TORPEDOING U-BOATS

Dominion, Volume 11, Issue 217, 1 June 1918, Page 7

TORPEDOING U-BOATS

FEATS BY BRITISH SUBMARINES. Particulars have recently been issued officially of an .uicountor which resulted in the destruction of a U-boat with all on board by a. British submarine. The commander packed his description of the three minutes during which the.affair lasted into about half a dozen sentences, lie aays:— . . "10 a.m.—Sighted .-.hostile submarine. Attacked same.;. .Torpedoed submarine. Hit with one-torpedo-amidships. Siubmarino seen to blow up'and disappear. Surface to look for survivors. Put down immediately by destroyers, who fired at nie»" It appears that our submarine found the enemy on the surface guarded by destroyers. ' The sen. was so rough that our boat hud great, difficulty in holding herself submerged.' Skill, she got near enough. Sho fired a torpedo, which niiesed, as it might well do from a boat that was surging up and down with the wave motion. Our submarine promptly loosed' a 6econd torpedo, which (struck the enemy practically amidships in -the most vital part. The officer watching at the periscope saw the U-boat blow up and sink while tho violent concussion felt insid'o our submarine told her crew that their second attempt had been successful. Follov-ing the liu.mune custom of the British Navv. our submarine promptly "went up" to rescue any survivors. Immediately the destroyers made a dash at her, and she had to dive again. Something had gone wrong with the periscope. "For this reason," eays tho commander, "I did not consider it prudent to attack the destroyers after having ennk tho submarine" Ho adds: "After torpedoing the submarine I proceeded four miles northward and lay at Sou a wire sweep scraped the whole Sh of my boat atom?. tho pomade and a vessel was heard to pass directly overhead." . ~ , This is his fashion of explaining that n flotilla of anti-submarine craft went ifter him. In order to escape, our boat 'had to drop to the bottom and lie there motionless. Her foes were groping about the sea and the explosions reard were undoubtedly depth largos dropped.to strov her. While a submarine "Leon's" on the bottom , * those cooped up within her m l'car «]} external noise-s rlkHiirtlv The "swecn" which scraped Z*il.l«t of the boat on inv port fiide" was either a wire hewer stretched between two vessels or a- hawser witf. explosive chm'go at. the end of i Aβ they'listened to ih. e.mster rasp"ewe?,," would tighten and ]c* them U-boat, discharf a f '« ' " P and her. Th f Brit.sk boat hen came £ rescued two men. ."' l CTl i,iriarinos come to the _ ..... .