HUNTING THE HUNTERS

Dominion, Volume 9, Issue 2677, 25 January 1916, Page 6

HUNTING THE HUNTERS

HOW THE HUN SEA-PIRATES ARE

ROUNDED UP

THE ODDS AGAINST THEM

(From tho "New York World.")

When the war began on August 1, 1914, official figures were at hand as to the number of German submarines. They totalled just 45—27 submarines built, and commissioned, and 18 building. To turn out a submariue in time of peace takes two years. Therefore it miglit be presumed- no more could bo finished up to this present date. But more were finished. How? Because the intensive Germans bogan specialising on submarines, and before long were finishing them in nine months' time, scores of them, perhaps two or three a week. This was achieved by working in three-hour shifts of fresh men, 24 hours a day. But there is something else needful besides the submarine to make this kind of naval warfare underseas successful, and that is a crew for her. The submarine crew is the highest type of specialised fighter that this war'has developed. More work is required to contrive a crew for a submarine than to build the submarine itself. And though • Germany won't admit it, the loss of 60 odd submarine crews is a worse blow than the loss of the boats. And, if the truth must be told, the surviving crews are in a panic. When they leave home waters they hardly expect to come back, these dreadful days. They know—"no quarter" is tho British rule, remembering the Lusitania. The crew of a German battleship or a cruiser, sunk in a fair fight, gets all the honours of war, and is rescued to the last man possible, but submarine, crews are never taken alive—in fact, they are never taken at all. John Bull has a more expeditious way with him. Netting "Tin-Fish." Many are the methods of getting the submarine, of which the chiefest are four: —Nets, torpedo boats, "chasers," and fake trawlers. Minor ways of sub-marine-getting are mines, "gumming the eye" of the periscope with oil, aeroplanes, and microphones, which are said to detect a submarine 75 miles away. Netting the submarine i 6 a dandy sport —for the Briton. The netting most often used is made of stout galvanised wire, chiefly bought in the United States, with a 15ft. mesh. This is out in lengths of 170 ft., with a depth of 45ft. On top of this great net are lashed immense blocks of wood for buoys. Two oil-burning destroyers now take the netting and hang it between them, as deep down in the water as it will reach, and i ere ready to go submarine-hunting.

The range of a submarine's periscope is little over a mile in any sort of sea. Vessels that are belching smoke and lie on tlie horizon can he picked up 1 for three to five miles, but 110 more. A periscope can be seen as far as it sees, if watchful eyes are on the job.

The twin net-bearing destroyers spy a periscape. They chart the submarine's direction and speed (out of. sightrange) to a point directly ahead. Now the lashings arc cut away and, tho net left in the German's path, while the destroyers sneak out of Three times 'out of four, it is declared, tho submarine gets tangled in the net. Her delicate machinery is disarranged and her balance upset. She may turn tur-, Now the rest is easy. Half a mmute later some 28 or 30 souls are coffined in steel for all eternity at the bottom of the sea, there to await tho Judgment Day. It has only taken ono Bhot from a three-inch Tapid-fire cun. Motor-boat Chasers. Eight or ten submarines, so British Admiralty reports admit; havo escaped accidentally by changing' their courses after the nets have - been let go. But nevor once has a periscope sighted a destroyer, which lies low ,on the water and let out no smudge of smoke from its oil-burners. Other nets are hung from huge hollow glass balls—glass so that tho periscope cannot pick them out against the surface' of the sea. These nets h'ave regular tenders in the shape of torpedo boats, which go their round just as a fisherman goes his rounds,- looking for the fish caught bv their gills. Theso cover tho English Channel and are floating in many places on the North Sea, where thero is any likelihood of a submarine being busy. When a glass ball disappears there is a torpedo boat oil the job in a iiffv. waiting for tho victim to come to the surface—if she can. The rest is easy.

