9th Flotilla. Devonport.
Depôt ship: Pactolus.
Submarines: A.10, A.11, A.12.
Submarines on Foreign Stations.
Attached to Mediterranean Fleet.—Submarines B.9, B.10, and B.11.
At Gibraltar.—Submarines B.6, B.7, and B.8.
Attached to China Squadron.—Submarines C.36, C.37, and C.38.
With Australian Fleet.—Submarines A.E.1[[2]] and A.E.2.
The statement that the headquarters of the various submarine flotillas in home waters are at Chatham, Portsmouth, and Devonport, must not be taken as indicating that these are the only points along the coast protected by submarines. These places are merely the chief bases of the Patrol Flotillas. The wide range of action of modern submarines enables them to operate several hundred miles from any base or depôt, and consequently Chatham becomes merely the general store, or head-depôt, of what should be termed the North Sea Flotillas, which not only patrol the whole East, North-East and South-East Coasts of England and Scotland, but also have their floating secondary bases in the form of Depôt Ships, which, with their attached submarines, are often at Harwich, Newcastle, Rosyth, etc. In the same way Portsmouth is merely the headquarters of the submarines patrolling the Channel; and Dover, Portland, etc., are seldom without strong flotillas of submarines with their Depôt ships. The Devonport Flotillas have the longest coast-line to patrol, for their area covers not only the West Coast of England, Wales and Scotland, but also the Irish Coast. They are, however, furthest removed from the zone of war.
Considerable alterations have taken place in the composition and distribution of the British submarine flotillas since the outbreak of war, with the object of materially strengthening the Fleet in the main theatre of operations, but the addition to the flotillas of new vessels of the latest “E” type—nearly completed when war broke out—has made this rearrangement possible without materially weakening the flotillas guarding the more distant coasts of Great Britain or recalling vessels from overseas.