The Story of Our Submarines

The submarine sailor is a picked man and a high standard is expected of him. The officers do their best to show him what the standard should be, but he is able to produce examples on his own for the instruction of his messmates. When in July 1918 "C 25" was attacked by five German seaplanes off Harwich, and the captain and all hands on deck were shot down by machine-gun fire, the first lieutenant started up the conning-tower to investigate, and as he came up, Leading-Seaman Barge, the only one alive of four on the bridge, called down to him, "Dive; don't worry about me, I'm done for."

The boat did not dive; she got back to harbour on the surface, but Leading-Seaman Barge was dead five minutes after his last speech – a speech which, thinking it over, appears to be not a bad epitaph.

In 1915 a man well known to the Submarine Service – a Submarine Flotilla Chaplain – went out in "E 4," under Commander Leir, to see for himself how his messmates spent their time on patrol. It is usual in patrol submarines to have as few hands on deck as possible – in fact, nobody is allowed on deck beyond the officer on watch, a look-out, and perhaps one other. On this occasion "E 4," having the chaplain on board, decided to call her crew to prayers on deck while they were on passage to their area, but the crowded state of the bridge a few minutes later was rather a handicap to quick diving when a Zeppelin interrupted the service. The padre, however, had no intention of being a mere passenger, and during the trip he, after a little training, was able to stand his trick on a hydroplane wheel when diving. A survivor from an armed trawler torpedoed by "E 4" was also a grateful guest, and the curious sight might occasionally have been seen of a German prisoner and a naval chaplain sitting on adjacent stools and working the diving-wheels in harmony. What the padre really thought of the trip is not known, but there was no doubt about his having the attention and respect of his somewhat reckless flock on his return to harbour. "E 4" was the sort of boat to take a passage in if one wished to see life in the Bight thoroughly. On one occasion she rose to the surface and chased a U-boat up to Heligoland, endeavouring to instil into her opponent a spirit of pugnacity by continual signals on the arc-lamp, such as, "How many women and children have you killed to-day?" and in a sort of meet-you-half-way tone, "Gott strafe England!" The U-boat, however, was not playing, and used her superior speed to get away (which was perhaps as well, because, if she'd only known it, "E 4" at the time, had no gun).

This was early in the war, when things had not settled down and the minefields in the Bight were few. More than one boat then had dived right up to the entrance of Schillig Roads and had looked longingly at the guardship lying just out of range across the shoals. E boats treated destroyers with contempt, and used to remain on the surface in their presence to the last possible moment. There are many rumours of strange incidents of 1914 and 1915 which did not reach despatches, such as wireless signals to Heligoland suggesting that the enemy ships should come out and give our boats a chance, or of boats firing a succession of different coloured lights off the mouth of the Ems in the hope of enticing something out to see what it was all about. If the wireless story is not true it is at any rate a sound idea. We did not produce any propaganda department till much later, or they might have developed it, for such signals would have been very suggestive when intercepted by neutral wireless stations. The state of defence of the Bight changed from 1914, when our boats played about in it as they pleased, and even cruisers could come in and actually sight Heligoland, to the 1915 stage, when boats had to work inside, diving all day in the midst of enemy patrol vessels and getting their batteries charged in the intervals between alarms at night. Then the minefields began to thicken, and the submarine patrol line was brought gradually back to the longitude of Borkum. Then our minefields began to cluster around those the enemy had laid, and the patrols eventually took up a curved line from Terschelling across the mouth of the Bight to Hiorn's Reef and the Vyl Light, and remained there, except for occasional examination trips up to the enemy harbours and for the frequent visits of our mine-laying submarines (which used to drop their cargoes wherever they were most likely to have full effect). This moving back of the patrol line was not due to the increase of the Bight minefields alone: the realisation of the use of the submarine as a scout and the recognition of the fact that for our fleet the wireless in the submarines was of more strategic use than were the torpedoes, altered the policy by which the boats were stationed. A tactical victory may be useful, but it is a strategical victory that wins a war, and this fact was at the base of our policy at sea. The enemy seems never to have understood what sea-strategy meant, although his tactics were sound enough. It is a curious thing to note how the rôle of the submarine changed during the war. The boats of both sides started by being ordinary anti-warship craft, taking a chance when they could. Gradually our boats became outer-line scouts (with exceptions), and the U-boats (with exceptions) became exclusively commerce-destroyers. At present anti-submarine work has advanced so far that it would be a rash nation which would endeavour to obtain a victory over another by a submarine force alone. The big cruiser-submarine is a danger, but it can be met and defeated by a better (though not necessarily bigger) submarine, while the anti-submarine work by surface ships will always be the prerogative of the nation with the big fleet in support. The submarine, as we know it now, can never win a war without a battle fleet behind it: the two types of weapon work together, and the one cannot supplant the other. A curious remark has been made by a German officer to an English one. "If we had beaten your Fleet, you could have still kept up the blockade with your submarines, because England geographically blockades Germany, and so we would have been no better off." Geographically he was right – strategically he was, in the author's opinion, very much wrong.

