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Title: The Story of the Submarine
Author: Bishop, Farnham
Language: English
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THE STORY OF THE SUBMARINE
[Illustration:
Courtesy of the Electric Boat Company.
U. S. Submarine _M-1_.]
THE STORY OF
THE SUBMARINE
BY
FARNHAM BISHOP
Author of “Panama, Past and Present,” etc.
_ILLUSTRATED WITH PHOTOGRAPHS
AND DRAWINGS_
[Illustration]
NEW YORK
THE CENTURY CO.
1916
Copyright, 1916, by
THE CENTURY CO.
_Published, February, 1916_
To
MY MOTHER
PREFACE
This book has been written for the nontechnical reader--for the man or
boy who is interested in submarines and torpedoes, and would like to
know something about the men who invented these things and how they
came to do it. Much has been omitted that I should have liked to have
put in, for this is a small book and the story of the submarine is much
longer than most people realize. It is perhaps astonishing to think
of the launching of an underseaboat in the year the Pilgrims landed
at Plymouth Rock, or George Washington watching his submarine attack
the British fleet in 1776. But are these things as astonishing as the
thought of European soldiers wearing steel helmets and fighting with
crossbows and catapults in 1916?
The chapter on “A Trip in a Modern Submarine” is purely imaginative.
There is no such boat in our submarine flotilla as the _X-4_. We ought
to have plenty of big, fast, sea-going submarines, with plenty of big,
fast sea-planes and battle-cruisers, so that if an invading army ever
starts for this country we can meet it and smash it while it is cooped
up on transports somewhere in mid-ocean. There, and not in shallow,
off-shore waters, cumbered with nets and mines, is the true battlefield
of the submarine.
The last part of this book has a broken-off and fragmentary
appearance. This is almost unavoidable at a time when writing history
is like trying to make a statue of a moving-picture. I have tried to do
justice to both sides in the present war.
I wish to express my thanks to those whose kindness and courtesy have
made it possible for me to write this book. To Mr. Kelby, Librarian of
the New York Historical Society, I am indebted for much information
about Bushnell’s _Turtle_, and to Mrs. Daniel Whitney, of Germantown,
Pa., a descendant of Ezra Lee, for the portrait of her intrepid
ancestor. Both the Electric Boat Company and Mr. Simon Lake have
supplied me most generously with information and pictures. The Bureau
of Construction, United States Navy, E. P. Dutton & Company, publishers
of Mr. Alan H. Burgoyne’s “Submarine Navigation Past and Present”;
the American Magazine, Flying, International Marine Engineering,
the _Scientific American_, and the _New York Sun_ have cheerfully
given permission for the reproduction of many pictures of which they
hold the copyright. Albert Frank & Company have given the cut of the
advertisement of the last sailing of the _Lusitania_. Special thanks
are due to Mr. A. Russell Bond, Associate Editor of the _Scientific
American_, for expert advice and suggestion.
Some well-known pictures of submarines are herein credited for the
first time to the man who made them: Captain Francis M. Barber,
U. S. N. (retired). This officer published a little pink-backed
pamphlet on submarine boats--the first book devoted exclusively to this
subject--in 1875.
“The last time I heard of that pink pamphlet,” writes Captain Barber
from Washington, “was when I was Naval Attache at Berlin in 1898.
Admiral von Tirpitz was then head of the Torpedo Bureau in the Navy
Department, and he was good enough to say that it was the foundation
of his studies--and look what we have now in the terrible German
production.”
FARNHAM BISHOP.
New York,
January, 1916.
CONTENTS
CHAPTER PAGE
I IN THE BEGINNING 3
II DAVID BUSHNELL’S “TURTLE” 12
III ROBERT FULTON’S “NAUTILUS” 26
IV SUBMARINES IN THE CIVIL WAR 36
V THE WHITEHEAD TORPEDO 43
VI FREAKS AND FAILURES 56
VII JOHN P. HOLLAND 69
VIII THE LAKE SUBMARINES 82
IX A TRIP IN A MODERN SUBMARINE 100
X ACCIDENTS AND SAFETY DEVICES 124
XI MINES 139
XII THE SUBMARINE IN ACTION 156
XIII THE SUBMARINE BLOCKADE 177
XIV THE SUBMARINE AND NEUTRALS 189
INDEX 207
List of Illustrations
PAGE
U. S. Submarine _M-1_ _Frontispiece_
Cornelius Van Drebel 5
The _Rotterdam Boat_ 8
Symons’s Submarine 10
The Submarine of 1776 13
The Best-known Picture of Bushnell’s _Turtle_ 16
Another Idea of Bushnell’s _Turtle_ 19
Ezra Lee 21
The _Nautilus_ Invented by Robert Fulton 28
Destruction of the _Dorothea_ 33
Views of a Confederate _David_ 37
C. S. S. _Hundley_ 38
Cross-section of a Whitehead Torpedo 51
Davis Gun-torpedo After Discharge, Showing Eight-inch Gun
Forward of Air-flask 53
Effect of Davis Gun-torpedo on a Specially-constructed Target 54
The _Intelligent Whale_ 58
_Le Plongeur_ 59
Steam Submarine _Nordenfeldt II_, at Constantinople, 1887 62
Bauer’s Submarine Concert, Cronstadt Harbor, 1855 65
Apostoloff’s Proposed Submarine 67
The _Holland No. 1_ 70
The _Fenian Ram_ 73
U. S. S. _Holland_, in Drydock with the Russian Battleship
_Retvizan_ 77
John P. Holland 80
Lake 1893 Design as Submitted to the U. S. Navy Department 83
The _Argonaut Junior_ 84
_Argonaut_ as Originally Built 87
_Argonaut_ as Rebuilt 90
The Rebuilt _Argonaut_, Showing Pipe-masts and Ship-shaped
Superstructure 93
Cross-section of Diving-compartment on a Lake Submarine 94
Cross-section of the _Protector_ 97
Mr. Simon Lake 98
U. S. Submarine _E-2_ 101
A Submarine Cruiser, or Fleet Submarine (Lake Type) 105
Auxiliary Switchboard and Electric Cook-stove, in a U. S.