The king of English outdoor sports just now is "chasing" submarines. Tlie crews, of the chasers are getting to be experts at the game. A chaser is a. 35-mile-an-liour motor-boat, 60 feet long and 10 feet beam, fitted with a dandy rapid-fire gun fore and aft. Light as a bubble, she floats ,on the water with barely a dent in the surface.. She can move as fast as a torpedo. Now, every submarine makes what the experts call a "surface wave." Even at 60ft. she leaves a distinct path, and 60ft. is pretty deep for any submarine to venture. Besides this plain track there are also innumerable bubbles of air and globules of oil, continually escaping to the . surface, plain indication to the observant eye of a submarine hovering below. All right—the "chaser" catches the "surface wave." This spells the end of the submarine unless a storm comes up or a fog falls. For it is merely the business of the speedier motor boat to keep above the wave, and tho time has got to come when the submarine must bob up to get her ( bearings or to see what she can see. It is all over in ten seconds.

Two thousand of theso little submar-ine-teasera now swarm the navigablo waters around the British Isles, and they are getting heavy "bags" of game. The high record is 12 submarines in one week. Some three hundred more are building in Canada, and already 17 have been forwarded to the Mother Country on freighters, safely lashed to the decks. "Fake" Trawlers. Now we come to the fake trawler, which includes the fake freighter, perhaps the most interesting method of all; for it involves something more than mere watchfulness plus a net. This method involves initiative and ingenuity. In the North Sea a British patrol boat came across a trawler on which the officers who "went aboard discovered a most interestingly large amount of stores —enough to keep that one particular ship at sea for a year. ■ She was flying the Norwegian flag, and protested perfect neutrality. ' The British were not to be bluffed. Search revealed tho fact that tho trawler was in reality a "mother ship" for a flotilla of German submarines. Presto! The crew of the supposed trawler were sent to England in 'irona, and a crew of French and English sailors took their places. For'three days the trawler hovered around the bay. On tho third morning a' periscope popped up out of the blue, and, observing that, tho horiswu was clear of enemy ships, mado for. the trawler with a. friendly toot of its whistle. When the submarino got as near as tho English captain of tho trawler desired, he merely "turned on the hose," which is tt polito way of putting it when you want to say you aro lotting go with your rapid-gun firo. This vessel surrendered instanter. Next morning a second was captured in a similar manner, and tho third wax bagged at eventime. Torpedo-boats towed them away with their crews. Beforo the week was tip the three others were captured without a shot boiiiK firod. All six nre new fiehteus lor Jol.m Hull witowjual

impartiality, thanks to the change of crewo. The Peril from the Air. Aeroplanes have a winning way with them, too. It is their custom to fly as slowly as possible over the shallow waters around the English coast, and spy out German submarines resting on the bottom, a regular trick of theirs. In this way the submarines' batteries are conserved, and tho boats come to the surface only at night to take on fresh air, which is a speedy process. So thoy can remain away from their base for long periods, watching for a favourable opportunity to riso to the surface and bag a big ship. These have been the hardest to catch. And here the aeroplane has shown its great usefulness. The shallow water that 'surrounds the coastline makes it possible for the aviator to spy out tho submarine as sho lies, blind and immobile, on the bottom, even 100 ft. deep. He notes tho position and notifies the nearest patrol boat, which speeds to the spot. Now it is only a case of waiting for the submarine to rise. You know the rest if you have road thus far. Mines are anchored from the bottom at about tho cruising distanco of a submarine from tho surface. Ono hit is enough. Nothing ever conies up to tell the tale. Months after, perhaps, in Germany another submarine is listed as missing—yes, missing until the sea shall give up its dead! "Gumming the eye" is another sport. A tanker merely steams around in concentric circles at a spot on the sea frequented by submarines, and the oil gets on the glass of the periscope and thus shuts out the view. Then the boat must open up and let a man out on deck to clean the periscope. If a "chaser'" happens to be around the submarine doesn't got a chance to submerge— its own accord. The microphone also has its uses. William Dublier, of New York, saw its workings in Boulogne Harbour last month. A British troopship had fled into its landlocked safoty, followed by a blood-thirsty submarine, more zealous than cautious. The detector, a set of resonant tubes affixed'to a microphone and installed in the sea at several points off shore, gave the alarm and triangulation established the points off_ shore, gave the alarm and triangnlation established the point at whick the submarine was submerged. A torpedo boat hurried off to the spot and sunk tho menacing craft as soon as she rose, in full_ sight of the cheering Tommies on their troopship!