LOSSES OF U BOATS

Mount Ida Chronicle, Volume XLV, Issue XLV, 22 June 1917, Page 1

LOSSES OF U BOATS

FIRST LORD'S ILLUSTRATIONS. c THE POLICY OF SILENCE. 1 1 am often asked, and my predecessors t have often Wn asked: Why is it the Ad- I miralty have not from time to time published the number of German submarines ] destroyed? said Sir E. Carson in the House i of Commons. It has been pointed out to j me by many lion, members, and with con- J siderable force, that the daily toll of British merchant shipping lost is published to the world, but nothing is said about the losses the . enemy incurs in the sub- ' marine campaign, the effect being that all the honor appears to rest with the enemy, and that apparently nothing is being done on our part- to cope with, this menace. I frankly admit that that is an argument of force, but I am bound to remind the House of the other side of the question. In the first place, I have no doubt myself that the policy of silence pursued by successive Boards of the Admiralty about the losses of enemy submarines is the policy that the enemy dislikes most. (CheeTS.) Just see''what it is. A submarine starts out on its campaign of murder, and all the enemy know is that it does not return home. What has happened is a complete mystery. The enemy cannot tell whether the submarine was lost from a defect of construction or design—which is a., very important matter —or some error of navigation, or whether her loss was due to one or other of tlie methods that the British Admiralty has devised for her destruction. The second pont is that, if we were immediately to announce the certain destruction of an enemy submarine, the enemy would know without waiting that a relief for that particular boat was required, and they woidd at once despatch, another submarine. if available, to operate against our sliips. I would rather leave them to imagine that they were there when they were not. (Laughter.) As it is, the enemy cannot know for some time the exact number of submarines that have been operating at any particular moment. But undoubtedly a further and a stronger argument is this: We at the Admiralty do not know ourselves whether an enemy submarine lias or has not for certain and in fact been destroyed. . All we know is that from day to day and from week to week reports come to 'tis of engagements with enemy submarines, and it follo\vs of necessity that the results range from certain through the probable down to the possible and improbable. Ih the case of the submarine, it is only absolutely certain when you have taken prisoners. After all, the submarine is operating mainly under the ■ water. A submarine dives, and someone thinks that it has been sunk.' The submarine sometimes dives when it is wounded, no doubt never to come up again. But you cannot tell. I_ should be sorry to mislead the country by giving them only what you could call, in the circumstances I have .mentioned, certain- ! ties. If. on the other hand, I give them .probabilities, it might equally be mislead- , iug. The degree of evidence 111 relation : to the sinking of every submarine or the report of the sinking of every submarine vary to the most enormous degree. You may say, if I am "useful for nothing ■ else at the Admiralty, I might be able to weigh the evidence. Well, I can assure ! the House that it is no easy riiatter. I ■ hold in my hand at the present moment brief accounts of some 40 encounters which we have had with submarines since February 1. (Cheers.) Recollect what they ■ are doing and how they are working. The fact that, we have got into grips with them ! 40 times in 18 days is an enormous achieve- ' jnent. (Renewed cheers.) Perhaps it will make my meaning clearer if I give to the s House a few illustrations, and perhaps I - may be raising the veil somewhat on how [ the battles are carried on, and with what - varying results. But the illustrations will ' show what I mean as to the difficulty of • establishing, in the large majority of cases, ' definite conclusions. £ I will take my illustrations in the ordot of probability. The first presents no diffij cultv whatsoever. A few days ago one • of our destroyers attacked an enemy submarine. They hit the submarine, and, as events showed, killed the captain. The submarine dived. If it had remained below it would have been an uncertainty: but ~ as matter of fact, she was , injured only so much as that she was compelled, but able, to come tq the surface. She was

captured, and her officers and. men ,werr "all taken prisoners. That is an absolute case. But look how different it might have been if the submarine had been "so injured that she was unable to come t< the surface, and had remained at the bottom of the sea. My second illustration is that of a report, received from one of our transport* that she had struck an enemy submarine and uas herself damaged, but she was confident that the submarine had been sunk. A further report was received later thai an obstruction, which was thought to b< the same submarine, had been located. This is a claim of which \ye may say there attaches to it a. degree of probability amounting almost to certainty, and the

injuries to the damaged ship were found to corresrjond to such injuries as would be caused by ramming in the way I have described. _,. My third illustration will be the report that two of our patrol vessels had engaged two enemy submarines and sunk them both; but there were no casualties in the patrol boats and no survivors of the submarines. A further report received of this engagement appears to show that one of the submarines was sunk, but it leaves a degree of doubt about the second. My fourth illustration will be that of one of our destroyers reporting that she had. rammed an enemy submarine awash. There is no doubt that the-destroyerstruck' the submarine a severe blow, but it is not possible to establish that the submarine was sunk. This. I think, might be described as a case of strong probability. The fifth report I* propose to quote is that of an enemy submarine being engaged by two of our patrol vessels, who were subsequently a-ssisted by two destroyers. The result of the engagement is reported as doubtful, although it is certain that one of the destroyers: was slightly damaged in running over the conning tower of the submarine. In another case one of our patrol vessels reported striking a submerged object after engaging an enemy submarine, and an examination of the patrol vessel bore out this report. It is believed that the submerged object struck was the submarine engaged, but it is not quite clear, and in this case there is a considerable degree of doubt. I .will give three more illustrations, ranging from possibility to improbability. "A patrol vessel reports that she has* been in action with an enemy submarine. The fifth shot hit the submarine conning tower, and it is believed that she was sruik. The " second case is that of one of our smaller airships sighting a submarine on the surface, and dropping a bomb just after the submarine had dived. Lastly, there is a case in which an aeroplane dropped a bomb on the enemy submarine when in the act of diving. The submarine was not seen again, and the result is quite unknown. I have given these illustrations in order that the House may see Jihat we are not, for any purpose of eoffcealment or not trusting our people—who, after all. 'have to bear the brunt of all this—keeping anything baok. But,.'at the same time, we ought not to publish anything that-would be misleading. I have dealt with the submarine menace, and I have told vou really all I know myself.