U. S. Submarine H-3 Aground on California Coast.
The figures of the losses of British merchantmen alone are shown by the following table:
The table with its week by week report of the British losses is of importance because at the time it was taken as a barometer indicative of German success or failure. The German admiralty at the moment of declaring the ruthless submarine war promised the people of Germany that they would sink a million tons a month and by so doing would force England to abject surrender in the face of starvation within three months. During that period the whole civilized world looked eagerly for the weekly statement of British losses. Only at one time was the German estimate of a million tons monthly obtained. Most of the time the execution done by the undersea boats amounted to less than half that figure. So far from England being beaten in three months, at the end of ten she was still unshattered, though sorely disturbed by the loss of so much shipping. Her new crops had come on and her statesmen declared that so far as the food supply was concerned they were safe for another year.
During this period of submarine activity the United States entered upon the war and its government immediately turned its attention to meeting the submarine menace. In the first four months literally nothing was accomplished toward this end. A few submarines were reported sunk by merchantmen, but in nearly every instance it was doubtful whether they were actually destroyed or merely submerged purposely in the face of a hostile fire. Americans were looked upon universally as a people of extraordinary inventive genius, and everywhere it was believed that by some sudden lucky thought an American would emerge from a laboratory equipped with a sovereign remedy for the submarine evil. Prominent inventors indeed declared their purpose of undertaking this search and went into retirement to study the problem. From that seclusion none had emerged with a solution at the end of ten months. When the submarine campaign was at its very height no one was able to suggest a better remedy for it than the building of cargo ships in such quantities that, sink as many as they might, the Germans would have to let enough slip through to sufficiently supply England with food and with the necessary munitions of war.
Many cruel sufferings befell seafaring people during the period of German ruthlessness on the high seas. An open boat, overcrowded with refugees, hastily provisioned as the ship to which it belonged was careening to its fate, and tossing on the open sea two or three hundred miles from shore in the icy nights of midwinter was no place of safety or of comfort. Yet the Germans so construed it, holding that when they gave passengers and crew of a ship time to take to the boats, they had fully complied with the international law providing that in the event of sinking a ship its people must first be given an opportunity to assure their safety.
There have been many harrowing stories of the experiences of survivors thus turned adrift. Under the auspices of the British government, Rudyard Kipling wrote a book detailing the agonies which the practice inflicted upon helpless human beings, including many women and children. Some of the survivors have told in graphic story the record of their actual experiences. Among these one of the most vivid is from the pen of a well-known American journalist, Floyd P. Gibbons, correspondent of the Chicago Tribune. He was saved from the British liner, Laconia, sunk by a German submarine, and thus tells the tale of his sufferings and final rescue:
I have serious doubts whether this is a real story. I am not entirely certain that it is not all a dream and that in a few minutes I will wake up back in stateroom B. 19 on the promenade deck of the Cunarder Laconia and hear my cockney steward informing me with an abundance of "and sirs" that it is a fine morning.
I am writing this within thirty minutes after stepping on the dock here in Queenstown from the British mine sweeper which picked up our open lifeboat after an eventful six hours of drifting, and darkness and baling and pulling on the oars and of straining aching eyes toward that empty, meaningless horizon in search of help. But, dream or fact, here it is:
The first-cabin passengers were gathered in the lounge Sunday evening, with the exception of the bridge fiends in the smoking-room. Poor Butterfly was dying wearily on the talking-machine and several couples were dancing.