FIGHTING THE PIRATE U-BOATS
THE SHORE END OF THE CAMPAIGN KEY TO THE SITUATION IN THE SHIPYARDS ' The war against the submarine is being waged both on sea- and land. On the sea by destroyer, trawler, pa-trol-boat, depth bomb, mine, not, and rapid-lire gun, oil land by smelter, forge, rolling mill, riveter, shipwright, and engine-builder. The sea fight is offensive (says the "Scientific American" of December 1), and it has already accounted for 40 to 50 per cent, of the sub-sea pirates. The land hght is defensive, and its efficiency and scope, already great, will increase and expand as the months go by and now ships in ever-increasing numbers take the water. _ ) To date, the only exact official statement of shipping destroyed, is that re-, cently made by the First Lord of the Admiralty in .Parliament, to the effect that the 'losses to British shipping during the three years and a half of war was 14 per cent, of the merchant fleet as it existed in 1914. This gives us a truo line upon the tonnage destroyed; for when the war began tho tonnage oi the British merchant fleet was 20,000,000 tons, and 14 per cent, of that is 2,800,000 tons. If we place the combined Josses of the rest of the Allies and the neutrals at 75 per cent, of tho British losses, we reach a total loss, to date, of about 6,000,000 tons. Are Losses Diminishing? ■ The official weekly statements of TJboat depredations show that the losses are diminishing. The. average is now running at about 12 ships of over 1600 tons per week. If we assume the average size of these ships to bo 5000 tons (it is probably less; but 5000 tons would cover. also tho tonnage lost in ships below 1600 tons), and if we assume thatjthere will be no further decrease in losses, thete would he an additional loss during the coming year of 3,000,000. This vould mean a tot.' net loss by tho end of 1918 of tins world's tonnage of 9,000,000 tons. Now let us see what the shipyards of the Allies can do to offset that loss. At a recent conference among members of the Atlantic Coast Shipbuilding Association and Federal officials, Mr. Hurley, of the Shipping Board, stated that the United States will "build 6,000,000 deadweight tons of ships in 1918." That contribution alone will offset two-thirds of the total loss as estimated 'above. But Great Britain herself will not be idle. Already she has 1,000,000 tons of- standardised ships under construction, and now that she has built tho addition to her Navy considered necessary to put her command of the seas against Germany beyond all question, her great shipbuilding yards are being given over increasingly to tl)6 construc- ' tion of merchant ships. Her contribution to the world's total shipping by the close of next year should amount to something over 1,500,000 tons; and the contribution of France, Japan, Italy, and the neutral countries should bring up the total of new construction to 2,000,000 tons. So we see that, if the shipbuilding efforts of the Allies, ourselves included, com?* up to expectations, the output next year should reach a total of 8,000,00 i) tons, as aaainst a total loss by that time of 9.000.000 tons. Evidently, if TJ-boat piracy is to bring the Allies to their knees, it will have to be speeded up enormously. Not only is it being beaten decisively, if slowly, ; by the offensive at sea ; hut, ns tho months go by, it will be defeated most decisively by the defensive on land—by the steel mill and the shipyard. Labour Holds the Key, This will happen—if our performance comes-up to our promise. And it can be achieved only if there is a perfect co-operation between capital and labour. If the unions will listen to the call of duty and patriotism, and labour is content with a fair and reasonable wage, our merchant marine will consist, by the end of 1918, of 1600 ships, representing a grand total of 9,200,000 tons. We have at present in our merchant marine 458 shins suitable for overseas service. In addition to these, there are 88 German shins which have been seized, repaired, heavily armed, and fitted up as transports, and eight Austrian ships that have been purchased, which are being used in carrying our troops and supplies to France. Included among these are some of the largest and fastest passenger ships afloat, as the following table will sho^v:— GERMAN SHIPS AS AMERICAN TRANSPORTS: , , Ton ge. Cap y. Yaterland (Leviathan) ,64,262 BMO (ieorge Washington (Geo. Washington) 1 25,570 4850 Amerika. (America) 22,622 , 4500 Cecilie • (Mt. Vernon) 19,503 ' 3830 Kaiser William II (Agamemnon 19,361 3830 President Lincoln (President Lincoln) 18,168 5200 President Grant (President Grant) 18,072 5200 Cincinat-ti (Covington) 16,339 4000 Grossc Kurfurst (Aeolus) 13,102 3175 ISarbarosßji (Mercury) 10,984 2620 Prinzess Irene (Pocahontas) ... 