SUBMARINE'S TRIUMPH.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LI, Issue 212, 28 August 1908, Page 4

SUBMARINE'S TRIUMPH.

iiIiJUKKAMUi CRI/lSli IX THE XOKTH SEA. London, July 'J. A very remarkable performance is reported by the correspondent who is watching the developments in tho Firth of Forth in connection- with the approaching naval manoeuvres. The great licet which is assembled in tlu* anchorage, under Vice-Admiral Sir K C. B. Bridgeman, with his Hag Hying in the battleship Dreadnought, was joined yesterday by a llotilla of seventeen submarines, after a non-stop run from Dover all up the East Coast. During this unparalleled cruise these little erait were under war conditions, each with a crew of sixteen officers and men, and for forty hours, as they travelled up the 1 eastern shores of Great Britain, a distance of MO miles, they remained under water, except for their conning-towers. The performance was not only a supreme test of the mechanical ellicicncy of this new type of man-of-war, of which there are about seventy built or building, but bears signal testimony to the endurance of the officers and men. These submarines are the British development of the original Holland design. which was obtained from Ihe I'niled States eight years ago. The early boats of 120 tons displacement were useful practically only for coast defence, owing to their limited radius of action, ami were very slow, but under the direction of Captain K. 11. S. Bacon. D.5.0., who was for a long period inspecting captain of subtuariius, and his successors, a new aud nuu'e useful type of vessel has been evolved. The capabilities of these newer .ships have becu effectively illustrated by this long non-stop cruise; they are shown to be (it to go anywhere, aud do anything, and the officers familiar with their powers claim that they could even steam for a very much longer distance: than 400 miles. The llotilla of seventeen submarines lielong to the "B v and "C", clashes, with a displacement, submerged, of 313 tons, and are fitted wivh two torpedo tubes. A great degree or stability has been obtained in these later craft, which cruise oil the surface, with gasoline engines, and as this trial indicates, can travel at an average speed of tevi knots for a very long period, in an awash condition without developing mechanical defects or having to put into any port for •stores. W'hien completely submerged, —with no part observable on the surface —they are propelled by electrical energy, at a Speed of aboiit- eight' knots. The cruise from Dover to the Firth of Forth definitely asserts th.' usefulness of British submarines as offensive men-of-war of high value, and not merely as weapons for local de« fene? 1 . *