He was justified by his success. The enemy was very quickly put out of action, being apparently unable to cope with the whirlwind energy of Skipper Novo. From the moment of breaking surface less than sixty seconds had gone by, when the gun of the Rosetta began speaking, and spoke nothing but hard words directly to the point. The target was 250 feet long, and only 300 feet away. Every shot was a hit. The fourth caused an explosion, and flames shot up four or five feet above the submarine. Evidently she could no longer submerge, and she attempted to make off upon the surface. But Skipper Novo was right in his estimate of his own chance—he had ‘got him.’ His fifth, sixth, seventh and eighth shots were all direct hits on the receding target, and at the eighth the enemy sank outright.
Rosetta then spoke the smack Noel, which had been close to her during the action, and now confirmed all her observations. Skipper Novo had no doubt that the U-boat had been the obstruction which was tangled in his net. She had carried it all away, and to get clear had been obliged to come to the surface without knowing where she might find herself. As to her fate, there was no reasonable doubt. But since neither debris nor survivors were seen, the case, with rigid scrupulosity, was refused a place among the certainties. The enemy are no better off for that.
The story of two trawlers, Lark II and Lysander III, will show how much difference luck may make in giving or withholding the evidence necessary to prove a complete success. These two boats were included in a small division patrolling off the Cornish coast, and hunted two submarines with apparent success, one in March and one in April, but obtained the maximum award on the first occasion only. The third ship of the division was then the drifter Speculation, and the division commander was Chief Skipper Donald McMillan, R.N.R. He was in a certain position close inshore on March 10, listening with hydrophones for a U-boat which was known to be on the prowl, when he sighted a steamer about four miles away in the act of being blown up. He made for her with all speed, but she sank in four minutes; twenty-one of her crew of twenty-five were found still floating in one small boat and a raft. The Chief Skipper ‘interrogated’ the poor men, and found that the ship was a Spanish steamer, the Christina. Then he put them on board Speculation, and ordered her to take them at once into St. Ives, while Lark and Lysander carried out their hydrophone work as before.
When Speculation had gone about 2½ miles on her way, the Chief Skipper suddenly heard her fire a shot; and the same moment she changed course and blew her siren. Lark and Lysander raced to join the hunt with their utmost speed. They found Speculation cruising round, with depth-charges ready to drop. She had already dropped two, besides firing her 3-pounder into the wake of the enemy’s periscope, and had seen not only oil, but some wreckage, and a large object which rolled over and disappeared again. The Chief Skipper ordered her to proceed on her course to St. Ives, and then instructed Lysander III to stand by and drop her depth-charges on the chance of stirring up the wounded U-boat. Within five minutes he sighted the wake of a submarine on his own port bow, only 100 yards distant but going fast. He made a bee line for the wake, thinking it possible he might ram her, and when just over the disturbance on the water he dropped his first depth-charge. Then, as the submarine was still making headway, he closed again and dropped his second charge right over the wake. The enemy thereupon showed oil and ceased to make headway; so Lark and Lysander alternately bombed his supposed resting-place with no less than eight charges. After nearly an hour of this, they stood by, listening on hydrophones and watching the oil still rising. Then a destroyer arrived, asked questions, heard the whole story and steamed away without comment. Two hours later a motor-launch came by, and was good enough to examine the spot and contribute one more depth-charge. Two hours more, and Speculation returned to spend the night with her division—all listening keenly, but without result. Finally, next morning, two sweepers, John Kidd and Castor II, arrived and swept round about the buoy which had been put down. The three boats of the division stood by and watched anxiously; they felt sure that the sweep fouled some object between 9 and 10 A.M., but at 11.15 they received the order to resume their patrol and went reluctantly away, foreboding a verdict of ‘probably damaged.’
Twelve days later they had a joyful surprise. It had been decided that as the depth of water, the season, and other circumstances were all favourable, it was worth while to send a diver to explore the spot. Accordingly, on March 25, an officer diver went down and succeeded in finding and examining the submarine. She was lying on her port beam-ends in twenty-four fathoms. Her conning-tower had been practically blown off—evidently by a depth-charge which had made a direct hit or something very near it. She had also a large fracture in the hull, on the port side amidships. This was, of course, conclusive, and the division received the maximum award. They were the more jubilant, because they had been quite certain of their kill, and had picked up what they considered first-rate evidence—not debris indeed, nor survivors, but a lot of onions, which must have been brought there by somebody. Also they had been told that their ‘obstruction’ was the wreck of an Italian ship, torpedoed just about there only a few days before. It was a consolation to have so annoying a suggestion conclusively disproved.