The "crash dives," so frequently performed by boats when in danger, were sometimes exciting. If the trim was too heavy at the time, the boat might take an angle and go right on down to the bottom: this has been done sufficiently violently at times to crack some of the battery cells, and also to start the torpedoes running in the tubes with resultant damage to the torpedoes and a discharge of exhaust gas into the boat. It is always advisable for the officer on deck to get down as soon as possible after he has rung the diving alarm-horn – otherwise he may get left behind, as the crew below don't wait for him. The lower door of the conning-tower is dropped by an officer below if water comes down, isolating the officer in the conning-tower, who is probably struggling to get the upper lid closed. One boat had a little difficulty once through a corner of the bridge-screen catching under the hinges of the upper lid; the boat was going under – the captain was furiously trying to jam the lid down – and the water was pouring into the boat. The captain called down to close the lower door and that he would "swim for it," but before this was done the obstruction cleared, the hatch closed, and he fell down into the boat. The depth being then thirty feet, it can be imagined that a good deal of water had come in and things had been exciting, to say the least of it; it was noticed, however, that the seamen's cook had never throughout the incident looked up once from his careful watch on the cooking of the sailors' sausages. Another incident occurred near Heligoland, when one officer of an E boat came on deck to relieve another during the nightly three hours' charge. As he came up he saw a faint light astern and called attention to it. The officer already on deck (hereinafter known as Number One) had just passed the word down to let some more water into the tanks "till I tell you to stop," in order to lower the boat a little and leave only her conning-tower visible. His attention being distracted to the light astern (which was on the south end of Heligoland), he began to study it with his glasses, and had dropped the memory of flooding tanks from his mind – until a shout from officer Number Two made him turn. The water was up to the tip of the conning-tower lid. The look-out and Number Two had leaped below, and the third officer, inside the boat, had his hand on the lever of the lower door and his eyes on a depth gauge, which already showed ten feet. Number One got down inside in remarkably quick time (at the cost of some abrasions) and pulled the upper lid down after him as the North Sea came over the top. Packed in the conning-tower with him were the look-out and Number Two – both of them helpless with laughter. The third officer then blew tanks, and as the boat reached the surface again, opened the lower door and inquired if there was anybody to go back for? Fortunately there was not.

A patrol boat's crew being trained to dive quickly and to ask questions afterwards, a boat on passage with low buoyancy is rather a touchy platform to stand on. The diving alarm button is fitted just inside the conning-tower lid, and one stoops down to ring it. One officer thought that a "wandering" lead extension with a bell-push button on it would be a convenient fitting, as he could then stand on watch on the bridge and ring the alarm with his hand in his lammy-coat pocket. It worked all right till a sea came over his head and put two inches of salt water in the pocket; the bell push was not water-tight, and, well, he only just got in and joined his crew before they were right under. An E boat was once running past the Maas Lightship off the Dutch coast. She was trimmed a bit more than half down, and was travelling at fourteen knots, with a little "rise" helm on the hydroplanes. The captain and look-out were on the bridge – it was flat calm and fairly clear weather. Down below an enthusiastic stoker chose the moment as suitable for oiling-over the shafting of the after hydroplanes; he started by releasing the locking gear, and running the planes "hard-up." The boat instantly tried to loop the loop. Her bow rose till she was at an extraordinary angle – the engines slowed up and hammered violently – the look-out vanished below, the captain jumped down the ladder, rang the telegraphs to "slow," and (having realised what had happened), remained with his head and shoulders out, looking at the foaming wave of water that had risen to half-way along the bridge. He knew that as soon as the boat slowed she would regain her normal angle, and he intended then to show that he, at any rate, was abreast of the situation, and to descend with dignity when the headway was lost, and to sarcastically liken his crew to a collection of Armenian schoolgirls. The crew, however, unwittingly defeated him. The motto of a patrol boat is, "When in doubt – dive," and they were well-trained men. They did not know what had happened beyond that the boat had done something funny and that there was a lot of violent language going on inside her. The captain watched the stern wave – instead of receding as the angle lessened – break right over his head, and he had to shut down quickly and come below, being met by the complacent report of "Thirty feet, sir, going down." The passing Dutch trawlers had a good view of the incident, and must have thought the boat had gone mad.