Submarine 107
Forward Deck of a U. S. Submarine, in Cruising Trim 109
Same, Preparing to Submerge 110
Depth-control Station, U. S. Submarine 113
Cross-section of a Periscope 114
Forward Torpedo-compartment, U. S. Submarine 117
Fessenden Oscillator Outside the Hull of a Ship 120
Professor Fessenden Receiving a Message Sent Through Several
Miles of Sea-water by His “Oscillator” 121
Side-elevation of a Modern Submarine 127
One Type of Safety-jacket 131
The _Vulcan_ Salvaging the _U-3_ 134
Fulton’s Anchored Torpedoes 140
Sinking of the U. S. S. _Tecumseh_, by a Confederate Mine, in
Mobile Bay 143
A Confederate “Keg-torpedo” 144
First Warship Destroyed by a Mine 145
A Confederate “Buoyant Torpedo” or Contact-mine 146
Modern Contact-mine 150
U. S. Mine-planter _San Francisco_ 153
English Submarine Rescuing English Sailors 157
Engagement Between the _Birmingham_ and the _U-15_ 159
Sinking of the _Aboukir_, _Cressy_, and _Hogue_ 163
Tiny Target Afforded by Periscopes in Rough Weather 167
Photograph of a Submarine, Twenty Feet Below the Surface,
Taken from the Aeroplane, Whose Shadow Is Shown in the
Picture 173
German Submarine Pursuing English Merchantman 182
British Submarine, Showing One Type of Disappearing Deck-gun
Now in Use 190
THE STORY OF THE SUBMARINE
CHAPTER I
IN THE BEGINNING
If you had been in London in the year 1624, and had gone to the
theater to see “The Staple of News,” a new and very dull comedy by
Shakespeare’s friend Ben Jonson, you would have heard, in act III,
scene i, the following dialogue about submarines:
THOMAS
They write hear one Cornelius’ son
Hath made the Hollanders an invisible eel
To swim the haven at Dunkirk and sink all
The shipping there.
PENNYBOY
But how is’t done?
GRABAL
I’ll show you, sir,
It is an automa, runs under water
With a snug nose, and has a nimble tail
Made like an auger, with which tail she wriggles
Betwixt the costs of a ship and sinks it straight.
PENNYBOY
Whence have you this news?
FITTON
From a right hand I assure you.
The eel-boats here, that lie before Queen-hythe
Came out of Holland.
PENNYBOY
A most brave device
To murder their flat bottoms.
The idea of submarine navigation is much older than 1624. Crude diving
bells, and primitive leather diving helmets, with bladders to keep the
upper end of the air tube afloat on the surface of the water, were
used as early as the fourteenth century. William Bourne, an Englishman
who published a book on “Inventions or Devices” in 1578, suggested the
military value of a boat that could be sailed just below the surface
of the water, with a hollow mast for a ventilator. John Napier, Laird
of Merchiston, the great Scotch mathematician who invented logarithms,
wrote in 1596 about his proposed “Devices of sailing under the water,
with divers other devices and stratagems for the burning of enemies.”
But the first man actually to build and navigate a submarine was a
Dutchman: the learned Doctor Cornelius Van Drebel.[1] He was “a native
of Alkmaar, a very fair and handsome man, and of very gentle manners.”
Both his pleasing personality and his knowledge of science--which
caused many to suspect him of being a magician--made the Netherlander
an honored guest at the court of his most pedantic Majesty, King James
I of England.
Van Drebel was walking along the banks of the Thames, one pleasant
evening in the year 1620, when he “noticed some sailors dragging
behind their barques baskets full of fish; he saw that the barques
were weighed down in the water, but that they rose a little when the
baskets allowed the ropes which held them to slacken a little. The idea
occurred to him that a ship could be held under water by a somewhat
similar method and could be propelled by oars and poles.”[2]
[Illustration: Cornelius Van Drebel.
Reproduced from “Submarine Navigation, Past and Present” by Alan H.
Burgoyne, by permission of E. P. Dutton & Company.
]
Lodged by the king in Eltham Palace, and supplied with funds from the
royal treasury, Van Drebel designed and built three submarine boats,
between 1620 and 1624. They were simply large wooden rowboats, decked
over and made water-tight by a covering of thick, well-greased leather.
Harsdoffer, a chronicler of the period, declared that
“King James himself journeyed in one of them on the Thames. There were
on this occasion twelve rowers besides the passengers, and the vessel
during several hours was kept at a depth of twelve to fifteen feet
below the surface.”
Another contemporary historian, Cornelius Van der Wonde, of Van
Drebel’s home town, said of him:
“He built a ship in which one could row and navigate under water from
Westminster to Greenwich, the distance of two Dutch miles; even five
or six miles or as far as one pleased. In this boat a person could see
under the surface of the water and without candle-light, as much as
he needed to read in the Bible or any other book. Not long ago this
remarkable ship was yet to be seen lying in the Thames or London river.”
The glow of phosphorescent bodies, suggested by the monk Mersenne for
illuminating the interior of a submarine, later in the seventeenth
century and actually so used by Bushnell in the eighteenth, might have
furnished sufficient light for Bible- and compass-reading on this
voyage. But how did King James--the first and last monarch to venture
on an underwater voyage--the other passengers, and the twelve rowers
get enough air?
“That deservedly Famous Mechanician and Chymist, Cornelius Drebell ...
conceived, that ’tis not only the whole body of the air but a certain
Quintessence (as Chymists speake) or spirituous part that makes it fit
for respiration ... so that (for aught I could gather) besides the
Mechanicall contrivance of his vessel he had a Chymicall liquor, which
he accounted the chief secret of his Submarine Navigation. For when
from time to time he perceived that the finer and purer part of the air
was consumed or over-clogged by the respiration and steames of those
that went in his ship, he would, by unstopping a vessel full of liquor
speedily restore to the troubled air such a proportion of vital parts
as would make it again for a good while fit for Respiration.”[3]
Did Van Drebel anticipate by one hundred and fifty years the discovery
of oxygen: the life-giving “Quintessence” of air? Even if he did, it
is incredible that he should have found a liquid, utterly unknown to
modern chemistry, capable of giving off that gas so freely that a few
gallons would restore the oxygen to a confined body of air as fast
as fifteen or twenty men could consume it by breathing. Perhaps his
“Chymicall liquor” instead of producing oxygen directly, increased the
proportion of it in the atmosphere by absorbing the carbonic acid gas.
The Abbé de Hautefeullie, who wrote in 1680 on “Methods of breathing
under water,” made the following shrewd guess at the nature of the
apparatus:
“Drebel’s secret was probably the machine which I had imagined,
consisting of a bellows with two valves and two tubes resting on the
surface of the water, the one bringing down air and the other sending
it back. By speaking of a volatile essence which restored the nitrous
parts consumed by respiration, Drebel evidently wished to disguise his
invention and prevent others from finding out its real nature.”
[Illustration:
Courtesy of the Scientific American.
The _Rotterdam Boat_.]
