CHAPTER IX
During the days of the fateful German submarine campaign, the divers of the Admiralty Salvage Section played their part in many a drama, ferreting out clues of vital importance, acting as detectives of the deep. While the Untersee boats of the Germans menaced our national existence and ruthlessly committed many crimes against humanity, the deep-sea detectives of the Salvage Section were always on their track, studying their habits, learning their methods, recovering from watery fastnesses those sealed orders which Tirpitz and his staff would have given anything to keep out of the hands of our alert Admiralty.
More than one U-boat, struggling frantically to free herself from the mighty nets in which she had become entangled, found herself caught in a trap from which there was no escaping. The guardians of the nets, going their rounds, marked the agitation of the buoys which told of a giant fish struggling below, and if the prize could not be brought up and captured, a depth charge soon put an end to its struggles.
Sometimes a submarine was found on the bottom without any visible damage to the hull. An accident to her machinery had rendered her helpless. The Germans fought desperately to put things right. As they grappled with the damaged machinery, they saw death coming nearer and nearer. When it was obvious that they could do nothing, that there was no escape for them, many shot themselves to put an end to their sufferings. Entering these steel tombs, the divers of the Admiralty saw ghastly sights—shot Germans lying about all over the place. In some cases it was apparent that the trapped men had been driven mad by their terror and had run amuck and fought each other savagely before they died. They were pitiless to others, but in the end the fear of death had turned their brains and transformed them into madmen.
Of all the submarine crimes which dishonoured the name of Germany, one of the worst was the atrocity of the Belgian Prince. It started with the sound of guns and the whine of shells from which it was impossible to flee, and as the wireless mast of the Belgian Prince went overboard her captain rang down to the engine-room and the ship heaved to. The U.44 approached warily, waiting to strike again at the least sign of resistance, but seeing that the Belgian Prince had frankly surrendered a collapsible boat put out from the submarine, which was now lying idly on the surface, and pulled off to the steamer. Captain and crew of the steamer were ordered to take to their boats and pull to the submarine, and, as they rowed to the U.44 under armed escort, the Germans went down below to open the sea-cocks of the vessel and place bombs to blow the bottom out of her.
Their work completed, the boarding party of Germans rowed back to the U.44. Paul Wagenfuhr, the German captain, ordered the crew of the Belgian Prince to line up on the deck of the submarine. They were searched for arms, ordered to take their outer clothes off, their lifebelts were taken from them, and their boats destroyed with axes. Leaving the seamen partially undressed still standing on the deck, the Germans entered the conning tower of their boat and shut it after them.
The crew of the Belgian Prince still stood as they were ordered, wondering what was going to happen to them, expecting that now their ship and boats had been destroyed the Germans would take them into the submarine.
Gradually the U.44 began to move on the surface of the sea, and continued to forge ahead for about ten minutes. Then suddenly, without warning, just as darkness descended, the submarine dived, and the forty-three helpless and defenceless men were thrown into the water. For a time the air was rent with their cries as they fought the eternal sea for their lives. Then the darkness blotted out the sights and sounds, and one by one they sank.
It was as deliberate and cold-blooded a murder as was ever committed—the very epitome of that order of the German Naval authorities to “destroy without trace.” The destruction of the boats with axes to cut off all means of escape, the deliberate taking away of the lifebelts, the search for weapons, the order to the men to take off their outer clothes, all were thought out, were part of a settled policy on the part of Captain Wagenfuhr, if not on the part of the German Higher Command. All were easy to understand. Even the object of depriving the crew of their clothes, which is obscure to many, becomes plainer upon consideration. Men carry papers and things in their pockets which lead to identification. In taking their clothes from the men, the Germans were also robbing them of their identity, for if any of the poor victims happened to be found clad only in their shirts floating dead in the sea, there was practically nothing to furnish a clue as to who they were, what ship they belonged to, if they belonged to a ship at all.
But the Germans, in their hurried search of the men, overlooked the fact that three of them wore lifebelts concealed beneath their clothing, and these three men, by the aid of their lifebelts, managed to survive until they were picked up. So the world learned of the German crime. But for these three witnesses, nothing would have been known except that the Belgian Prince had vanished with every soul aboard.
Throughout August 1, 1917, the naval craft were scouring the neighbourhood for a sign of the U-boat, trying to get on its track. The sea was empty. Casting farther and farther afield, one of our torpedo boats sighted a periscope on the afternoon of the next day nearly a hundred miles from the scene of the outrage. Keen eyes at the other end of the periscope must have detected the torpedo boat almost as soon as the torpedo boat saw the periscope, for our naval gunners had time to get in only a couple of rounds before the periscope disappeared. Racing to the spot, the torpedo boat dropped a depth charge. But she was too late: the enemy was gone.
A torpedo fired at a cattle boat proceeding from Ireland to England furnished the next clue to the enemy submarine. The torpedo missed, and the cattle boat, calling up patrol boats by wireless, managed to escape.