10,893 2540 Fredrich der Gross (Huron)... 10,771 2450 Hamburg (Powhatan) 10,531 2100 Rhein (Susquehanna) 10,058 2000 Neckar (Antigone) 9,835 _ 2000 (The present name is given within parentheses.) The combined carrying capacity oi these ships is about 60,000 troops, and tho first seven of them have speeds of from 17 to 23} knots, which alone, with due precaution, should render them practically immune against submarine attack. These ships have an aggregate tonnage (rf 280,000. The balance of the German and Austrian ships are employed in general freight and passenger service, either for war or commerce. The United States have available today, for overseas commerce 458 ships totalling 2,871,000 tons. Adding to these the 700,000 tons of foreignships, we get a total of 575 ships, of 3,500,000 tons total in our merchant marine. Compare this with conditions in 1914, when we had less than 1,000,000 tons registered for foreign trade. A Staggering Programme. But the Urgent Deficiency Act of June 15, 1917, gave the President power to commandeer all the shipbuilding facilities of the nation, and acting under this authority, all ships of 2500 tons and over that were oil the building ways were taken over. This brought an addition to our merchant fleet of 400 steel ships of 2,500,000 tons total, up-to-dato freighters that wore being built for foreign owners. The Emergency Fleet Corporation (organised by the Shipping Board to carry out its shipbuilding programme) by September 22, 1917, had let contracts for 636 ships, whoso total tonnage is 3,124,700 tons. Of these 353, of 1,253,900 tonnage, are of wood, 58 of 207,000 tons aro composite (steel and" wood), and 225 of 1,630,800 tons are of steel. The wooden and composite ships aro of about 3500 tons and 10 knots speed; the steel ships are of 5000, 7500, and 9000 tons, and of 12 to 15 knots. llr. Hurley's estimate' that 6,000,000 tons of now construction will be built next year, obviously is based on the expectation that everything—steel mills and sawmills, transportation to the seaboard, general administration, and, above all, labour, will co-ordinate harmoniously. Otherwiso wo shall fall short of that tonnage. If it is ,to be realised, Governmental red _ tape is possible, the working organisation must be cut out, so far as this
must bo made highly flexible, and some organising genius must bo found, with broad vision, who can keep tho vast enterprise moving in harmonious coordination. Finally, above and beyond all this, the Deficiency Act of October 6 has made available* the sum of £156,000,000, and this will make possible the construction, in addition to the 6,000,000 tons now under contract, of another 5,000,000 tons of shipping. A Race With Time. In the American "World's Work" for December, Mr. Burton J. Hendrick also deals with the shipbuilding position, as it affects America. He writes ns follows: — "Can the United States build 5,000,000 tons of merchant flipping a year? The man who can answer this question can answer, likewise, one that is on everv American's lips to-day: Can the United. States win this war? If we cannot build these ships, we miVht iust as well haul down the flag .and-retire from active military operations. W r e are fiebting' the German Empire with materials and men. W T e hope to send sufficient food and munitions to sustain England, France, and Italy in tile approaching campaign. We are planning to transport railroad materials to Russia, coal to Italy, and steel to France. It is our present intention to ship an American army of at least a million men to Europe and to keen it supplied with all the essentials of aggressive warfare. We are talking about building a. fleet of many thousand aeroplanes for service on the Western .front by next April or Hay. How are we to get these materials and men to tJ' A other side? There is, of course, only one way. TTnless we have an enormous merchant fleet, the products of our factories and our farms. j" say nothing of our training camps, will remain in our own country, where they will render little service in bringing the W!"" to an end." Thus Mr. Edward N. TurW. the chairman of the Shipping Board/ m(i,y he sa'd to havp +he iob in the'present war that underlies all the_ others. Tliero is probably no man in 'the Governnment's