It is a very great pity that we know no more about these earliest
submarines. Cornelius Van Drebel died in 1634, at the age of sixty-two,
without leaving any written notes or oral descriptions. We must not
think too hardly of this inventor of three centuries ago, unguarded
by patent laws, for making a mystery of his discoveries. He had to
be a showman as well as a scientist, or his noble patrons would have
lost all interest in his “ingenious machines,” and mystery is half
of the showman’s game. Besides his “eel-boats,” Van Drebel is said
to have invented a wonderful globe with which he imitated perpetual
motion and illustrated the course of the sun, moon, and stars; an
incubator, a refrigerator, “Virginals that played of themselves,” and
other marvels too numerous to mention. Half scientist, half charlatan,
wholly medieval in appearance, with his long furred gown and long, fair
beard, Cornelius Van Drebel marches picturesquely at the head of the
procession of inventors who have made possible the modern submarine.
Eighteen years after Van Drebel’s death, a Frenchman named Le Son
built a submarine at Rotterdam. This craft, which is usually referred
to as the _Rotterdam Boat_, was 72 feet long, 12 feet high, and of 8
foot beam. It was built of wood, with sharply tapering ends, and had
a superstructure whose sloping sides were designed to deflect cannon
balls that might be fired at the boat while traveling on the surface,
while iron-shod legs protected the hull when resting on the sea bottom.
A single paddle-wheel amidships was to propel the boat,--just how, the
inventor never revealed. Like so many other submarines, the _Rotterdam
Boat_ was built primarily to be used against the British fleet. But it
failed to interest either the Dutch or French minister of marine, and
never went into action.
The earliest known contemporary picture of a submarine vessel appeared
in the “Gentleman’s Magazine,” in 1747. It showed a cross section of an
underwater boat built and navigated on the Thames by one Symons. This
was a decked-over row-boat, propelled by four pairs of oars working
in water-tight joints of greased leather. To submerge his vessel,
Symons admitted water into a number of large leather bottles, placed
inside the hull with their open mouth passing through holes in the
bottom. When he wished to rise, he would squeeze out the water with a
lever and bind up the neck of each emptied bottle with string. This
ingenious device was not original with Mr. Symons, but was invented by
a Frenchman named Borelli in 1680.
Submarine navigation was a century and a half old before it claimed
its first victim. J. Day, an English mechanic, rebuilt a small boat so
that he was able to submerge it in thirty feet of water, with himself
on board, and remain there for twenty-four hours with no ill effect.
At the end of this time, Day rose to the surface, absolutely certain
of his ability to repeat the experiment at any depth. But how could he
turn this to practical account?
[Illustration: Symons’s Submarine.]
It was an age of betting, when gentlemen could always be found to risk
money on any wager, however fantastic. Day found a financial backer in
a Mr. Blake, who advanced him the money to buy a fifty-ton sloop and
fit it with a strong water-tight compartment amidships. Ten tons of
ballast were placed in the hold and twenty more hung outside the hull
by four iron rods passing through the passenger’s compartment. When the
rest of the boat was filled with water, it would sink to the bottom,
to rise again when the man inside released the twenty tons of outer
ballast.
Shut in the water-tight compartment of this boat, Day sank to the
bottom of Plymouth Harbor, at 2 P.M., Tuesday, June 28, 1774, to decide
a bet that he could remain twelve hours at a depth of twenty-two
fathoms (132 feet). When, at the expiration of this time, the submarine
failed to reappear, Mr. Blake called on the captain of a near-by
frigate for help. Bluejackets from the warship and workmen from the
dockyard were set to work immediately to grapple for the sunken craft
and raise her to the surface, but to no avail. The great pressure
of water at that depth--150 feet is the limit of safety for many
modern submarines--must have crushed in the walls of the water-tight
compartment without giving Day time enough to release the outer ballast
and rise to safety.
CHAPTER II
DAVID BUSHNELL’S “TURTLE”
In the first week of September, 1776, the American army defending New
York still held Manhattan Island, but nothing more. Hastily improvised,
badly equipped, and worse disciplined, it had been easily defeated by a
superior invading force of British regulars and German mercenaries in
the battle of Long Island. Brooklyn had fallen; from Montauk Point to
the East River, all was the enemy’s country. Staten Island, too, was
an armed and hostile land. After the fall of the forts on both sides
of the Narrows, the British fleet had entered the Upper Bay, and even
landed marines and infantry on Governor’s Island. Grimly guarding the
crowded transports, the ship-of-the-line _Asia_ and the frigate _Eagle_
lay a little above Staten Island, with their broadsides trained on the
doomed city.
In the mouth of the North River, not a biscuit-toss from the Battery,
floated the brass conning-tower of an American submarine.
It was the only submarine in the world and its inventor called it
the _Turtle_. He called it that because it looked like one: a turtle
floating with its tail down and a conning-tower for a head. It has
also been compared to a modern soldier’s canteen with an extra-large
mouthpiece, or a hardshell clam wearing a silk hat. It was deeper than
it was long and not much longer than it was broad. It had no periscope,
torpedo tubes, or cage of white mice. But the _Turtle_ was a submarine,
for all that.
Its inventor was a Connecticut Yankee, Mr. David Bushnell, later
Captain Bushnell of the corps of sappers and miners and in the opinion
of his Excellency General Washington “a man of great mechanical powers,
fertile in invention and master of execution.” Bushnell was born in
Saybrook and educated at Yale, where he graduated with the class of
1775. During his four years as an undergraduate, he spent most of his
spare time solving the problem of exploding gunpowder under water. A
water-tight case would keep his powder dry, but how could he get a
spark inside to explode it? Percussion caps had not yet been invented,
but Bushnell took the flintlock from a musket and had it snapped by
clockwork that could be wound up and set for any desired length of time.
[Illustration: The Submarine of 1776.
(As described by its operator.)]
“The first experiment I made,” wrote Bushnell in a letter to Thomas
Jefferson when the latter was American minister to France in 1789, “was
with about 2 ounces of powder, which I exploded 4 feet under water, to
prove to some of the first personages in Connecticut that powder would
take fire under water.
“The second experiment was made with 2 lb. of powder enclosed in a
wooden bottle and fixed under a hogshead, with a 2-inch oak plank
between the hogshead and the powder. The hogshead was loaded with
stones as deep as it could swim; a wooden pipe, descending through the
lower head of the hogshead and through the plank into the bottle, was
primed with powder. A match put to the priming exploded the powder,
which produced a very great effect, rending the plank into pieces,
demolishing the hogshead, and casting the stones and the ruins of
the hogshead, with a body of water, many feet into the air, to the
astonishment of the spectators. This experiment was likewise made for
the satisfaction of the gentlemen above mentioned.”
