Filled with the enthusiasm of each new encounter with the enemy, the Americans have not been slow to build upon their experience, devising more effective methods against the next affray. For example, two officers working on designs for new destroyers have introduced many new ideas gained from their experiences in submarine-hunting. Suggestions relating to improved gun-fire and the like are always arising from the men of the fleet, and often they are accepted and applied.
A new appliance—I don't know by whom invented—is an improved microphone, by which the revolutions of a propeller are not only heard, but the direction also is indicated, while the force of the under-water sound-waves are translated on an indicator in terms of proximity. The great drawback to this is that the submarines are also equipped with microphones of the sort—or at least are said to be.
It is usually a grim business on both sides; but occasionally a bit of humor comes out of the seas. A case in point was the message received almost every night by an American destroyer in European waters. The radiogram said:
"My position is —— degrees north, and —— degrees west. Come and get me; I am waiting for you."
"HANS ROSE."
Now Hans Rose was the name of the German submarine commander who visited Newport, October, 1917, as we have already narrated. Twice the destroyer proceeded swiftly to the location, but never did Hans Rose keep his appointment. If he had the American sailors would not have given Captain Rose's crew beer upon that occasion, as they did when Rose and his U-boat dropped into Newport harbor.
Then there is a submarine commander known throughout the American flotilla as "Kelly." He commands a mine-laying submarine, which pays frequent visits to the district patrolled by the American destroyers. When he has finished his task of distributing his mines where they will do the most harm, he generally devotes a few minutes to a prank of some sort. Sometimes, it is a note flying from a buoy, scribbled in schoolboy English, and addressed to his American enemy. On other occasions Kelly and his men leave the submarine and saunter along a desolate stretch of Irish shore-line, always leaving behind them a placard or other memento of their visit.
But the most hazardous exploit, according to gossip of American forecastles, was a visit which Kelly made to Dublin, remaining, it is said, for two days at one of the principal hotels, and later rejoining his boat somewhere on the west coast.
His latest feat was to visit an Irish village and plant the German flag on a rise of land above the town. One may imagine how the Irish fisherfolk, who have suffered from mines, treated this flag and how ardently they wished that flag were the body of Kelly.
But Kelly and his less humorously inclined commanders have been having a diminishing stock of enjoyment at the expense of the Allied navies in the past year. Senator Swanson, acting chairman of the Naval Committee in Congress, said on June 6, after a conference with Secretary Daniels and his assistants, that the naval forces of the Entente Powers had destroyed 60 per cent of all German submarines constructed, and that they had cut the shipping losses in half. Lloyd George in his great speech last July, said that 150 submarines had been sunk since war began and of this number 75 were sunk in the past 12 months. Truly an extraordinary showing.