service who faces so stupendous a task. Until the European war American shipyards had produced about 250.000 tons a year, and the record for the present year is perhaps 800.000 tons. We are now suddenly called upon to' expand this output ten or a dozen fold. An Unexpected Burden. This great necessity found the American people totally unprepared to meet it. We have to create all the subsidiary industries that produce the materials for this projected fleet. Our steel mills will have to roll plates on a scale unknown; our makers of boilers, reciprocating encines, and turbines w'ill have to multiply their present plants by 10. Tho existing shipyards must triple and quadruple their facilities almost overnight, and entirelv new plants must he established. Mr. Hurley has to create an industrial army of at least 500.000 men, and teach them the shipbuilding trades. At the nre c ent moment the great majority of» these workmen are engaged in automobile factories and in other establishments that require highlyskilled labour. For his completed vessels he has to train deck officers, engineers, officers, sailors, firemen, coal passers, oilers, cooks, and stewards— all of them representing occupations that now have only a small following in the United States. Each 1000 ships will demand about 100,000 of these men" as officers and crews. Sir. Hurlev has not only to create these new industries and train these new working men and seamen, but he ,i/! called upon to do it with almost incredible 'speed. While Germany is not sinking as many merchant ships as she planned when she started the submarine warfare, her torpedoes aro creating great havoc in the merchant fleets of all nations. Apparently—so far as. any accurate estimate can be made from official statements—about •500,000 tons, including that of all nations, is. disappearing under the waves every month. This destruction amounts to about 6,000.000 tons a year, or 1,000,000 more than the present building programme of the United States. Fortunately, wo are not do-/ pendent entirely upon American shipyards, for England, according to a recent statement of Mr. Lloyd George, is turning out 4,000,000 tons a yoar. But wo must not ignore the fact that the German submarine campaign is seriously interfering with the prosecution of tho war. The submarines are keeping many supnlies out of France and Italy, and hampering military operations in numerous directions. Above all, the fact remains that the submarines aro sinking merchant ships more rapidlv than the shipyards of England and the United States aro turning out new tonnage. Not improbably Germany is constructing submarines at a more rapid rate, and of a more formidable tvpe, than ever before. Thus our Shipping Board is called upon not only to create the new basic industries and the shipyards that are essential if we are to have this merchant fleet, but must do it almost out-of-hand. ■
The problem of labour is virtually tho only one that still remains. Where aro we to get .the skilled working men to build these ships? Where are we to get the officers and seamen to man them? The steel mills that are to roll the plates, the factories that aro to produce the engines and the turbines, all have their labour problems, but they have conquered them to "such an extent that they no longer see any great difficulty in promptly delivering their products. But in the shipyards themselves the situation is very different. If labour conditions continue as they are, these builders frankly say, they cannot bring to completion Washington's elaborate shipbuilding programme; unless things change for the better soon, the nation will fail in the great task to which it has set its hand. >
Permanent link to this item
Hononga pūmau ki tēnei tūemi
https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/newspapers/DOM19180129.2.42
Bibliographic details
Ngā taipitopito pukapuka
Dominion, Volume 11, Issue 112, 29 January 1918, Page 6
Word count
Tapeke kupu
2,144FIGHTING THE PIRATE U-BOATS Dominion, Volume 11, Issue 112, 29 January 1918, Page 6
Using this item
Te whakamahi i tēnei tūemi
Stuff Ltd is the copyright owner for the Dominion. You can reproduce in-copyright material from this newspaper for non-commercial use under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International licence (CC BY-NC-SA 4.0). This newspaper is not available for commercial use without the consent of Stuff Ltd. For advice on reproduction of out-of-copyright material from this newspaper, please refer to the Copyright guide.