A PEACE SUGGESTION
IN A WARLIKE GUISE—AN EFFECTIVE POLICY OF NAVAL DEFENSE FOR THE UNITED STATES AT A MINIMUM COST
Samuel Lake, who is called the father of the “even-keel submarine,” a device the use of which has given the German submarines such terrible efficiency, gives some interesting views of the future of this terror of the seas in an interview published in a prominent daily paper. We have all seen during the past year how mechanical and chemical invention has added to the horrors of war. The query most vital to the future of peace is as to whether the further development and perfection of such devices will not make war so horrible that it will be impossible.
Mr. Lake is the head of a great submarine shipyard at Bridgeport, Conn., and speaks with the authority of an expert.
He expresses his firm belief that when the submarine is fully recognized and when the governments of the great nations fully prepare themselves for defense and offense with such craft, “there and then naval war will cease!”
Submarine preparedness will not end marine warfare merely by making it horrible, for horrors do not deter men from belligerency, but by making successful operations by other naval vessels impossible. Mr. Lake thinks that Germany has been moved to keep her fleet locked up in safe harbors more by fear of the allied submarines than by fear of the allied dreadnoughts. It is to be noted that the Allies have not made such effective use of submarines in this war as the Germans have, but this is not because the Allies are not equipped with these under water craft. They have, in the aggregate, more than Germany has, but they have had few German sea-going craft to operate on. The German merchant marine was swept from the seas at the very outset of hostilities, and the German fighting craft, except the submarines, have been kept safely hidden.
Applying his theory to the elucidation of a proper defensive policy for the United States, Mr. Lake says: “The United States can make itself so strong that it will be practically beyond attack by providing itself with a sufficient number of submarines of a defensive type.” In this view the creation of a big submarine navy by this country would not be a policy of aggression, for the submarines can not be effectively used to attack shore defenses or to land armies abroad, but it would be simply a provision of prudence to guard our own shores from hostile fleets and hostile armies.
A fleet of submarines, provided with sufficient freeboard and buoyancy to permit themselves to ride at anchor comfortably in all weathers, fitted with submarine signals, searchlights, sound-receiving apparatus and wireless, if there were enough of them to form a cordon about the city or harbor to be defended, could not, in Mr. Lake’s opinion, be beaten.
He estimates the number needed for the effective defense of our east and west coasts at one hundred and fifty, the cost of which would not be more than the cost of five super-dreadnoughts. He also believes that the speed of the submarines can be developed to 25 knots an hour, which is the maximum speed of the larger and heavier craft of the great navies. This would enable them to surround the big battleships coming near our coast, and in many cases to pursue them farther out to sea. The smaller ones could be shipped by rail if it should be found necessary to quickly concentrate a fleet of under sea boats at any particular point on sea coast or lake or river. These smaller submarines Mr. Lake calls amphibious boats, and they would be in addition to the large submarine craft stationed in or near the harbors. In a comprehensive statement of the general merits of this plan of national defense, the inventor says:
“The moment a hostile fleet appeared near any port, submarines could be rushed to that port in such numbers as were deemed necessary—and they would ‘get’ the hostile fleet. No doubt about it.
“Really, for coast defense, such a fleet of submarines could be more speedily mobilized than the fastest fleet of battle cruisers and super dreadnoughts.