The Stratford Evening Post WITH WHICH IS INCORPORATED THE EGMONT SETTLER SATURDAY, JUNE 12, 1915. GERMANY’S SUBMARINES.

Stratford Evening Post, Volume XXVII, Issue 36, 12 June 1915, Page 4

The Stratford Evening Post WITH WHICH IS INCORPORATED THE EGMONT SETTLER SATURDAY, JUNE 12, 1915. GERMANY’S SUBMARINES.

A naval authority expresses the opinion that, recently Germany lias put one oi' more new submarines afloat.! The cable messages have of late seve-, ral times chronicled the doings of XT39, which is so far the highest number, regarding which anything has been said. U3B has not yet disclosed her! whereabouts, and U 37 is believed to l lie the experimental boat known to' have been operating in the Baltic. It! may be that these higher numbers re-' present submarines that at the out-J break of war were building for neu-t tral nations, and which have been commandeered by Germany, but in truth very little is known of.'Ger-| many’s actual under-water program-, me alter she invaded Belgium. At ( that moment her submarine flotilla consisted of about twenty-four vessels, none of which were quite as good as the twelve which she was known to be building. Since then the twelve com- ( prising the latter division have been no doubt completed, and several have been accounted for, but it is possible that efforts have been made to equip more boats of regarding which no defi-j nito information has leaked out. The' average time necessary to build and put afloat an under-water ship ‘of a displacement of seven hundred to aj thousand tons has hitherto been about j twelve months in British yards, where plans are settled, in Germany, under stress of war it may be that the work has been accelerated somewhat, but it is difficult to see how their submarine establishment could be very materially increased under ten months, and, therefore, unless they made a start immediately war was declared, it is not yet time for any newly-designed vessels to make an appearance at sea. To the ordinary person the continued activity of the German pirate craft on all parts of the east and south coast of England is astonishing. It is however, some consolation to know that quite a number of the enemy’s subrnorsi.bles have been trapped of! late, and that the exterminating process is still going on.