OUR SUBMARINE RECORD.

Taranaki Daily News, 11 January 1919, Page 6

OUR SUBMARINE RECORD.

18 ENEMY WARSHIPS AND 20 U-BOATS DESTROYED. The work of the (British submarines lias not been sufficiently appreciated by tin; world, for it has not been possible to describe it in detail, ;but a few figures suliiee to show how valuable it lias been: Enemy Warships Destroyed. Battleships .. •• ... .[._£ £ Armored cruisers .r.- „ ~_.j >. „ 2 Light cruisers s-» . w ., 8 Destroyers .(.7 Gunboats fr .j'c.i 6 Submarines r. .i .. .j 20 Zeppelin ... i..j £,] 1 Armed auxiliaries , r. .■ 6 Torpedoed, but Reached Port Badly Damaged

Battleships ..1 v •, ( .n S Light cruiser , >. ~ r.-- t. .• 1 Other Enemy Craft Destroyed. Transports .. >... .. .. 14 Ammunition and supply ships 6 Store ships i-.i ,»«i 2 Steamships i- :• • "3 Sailing ships ... „rr-.i 197 In addition, in the first two years of the war alone, no fewer than seven of our submarine commanders carried out a total of 120 cruises extending over 350 day?, all of which were actually spent in enemy waters. One commander's voyages extended over '20,000 miles. By the end of the third year the total milsage traversed bv some of our submarines approached extraordinary figures. One oflicer had forty cruises with a total of over 54,<J00 miles to his credit; another had made 45 cruises of over 36,000 miles. In that twelve months, one British commander had carried out twenty-four cruises totalling 2-2,000 miles, which.probably constituted a record for any submarine. The total distance navigated in July last was 105,768 sea miles. Many fights have taken place between our submarines and U-boats, of which the following is typical:—Ono of our submarines discovered a U-boat endeavoring to sink a Dutch merchant vessel. The enemy had damaged the neutral vessel by fire, and was performing figure? of eight while she waited for her victim to go down. The Englishman made a hit with a torpedo w.liieh was followed by a violent explosion, the appearance of oil and wreckage, and a great disturbance of the surface.