FIRST TORPEDO BOATS.

Putaruru Press, Volume VII, Issue 312, 31 October 1929, Page 1

FIRST TORPEDO BOATS.

EPIC OF THE SIXTIES. Vessel Sunk Four Times. News has been received from Jacksonville, Florida, of the death, at the age of 90, of Captain James H. Tombs, who took part in the first torpedo attack made on an ironclad. This historic incident occurred on October 5, 1863, during the American Civil War, writes Hector C. Baywater in the London Daily Telegraph. Lacking proper material, the Confederat naval authorities displayed a genius for improvisation winch has never been adequately recognised. From the resources they produced powerful armoured ships, cruisers, torpedo-boats and even a submarine of sorts. The torpedo-boats were the socalled “ Davids,” so named because they were intended to lay low the Goliaths of the Northern fleet. They were cigar-shaped vessels, 40ft to 60ft long, and 7ft in diameter. The boiler was placed forward and the engine aft, the space between being reserved for the crew of four men.

A copper “ torpedo,” containing 701 b of powder and fitted with a mechanical fuse, was carried at the end of a spar protruding from the bows. When equipped for action the “ David ” was so deeply submerged that nothing remained visible except her short funnel and the hatch coamings.

Uhder the command of Lieutenant W. T. Glassel, this odd little craft set out from Charleston Harbour on the night of October 5 to attack the Federal armoured frigate New Ironsides, which was lying off shore. Glassel had got within 300 yards of the big ship before he was challenged. Moral Effect. Undaunted by a hot fire from small arms, he held on until he struck the frigate.. The torpedo, exploding with great force, inflicted some injury on the enemy ship,, but the concussion proved disastrous to the David.

Water flowing down the hatch quenched her boiler furnace, the engine jammed, and the little vessel drifted helplessly until two of the crew, who had jumped for their lives when she seemed to be sinking, clambered on board again, raised steam, and brought her safely into port. The other two members of the crew were taken prisoners. The moral effect of this daring raid was such that the New Ironsides was withdrawn from her patrol area.

More sensational, more successful, and infinitely more tragic was the submarine attack made on the Federal warship Housatonic at Charleston on February 17, 1864. The vessel employed had been built at Mobile in the previous year. Like the “ Davids,” she was spindle-shaped, but her motive power was a handpropeller worked by eight men, and she was equipped with a pair of lateral rudders by means of which she could be submerged or brought to the surface. Ballast tanks were fitted, to be flooded when the boat was about to dive, but there was no reserve of air. Her method of attack was to dive under the target ship, dragging after her a contact torpedo which would explode on striking the enemy’s hull.

A Tragic Record. On her trial trip at Mobile she promptly sank, suffocating her entire crew. After being raised, she put to sea’ for the second time, only to be swamped by the wash of a passing steamer and sent to the bottom with all hands. On her third trip she foundered again, drowning six out of the crew of eight. Brought up after much labour, she behaved well for a few days, and then sank while engaged in a diving experiment, the whole crew perishing in her. Yet, despite this dreadful record, there were numerous volunteers when Lieutenant Dixon, a Confederate infantry . officer, asked leave to try the submarine against the enemy ship Housatonic. Permission was granted on condition that the boat, when making her attack,

should not dive, but remain on the surface and use a spar torpedo. At nine p.m. on February 17 an officer in the Housatonic saw what looked “ like a plank moving along the water.” He wasted precious seconds in trying to determine what this strange object might be, and just after the alarm had been sounded the submarine exploded her torpedo against the side. The hull of the Housatonic was ripped open, and she sank in four minutes, with some loss of life. But in destroying her enemy the submarine had sacrificed herself. Whether she was swamped by the cascade of water thrown up by the explosion, or drawn down by the suction of her sinking victim, will never be known. Years afterwards, when the war wrecks off Charleston were being salved, the submarine was discovered lying on the bottom near the Housatonic. her crew dead at their posts. Naval history records no finer example of courage than that of the successive crews of this primitive under-sea boat, who volunteered for what was almost certain death in the forlorn hope of striking a blow for their cause.