The next action of Lark II and Lysander III fell short of this final felicity. In April the division passed under the command of Chief Skipper G. Birch, R.N.R., and the third place in it was filled by the drifter Livelihood. They were patrolling one evening off Tintagel Head, when a periscope was sighted by Lark II, about 500 yards away on the starboard quarter, and going N.N.W. at the very slow speed of two knots. It was noted as being very high, quite three feet out of the water. The Chief Skipper came round immediately in order to bring his guns to bear; but the periscope had disappeared before he could accomplish this. He then hoisted the necessary signals for warning the rest of the division, steamed towards the last position of the submarine, lay to, and listened with the hydrophone. But at this moment the periscope reappeared; it was now only one foot above the surface and not more than twenty yards away, on the starboard beam. This was, of course, too near for a torpedo, and Lark II accordingly got her chance.
The first shot from her 12-pounder was an extraordinarily happy one—it hit the periscope and scattered it in splinters. The Chief Skipper lost not a moment—he rang the telegraph for full speed, turned towards the enemy, and as soon as he got way on the ship dropped a depth-charge set for fifty feet. His miniature fleet was perfectly in hand, and seconded him brilliantly. Drifter Livelihood closed on his port quarter, and dropped her depth-charge almost on the same spot; trawler Lysander III followed with another. The three boats continued to play the game in combination; the leader dropping five depth-charges in all and the others three each. All these exploded satisfactorily, and one of the Chief Skipper’s produced a second heavy under-water explosion, after which large quantities of dark oil and air bubbles rose to the surface. The position was then buoyed, and the division patrolled the area all night, using hydrophones at intervals. Next morning a wireless message was sent to Penzance, and another trawler took the watch as relief. Sweeping operations followed, but the bottom was reported rocky and foul, and no satisfactory result was obtained. Diving was not possible in such a place, and in the end the official verdict was one of ‘Probably seriously damaged.’ For this the reward was only half of what would have been given for a certainty; and, to the gallant trawlers and drifters, that was probably the smallest part of the disappointment. It is trying to end so exciting a chase with a cry of ‘gone away,’ and especially so when you are positive that the cry is a mistaken one. The evidence for a kill was very strong—the enemy’s speed was slow, his periscope was blinded, he was liberally depth-charged at close quarters—there was a violent double explosion to be accounted for, and a good uprush of oil and bubbles. But the line is strictly drawn, and this time the conclusive evidence was unprocurable.
Among the many cases of fine team-work by these gallant little fishing-boats two more must be given here—one as an example of the deadly thoroughness and precision with which our trawler and drifter divisions can do their hunting, and the other to show how keenly they will fight against an enemy armed with vastly superior guns.
A division of four drifters—Young Fred, Pilot Me, Light, and Look Sharp—under Lieutenant Thomas Kippins, R.N.R., was patrolling one afternoon in April, when at 5.25 P.M. Skipper Andrew Walker, R.N.R., sighted a periscope about 150 feet away on the starboard quarter of his ship, Pilot Me. He immediately altered course to starboard, and the submarine thereupon submerged entirely. Skipper Walker passed over the spot where she was last seen and dropped a depth-charge, altered course rapidly and dropped another, fired a red rocket to warn the division, dropped a third and fourth depth-charge, and hoisted the signal asking his commander to come north at full speed. He then stopped his engines and listened on his hydrophone. Hearing no sound, he made for Young Fred, who had altered course and was now closing him. When the two boats were only 300 yards apart, the submarine came to the surface right between them. She rose at an angle of 45°, bows up, and hung so for about two minutes, during which Pilot Me, Light, and Look Sharp all opened fire, and the two last claim to have hit her. At any rate she went down again, stern first; but Lieutenant Kippins, who was steaming straight for her in hope of ramming, was not disposed to take any chances. He took Young Fred exactly over her, dropped two depth-charges and passed on. The explosion which followed was a very heavy one; the fountain of water which rose was mast high and completely hid the drifter flagship from her companions, who thought for a moment that she ‘had gone.’
The Chief Skipper was far from gone. The spray was hardly off his deck, and the Young Fred was still rocking, when he turned again and then again, dropping two more depth-charges, and ordered Pilot Me to put down a Dan buoy to mark the position. This was done, but it was but marking a grave. H.M.S. Express, who had received a wireless signal and hurried to the spot, reports that she found the sea covered with oil, which had extended in a long stream to the northward on the ebb tide. Thick oil was still rising to the surface, and there were streaks of dark brown colour, very noticeable, and distinct from oil. Even when four miles to leeward, whilst approaching, the new comers had been struck by a very strong smell of petrol, which naturally gave them hopeful expectations.