The Harwich Naval Forces: Their Part in the Great War

by E. F. Knight

It was regarded as being of so great importance to obtain the earliest possible warning of Hun activities in the North Sea that an order was issued by the Admiralty to the effect that a submarine on lookout patrol had for her primary duty to come to the surface and send home, by wireless, information as to outward-bound enemy surface craft; while her secondary duty was to attack. In the case of homeward-bound enemy surface craft, the primary duty was to attack. If there should be any doubt as to the destination of an enemy surface craft, it was the duty of the submarine first to report by wireless and then to attack.

I have already shown how, during the critical eight days that saw our First Expeditionary Force cross the Channel to France, the Harwich submarines kept a sleepless watch on the German coast, to attack the enemy ships should they come out to interfere with the transport of our troops. I have also explained that these submarines had a good deal to do with the preparation for the action in Heligoland Bight.

It was the E23, too, of this flotilla that, while patrolling, sighted the German High Sea Fleet on August 19, 1916. She first wirelessed home the news that the Germans had come out, and then delivered a bold attack. She torpedoed the battleship Westphalen on the port side. The result of the explosion gave the battleship a big list, but for a while she still went on with the battle fleet. As the list increased, she at last left the line and turned for home, escorted by destroyers. Thereupon the E23 set out to intercept her, passed through the screen of enemy destroyers that were zigzagging round the Westphalen, and torpedoed her on the starboard side. The battleship contrived to get away, but in so damaged a condition that she must have been out of the war for a considerable time.

The strategical position occupied by the Harwich Flotilla also imposed upon it another duty of great responsibility. The submarines had to be ever ready to go south at a moment's notice to cover the eastern approach to the English Channel against the enemy capital ships, should these attempt to break through. Had the Germans made the attempt in earnest, there is no doubt that they would have had to pay a very heavy toll.

Admiral Sir David Beatty put it well when, in a speech delivered in Edinburgh, he spoke of our "submarine sentinels who carried out the same services as the storm-tossed frigates of Cornwallis off Brest."

The only British submarines that were adapted for the laying of mines were those of the Harwich Flotilla. Consequently, for a considerable time plenty of arduous, perilous work among the minefields fell to their lot.

The mine-laying submarines of the Harwich Flotilla were especially busy on the eastern side of the North Sea, where our great minefields were. Captains of submarines describe this portion of the sea as an ideal one for submarine work; for the depth of the water is generally of from twenty to thirty fathoms, at which depth a submarine can lie comfortably at the bottom without being subjected to an excessive pressure. Comfortable is, of course, a relative term. Most people would never be anything but extremely uncomfortable in the atmosphere of a submarine after she has been submerged for some hours. A fresh-air crank would die in it.

The great minefield which was declared by our Government in the summer of 1917, the preparation of which was a gigantic undertaking, extended from the Frisian Islands to about latitude 56 degrees north. The Dutch, for their own purposes, removed their lightships from their coasts to the western side of this minefield, thus forming a line of lights running north and south, roughly along the 4th degree of east longitude. This our sailors facetiously named Piccadilly Circus. It was the business of the submarines to lay mines on the eastern part of this minefield, that is, near to the coast. Our surface mine-layers laid their mines further seaward; while still further west our large mine-laying ships, one of which can carry as many as three hundred mines, laid their mines just inside Piccadilly Circus. Our submarines used to patrol regularly along Piccadilly Circus to look out for and attack enemy ships, and at intervals went shorewards through the minefield in order to reconnoitre.

A mine-laying submarine used to adopt the following methods. She would get close under the enemy coast under cover of the night and then dive, to remain at the bottom until the morning. As soon as there was light enough she would rise until her periscope was above the surface, and ascertain her position by cross bearings of the shore taken through her periscope. Then she would move to the different positions at which she had to lay her mines, all the while using her periscope for the taking of cross bearings. When she had completed her work she would return home by night, travelling on the surface as before.

The patrolling submarines were bombed constantly by enemy Zeppelins and seaplanes, but with little effect. To the submarine the mine was by far the greatest danger, and no doubt the depth charge too accounted for some of our casualties. But, as I have said, in nearly all cases when a submarine is lost, no one knows what has happened. She merely does not come back. The mine-laying of the Harwich submarines was chiefly directed against the enemy submarines, the mines being generally laid at about eight feet below the surface, so as to catch these craft while travelling on the surface. They were also laid at forty feet or more, so as to strike the submarines when travelling under water.