Governor Trumbull of Connecticut was among the “first personages”
present at these experiments, which so impressed him and his council
that they appropriated enough money for Bushnell to build the _Turtle_.
The Nutmeg State was thus the first “world-power” to have a submarine
in its navy.[4]
The hull of the _Turtle_ was not made of copper, as is sometimes
stated, but was “built of oak, in the strongest manner possible,
corked and tarred.”[5] The conning-tower was of brass and also served
as a hatch-cover. The hatchway was barely big enough for the one man
who made up the entire crew to squeeze through. Once inside, the
operator could screw the cover down tight, and look out through “three
round doors, one directly in front and one on each side, large enough
to put the hand through. When open they admitted fresh air.” On top of
the conning-tower were two air-pipes “so constructed that they shut
themselves whenever the water rose near their tops, so that no water
could enter through them and opened themselves immediately after they
rose above the water.
“The vessel was chiefly ballasted with lead fixed to its bottom; when
this was not sufficient a quantity was placed within, more or less
according to the weight of the operator; its ballast made it so stiff
that there was no danger of oversetting. The vessel, with all its
appendages and the operator, was of sufficient weight to settle it very
low in the water. About 200 lb. of lead at the bottom for ballast could
be let down 40 or 50 feet below the vessel; this enabled the operator
to rise instantly to the surface of the water in case of accident.”
The operator sat on an oaken brace that kept the two sides of the
boat from being crushed in by the water-pressure, and did things with
his hands and feet. He must have been as busy as a cathedral organist
on Easter morning. With one foot he opened a brass valve that let
water into the ballast tanks, with the other he worked a force pump to
drive it out. When he had reached an approximate equilibrium, he could
move the submarine up or down, or hold it at any desired depth, by
cranking a small vertical-acting propellor placed just forward of the
conning-tower on the deck above. Before him was the crank of another
propellor, or rather tractor, for it drew, not pushed, the vessel
forward. Behind him was the rudder, which the operator controlled with
a long curved tiller stuck under one arm.
[Illustration: The Best-known Picture of Bushnell’s _Turtle_.
Drawn by Lieutenant F. M. Barber, U. S. N., in 1875.]
Bushnell, in his letter to Jefferson, calls each of these propellors
“an oar, formed upon the principle of the screw,” and the best-known
picture of the _Turtle_ shows a bearded gentleman in nineteenth-century
clothes boring his way through the water with two big gimlets.
But Sergeant Ezra Lee of the Connecticut Line, who did the actual
operating, described the submarine’s forward propellor (he makes no
mention of the other) as having two wooden blades or “oars, of about
12 inches in length and 4 or 5 in width, shaped like the arms of a
windmill.” Except in size, this device must have looked very much like
the wooden-bladed tractor of a modern aeroplane.
“These oars,” noted Judge Griswold on the letter before forwarding it
to General Humphrey, “were fixed on the end of a shaft like windmill
arms projected out forward, and turned at right angles with the
course of the machine; and upon the same principles that wind-mill
arms are turned by the wind, these oars, when put in motion as the
writer describes, draw the machine slowly after it. This moving power
is small, and every attendant circumstance must coöperate with it to
answer the purpose--calm waters and no current.”
“With hard labor,” said Lee, “the machine might be impelled at the rate
of ‘3 nots’ an hour for a short time.”
Sergeant Lee volunteered “to learn the ways and mystery of this new
machine” because the original operator, Bushnell’s brother, “was taken
sick in the campaign of 1776 at New York before he had an opportunity
to make use of his skill, and never recovered his health sufficiently
afterwards.” While Lee was still struggling with the “mystery” in
practice trips on Long Island Sound, the British fleet entered New
York Harbor. The submarine was at once hurried to New Rochelle, carted
overland to the Hudson, and towed down to the city.
At slack tide on the first calm night after his arrival, Lee screwed
down the conning-tower of the _Turtle_ above his head and set out to
attack the British fleet.[6] Two whaleboats towed him as near as they
dared and then cast off. Running awash, with not more than six or seven
inches of the conning-tower exposed, the submarine crept, silent and
unseen, down the bay and up under the towering stern of his Britannic
Majesty’s 64-gun frigate _Eagle_.
“When I rowed under the stern of the ship,” wrote Sergeant Lee in after
years, “I could see the men on deck and hear them talk. I then shut
down all the doors, sunk down and came under the bottom of the ship.”
Up through the top of the submarine ran a long sharp gimlet, not for
boring a hole through the bottom of a ship, but to be screwed into
the wooden hull and left there, to serve as an anchor for a mine.
Tied to the screw and carried on the after-deck of the _Turtle_ was
an egg-shaped “magazine,” made of two hollowed-out pieces of oak and
containing one hundred and fifty pounds of gunpowder, with a clockwork
time-fuse that would begin to run as soon as the operator cast off
the magazine after making fast the screw. Everything seemed ready for
Sergeant Lee to anticipate Lieutenant Commander Von Weddigen by one
hundred and thirty-eight years.
But no matter how hard the strong-wristed sergeant turned the handle,
he could not drive the screw into the frigate’s hull. The _Eagle_ was
copper-sheathed![7]
“I pulled along to try another place,” said Lee, “but deviated a
little to one side and immediately rose with great velocity and came
above the surface 2 or 3 feet, between the ship and the daylight,
then sunk again like a porpoise. I hove about to try again, but on
further thought I gave out, knowing that as soon as it was light the
ships’ boats would be rowing in all directions, and I thought the best
generalship was to retreat as fast as I could, as I had 4 miles to go
before passing Governor’s Island. So I jogg’d on as fast as I could.”
To enable him to steer a course when submerged, Lee had before him a
compass, most ingeniously illuminated with phosphorescent pieces of
rotten wood. But for some reason this proved to be of no use.
[Illustration: Another Idea of Bushnell’s _Turtle_.]
“I was obliged to rise up every few minutes to see that I sailed in
the right direction, and for this purpose keeping the machine on the
surface of the water and the doors open. I was much afraid of getting
aground on the island, as the tide of the flood set on the north point.
“While on my passage up to the city, my course, owing to the above
circumstances, was very crooked and zig-zag, and the enemy’s attention
was drawn towards me from Governor’s Island. When I was abreast of the
fort on the island, 3 or 400 men got upon the parapet to observe me;
at length a number came down to the shore, shoved off a 12 oar’d barge
with 5 or 6 sitters and pulled for me. I eyed them, and when they had
got within 50 or 60 yards of me I let loose the magazine in hopes that
if they should take me they would likewise pick up the magazine, and
then we should all be blown up together. But as kind Providence would
have it, they took fright and returned to the island to my infinite
joy. I then weathered the island, and our people seeing me, came off
with a whaleboat and towed me in. The magazine, after getting a little
past the island, went off with a tremendous explosion, throwing up
large bodies of water to an immense height.”
