SUBMARINES' LOST CHANCE.

Taranaki Daily News, 4 June 1918, Page 6

SUBMARINES' LOST CHANCE.

BRITAIN'S UNPROTECTED NAVAL HARBOURS. How seriously the German submarine might have crippled the British Navy in the early days of the war, when there was not a single British naval harbour protected from submarine attack, was told by Lord iTellicoe. formerly First Sea Lord of the Admiralty, in a speech at the annual meeting in February of the Hull Sailors' Orphanage. "The work of the fleet was a good deal more arduous in the early days of the war than it has been since," said Lord Jellicoe. "In those days there were no bases protected from submarine attack and the fleet was hunted from pillar to post to find security to carry out the necessary operations of coaling. Some of the coaling operations, were performed under very exciting conditions,' the base being open to any submarine that cared to come in. "If the Germans knew it, they never had the pluck to try it. If they had done so they might have reaped a rich harvest. But we always had to be thinking of the possibility of such attack, and whenever I was inside a base I spent many anxious moments, and some very amusing moments—amusing to look back upon, I mean, but not amusing at the time. There were constant scares of submarines, . and we knew that if a submarine got inside the harbour it might sink a battleship with each of the 10 or 12 torpedoes it carried. Put yourself in such a position, and you may be able to appreciate the anxiety that was felt whenever a signal was given that a submarine had been sighted near by. I

MERCHANT SHIPS PROTECTORS "As usual in times of anxiety we called upon the merchant marine, and an arrangement was made that if a submarine got inside a base merchant ships should place themselves alongside until the warship could get under way. Then, if the torpedoes were fired, the merchant would receive them instead of the battleships. "That was the arrangement. The merchant marine, as usual, did exactly what they were asked. Scores of smail craft dashed about the harbour at full speed to keep the submarine under water, and if they saw it to endeavour to ram it. It was extraordinary, having regard to the conditions of sea and weather, that many collisions did not occur. The skill with which the whole programme was carried out time after time was a great testimony to the seamanship of those in charge of the trawlers and bigger ships. "The British Grand Fleet could not exist without trawlers. One of the omissions in our pre-war naval preparations was that we left the Navy absolutely unprovided with vessels of the trawler type. When war came the Admiralty had to depend upon the generosity of trawler owners to keep the fleet protected. So it was not to much to say that we owe the trawler owners and men a very large debt. It would be impossible to reward them adequately, because if one attempted to bestow decorations and medals I don't suppose anybody in the trawler service would go undecorated."

In an address at the Hull Exchange Lord Jellicoe said, in part: U BOATS A SURPRISE. "The submarine was sprung upon the British Navy—at any rate the new methods and morals of the submarine—as a surprise. I remember that Lord Fisher wrote a memorandum in 1!)U, in which he expressed the opinion that if the Germans were to go to war with Great Britain they would use submarines against merchant ships. That memorandum went to the Board of Ad- : miraltv after I had joined it as Second Sea Lord, and there was nobody in a responsible position who agreed that a German navy would really do such a tiling as Lord Fisher predicted. "Well, Lord Fisher was right, as in many cases, and the Navy was unprepared to deal with the submarine in that particular direction. But even if the words of Lord Fisher had been believed, there was no time to introduce measures which would have effectually stopped the submarine from getting out, and that is the only way to deal with them. There is no royal road to the saving of your merchant ships from the submarine once the latter lias got out of its harbour. The only royal road is to block liini in, and that is an impossible operation.

"But the British Navy was faced with its task, and it did its best. It is a superhuman task, because the submarine is a craft which can go under water for 24 hours, and lie under water for -1S i.»—«, ajid rou V-ifiw where she