The Manawatu Herald. Tuesday, April, 20, 1915. FIGHTING SUBMARINES.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XXXVII, Issue 1388, 20 April 1915, Page 2

The Manawatu Herald. Tuesday, April, 20, 1915. FIGHTING SUBMARINES.

At present there are many brains puzzling over the problem of how to deal with German submarines. Incidentally, there are many who are quite convinced that they have discovered the solution. Mr Fred. T. Jane, the well-known naval writer, recently said: —"Though every post brings me half-a-dozen ideas as to how to fight submarines, the bedrock fact remains that the problem is yet unsolved. Eventually, of course, it will be. But there are no indications as yet that the real 1 how to do it ' has been discovered. We are still waiting for it, but a thousand well-meaning and patriotic civilians who have never been inside a submarine in their lives will never hit off the antidote. Some day the technical folk will, and then the aspect of affairs will change. But every single suggestion that has been sent in is of the ‘ put salt on the bird’s tail ’ order. Many of the suggestions display a high ingenuity ; yet one and all invariably forget the cardinal fact that by the time a submarine is located she has probably discharged her torpedo. The future lies with the inventor who can discover a submarine at least five miles off. He will not do it with a microphone—ideas on those lines have been tried, and failed. There is possibly some opening for a camera obscura, able to differentiate between the vertical lines of a periscope and the horizontal lines of a wave ; but only an extremely smart optician—or someone in some such line of business —would have a chance of stumbling across it. And unless the skilled optician has some very clear idea as to how submarines work, I am afraid he would do little belter than the ordinary amateur. I am strongly of the opinion that the British navy will solve the apparently impossible problem, just as it has solved many another apparently impossible problem in the past. The swarm of privateers in the Napoleonic wars constituted a very serious problem, but it was eventually dealt with. Every bane has its antidote."