THE GAME OF BLUFF AT SEA

Dominion, Volume 9, Issue 2864, 31 August 1916, Page 6

THE GAME OF BLUFF AT SEA

HOW BRITAIN DEALS WITH THE PIRATES PATROL INCIDENTS Australian-New Zealand Cable Association, j London, August 29. _ Mr. Alfred Noyes, in his second article in tho "Daily Chronicle" ou the work of the British trawling fleet in hunting submarines, eavs: "For many months a certain strip of .the North African coast was strewn with wreckage and men's bodies from merchant ships, Allied and neutral, which had met German submarines. Wo dispatched a flotilla of trawlers and drifters there. That coast to-day is as clean as any round Britain. On one occasion one squadron was withdrawn from the mouth of the Adriatic, in order to deal with an unexpected trouble in the Aegean Sea. The submarines promptly emerged from the unguarded gates ■ and raoro wreckage and dead strewed the unwatched shores. British longshore fishermen may be found patrolling in the White Sea; others aro always patrolling tho coast of Bulgaria. Sinking tiuarmed fishing boats was one of. Fritz's favourite amusements early in the war." ;

• Mr. Noyes relates a typical and true, story, recorded in official logbooks of how a submarine surprised the trawler Victoria on a fishing bank 130 miles from land. The trawler took - a forlorn hope and tore homewards. One after another the submarine's shells killed the crew until only four .wero left. The submarine picked up the survivors, and the commander examined them sing'y concerning the patrol 6ystem. All refused to answer. Mr.' Noyes continues: "The sinking of- these fishing boats has suddenly ceased. Except on rare occasions it is now an acknowledged fact that when a submarine sees one it submerges or bolts. Dotails must not be given, but I may give one case out of six. There was once a simple fishing boat shooting nets. The submarine gave the men five minutes to leave. • Immediately there was panic aboard tho boat, which had been part of the drill when in port. Two of the crew went down on their knees for morcy, the others hauled at the'boat like men possessed. Passing over details again,' the resultant picture showed a dummy boat on deck in four pieces and a fine big gun levelled at the submarine with naval gunners in : attendance, two Germans kneeling for mercy, an abolished submarine, and oil upon troubled waters.

"War has made many queer -transformations. What looks like a battleship, may be a comparatively harmless thins? resembling Noali's Ark. - German warhips run from a boat which in as harmless as a mouse. They are being confronted by the most terrible bluff in the war gamble. Passengers on American and other neutral liners heavo sighs of content ijhen they sigbt a British man-o'-war which is not a man. b'-war at all, while all around the sea is with insienificant craft,'ships of Drake and Hawkins, loaded with 1111. imagined thunderbolts. They are England's world-patrolling battle fleets."