A few days afterwards, the British forces landed on Manhattan Island
at what is now the foot of East Thirty-fourth Street, and Washington’s
army hastily withdrew to the Harlem Heights, above One Hundred and
Twenty-fifth Street. A British frigate sailed up the Hudson and
anchored off Bloomingdale, or between Seventy-second and One Hundred
and Tenth Streets, in the same waters where our Atlantic fleet lies
whenever it comes to town. Here Sergeant Lee in the _Turtle_ made two
more attempts. But the first time he was discovered by the watch,
and when he approached again, submerged, the phosphorus-painted cork
that served as an indicator in his crude but ingenious depth-gage,
got caught and deceived him so that he dived completely under the
warship without touching her. Shortly after this, the frigate came
up the river, overhauled the sloop on which the _Turtle_ was being
transported, and sent it to the bottom, submarine and all.
[Illustration: Ezra Lee.
Born at Lyme, Conn., Jan. 21, 1749,
Died at Lyme, Conn., Oct. 29, 1821.
From original painting in possession of his descendant, Mrs. Daniel
Whitney, 5117 Pulaski Avenue, Germantown, Pa.
]
“Though I afterwards recovered the vessel,” Bushnell wrote to
Jefferson, “I found it impossible at that time to prosecute the design
any further. I had been in a bad state of health from the beginning
of my undertaking, and was now very unwell; the situation of public
affairs was such that I despaired of obtaining the public attention
and the assistance necessary. I was unable to support myself and the
persons I must have employed had I proceeded. Besides, I found it
absolutely necessary that the operators should acquire more skill in
the management of the vessel before I could expect success, which would
have taken up some time, and no small additional expense. I therefore
gave over the pursuit for that time and waited for a more favorable
opportunity, which never arrived.
“In the year 1777 I made an attempt from a whaleboat against the
_Cerberus_ frigate, then lying at anchor between Connecticut River and
New London, by drawing a machine against her side by means of a line.
The machine was loaded with powder, to be exploded by a gun-lock, which
was to be unpinioned by an apparatus to be turned by being brought
alongside of the frigate. This machine fell in with a schooner at
anchor astern of the frigate, and concealed from my sight. By some
means or other it was fired, and demolished the schooner and three men,
and blew the only one left alive overboard, who was taken up very much
hurt.[8]
“After this I fixed several kegs under water, charged with powder, to
explode upon touching anything as they floated along with the tide.
I set them afloat in the Delaware, above the English shipping at
Philadelphia, in December, 1777. I was unacquainted with the river, and
obliged to depend upon a gentleman very imperfectly acquainted with
that part of it, as I afterwards found. We went as near the shipping as
we durst venture; I believe the darkness of the night greatly deceived
him, as it did me. We set them adrift to fall with the ebb upon the
shipping. Had we been within sixty rods I believe they must have fallen
in with them immediately, as I designed; but, as I afterwards found,
they were set adrift much too far distant, and did not arrive until,
after being detained some time by frost, they advanced in the day-time
in a dispersed situation and under great disadvantages. One of them
blew up a boat with several persons in it who imprudently handled it
too freely, and thus gave the British the alarm which brought on the
battle of the kegs.”
The agitated redcoats lined the banks and blazed away at every bit
of drifting wreckage in the river, as described by a sarcastic
Revolutionary poet in “The Battle of the Kegs.”
Gallants attend, and hear a friend
Troll forth harmonious ditty,
Strange things I’ll tell that once befell
In Philadelphia city.
’Twas early day, as poets say,
Just as the sun was rising,
A soldier stood on a log of wood
And saw a thing surprising.
As in amaze he stood to gaze,
The truth can’t be denied, sir,
He spied a score of kegs or more
Come floating down the tide, sir.
* * * * *
These kegs, I’m told, the rebels hold
Packed up like pickled herring,
And they’re coming down to attack the town,
In this new way of ferrying.
* * * * *
Therefore prepare for bloody war,
The kegs must all be routed,
Or surely we despised shall be
And British valor doubted.
The royal band now ready stand
All ranged in dread array, sir,
With stomach stout to see it out
And make a bloody day, sir.
The cannon roar from shore to shore,
The small arms make a rattle,
Since wars began, I’m sure no man
E’er saw so strange a battle.
The kegs, ’tis said, though strongly made,
Of rebel staves and hoops, sir,
Could not oppose their powerful foes,
The conquering British troops, sir.
David Bushnell was later captured by the British, who failed to
recognize him and soon released him as a harmless civilian. After the
Revolution he went to France, and then to Georgia, where disgusted with
the Government’s neglect of himself and his invention he changed his
name to “Dr. Bush.” He was eighty-four years old when he died in 1826.
His identity was then revealed in his will.
Bushnell found the submarine boat a useless plaything and made it a
formidable weapon. To him it owes the propellor, the conning-tower,
and the first suggestion of the torpedo. The _Turtle_ was not only the
first American submarine but the forerunner of the undersea destroyer
of to-day.
“I thought and still think that it was an effort of genius,” declared
George Washington to Thomas Jefferson, “but that too many things were
necessary to be combined to expect much against an enemy who are always
on guard.”
CHAPTER III
ROBERT FULTON’S “NAUTILUS”
Robert Fulton was probably the first American who ever went to Paris
for the purpose of selling war-supplies to the French government.
Unlike his compatriots of to-day, he found anything but a ready market.
For three years, beginning in 1797, Fulton tried constantly but vainly
to interest the Directory in his plans for a submarine. Though a
commission appointed to examine his designs reported favorably, the
minister of marine would have nothing to do with them. Fulton built a
beautiful little model submarine of mahogany and exhibited it, but with
no results. He made an equally fruitless attempt to sell his invention
to Holland, then called the Batavian Republic. Nobody seemed to have
the slightest belief or interest in submarines.
But Fulton was a persistent man or he would never have got his name
into the history books. He stayed in Paris, where his friend Joel
Barlow was American minister, and supported himself by inventing and
exhibiting what he called “the pictures”: the first moving pictures
the world had ever seen. These were panoramas, where the picture was
not thrown on the screen by a lantern but painted on it, and the long
roll of painted canvas was unrolled like a film between two large
spools on opposite sides of the stage. Very few people remember that
Robert Fulton invented the panorama, though only a generation ago the
great panorama of the battle of Gettysburg drew and thrilled as large
audiences as a film like “The Birth of a Nation” does to-day. Fulton
painted his own panoramas himself, for he was an artist before he was
an engineer. He made three of them and had to build a separate little
theater to show each one in. The Parisians were so well pleased with
this novelty that they made up a song about the panoramas, and the
street where the most popular of the three was shown is still called
“La Rue Fulton.” The picture that won the inventor this honor was a
panorama of the burning of Moscow--not the burning of the city to
drive out Napoleon, for that came a dozen years later, but an earlier
conflagration, some time in the eighteenth century.
