TRAPPING OF GERMAN SUBMARINES.

Pukekohe & Waiuku Times, Volume 5, Issue 144, 11 February 1916, Page 3 (Supplement)

TRAPPING OF GERMAN SUBMARINES.

HOW THE BRITISH NAVY WORKS AND HOW THE RESULTS ARE REPORTED.

DIFFERENT WAYS OF DEATH TO THE ENEMY. Telegrams from Rome asserteo, the last week in October, that tne German Government, through a neutral, had protested to the Italian Government against the British method "of capturing submarines by nets." She admits, say these messages, that she has lost 43 submarines, 2f caught in nets. New York messages add that our success in destroying U boats is achieved by means of nets, patrol boats, telephones, and aeroplanes. The following article (from the "Daily Sketch") gives graphic pictures of the end German submarine; meet.

It was late in the afternoon when Herr Captain-Lieutenant Kurt Ton Schnitzier slipped out between the sandbanks from Wilhelmshaven into the Heligoland Bight. The U was a new boat. As she glided through the ye'low, shallow water she looked like an unrigged yacht—high prow, graceful stem, conning tower, amidships with its periscope, aft the little mast with the wireless and the Imperial German flag, forward the gun. Kurt stood on the conning tower and was proud. He was taking his ship on to the English trade routes, where only a week before his friend Fichter (they had been at the Naval College together) had sunk a great liner with alf aboard. It was true Fichter had not returned; no doubt he was lurking in some English bay, waiting for the next. Undoubtedly lie was overdue—but the Admiral Staff said it was nothing; they had the Iron Cross waiting for him when he came back. Perhaps Yon Sehnitz'er would meet him out there in the North Sea. . . . He turned up the collar of his coat; it was getting cold. The sun was level with the water. They were out of the minefield now—perhaps it would be better to submerge. He climbed down the steel stairway and closed the hatch; the submarine turned gently dowuwards, till he could hear the water churning all along the sides. He turned to look at the little mirror on which the periscope painted what t saw. Away from the West a blaze ol blood-red-sea and sky poured into the field of view. Red—nothing but red—the red sunset of the West. And then across the red, as he looked into the mirror, a sudden streak of black, then another and another. . . . And then the shells.

The Admiral commanding tlie —i— control has the honor to report to the Lords Commissioners of the Admiralty that in lat. long. an enemy submarine, number unknown, was sunk by our patrol.

The U 5000 was fortunate. A day and a night of dodging and d ; pping rising to shake the spray from its nos-. and Tettling at the skyline smoky menace of some patrol, rncl she was outside :. British port. Through the periscope he commander could see the greygreen slopes of the Scotch hills. Th<? new were happy: they had their sausage and coffee —fresh fish. too-, taken from a fishing boat they had overhauled on the fishing banks the evening before .

Howsullen'y these Scotch fishermen had looked when they were told v'at was in store for the fugitive English I'ieet. lurking even now somewhere tip some inlet. The U 5000 went below till nothing but her periscope wns visible; then she dipped further till she was out of sight—all but a few tiny swir's on the surface of the heaving sea. Then these vanished till nothing was left but the famtest possible difference of texture on the surface of the waves. I'p there on the shore a young Naval officer with his eye glued on his freli'scono was following that deliteite. tracery, on. the. water. Nearer it canio and nearer. Then ho turned to a petty officer: "Mr. Jones, you can drop it now." There was the pushing of a lever and a slow clanking of chains.

The men were forward, clustering round the torpedo tubes—one was already drowsy in the choking air; the one who had gone mad and been shot was lying in a corner; the electric lights Vere waning as the accumulators exhausted themselves. The boat tugged and swayed gently, but upwards; it could not move forward, nor more than a few leet back. The commander of the U 5000 looked at his watch. He had been down there struggling in the.-e meshes for three days. Then he pirled out his revolver, and slowly gripped it between his teeth.

The First Lord of the Admiralty said his lion, friend hiu*t be aware of the difference between a suitmarine and other forms of naval craft. When a cruiser sank, it sank for good; in the case of u submarine it must always necessarily be « matter for doubt. 111. Conversation overheard in a publichouse in Aberdeen any day during the hummer, before the no-treating order : "An" the German captain, he says to r.ur skipper, gey slow, because he tlidna speak English vena well, 'ATl—give _ you—ten —meenits—to—leave we "doat." An' oor skipper, he up an' says 'AH gi v e ye a sight less to leave yours.' And w'i that he run;, up the White Ensign, and he presses Ins bell an' the hil'v at the gun. that was hidden behind the deck-house like, lie itcts loosens it off: and the German captain, he was blawn awa' alteand the top o' Ins submarine ",«t cracked like a nut. and they a we tnundt r. Ave. he's a gey billy, oor ,kipper. They've sent Ins name up to the Admiralty." Rear-Admiral reports that the •.kipper H..M. Armed Trawler Xo. announces sinking off coast ol Aberdeenshire of German submarine. IV. Ti .. [• V"-'"l ll0 " n ollt " :1 tll( ' t! " 1!! ° rf ,.,te for a-'week At n»rl.t she t i; p ,n ''..■ if.'/e; by day she sct,'led dowr.'iul rested on convenient sandy hot- -> "... n th<ose long. r l P cnl-<fA.ii...-- 'A;■'•»' l"*' Atlantic bites nto the south-we«t corner of Ireland. There were hardly any houses nlnn*. *i, l.r-..h and high i;n in the buy only In,.,maii" town. One night the Ugh.n f this town seemed to make an irresistible appeal; five of the crew of the submarine got out thc-r colaps.be W , put on plain cans ,f blue eWT « rowed ashore, and made a night of

it at the village public-house. As they pushed off next morning the mad delight of having done a daring tiling threw caution to the winds. Across the still water came a shout in unison :

" One, two, three. Three times Koch for the Kaiser and the German Navy 1" It was given with a will. The local doctor coining home from a case heard it, and made his way to the telegrapu office.

That night, just as it was getting dusk, and the crew were preparing to come up to the surface again to get some fresh air into their lungs, and give the accumulators a rest, i.ioy heard above them the vibrations of a screw. The commander, looking ;u the instrument which recorded such things, saw indicated a line of ti.ese vibrations, stretching, as it seemed, from side to side of the bay. Fishing vessels, perhaps. He might rise and take a load from them—and then a long, grating sound grate;! on the sides of hi? small ship from bow to stern. Then a heavy concussion. The how rose up above him. the lights went out: then poured in. cold, choking, and implacable, the green sea.

The officer commanding the 10th Sweeping Squadron reports that on information received lie swept on the evening of the :50th inst.. tlie waters of a certain bay. One cf the drag mines certainly exploded, and as a quantity of oi! was seen afterwards on the surface, lie thinks it lair to assume a submarine was hit.