FINE SUBMARINE RECORDS[ToC]
CHAPTER IX
FINE SUBMARINE RECORDS
Some narrow escapes—Sinking a Zeppelin—The doings of the E9—Sinking of the Prince Adalbert—The decoy trawler.
That the patrolling and mine-laying on the enemy coast was work of a highly dangerous nature goes without saying. The first of our mine-laying submarines was launched in 1916 and joined the Harwich Flotilla. The new experiment was watched with great interest by naval men, but the history of that ship seemed of evil augury for the future of these craft. On her first voyage something went wrong, and she returned to port three days overdue, having caused much anxiety as to her fate. From her second trip she never returned.
While it is seldom that anything is known of the fate of our lost submarines, numerous are the records of the narrow escapes from destruction. It was not at all unusual, for example, when diving off the German coast, for a submarine to find herself in difficulties among the shoals. Thus one of the Harwich submarines, when diving close to the mouth of the Ems river, struck a sandbank with her stem, and slid up it until her conning-tower was well out of the water. Here she stuck firmly. At this critical moment two German destroyers were seen to come out of the Ems and approach her. Efforts were made in vain to wriggle her off the bank, and it looked much as if she would be numbered among our submarines that did not come back. But, as luck would have it, the Germans passed by without perceiving her. Ultimately, assisted by a rising tide, the submarine was got off the bank stern first, bumped along the bottom to the safety of deeper water, and lived to tell the tale and fight another day.
On Christmas Day, 1914, one of our small submarines, the S1, forming part of the submarine force that was acting in conjunction with the Harwich Force during the Cuxhaven air raid, found herself in a perilous position. While diving to the bottom early that morning she struck an obstacle and knocked off her forward drop-keel. Relieved of this heavy weight, she shot to the surface. The order was given to fill her empty tanks with sea-water; but this failed to destroy her buoyancy, and it was found impossible to bring her below the surface. To remain with a submarine that refused to sink, so near to the enemy shore, was to invite disaster; so the only thing possible was done. The S1 recrossed the North Sea as fast as she was able, and fortunately reached Harwich without encountering the enemy.