But with Germany’s usual dogged determination for overcoming the difficulties that beset her, she built a submarine which could travel without a convoy, that is, without any base-ship to go along with her to provision and supply her needs, for 5,000 miles at least.
This giant submarine carried a cargo worth a million dollars or more, sunk out of sight as she left her home port, slipped underneath the grim warships of the Allies which menaced German shipping, and in this way ran the blockade.
Then one fine day there bobbed up in American waters near Chesapeake Bay a monster merchant submarine—the largest underwater craft ever built and the first of her kind ever seen. She was in very truth a nine days’ wonder.
The First of the Merchant Submarines.—The Deutschland, as she was named, was a marvel of engineering skill, and she was hailed as the first of a great fleet of merchant submarines which was to break the Allies’ blockade.
Starting from Bremen, Germany, and traveling underwater through the English Channel for a distance of 90 miles without even once coming to the surface, she made the entire voyage without mishap and docked at Baltimore just 16 days later.
FIG. 69. THE MERCHANT SUBMARINE DEUTSCHLAND.
When you think of how carefully she had to be handled and how cautiously she had to proceed so that she might escape destruction at the hands of her surface enemies, you must admit that she made the run in really remarkable time.
Some Facts About the Deutschland.—This great merchant submarine is 315 feet long, 30 feet through the beam, and draws[40] 17 feet of water. She is, therefore, as large as many of our coastwise steamers, so that she is something more than a mere underwater boat—indeed, she is a veritable submarine ship.
Her hull is shaped more nearly like that of a real ship than any submarine craft that was ever built before her, as [Fig. 69] shows; but she has a conning tower, periscopes and wireless masts like any of the other of the tribe of submarines.