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Hokitika Guardian, 14 January 1922, Page 1

secret service. LONDON, November 10. A fascinating story of how sunken TTbOats were marie to yield tip their secrets during the war was told last night at Portsmouth in a lecture for charities by Commodore Sir Frederick Voting, TON.TO, the salvage engineer who was the technical head of our naval salvage service in the war. Each enemy submarine carried codes, operations, orders abd other material'of the utmost value to ourselves, which we got hold of by means of the most remarkable auxiliary to war intelligence service ever formed. This was composed of divers and other salvage workers selected from the Admiralty Salva ire Section—which dealt with salvage as a whole—and organised into a special branch. "Whenever an enemy submarine was sunk the salvage branch was told off to overhaul her. In very few cases was the boat raised. The divers used to go down to her as she lafr, ‘cut their way’ into her interior, and then search it thoroughly. It was extremely dangerous, difficult, and often gruesome work. It often had to be done at great I depths, - and the divers crawled about the s ea floor in the inky darkness perfor mine- their task as best they could. | Much Information that proved of the greatest value in combating the U-boat offensive was obtained. It was this submarine intelligence ■.branch which also unearthed the secret of the German magnetic torpedo (although Sir Frederick Young did not tell his audience this) and thus let us into the secret of a grave new menace to our shipping, !