THE COAST GUARD

Dominion, Volume 9, Issue 2832, 25 July 1916, Page 6

THE COAST GUARD

WITH TRAWLERS AND SUBMARINES FISHING FOR MINES (Special Correspondent, London "Times") On the East Coast. If you win through an African jungle, Unnoticed at home in tho Press,.- . Heed it' not, no 'man seeth the piston. But it drivcth the ship none the less. "The Ward-Room Litany." War saw us unprepared on land, and but partly prepared on. sea, but, mechanical genius and general adaptability. havo made up for our unpreparedness to an extent that one only realises after a visit to the East Coast defences. Before the war a fishing-town- basked in the sunshine of prosperity.. Rich harvests from the sea brought comfort to these .hardy fishermen." Nq'w their harvest is a grimmer one and they rako the seas for the spawn of death; mines and torpedoes are their • catches, ami hardship and incessant watching their lot. , Not all the craft boast a tonnage of thousands, but they lire none the less important. Lining the quays there is a fleet that .boasts, .110 grey paint, and there is not enough brass there to make a candlestick. The. skippers of . theso vessels'■ have lio gold lace 011 cap or sleeve. They wear canvas jackets, .occasionally they boast ear-rings, and their hands are rough with the salt rime and tho handling of the sea harvest. These are the trawlers, His Majesty's trawlers, the men who gather in the sowings of the German submarines and minelayers. Since \March they : liave' accounted for 460 German mines, and th'ey are proud of theii\work. • ' - .

A Fisher Galahad. There is a man .on litis coast,-a Galahad of the fishermen. His name matters not, bat he is the skipper of the King Stephen. He is a hard man, and he speaks of the Germans as he would speak of 'scorpions. He made im his mind that he would wage his part of the war as war, and "God help the.Germans whom he met." In good time ho .did meet ji German, several of them, m a "U" boat.' He opened • fire at short range, for the enemy had not held him in much esteem, but had made suggestions about "taking to boats'." The skipper of the trawler had other views, ?l j . roun d swept a sailor.from the deck of the submarine with one le» less than Nature gave him. His third, fourth, and fifth struck the conning tower, and the enemy sank slowly, leaving bubbles and oily patches on the smooth sea.. There wereother submarines about, and the skipper of the trawler •gave orders to make off, but above his orders sounde<l the wail of . the wounded' German sailor, and the skipper forgot his hatred, hearing the call of one man to another. Without stopping to deliberate, he went over side to rescue his erstwhile foe, and he brought him safely on board. What do the men who,shelled our helpless "E" boat's crew in thoSßaltic think of this? >

At the beginning of the war it was soon seen that it would be necessary to keep an open channel 'for shipping. A safe trade route must be kept clear. Hence this trawler fleet was organised, and' in these last 22 months 21,000 ships used this channel, and of the ones that kept to orders and obeyed instructions only three, mot mishap. Mines and a Boat Hook. Indiscriminate mine-laying w-as always a devilish device,. but the German has excelled his master.* Now he lays mines from submarines, and to do this these' vessels need not como to the. surface. 1-hoy can creep to a trade route, fathoms below the ken of watching patrols, there j? spew lip these engines of destruction. The German mine is of ingenious construction, and depends on six soft metal horns for detonation. Inside these horns are bottles containing sulphuric acid. Oil contact with a ship's hull the horns uend and the bottles break, liberating the acid, which indirectly causes tho explosion. • When a mino is found it is' treated with deference, and any tendency towards affectionate approaches is discounted witli a boat hook. It is not always that these fishermen realise their potentialities, howovor, and not long ago an ear-ringed salt of tho old-school made a, tow rope fast to one of these detonating horns and' towed it 11 miles to harbour, where lie delivered it to the authorities, who watched the latter part of his performance aghast. Yet another of his Kind retrieved a mine and brought it into harbour. He took it alongside a cruiser there and. proudly announced his discovery. 'Take the thing av:ay from here," shouted the horrified officer of the watoh. "It bean't dangerous," countered the discoverer. "Oive been and knocked off all them spoiks with a boat J ook." And he had. . - •

Cheek by jowl.with the trawlers lay a grey-pain ted mother sliip to a fleet of simmarines clustered around her affectionately. A smiling oflicer invited inspection of his ewe-laiiib. "It's Tea'ly quit© roomy when you knoiv your way about," he said, "and the motion's de~lightful." A' submarine is an. elongated cigar-shaped metal case. The man who designs her fills her full, quite full, of machinery. He then remembers that iie has to put 22 men in her and he takes put some of the machinery, leaving three spaces aloiit Oft. square, always taking care' there shall be sufficient excrescences to make the men careful how they v alk In the largest space, referred to airily as the mess, there is an electric stove that would- delight a housewife! The stove" naturally suggests that it W for cooking when submerged, but the commander dispels the theory. "The men would like to cook," ho says, "but you can't have the reek of cabbage and stew when you're, below; our ordinary stinks are enough."

Above the fish-backed structure called a deck a voico is heard remarking carefully that ho is off on a "stunt" in an hour's time. "What lie "means is tlmt he will leave harbour and make for the open sea in the direction of the enemy coast. He will perhaps submerge and nose his way, all by sense of touch, through German minefields, and .at the end lio

"doggo" on the bottom with the shadows of 'the AVar Lord's cruisers playing on his hull. In his own time he will rise, and when his periscope prism breaks the surface he will have perhaps five seconds to fjrin his course for future action. ■

Quiet, unassuming men these that go under the .sea in ships. They do tilings that would, 'wreck a soldier's nerves in mi hour, but they literally "come up 'smiling" perhaps a little tired-eyed and with throbbing temples, but without an idea that they are doing more than ■their duty.