To add to the knowledge which actual practice gives the raw recruits, as well as the more experienced men, the officers lecture to them on every subject that has to do with the design, construction, and operation of every working part of the submarine.
In this way the crew is trained to do their several individual duties with clock-like precision and is fit and ready at a moment’s notice to handle the craft for all she is worth when war comes.
The Conditions in War Time.—When the dove of peace has had its tail-feathers plucked out by the god of war and the enemy nations are arrayed in battle formation against each other, then the submarine and her crew are welded into a destroying unit of the most treacherous and dangerous kind that the sea has ever known.
The conditions on board a submarine are quite different in war time from those when the nations are at peace. In the first place, when submarine chasers and aircraft are scouting the seas in search of underwater boats it is not only dangerous but often impossible for a submarine to keep in touch with the base-ship by wireless.
We say dangerous because wireless messages flashed forth and back would betray its presence to an enemy ship, and we say impossible in virtue of the fact that the craft often has to run under water for as long a time as she can stay down.
When cruising on the surface the sharpest lookout must be kept every moment of the time for an enemy ship, which may be torpedoed if it is a merchant vessel, or the submarine must dive and get away from it, if it should be a chaser or other kind of armed and armored boat that is looking to sink her.
Under these strenuous conditions the crew is keyed up to the highest pitch and the severest discipline is maintained on board. Torpedoing, diving, submerging, and all the other drills that have been learned under the easy routine of make-believe war now become stern realities upon which the very safety of the submarine depends and hence the lives of the crew.