean!" someone remarked to Captain Cotten, who commanded the first squadron of subchasers to arrive at Plymouth, after he had related the story of one of these voyages.

"Perhaps they can't," replied Captain Cotten—himself an Annapolis man who admires these reservists as much as I do. "But they have."

And he pointed to thirty-six little vessels lying at anchor in Plymouth Harbour, just about a hundred yards from the monument which marks the spot from which the Mayflower sailed for the new world—all of which were navigated across by youngsters of whom almost none, officers or men, had had any nautical training until the day the United States declared war on Germany.

Capable as they were, however, I am sure that these reservists would be the first to acknowledge their obligations to the loyal and devoted regular officers of the Navy, who laboured so diligently to train them for their work. One of the minor tragedies of the war is that many of our Annapolis men, whose highest ambition it was to cross the ocean and engage in the "game," had to stay on this side, in order to instruct these young men from civil life.

I wish that I had the space adequately to acknowledge the work in organization done by Captain John T. Tompkins; in listening devices by Rear-Admiral S. S. Robison, Captains Frank H. Schofield, Joseph H. Defrees, Commanders Clyde S. McDowell, and Miles A. Libbey, and the many scientists who gave us the benefit of their knowledge and experience. It is impossible to overpraise the work of such men as Captains Arthur J. Hepburn, Lyman A. Cotten, and William P. Cronan, in "licking" the splendid raw material into shape. Great credit is also due to Rear-Admiral T. P. Magruder, Captains David F. Boyd, S. V. Graham, Arthur Crenshaw, E. P. Jessop, C. M. Tozer, H. G. Sparrow, and C. P. Nelson, and many others who had the actual responsibility of convoying these vessels across the ocean.

I assume that they will receive full credit when the story of the work of the Navy at home is written; meanwhile, they may be assured of the appreciation of those of us on the other side who depended so much for success upon their thorough work of preparation.