FLEET OF SUBMARINES PERISH.

Taranaki Daily News, 19 December 1917, Page 6

FLEET OF SUBMARINES PERISH.

SOMETHING WENT WRONG. ''Something went wrong in the early days of Germany's submarine campaign; that is certain," writes Mr. Archibald Hurd in the Fortnightly Review. "What it was the Germans have not, of course, revealed, though probably the explanation is very generally known throughout the Empire. We may find possibly a clue to the mystery in a letter which appeared in the Bystander of April 12 Irom its Copenhagen correspondent quoting Knud Hasimwsen, the Danish explorer, in reference to the imprisonment of thirty German submarines in the Sound. "Tite explorer stated that the boats were trapped in the narrow part of the Sound, just above Helsingborg, two days after the new submarine campaign began. They were all making north from the same Baltic base, evidently on their way to the 'war zone' when the east wind blew the loose ice together, and as it was freezing hard—T2deg. Celsius at least' —soon all the submarines were in a solid pack. They were moving with only their periscopes up. Some of them smelt danger in time and managed to rise. These got hedged in with their decks showing. Others were caught under the ice, only their periscopes showing. Rasmussen continued: '■ i myself walked across the ice to them, and my mate even tried to look down a periscope. Then the ice-Slip—-that is, loose ice, which always drifts under the pack—snapped the periscope tubes. The submarines perished miserably. Some, after three days' imprisonment, Iried to get away under the ice. I know that seven were smashed in, and all on board drowned.''

' : The explorer added that he had told Prince Harold of Denmark about the oecurrence. Whether that is or is not the complete explanation of the miscarriage of Herman hopes we shall probably not know until after the war, but. at any rate, some detail in the enemy's carefully elaborated preparations, extending over a period of many monthi, went wrong, with the result that not only were German hopes not realised, but they were shattered.

"Our sca-power is shrinking,'' adds Mr. Hurii, "That on the one hand. On the other, the energy and material devoted to the prosecution of the war by land and by sea. is about in the proportion of seven to one. This is a maritime State, and the balance must be readjusted if we are to combat the submarine with success, maintaining our sea-power iu adequate strength."