Life On Board A Fatrol Bo at

Horowhenua Chronicle, 16 November 1916, Page 2

Life On Board A Fatrol Bo at

U BOAT SUBTERFUGES. Eight clays aboard one of H. M. patrol boats by special permission of Tvorcls Commissioners of tlie Admiralty brought home to me (writes a correspondent in the Daily News) the vital service rendered .by the Royal Naval Reserve trawler section whose duty it is to police the seas round the British Tsles. I' sailed from a certain East Coast base towards the end of August upon a modern-built trawler carrying a crew of seventeen hands—the lieutenant, two second hands, two engineers, two firemen, a ch'.ef gunner, wireless operator, signaller, cook, assistant cook, and five deckies. The look-out, dubbed by the crew the "monkey-bouse," is canvas protected, fitted above the covered-in wheelhouse. I spent many hoii'is there at night mainly seeing Zeppelins which turned out to be clouds. With our fires banked down when dusk appears and the propeller only just revolving sufficiently to keep "way on," we seemingly drift along with the wind as if to-morrow were quite soon enough to make for the land. But the ways and the means of showing fight are there, in proof whereof let me say (if the censor graciously permits) that two days after leaving our base we were told by wireless that another flotilla in an adjacent section had bagged a U boat and sent it and the crew to the bottom. The most dangerous periods are at daybreak and dusk. The dl'm lights give the advantage to the U boat, and lier periscope, measuring only 2jin. in circumference, need only project 18in. above water to give her a view, and from a distance of half a mile''as most difficult to detect, since at any time it only looks like a lead pencil. A submarine always has the first pull of sightng her object. 11 time alkiws jil may be thrown overboard, the effect of which is to dull the periscope sight and to blur the view. When a submarine is sighted, she Is challenged, and upon the reply depends further action. Very often a '"U" boat displays the British flag, but tlie subterfuge is discovered when the challenge comes, and then—given anything like equality and opportunity—the result is one less of these pirates who mostly shirk an encounter unless they ai*.' ciAnered and have no-choice. MLLHUiH unir i iiiwim