Napoleon overthrew the Directory and became First Consul and absolute
ruler of France in 1800. He appointed three expert naval engineers to
examine Fulton’s plans, and on their approval, Napoleon advanced him
10,000 francs to build a submarine.
Construction was begun at once and the boat was finished in May, 1801.
She was a remarkably modern-looking craft, and a great improvement on
everything that had gone before. She was the first submarine to have a
fish-shaped, metal hull. It was built of copper plating on iron ribs,
and was 21 feet 3 inches long and 6 feet 5 inches in diameter at the
thickest point, which was well forward. A heavy keel gave stability and
immediately above it were the water-ballast tanks for submerging the
vessel. Two men propelled the boat when beneath the surface by turning
a hand-winch geared to the shaft of a two-bladed, metal propellor.
(Fulton called the propellor a “fly,” and got the idea of it from the
little windmill-shaped device placed in the throat of an old-fashioned
fireplace to be revolved by the hot air passing up the chimney and used
to turn the roasting-spit in many a French kitchen for centuries past.)
The third member of the crew stood in the dome-shaped conning-tower
and steered, while Fulton himself controlled the pumps, valves, and
the diving-planes or horizontal rudders that steered the submarine up
and down. Instead of forcing his boat under with a vertical-acting
screw, like Bushnell and Nordenfelt (see pages 16 and 62), Fulton,
like Holland, made her dive bow-foremost by depressing her nose with
the diving-planes and shoving her under by driving her ahead. Fulton
was also the first to give a submarine separate means of propulsion
for above and below the surface. Just as a modern undersea boat uses
oil-engines whenever it can and saves its storage batteries for use
when submerged, Fulton spared the strength of his screw by rigging
the _Nautilus_ with a mast and sail. By pulling a rope from inside
the vessel, the sail could be shut up like a fan, and the hinged mast
lowered and stowed away in a groove on deck. Later a jib was added to
the mainsail, and the two combined gave the _Nautilus_ a surface speed
of two knots an hour. She is the only submarine on record that could go
faster below the water than above it, for her two-man-power propellor
bettered this by half a knot.
[Illustration: The _Nautilus_, Invented by Robert Fulton.
A-B, Hull; C-D, Keel; E-E, Pumps; F, Conning Tower; G, Bulkhead;
H, Propellor; I, Vertical Rudder; L, Horizontal Rudder
(diving-plane); M, Pivot attaching horizontal to vertical
rudder; N, Gear controlling horizontal rudder; O, “Horn of the
_Nautilus_;” P, Torpedo; Q, Hull of vessel attacked; X, Anchor;
Y, Mast and sail for use on surface.
]
Her method of attack was the same as the _Turtle’s_. Up through the
top of the conning-tower projected what Fulton called the “Horn of the
Nautilus.” This was an eyeleted spike, to be driven into the bottom of
a hostile ship and left there. From a windlass carried in a water-tight
forward compartment of the submarine, a thin, strong tow-rope ran
through the eyehole in the spike to the trigger of a flintlock inside
a copper case nearly full of gunpowder, which was not carried on deck,
as on the _Turtle_, but towed some distance astern. As soon as this
powder-case came to a full stop against the spike, the tow-rope would
pull the trigger.
Robert Fulton felt the lack of a distinctive name for such an
under-water charge of explosives, till he thought of its likeness to
the electric ray, that storage battery of a fish that gives a most
unpleasant shock to any one touching it. So he took the first half of
this creature’s scientific name: _Torpedo electricus_. Fulton had a
knack for picking good names. He called his submarine the _Nautilus_
because it had a sail which it opened and folded away even as the
beautiful shellfish of that name was supposed to furl and unfurl its
large, sail-like membrane.
On her first trial on the Seine at Paris, in May, 1801, the _Nautilus_
remained submerged for twenty minutes with Fulton and one other
man on board, and a lighted candle for them to navigate by. This
consumed too much air, however, so a small glass window was placed
in the conning-tower, and gave light enough instead. Four men were
then able to remain under for an hour. After that, Fulton made the
first compressed-air tank, a copper globe containing a cubic foot
of compressed air, by drawing on which the submarine’s crew could
stay under for six hours. This was in the harbor of Brest, where the
_Nautilus_ had been taken overland. A trial attack was made on an old
bulk, which was successfully blown up. The submarine also proved its
ability either to furl its sails and dive quickly out of sight, or to
cruise for a considerable distance on the surface. Once it sailed for
seventy miles down the English Channel.
Fulton had planned a submarine campaign for scaring the British navy
and merchant marine out of the narrow seas and so bringing Great
Britain to her knees, more than a century before the German emperor
proclaimed his famous “war zone” around the British Isles. In one of
his letters to the Directory, the American inventor declared that:
“The enormous commerce of England, no less than its monstrous
Government, depends upon its military marine. Should some vessels of
war be destroyed by means so novel, so hidden, and so incalculable, the
confidence of the seamen will vanish and the fleet will be rendered
useless from the moment of the first terror.”
To a friend in America, Fulton wrote from Paris on November 20, 1798:
“I would ask any one if all the American difficulties during this war
are not owing to the naval systems of Europe and a licensed robbery
on the ocean? How then is America to prevent this? Certainly not by
attempting to build a fleet to cope with the fleets of Europe, but if
possible by rendering the European fleets useless.”
Fulton began his campaign by an attack on two brigs, the nearest
vessels of the English blockading fleet. But whenever the _Nautilus_
left port for this purpose, both brigs promptly stood out to sea and
remained there till the submarine went home. Unknown to Fulton, his
actions were being closely watched by the English secret service, whose
spies were always able to send a timely warning to the British fleet.
During the day time, when the _Nautilus_ was about, the warships were
kept under full sail, with lookouts in the crosstrees watching with
telescopes for the first glimpse of its sail or conning-tower. At
night, the frigates and ships-of-the-line were guarded by picket-boats
rowing round and round them, just as modern dreadnoughts are guarded by
destroyers.
