Submarine and Anti-submarine

by Sir Henry John Newbolt

There is no doubt that the hardships are more trying to our men than the dangers. The oversea patrol is kept up through the winter. The weather off the enemy’s coast is often very severe, and boats have to be shut down for long periods. In summer, the work of diving patrols is almost equally arduous, owing to the longer hours of daylight. Boats must frequently be submerged for nineteen or twenty hours at a time; and after the first twelve of these, the air, in spite of purifiers, becomes oppressive to breathe—not even the head of a match will burn. Then there are two special conditions tending towards depression. First, the positive results are few, and form no measure of the work or the risks. Results are obtained, but never in proportion to the devotion and sanguine hopes of the Service. It is a baffling and trying experience to live for days with your eye glued to a periscope—the field of vision is contracted, and too close to the water. The psychological effect of the strain would be bad in the case of any but highly trained and selected officers—as one of them has said, the sighting of a surface enemy is a relief seldom obtained. The Germans are fortunate in the daily, almost hourly, sighting of targets. But their officers, in consequence of continual heavy losses, are commonly sent to sea undertrained, and their results are naturally poor in proportion to the torpedoes expended.

The second of the two causes which would discourage any but the finest spirit, is the fact that an almost complete silence broods over the Submarine Service. Not only is the work done mostly in the deep-sea twilight; but, however arduous and creditable it may be, it is seldom recognised publicly. Rewards are given, but not openly. A commander may reappear for a day or two among his friends, wearing the ribbon of the D.S.O. or the V.C., or both, but little or nothing will be published of the actions by which he won them. It is not only that information must be kept from reaching the enemy—and naturally the German Admiralty is always anxious to know how their boats are lost—but there is also a settled custom in our Navy, a custom older than the Submarine Service, by which ‘mention in despatches’ is confined to incidents during which one or both sides have been under fire, from gun or torpedo. Custom in the Navy is generally a sound rule; but in this particular instance, the custom did not grow up to fit the case, and does not fit it. The Admiral does not say anything on this point; but he tells us that the real danger a submarine commander has to face is not the gun or the torpedo. He may come off his patrol without having been shot at by either, and yet may be entitled to the credit of having been in action for days and nights on end. In fact, every minute that he is in enemy waters he is in danger from mines, and from a host of formidable pursuers—aeroplanes and Zeppelins with bombs, and fast anti-submarine craft with depth-charges and explosive sweeps. No doubt all ships are to some extent in danger from mines, but no other class of vessel is asked to run the gauntlet on the enemy’s coast to anything like the same extent. If surface ships are sent, they are sent for a single operation, the ground is prepared for them as far as possible, the period of exposure is short, and when the work is done the force is withdrawn. But our submarines are, for days and weeks at a time, close to known mine-fields and in areas most likely to hold new or drifted mines. They are harassed by hunters to whom they can make no reply, and particularly by aircraft, which can detect them even at sixty feet below the surface. The areas in which they work are comparatively narrow, and so closely patrolled by small craft that it is seldom possible to come to the surface in daylight; navigation, too, is very difficult, and the rapidly changing densities of the water off the enemy’s coast make the trimming of the boat and the depth control a matter of constant anxiety.

Yet not only are officers and men found in plenty to enter this service of twilight and silence, but the keenness they show for it is unfailing. The work itself is their one ambition, and their records are astounding. Ask the Captain (S.) of this port. In two years he has organised 370 cruises, lasting in all 1680 days, and extending over a surface mileage of more than 200,000 miles. There was only a single breakdown, and that ended in a triumph; for the Commander got himself towed back by an enemy trawler, neatly captured for the purpose. Another—Commander Talbot—made twenty-one cruises; Lieutenant C. Turner, nineteen; Commanders Goodhart and Leir, seventeen each; Commander Benning and Lieut. C. Moncreiffe, sixteen. More wonderful still is the fact that the first two of these officers spent fifty-six and sixty-five days respectively in enemy waters, and the other four from thirty-six to forty-nine days each. The most interesting part of their adventures cannot yet be told; but much may be guessed from an outline or two. Commander Leir, for instance, was repeatedly in action with Zeppelins, seaplanes, and anti-submarine craft, one of which he sank. He was present at the action in the Heligoland Bight in August 1914, and brought home some German prisoners. Commander Benning was also repeatedly in action. Once, after torpedoing an armed auxiliary cruiser, he was forced by enemy sweepers to dive into a German mine-field. There he had to stay, with batteries exhausted, till night gave him a chance of recharging. Another time he went down into a mine-field of his own will, to lie in wait for an armed auxiliary. He was there for three hours, but ambushed her successfully in the end, close to the German coast. Lieut.-Commander Turner covered 20,000 miles to his own score, and passed much of his time actually in the swept channels, with enemy patrols in sight the whole day. Sometimes he came up and fought them, sometimes they hunted him with depth-charges. For those who sleep in beds and travel in buses, it is an almost unimaginable life. ‘Yes,’ says the Admiral, ‘in this Service, officers need a two-o’clock-in-the-morning courage every hour they are at sea: and they have it.’

‘Towed back by an enemy trawler.’

The charts are put away. We move out, first to the gymnasium, where physical drill is going on, then towards the great air-sheds. As we approach the first of these, an officer meets us and hands a block to the Admiral with the morning report upon it.

The Admiral’s face lights up as he reads. ‘A lucky chance—something to interest you.’ The Beef Trip, it appears, which has just returned, was escorted as usual by two seaplanes, flying ahead of the convoy. The starboard one of these had sighted a submarine at 8.30 A.M. and swooped towards her instantly. She was nearly submerged when the seaplane passed over her, but the two big depth-charges which were dropped in a flash, fell right into her wash and close to the conning-tower, which disappeared in the explosion.

An excellent bit of work! But the face of the officer standing by shows a distinct cloud. ‘What is it?’ Well, the fact is that the pilot of the other seaplane, a mile and a half away to port, had an impression that the submarine was British.

The pilot of the bomb-dropper is sent for and comes out at once—a fair-haired and very young lieutenant, with an air of perfectly undisturbed serenity. He is sure nothing is wrong—it is ‘only a muddle.’ His companion pilot had certainly sighted and spoken a British submarine some quarter of an hour earlier; but this was not the one. Also another boat, E. 134, was out on patrol in that precise direction, but she was not due in that spot till 11 o’clock, B.S.T., and it was highly improbable she would be there so much before her time. Besides, he knew the colour of a Hun conning-tower. Undoubtedly it was ‘only a muddle.’ The explanation sounds a good one, but it is a speculation, not a certainty; and on further inquiry, it appears that nothing has since been heard of E. 134. The Admiral sends off the young pilot with a word of good cheer; but when he has gone, he hands back the report with a serious look. The incident has become too interesting. It is no longer something to tell a visitor. We go into the sheds and spend the remainder of our time in viewing the huge Americas and Handley-Pages.

The rest of the story comes after lunch, when we go to visit the Captain (S.) in his depot ship. He has heard all about our pilot, and our submarine too. E. 134 lay all night in her billet, resting on the bottom at 140 feet and listening with all her hydrophones. In the morning her watch was rewarded; she heard, first, the monotonous low ticking of a German submarine’s motors passing near her on the outward patrol—then at 8.30 the heavy dull boom of two explosions close together—then not a sound more! Finally, at her appointed time, noting that the U-boat had never stirred again, she rose to the surface and came home in rear of the sweep. The muddle is cleared up, and in the best manner.