Submarine and Anti-submarine

by Sir Henry John Newbolt

Twenty-four hours later the luck turned, and all these disappointments were forgotten. At 2.6 P.M., Lieut.-Commander Raikes sighted yet another U-boat in open water, on the old practice ground of the neutral cruiser of three days before. He put E. 54 to her full speed, and succeeded in overtaking the enemy. By 2.35 he had placed her in a winning position on the U-boat’s bow, and at right angles to her course. At 400 yards’ range he fired two torpedoes, and had the satisfaction to see one of them detonate in a fine cloud of smoke and spray. When the smoke cleared away, the U-boat had entirely disappeared; there were no survivors. Next day, after dark, E. 54’s time being up, she returned to her base, having had a full taste of despair and triumph.

Earlier in the year, Lieutenant Bradshaw, in G. 13, had had a somewhat similar experience. He went out to a distant patrol in cold March weather and had not been on the ground five hours when his adventures began. At 11.50 A.M. he was blinded by a snow squall; and when he emerged from it, he immediately sighted a large hostile submarine within shot. Unfortunately the U-boat sighted G. 13 at the same moment, and the two dived simultaneously. This, as may easily be imagined, is one of the most trying of all positions in the submarine game, and so difficult as to be almost insoluble. The first of the two adversaries to move will very probably be the one to fall in the duel; yet a move must be made sooner or later, and the boldest will be the first to move. Lieutenant Bradshaw seems to have done the right thing both ways. For an hour and a half he lay quiet, listening for any sign of the U-boat’s intentions; then, at 1.30 P.M., he came to the surface, prepared for a lightning shot or an instantaneous manœuvre. No more complete disappointment could be imagined. He could see no trace of the enemy—he had not even the excitement of being shot at. On the following day he was up early, and spent nearly eleven fruitless hours knocking about in a sea which grew heavier and heavier from the S.S.E. Then came another hour which made ample amends. At 3.55 P.M. a large U-boat came in sight, steering due west. Lieutenant Bradshaw carried out a rapid dive and brought his tubes to the ready; courses and speeds as requisite for attack. (These reports often omit superfluous details, while they bristle with intention.) The manœuvring which followed took over half an hour, and must have seemed interminably long to everyone in G. 13. At 4.30 the enemy made the tension still greater by altering course some 35°. It was not until 4.49 that Lieutenant Bradshaw found himself exactly where all commanders would wish to be, 8 points on the enemy’s bow. He estimated the U-boat’s speed at eight knots, allowed 18° deflection accordingly, and fired twice. It was a long shot in rough water, and he had nearly a minute to wait for the result. Then came the longed-for sound of a heavy explosion. A column of water leaped up, directly under the U-boat’s conning-tower, and she disappeared instantly. Ten minutes afterwards, G. 13 was on the surface, and making her way through a vast lake of oil, which lay thickly upon the sea over an area of a mile. In such an oil lake a swimmer has no margin of buoyancy, and it was not surprising that there were no survivors to pick up. The only relics of the U-boat were some pieces of board from her interior fittings. G. 13 completed her patrol of twenty-eight days, and returned to her base without sighting another enemy—she had cleared that area for a month.

A successful hunt by Lieutenant North, in command of H. 4, resembles G. 13’s exploit in many respects, but has this picturesque difference, that it took place in southern waters and in a bright May midnight. It was more than forty-eight hours since H. 4 had cast off from the pens before she sighted the quarry she was looking for, 3 points on her port bow. The hour was 11.10 P.M. and the moon was nearly full. Lieutenant North at once turned towards the enemy and went to night action stations. The distance between the two boats was about 1,000 yards, and it was desirable to reduce this to a minimum—say to 250 yards—in order to make sure of a hit in the circumstances. The enemy was a large U-boat and was going about 8 knots, in a course which would bring her across H. 4 almost too directly. But she had not advanced more than 300 yards when she altered course 8 points to starboard. Lieutenant North instantly saw his opportunity, turned first to port to cut her off; and then, when his superior speed had made this a certainty, 8 points to starboard to close her. Within four minutes after sighting her, he had placed himself on her port beam at the desired range of 250 yards. He fired two torpedoes. Both hit and detonated, one under the conning-tower, and one in the engine-room. The enemy sank immediately—in fifteen seconds she had gone completely. Then came the usual search for survivors, and two were eventually rescued; they were the captain of the boat and his quartermaster. H. 4 combed out the surrounding area thoroughly; but no more could be found; and in view of the presence of prisoners, Lieutenant North at once returned to his base.