There were always so many fishing trawlers about on the Dutch coast that it was impossible for our boats to avoid being seen and noted when on passage on the surface. If possible, one gave them a wide berth in case of accidents, but none of them were ever found to be Germans in disguise. The British patrol boats were more unpleasant: an R boat nearly met her end from one off the Irish coast once at night. The submarine was an anti-submarine patrol, and was charging on the surface, when the trawler approached and endeavoured to ram. The attempt was dodged by a matter of feet, and apparently the trawler's men were too excited to recognise the volley of verbal vitriol (that was addressed to them as they shot past) as being English, for as the R boat dropped across their stern they opened rapid fire on her with the after gun. The submarine men could look into the gun-muzzle at a few yards' range, but in spite of their being nearly deafened by a very rapid and continuous fire, there was no damage done except for a graze on the after superstructure. The submarine then used her superior speed and vanished.

Our mine-laying submarines were few in number, for the reason that we had not the need for such boats that the enemy had. We could have built more if we had wished to, but owing to the short length of enemy coast-line we found that a few boats running regularly could cover the work. The mines were laid down anywhere in the Bight where results might be expected from them, and off Zeebrugge and places on the Belgian coast where enemy ships passed. There was far more secrecy over the work of mine-laying boats than that of the patrol boats, for the enemy knew quite well that we had a patrol ring round the Bight, and he probably knew roughly the number and positions of the boats we had out at any time. But the mine-layers used to get short notice of their leaving: they hoisted their mines aboard, got their orders, and vanished to the northeastward before anyone else in the depôt had had time to wonder where they were going. A patrol boat used to have an area about ten miles by ten to work in; a mine-layer had to put the cargo absolutely on the spot ordered, – an error in navigation might mean not only that the enemy would not hit the mines, but that an E boat might run into them later under the impression that she was skirting the field. It was customary, therefore, for the run from Harwich to be made to some light-vessel or a fixed point on the Dutch coast before entering the Bight, and for the greatest care to be taken by star observations, etc., on the run-in to check the reckoning. After the Armistice the evidence of the enemy showed that the navigation and placing of mines had been extraordinarily accurate. Two of the boats were lost on this duty, both in the Bight, and both probably through striking mines – "E 24" and "E 34."

In July 1917 "E 41" (Lieut. – Commander Holbrook, V.C.) having just laid her mines in a swept channel in the Bight, sighted a German merchant ship approaching, guarded by an escort of patrol craft. "E 41" torpedoed the ship, and was promptly chased by the escort. She led the chase towards the spot where she had just put her mines down, and went deep herself as she crossed the dangerous area. The patrol craft, however, broke off the pursuit before they reached the spot, and turned home. A little more ardour on their part and "E 41" could have watched her own mines at work.

One mine-layer had the good fortune to pick up the laden boats of a neutral steamer which had been sunk by the enemy. She towed them into safety (her captain nobly refusing a present of a box of cigars offered him by the survivors). On his return to Harwich the officers of his flotilla rose to the occasion and presented him with a large pair of binoculars, complete in a lacquered case. The binoculars (suitably inscribed) were formed of two beer bottles joined together, and the case was neatly made of biscuit-box tin. Suitable speeches being made and the glasses handed over, the recipient was requested to sign a "receipt note" for them. Wondering at such meticulous red-tape, he complied, and the carbon paper being removed and the underlying "chit" sent to the wardroom steward, he discovered that his signature was the authority for drinks all round to the deputation, which, after all, was the main object for which the ceremony had been inaugurated.