Disappointed by the lack of results, the French naval authorities
refused either to let Fulton build a larger and more efficient
submarine, or to grant commissions in the navy to him and his crew. He
wanted some assurance that in case they were captured they would not
be hanged by the British, who then as now denounced submarine warfare
by others as little better than piracy. To guarantee their own safety,
Fulton proposed that the French government threaten to retaliate by
hanging an equal number of English prisoners, but it was pointed out
to him that this would only lead to further executions by the British,
who had many more French prisoners of war than there were captive
Englishmen in France.
Napoleon had lost faith in the submarine, nor could Fulton interest
him in a steamboat which he now built and operated on the Seine, till
it was sunk by the weight of the machinery breaking the hull in two.
So Fulton quit France and crossed over to England, where Mr. Pitt, the
prime minister, was very much interested in his inventions.
Fulton succeeded in planting one of his torpedoes under an old empty
Danish brig, the _Dorothea_, in Deal Harbor, in front of Walmer Castle,
Pitt’s own residence, on October 15, 1805. The prime minister had had
to hurry back to London, but there were many naval officers present,
and one of them declared loudly that he would be quite unconcerned
if he were sitting at dinner at that moment in the cabin of the
_Dorothea_. Ten minutes later the clockwork ran out and the torpedo
exploded, breaking the brig in two amidships and hurling the fragments
high in the air. The success of this experiment was not entirely
pleasing to the heads of the British navy. Their opinion was voiced by
Admiral Lord St. Vincent, who declared that:
“Pitt was the greatest fool that ever existed, to encourage a mode
of war which they who command the seas did not want and which if
successful would deprive them of it.”
[Illustration: Destruction of the _Dorothea_.
From a woodcut by Robert Fulton.]
Six days after the destruction of the _Dorothea_, the sea-power of
France was broken by Nelson at the battle of Trafalgar. Napoleon now
gave up all hope of gaining the few hours’ control of the Channel that
would have enabled him to invade England, and broke up the camp of
his Grand Army that had waited so long at Boulogne. With this danger
gone, England was no longer interested in submarines and torpedoes. So
Fulton returned to America, to build the _Clairmont_ and win his place
in history. But to him, steam navigation was far less important than
submarine warfare. In the letter to his old friend Joel Barlow, dated
New York, August 22, 1807, in which he described the first voyage of
the _Clairmont_ up the Hudson, Fulton said:
“However, I will not admit that it is half so important as the torpedo
system of defense or attack, for out of this will grow the liberty of
the seas--an object of infinite importance to the welfare of America
and every civilized country. But thousands of witnesses have now seen
the steamboat in rapid movement and they believe; but they have not
seen a ship of war destroyed by a torpedo, and they do not believe. We
cannot expect people in general to have knowledge of physics or power
to reason from cause to effect, but in case we have war and the enemy’s
ships come into our waters, if the government will give me reasonable
means of action, I will soon convince the world that we have surer and
cheaper modes of defense than they are aware of.”
Fulton had been having his troubles with the navy department. Soon
after his return to this country he had made his usual demonstration
of torpedoing a small anchored vessel, but it was not until 1810 that
he was given the opportunity to make a test attack on a United States
warship. But stout old Commodore Rogers, who had been entrusted with
the defense of the brig _Argus_, under which Fulton was to plant a
torpedo, anchored the vessel in shallow water, stretched a tight wall
of spars and netting all round her, and successfully defied the
inventor to blow her up. Even a modern destroyer or submarine would
be puzzled to get past this defense. Though compelled to admit his
failure, Fulton pointed out that “a system then in its infancy, which
compelled a hostile vessel to guard herself by such extraordinary
means, could not fail of becoming a most important mode of warfare.”
It was a great triumph for conservatism--the same spirit of
conservatism that threatens to send our navy into its next war with
no battle-cruisers, too few scouts and sea-planes, and the slowest
dreadnoughts in the world. Though Fulton published a wonderful
little book on “Torpedo War and Submarine Explosions” in New York in
1810, the United States navy made no use of it in the War of 1812.
A privateer submarine from Connecticut made three dives under the
British battleship _Ramillies_ off New London, but failed to attach
a torpedo for the old reason: copper sheathing. Further attacks were
prevented by the captain of the _Ramillies_, who gave notice that he
had had a number of American prisoners placed on board as hostages.
Fulton himself was hard at work superintending the building both of the
_Demologos_, the first steam-propelled battleship, and the _Mute_, a
large armored submarine that was to carry a silent engine and a crew of
eighty men, when he died in 1815.
CHAPTER IV
SUBMARINES IN THE CIVIL WAR
The most powerful battleship in the world, half a century ago, was the
U.S.S. _New Ironsides_. She was a wooden-hulled, ship-rigged steamer
of 3486 tons displacement--about one tenth the size of a modern
superdreadnought--her sides plated with four inches of iron armor, and
carrying twenty heavy guns. On the night of October 5, 1863, the _New
Ironsides_ was on blockade duty off Charleston Harbor, when Ensign
Howard, the officer of the deck, saw something approaching that looked
like a floating plank. He hailed it, and was answered by a rifle ball
that stretched him, mortally wounded, on the deck. An instant later
came the flash and roar of a tremendous explosion, a column of water
shot high into the air alongside, and the _New Ironsides_ was shaken
violently from stem to stern.
The Confederate submarine _David_ had crept up and driven a
spar-torpedo against Goliath’s armor.
But except for a few splintered timbers, a flooded engine-room, and a
marine’s broken leg, no damage had been done. As the Confederate craft
was too close and too low in the water for the broadside guns to bear,
the crew of the ironclad lined the rail and poured volley after volley
of musketry into their dimly seen adversary till she drifted away into
the night. Her crew of seven men had dived overboard at the moment of
impact, and were all picked up by different vessels of the blockading
fleet, except the engineer and one other, who swam back to the _David_,
started her engine again, and brought her safely home to Charleston.
[Illustration: Views of a Confederate _David_.
From Scharf’s History of the Confederate States Navy.]
The _David_ was a cigar-shaped steam launch, fifty-four feet long
and six feet broad at the thickest point. Projecting from her bow
was a fifteen-foot spar, with a torpedo charged with sixty pounds of
gunpowder at the end of it. This was exploded by the heat given off by
certain chemicals, after they were shaken up together by the impact
of the torpedo against the enemy’s ship. The _David_, steaming at her
full speed of seven knots an hour, struck squarely against the _New
Ironsides_ at the water-line and rebounded to a distance of seven or
eight feet before this clumsy detonator could do its work. When the
explosion came, the intervening body of water prevented it from doing
any great damage.
The _David_ was not a true submarine but a surface torpedo boat, that
could be submerged till only the funnel and a small pilot-house were
exposed. A number of other _Davids_ were built and operated by the
Confederate States navy, but the first of them was the only one to
accomplish anything.