It is not to our purpose to enumerate successful shots of the simple and easy kind; one or two examples will stand for a number of these. C. 15, for instance, sighted an enemy submarine at 2.43 on a November afternoon, dived and flooded tubes; sighted the U-boat again in the periscope at 3.12; at 3.15 fired at 400 yards. The noise of the explosion was slight, but the enemy—U.C. 65—sank immediately, and C. 15 picked up five survivors. D. 7, Commander C. G. Brodie, sank U. 45 only twenty-two minutes after sighting her, at a range of 1,200 yards. Lieutenant A. W. Forbes, in C. 7, sighted a large U-boat on his port quarter, at 3.32 A.M. of a dark and misty April night. He immediately attacked on the surface, and sank her with a single shot at 400 yards. These prompt and successful shots deserve full credit; but every now and then some exceptional circumstance will add a special reason for satisfaction. For example, it is always good to catch a pirate red-handed. Lieut.-Commander G. R. S. Watkins, in E. 45, was beginning his day’s patrol at 6.15, on a dim October morning, when he observed flashes on his starboard bow. He altered course in that direction, and after five minutes sighted an unhappy merchantman under fire from a U-boat. He dived at once and approached. At 6.37, he was near enough to see through his periscope that the vessel was a steamer with Dutch colours painted on her side. She was a neutral, and of course unarmed, but such considerations meant nothing to the U-boat pirate, who had ceased fire and was coolly waiting for his victim to sink. He was a large submarine, partially submerged, and by way of further caution he was steering about in figures of 8, with his gun still manned. But, for all his caution, just retribution was upon him. Lieut.-Commander Watkins fired his first shot at 400 yards, and missed—altered course instantly, and in little more than three minutes fired again, from a new angle, two shots in rapid succession. Thirty seconds afterwards, justice was done in full; a loud explosion was heard and there was a tremendous convulsion in the water. For the moment, E. 45 was blinded—her periscope was submerged. With a rebound she came to the surface, saw in one quick glance that her enemy was destroyed, and sank again to 60 feet. When she had reloaded, and returned finally to the surface, both pirate and Dutchman had disappeared into the depths.

‘Was steering about in figures of 8, with his gun still manned.’

Lieut.-Commander Vincent M. Cooper, in E. 43, also had the satisfaction of surprising an enemy at work. This was a U.C. boat, engaged not in actually firing on merchantmen, but in the still more deadly and murderous business of laying mines for them. When sighted by E. 43, she had evidently just come to the surface, as men were observed on the bridge engaged in spreading the bridge screen. Lieut.-Commander Cooper went straight for her at full speed. But as it was 9.30 A.M., and broad daylight, he was forced to remain submerged, and being in shallow water he soon had to slow down. Again and again he bumped heavily on shoals, but fortunately was never quite forced to the surface. After an hour of this he got into deeper water, and was able to go faster. At 11.0 he rose to 24 feet, and took a sight through the periscope. There was the enemy, about 400 yards away on his port beam. He dived, and five minutes later came up for another sight. This time the U-boat was on his port quarter. He turned towards her, but at the moment of attack, when the sights were just coming on, E. 43 dipped under a big wave and the chance was spoiled.

Her commander was not to be thrown off; he immediately increased to full speed, altered course, and planned a fresh attack. By 11.17—nearly two hours after beginning the chase—he was in position, 2 points abaft the enemy’s beam at 550 yards’ distance. This time he took every precaution to ensure a kill. On firing he dipped his periscope, so that in case the boat rose suddenly nothing should be visible; and at the same time he yawed to starboard, so as to be ready with another tube if the first shot was a miss. Then came a trying period of suspense and disappointment; he listened in vain for the sound of an explosion, and after forty-five seconds raised his periscope to see what had happened. It was only later, on communicating with his officers and men in the forward and after compartments, that he found, as others have found, how differently sound may affect the different parts of a submarine when submerged. The central compartment may be completely deafened, either by reason of its position, when a detonation occurs directly ahead or astern, or by the much slighter continuous noises of the various electrical machines which are situated there. In this case, the dull report of the under-water explosion, which was not audible to Lieut.-Commander Cooper, was heard in both the other compartments about twenty seconds after he had fired the torpedo.

At the moment when the periscope was raised, the U-boat had disappeared, and there was a great commotion in the water where she had been. E. 43 hurried to the spot and found the surface covered with a black oily substance which stuck to the glass of the periscope and put it out of action. Lieut.-Commander Cooper rose to 20 feet and put up his second periscope, but the U-boat was gone and had left no survivors.

E. 35 has a chase to her credit, in some respects very similar to this one; but the story is worth adding, because of the masterly precision with which the Commander, Lieutenant D’Oyly Hughes, conducted the manœuvre and reported it afterwards. At 4 o’clock, on a May afternoon, he sighted in the periscope a low-lying object two to three miles distant on the port beam. His own boat was at 26 feet, and the object was only visible intermittently, when on top of a wave—it was impossible to be certain about it. He turned at once and went straight for it, speeding up as he did so. But this led to immediate difficulties. There was a long breaking swell across his course and a strong wind. Depth keeping was almost impossible, and there was a constant risk of E. 35 breaking surface and throwing away her chance. It was necessary to go down to quieter levels, and for some time she travelled at 40 feet with full speed on.