The Super-Submarine

Levin Daily Chronicle, 27 April 1918, Page 1

The Super-Submarine

LATEST FOES OF ALLIED SHIPPING. The submarine war has gradually taken on a new phase. Submarines of the so-called cruiser type arc now doing most of the sinkings, while the smaller submarines apparently are confining their work largely to mine laying. The reason for this shifting of Gorman technique is that small submarines arc not good surface craft in stormy seas, while the cruiser type has proved wonderfully seaworthy, being actually more manageable than the modern torpedo-boat destroyer in heavy weather.

These cruiser submarines carry two 5.9 guns and sixteen torpedoes and can remain at sea six weeks. The Germans have built a considerable number of these super-submarines, but so many of them have been lost that there are now not more than seven or eight operating. These, however, are manned by the pick of the whole German navy.

A considerable proportion of the recent sinkings have been accomplished by gunfire, says the London correspondent of a Vancouver paper. The cruiser submarine guns no longer are of the old type, which folded into the body of the craft when it submerged, and had to be unfolded before a U-boat could get into action. The new guns are of a species known technically as wet guns, being constructed of material which sea water does not harm. They are mounted on stationery platforms. Therefore, they are always ready and can be fired the instant the deck of an emerging boat is above water.

An American destroyer had an en- J counter with one of these submarine f cruisers. The German was engaged in 1 sinking three armed merchantmen from | a range of four miles, and had fired about thirty shots when the American destroyer appeared on the horizon attracted by the sound of the guns. The destroyer opened fire at six miles. The U-boat, however, was lying with decks almost av and therefore was a most difficult target, and as' the American drew in toward ho- -it full speed she submerged sudd.'nl/. The smoking muzzles of her wet- guns disappeared beneath the waves only an instant after their last shots had been fired. The Americans were unable to destroy the U-boat, but the destroyer escorted two of the three merchantmen rifely to port after having rescued the ;icw of the third, which already was inking. it' not convoyed, merchantmen have a small chance against those super-sub-marines. Little fishing vessels, which the Germans do not disdain to attack at every opportunity, are still more helpless. Recently the unarmed British fishing trawler Premier was at its peaceful work with nets in the North Sea during a blinding snowstorm, when a supT-submarinc suddenly appeared on the surface 9i, thousand yards off and sent two six-inch shells without warning into the hull of the ninety-ton boat. The trawler turned turtle from the violence of the explosion, and the crew nf twelve jumped into the water pnd then climbed upon the overturned hull. The submarine came up in leisurely fashion, within a stone's throw of the wreck, as if to take the men off, but seemingly thought better of their momentary humanitarian impulse, and submerged suddenly without a word from anybody on board. The crew of the trawler were rescued some hours later. One man died and the others suffered from exposure.