The Stratford Evening Post WITH WHICH IS INCORPORATED THE EGMONT SETTLER. SATURDAY, APRIL 3, 1915. SUBMARINE WORK.

Stratford Evening Post, Volume XXV, Issue 77, 3 April 1915, Page 4

The Stratford Evening Post WITH WHICH IS INCORPORATED THE EGMONT SETTLER. SATURDAY, APRIL 3, 1915. SUBMARINE WORK.

That Avell-known naval Avriter and accepted authority on naval matters, Mr Fred T. Jane, contributes an interesting article to the Edinburgh RevieAV on submarine Avork by the British and German navies. He considers it could be Safely assumed that as far as relative efficiency is concerned British, French, German and Austrian submarines are much on the same footing. Whatever may be said about the various types it may be taken that one submarine of any date is about equal in efficiency to any other submarine of the same date. But, Mr Jane says, the difference betAveen the very best and the very worst of them all is trivial compared to the human element concerned in the control of the delicate mechanism which has been created. He sees in this the whole crux of the submarine matter, and he lays great stress on the fact that in a submarine where officers and men all live “hug-ger-mugger” together, the old contrasts between the ranks have largely to go by the board. Submarine efficiency, he says, depends mainly upon hoAV far this state of feeling can be assimilated Avithout the men taking advantage of their officers—-that is to say, on the officer being able to maintain his authority ,on purely personal grounds in which neither age, birth, nor rank has any status whatever. In the British submarine service the requisite conditions obtain almost invariably. The normal temperament of the British officer leads him that way. The normal temperament of the German officer is somewhat otherwise—and here, in Mr Jane’s opinion, lies the secret of the general failure of the German submarine attacks on the British navy. We have', it is true, lost some ships by submarine attacks. But in each of these, cases the loss has been accomplished by surface aid—a trawler or yacht under a neutral flag. Though opportunities have been many, every German submarine attack, in the real sense of the word, has been a lailure. The British, on the other hand, have been very nearly devoid of opportunity, yet have managed to score several purely submarine .successes.