The Harwich Naval Forces: Their Part in the Great War

by E. F. Knight

On one occasion E31 came across a disabled Zeppelin—which earlier in the day had been winged by light cruisers of the Harwich Force—sitting on the water. The Zeppelin showed fight; she was sunk by the submarine's gunfire, and the survivors, seven in number, were taken off as prisoners. During the night, on the homeward voyage, the submarine was overtaken by a German light cruiser, which opened fire on her. "Ach, zey com!" triumphantly exclaimed one of the prisoners, a sulky German officer, who up till then had not uttered a word. The order had been given to dive, but for some reason this could not be effected quickly. Delay was dangerous, so the officer of the watch put the submarine's helm hard over, and she went round in circles, presenting a difficult target. The German cruiser now proceeded to steam round in still larger circles. For a while she was so close to the submarine that she could not get her guns to bear on her. Then she attempted to ram her, but in vain. Eventually the E31 dived, and, just before her stern went under, she was struck in the after casing by a six-inch shell. When she had sunk she released some oil, and the Germans, seeing this, reported her as lost. But she was not much damaged, and got home. This throwing out of oil from a diving submarine was a ruse employed by both sides, and soon the appearance of a volume of oil upon the surface of the sea was no longer accepted as proof of a successful hit. But at any rate it left the other side in doubt as to what had happened.

Several submarines of the Harwich Flotilla have fine records to show. Take the E9, for example. She was the first of the flotilla to send an enemy ship to the bottom. Within a few weeks of the declaration of war she was lying off Heligoland, at times within three miles of it, on the watch for enemy ships to come out. She was rewarded by seeing the German light cruiser Hela steaming out of the harbour. She torpedoed and sank her. Next we hear of the E9 awaiting her prey at the mouth of the Ems river. Her main object at the time was to report any sortie of the German heavier ships to our own cruisers, which were then at sea. Here she caught a German destroyer and torpedoed her. The destroyer broke in two, one half of her sinking to the bottom, while the forward half, being air-locked, sank to a certain depth only, and there remained with the bow sticking up above the surface. Later in the war the E9 was detached from the Harwich Flotilla for service in the Baltic, and there her exploits were numerous. She sailed under sealed orders, and her instructions were to get into the Baltic as soon as possible. So she did not waste time by stopping to fight on her way. Thus, when passing through the Sound on a very dark night, she was nearly run down by a German destroyer. After the two ships had passed each other the submarine dived, so as to avoid the enemy's attentions. But the water was shallow and her periscope was still above the surface when she touched bottom. However, she escaped after bumping along the sea-floor for four hours before she found herself in deeper water. In the Baltic she sank two destroyers and torpedoed and badly damaged a third. She sank two German transports while they were being escorted by cruisers. Next she torpedoed a large ship, which looked like a battleship of the Deutschland class, coming out of Danzig. She was probably supporting the fleet that was then attacking the Russians. The ship apparently was severely damaged by the torpedo, and volumes of smoke were seen to be pouring from her. E9 also sank four German merchantmen which were running iron ore from Sweden to Germany. The submarine boarded them, put charges in them, and blew them up. I need not say that no German lives were lost on this occasion, for the submarine was flying the British flag. Ultimately, when the Russian revolution broke out, the E9, with other ships, were blown up by us in the Gulf of Finland, to prevent them from falling into the hands of the enemy.

E16, of the Harwich Force, also had a fine record. Among other exploits, she sank a destroyer, she sank a German submarine, she sank an auxiliary cruiser; and finally she herself was numbered among those that did not come back. The submarines that were engaged in mine-laying also had an occasional successful fight with enemy ships. Thus E34, while returning from a mine-laying expedition, made a clever attack on an enemy submarine. The two ships were on the surface, coming towards each other. The British submarine was the first to sight the other. She dived and fired a torpedo, which struck the German in the conning-tower. A violent explosion followed, and afterwards there was nothing to be seen on the water save two objects, one of which proved to be the German captain, who was saved, and the other to be one of the crew, who sank.

It is the practice of the submarine to deliver its attack when below the surface. There are, however, exceptions to this rule, as when the attack is made on a dark night, when it would be impossible to distinguish one's target through a periscope. Thus E52, of the Harwich Flotilla, in November 1917, while co-operating with the Dover Patrol, sighted an enemy submarine at about one o'clock in the morning; she attacked the enemy on the surface, and fired two torpedoes, both of which struck. The German sank, and only one survivor was picked up.

And now and again it was bigger game that was brought down, as when E8, of the Harwich Flotilla, at the time detached for service in the Baltic, struck the German heavy cruiser Prince Adalbert with a torpedo at eight hundred yards range. The torpedo must have caused an explosion in the German's magazine, for she was blown to pieces, and the submarine had to dive to prevent the falling fragments from injuring her.

Ingenious methods were employed by our submarines to entrap the enemy's ships, and especially their submarines. The following plan, for example, was successfully carried out by the Harwich submarines until the Germans by chance discovered the trick and thenceforth became more wary. The enticing of the Hun to his destruction was effected in this manner. A disreputable old fishing vessel was sent out to potter about the North Sea as if trawling for fish, thus inviting the attack of the enemy. But the rope that was trailing ostentatiously over her side was attached to no innocent trawl-beam, but to one of our submarines, which she used to tow astern of her at a depth of about sixty feet below the surface of the sea. The trawler was commanded by a naval officer, and had a crew composed partly of bluejackets and partly of trawler sailors. These trawler fishermen, by the way, eager to avenge their murdered brethren, were at first too zealous, and had to be prevented from uncovering the concealed gun which the trawler carried, so soon as an enemy was sighted, thus giving away the game. The trawler used thus to wander about the sea towing a submarine for about a fortnight at a spell; but the submarine was relieved by another submarine, always under cover of the night, every three or four days. The trawler, when she left port and when she returned to it, went alone, the submarine joining her or leaving her outside in the night. There was thus little chance of the Hun receiving information of what was doing.

Whenever an enemy ship, attracted by the bait thus displayed for her benefit, made for the apparently defenceless trawler with the object of sinking her, the trawler, by means of the telephone wire which connected her with the submerged submarine, communicated to the latter the movements of the enemy. The submarine—which was enabled by a device to slip the tow-line from within—when the right moment arrived delivered her attack, and a torpedo, possibly backed up by a round or two from the trawler's now disclosed gun, finished the enemy off.

I have before me quite a long list—and it is not a complete one—of the enemy ships that were sunk in action by the Harwich Submarine Flotilla, including cruisers, torpedo-boats, armed merchantmen, and submarines, the latter being the most numerous. It is satisfactory to know that, heavy though were the losses of the flotilla, the losses that they inflicted on the enemy (in action alone, exclusive of the terrible effect of the mines which they laid) were considerably heavier. But the glory of the little flotilla lies not so much in the material losses which it caused to the enemy as in the four years' sleepless watch which it kept in the North Sea, in conjunction with the other units of our Fleet—the watch that closed the oceans to Germany while holding them open to ourselves and our Allies, the watch that kept the great German Navy lying paralysed in its harbours, until the day came when the battleships that had not fired a shot crawled across the North Sea to surrender themselves ignominiously to our Admirals.