The U-boat hunted warily, for Paul Wagenfuhr had a definite mission to perform. His task was to lay a minefield in the way of the cattle boats coming out of Waterford harbour in order to interfere with the regular traffic to England. The submarine was equipped with a number of huge mines and special mine-laying apparatus which enabled her to lay these death-dealers while she herself was snugly out of sight beneath the surface. Mostly the mine-laying was done at night, and regularly about once a month a U-boat would scatter her deadly cargo and pen the shipping in harbour until the mines were swept up and a passage cleared.
Hardly a ripple stirred the sea when darkness stole down over Waterford on the evening of August 4. The fisherfolk along the coast, gathering in the village inn, spent an hour or two smoking and chatting over the doings of the day. Some were still standing before the doors of their cottages about midnight when they were startled by the sound of a terrific explosion at sea, a sound that reverberated over the water in the absolute silence of the night. Then, faintly, cries were heard.
The cries sent the fishermen speeding to the quay. In a short time three fishing boats were speeding over the sea, heading in the direction whence the cries came. None knew what lay ahead of them, none troubled even to ask. Death might be lurking for them, but that aspect of the case did not concern them. The sound of the explosion and the cries still rang in their ears, betokening a disaster which sent the fishermen on their swift errand of mercy to succour whomsoever they could find.
Standing alert in the prows of their boats, the fishermen scanned the sea for signs of wreckage. From time to time they called, and listened vainly for an answer. They were about 4 miles from shore when a dark object loomed in the water, a faint cry answered their calls. A minute later a man was dragged over the side of one of the boats.
The stranger was in a bad state. It was obvious he could not long survive. Heading about, the fishermen landed the man as quickly as possible, but stimulants liberally administered had little effect. Just for a time he rallied and managed to gasp out the information that he was a member of the crew of the U.44, and that they were laying mines when a tremendous explosion occurred and shot him up to the surface. His end came suddenly soon afterwards.
The U.44, laying mines in the stilly night to deal death and destruction to others, strayed unwittingly into one of our minefields. One of her mines in floating upwards after its release knocked against one of ours, and the two exploded with such terrible force that the stern of the submarine was practically blown away and the men who manned her were drowned like rats in a trap. Thus Nemesis overtook the Germans.
By Monday, August 6, Commander G. Davis of the Admiralty Salvage Section was recalled from another salvage case with instructions to recover the sunken U-boat. All that night the salvage officer and his men laboured at getting the necessary gear aboard the salvage ship, and at midnight on the Tuesday they reached Waterford.
Early next day minesweepers were at work clearing a passage for the salvage vessel. It was dangerous to move in that area at all, as was manifested during the morning when one of the minesweepers herself struck a mine and foundered. Without waste of time, Commander Davis tackled and raised the minesweeper as a preliminary to the important task of raising the U-boat.
The usual method of finding the wreck by dragging the seabed with grapnels was adopted, and the submarine was located in 90 feet of water, lying right athwart the current which, owing to its strength in this spot, did much to hamper future operations.
The Admiralty was particularly anxious to recover not only the papers of the submarine, but also the submarine itself. Given the German submarine, the British naval experts could go over it at their leisure, see exactly how German design was developing, browse among the latest German improvements and pick to pieces all the most recent German ideas. Not that the British Admiralty lagged behind German design, but it had the good sense not to despise the enemy and to realize it might be possible to learn something even from Germans.
To issue an order for the sunken submarine to be brought into harbour was easy. A few words in code tapped out on the wireless and the thing was done. But the carrying out of the order was beset with difficulties. Commander Davis decided to adopt one of the best known methods of raising the wreck by utilizing the lift of the tide to accomplish his purpose.
One of the outstanding things about salvage experts is their uncanny ability for seizing on any power that happens to be handy and compelling it to serve their own ends. There is unlimited power in the rise and fall of the tides, and the salvage men are clever enough to harness this power to raise wrecks off the seabed. They literally use the sea to rob the sea of its prey, and the ways they follow are more or less those put into practice by Commander Davis, who decided to lift the submarine in a cradle of cables and carry her ashore.
A mighty steel cable was taken from one salvage boat to another, an end was secured on each boat, and the cable was dropped until the loop of it dragged on the bottom. Then this cable was swept under the submarine and hauled along by the salvage boats until they had dragged it into position right under the wreck. Directly it was in place, the two ends were buoyed, and the salvage men began juggling with another cable. One by one the cables were worked into position, and by the ninth day the salvage officer had as many cables as he desired lying snugly under the U-boat from end to end.
The tenth day brought a gale that made further salvage operations impossible. Dirty weather continued for twenty-four days before the gale blew itself out. The salvors, desperately anxious as they were to get on with the job, had perforce to cool their heels ashore while the seas played battledore and shuttlecock with the buoys at the ends of the cables.
