PSYCHOLOGICAL EFFECT.

Taranaki Daily News, 16 May 1916, Page 3

PSYCHOLOGICAL EFFECT.

A MYSTERY FOR GERMANY. It may be natural for Englishmen to complain of the absence of information regarding the Navy's work against German submarines, but let us see how it strikes an American. Here is the opinion of Mr. J. Bernard Walker, editor of the Scientific American, and the foremost civilian naval critic in the United States:— "

"The contemplation of a lingering death in a sunken submarine may well strike terror to the stoutest heart, and the British Admiralty have made deadly use of the psychology of the situation by refraining from making any mention of the time or place of the destruction of the U boats.

"The psychological effect-upon the personnel of the submarine service of this absolute silence as to the fate of tile submarines after they have left Wilhelmshaven or the mouth of the Elbe must be simply appalling. So long as the fate of the U boats ivhich were captured or destroyed in the earlier weeks of the war was made known, the horror of uncertainty was missing; but .during the last few months over half a hundred boats have failed to return. They saluted as they steamed out from thenbase, and that was the last that was seen or heard of any one of them. "Von Hindenburg has said that the present eontest is one of nerves. If so, it may well be a question whether this portentous silence which lias followed the passage of the U' 'boats upon the high seas lias not been"& powerful factor in breaking down the German submarine warfare.'' We can see this for ourselves, Germany began the war about thirty submarines, manned with efficient crews. One by one the boats and the men vanished. New boats were hurried out of the buihjers' yards—boats even netter, perhaps, than any that have gone before. . But new crews had to be put on them, men who were not only untoin.pered to the mental calibre of the "submariner," but who were also obsessed by the knowledge that far better .nen than themselves had gone out from the same port to an unknown death, perhaps Ave miles, perhaps five hundred or more, from the point of their departure. The facts can be 'hidden from the German people, but the trntlv cannot bo withheld from those whose business keeps them in the naval depots. They Cannot help knowing. They cannot help talking about it one with another. They cannot help wondering. It would satisfy our curiosity to know know many hostile submarines we have captured or destroyed, but it is best to let tWe German seaman go on wondering whether his pal is a prisoner in England, or whether lie has been carried to the 'bottom of the North Sea through the tricks of perfidious Albion or the incompetence of his own commander. —Pereival A. Hislam, in the London Magazine.