On September 10, however, the day dawned fine, and soon after daylight the sweepers were clearing a passage out to the wreck—a task they had to perform every day any work was undertaken. No sooner was the passage swept than the salvors brought to the spot one of those modern lifting vessels which helped to perform many wonderful feats during the war.
In appearance the lifting craft is like a huge, flat barge with a covered deck. Its hull contains a series of great tanks, or watertight compartments, which can quickly be flooded or emptied, just as the salvage expert desires. As the tanks are flooded, so the craft sinks lower and lower in the water, and as they are pumped out so she rises again. When the tanks are full, the lifting craft sits 4½ feet lower in the water, and if she is then attached to a wreck and her tanks be emptied she is capable of lifting a weight of 1200 tons from the seabed.
Say that the difference between low tide and high tide is 16 feet. If the lifting craft be placed in position over a wreck at low tide and pumped out, the cables between the lifting craft and the wreck being made taut, as the tide rises, so the lifting craft swings the wreck off the seabed, and at high tide the wreck lies slung under the lifting craft over 20 feet from the bottom. She can then be towed inshore until she grounds again.
In other words, a vessel floating on the surface is nearest to a submerged wreck at low water. If the tide happen to rise and fall 20 feet, the vessel will be 20 feet nearer the wreck at low tide than at high tide. By filling their lifting craft with water the salvors can bring it another 4½ feet nearer the wreck, and if they then pump out the water tanks they can raise the wreck 24½ feet from the bottom at the top of the tide, provided they have craft capable of lifting a weight as great as that of the wreck. Towing into shallower water follows, as before described.
Commander Davis placed his lifting vessel in position exactly over the wrecked submarine, and the cables running under the wreck were brought up on each side of the surface craft and securely fastened. The tanks of the lifting craft were blown out with compressed air and, as the tide began to rise, the lifting craft rose with it and dragged the U-boat from her bed 90 feet below the surface. Just before the tide was at the full the salvors began to tow the lifting craft with her burden inshore and succeeded in covering a distance of three-quarters of a mile before the submarine grounded again. Next day, at the top of the tide, the performance was repeated, and the wreck was carried inshore for another three-quarters of a mile. In two days the salvors thus gained a mile and a half, and the wreck now rested on the bottom, about three miles from the beach.
The salvors, making the most of favourable conditions after their enforced idleness, were toiling until far into the night on the wreck. They feared a recurrence of bad weather, and their fears were well-founded. Wednesday brought in its train a strong wind that increased in strength all the morning and made work impossible. By the afternoon it was blowing a gale, and so severe was the storm that one of the salvage lighters was unable to withstand its fury. She started to founder, and it was only with the utmost difficulty and in the face of tremendous risk that one of the salvage men managed to get aboard and bring her safely to harbour.
The calm courage and confidence of the salvors were things to marvel at. They knew beyond doubt that live mines were aboard, and that these mines were liable to go off at the slightest jar and blow them all to pieces, yet they went about their jobs for hour after hour, day after day, as though such things as mines did not exist. Time after time the sea bumped the submarine against the bottom and, every time it happened, death in its most horrible form hovered near them. Once the submarine dropped sheer from the cables, and no one knows even now why they were not all wiped off the face of the sea. There was just one tense moment, then, as nothing happened and their luck held good, they started to get the submarine back into the slings again.
Another lifting craft was brought on the scene and, picking up the wreck again, the salvors went ahead with the work tide by tide. In their passage shorewards they performed the extraordinary feat of carrying the wreck over a bar of sand that rose steeply for 14 feet—an operation requiring the greatest skill and delicacy in adjusting the lifting cables. The nose of the submarine had to be lifted inch by inch until it attained an angle that enabled it to rise up the slope without digging its bow into the sand. Had the nose of the craft been lifted too high, she might easily have slipped backward out of the cables supporting her, and such a slip might not have ended so happily as the previous one. However, Commander Davis succeeded in negotiating this supreme difficulty surely and safely, and his brilliant work was later rewarded with the Distinguished Service Cross.
In the end, after making twenty-one lifts in twenty days, the salvors beached the infamous U.44. She proved a golden haul, for the mass of confidential information recovered from her turned out to be of the utmost importance. She had on board nine mines, which were cautiously taken out by Commander Davis and rendered innocuous, besides several torpedoes and a big collection of shells.
Followed the grim and ghastly task of disinterring the dead. On September 26, twenty-one bodies were removed under the direction of a surgeon and carefully searched. One by one the dead Germans were sewn in canvas and weighted with firebars.
That evening the salvage ship, fitted for the occasion with special platforms on which the bodies were placed, steamed out to sea. At midnight she stopped. The salvage men with bared heads stood solemnly by while the chaplain read the burial service in grave, sonorous tones. Then, very reverently, the dead were committed to the deep and the cleansing sea closed over them.