[Illustration: C. S. S. _Hundley_.
The Only Submarine to sink a Hostile Warship before the Outbreak of the
Present War.]
The one real submarine possessed by the Confederacy was not a _David_,
though she is usually so called. This was the C.S.S. _Hundley_, a
hand-power “diving-boat” not unlike Fulton’s _Nautilus_, but very
much clumsier and harder to manage. She had ballast tanks and a pair
of diving-planes for steering her up and down, and she was designed
to attack an enemy’s ship by swimming under it, towing a torpedo that
would explode on striking her opponent’s keel.
The _Hundley_ was built at Mobile, Alabama, by the firm of Hundley and
McKlintock, named for the senior partner, and brought to Charleston on
a flatcar. There she was manned by a crew of nine volunteers, eight of
whom sat in a row and turned the cranks on the propellor-shaft, while
the ninth man steered. There was no conning-tower and the forward
hatchway had to be left open for the helmsman to look out of while
running on the surface. On the _Hundley’s_ first practice cruise,
the wash from the paddle-wheels of a passing steamer poured suddenly
down the open hatchway. Only the steersman and commanding officer,
Lieutenant Payne, had time to save himself before the submarine sank,
drowning the rest of her crew.
The boat was raised and Payne took her out with a new crew. This time
a sudden squall sank her before they could close the hatches, and
Payne escaped, with two of his men. He tried a third time, only to be
capsized off Fort Sumter, with the loss of four of his crew. On the
fourth trip, the hatches were closed, the tanks filled, and an attempt
was made to navigate beneath the surface. But the _Hundley_ dived too
suddenly, stuck her nose deep into the muddy bottom, and stayed there
till her entire crew were suffocated. On the fifth trial she became
entangled in the cable of an anchored vessel, with the same result.
By this time the submarine’s victims numbered thirty-five, and the
Confederates had nicknamed her the “Peripatetic Coffin.” But at the
sixth call for volunteers, they still came forward. It was decided to
risk no more lives on practice trips but to attack at once. In spite of
the protests of Mr. Hundley, the designer of the craft, her latest and
last commander, Lieutenant Dixon of the 21st South Carolina Infantry,
was ordered by General Beauregard to use the vessel as a surface
torpedo-boat, submerged to the hatch-coaming and with the hatches
open. A spar-torpedo, to be exploded by pulling a trigger with a light
line running back into the boat, was mounted on the bow. Thus armed,
and manned by Lieutenant Dixon, Captain Carlson, and five enlisted
men of their regiment, the little _Hundley_ put out over Charleston
bar on the night of February 17, 1864, to attack some vessel of the
blockading fleet. This proved to be the U.S.S. _Housatonic_, a fine new
thirteen-gun corvette of 1264 tons. What followed is best described by
Admiral David Porter in his “Naval History of the Civil War.”
“At about 8.45 P.M., the officer of the deck on board the unfortunate
vessel discovered something about 100 yards away, moving along the
water. It came directly towards the ship, and within two minutes of
the time it was first sighted was alongside. The cable was slipped,
the engines backed, and all hands called to quarters. But it was too
late--the torpedo struck the _Housatonic_ just forward of the mainmast,
on the starboard side, on a line with the magazine. The man who steered
her (the _Hundley_) knew where the vital spots of the steamer were and
he did his work well. When the explosion took place the ship trembled
all over as if by the shock of an earthquake, and seemed to be lifted
out of the water, and then sank stern-foremost, heeling to port as she
went down.”
The _Hundley_ was not seen after the explosion, and it was supposed
that she had backed away and escaped. But when peace came, and
Charleston Harbor was being cleared of the wrecks with which war had
clogged it, the divers sent down to inspect the _Housatonic_ found the
_Hundley_ lying beside her. Sucked in by the rush of the water through
the hole her torpedo had made, she had been caught and dragged down by
her own victim. All the _Hundley’s_ crew were found dead within her. So
perished the first and last submarine to sink a hostile warship, before
the outbreak of the present war. A smaller underwater boat of the same
type was privately built at New Orleans at the beginning of the war,
lost on her trial trip, and not brought up again till after peace was
declared.
The North had a hand-power submarine, that was built at the Georgetown
Navy Yard in 1862. It was designed by a Frenchman, whose name is now
forgotten but who might have been a contemporary of Cornelius Van
Drebel. Except that its hull was of steel instead of wood and greased
leather, this first submarine of the United States navy was no better
than an eel-boat of the seventeenth century. It was propelled by eight
pairs of oars, with hinged blades that folded up like a book on the
return stroke. The boat was thirty-five feet long and six in diameter,
and was rowed by sixteen men. It was submerged by flooding ballast
tanks. There was an oxygen tank and an apparatus for purifying the
used air by blowing it over lime. A spar-torpedo was to be run out on
rollers in the bow.
Ten thousand dollars was paid to the inventor of this medieval
leftover, and he prudently left the country before he could be called
on to operate it, though he had been promised a reward of five thousand
dollars for every Confederate ironclad he succeeded in blowing up. Like
the first _Monitor_, this nameless submarine was lost in a storm off
Cape Hatteras, while being towed by a steamer.
After the loss of the _Housatonic_, the North built two
semi-submersible steam torpedo-boats on the same idea as the _David_,
but larger and faster. Both were armed with spar-torpedoes and fitted
with ballast tanks to sink them very low in the water when they
attacked. The smaller of the two, the _Stromboli_, could be submerged
till only her pilot-house, smoke-stack, and one ventilator showed above
the water. The other boat was called the _Spuyten Duyvil_. She could
be sunk till her deck, which was covered with three inches of iron
armor, was level with the water, but she bristled with masts, funnels,
conning-towers, ventilators, and other excrescences that sprouted out
of her hull at the most unexpected places. Neither of these craft was
ever used in action.
CHAPTER V
THE WHITEHEAD TORPEDO
How best to float a charge of explosives against the hull of an enemy’s
ship and there explode it is the great problem of torpedo warfare.
The spar-torpedo, that did such effective work in the Civil War, was
little more than a can of gunpowder on the end of a stick. This stick
or spar was mounted usually on the bow of a steam-launch, either
partially submerged, like the _David_, or boldly running on the surface
over log-booms and through a hail of bullets and grapeshot, as when
Lieutenant Cushing sank the Confederate ironclad _Albemarle_. Once
alongside, the spar-torpedo was run out to its full length, raised,
depressed, and finally fired by pulling different ropes. So small was
the chance of success and so great the danger to the launch’s crew that
naval officers and inventors all the world over sought constantly for
some surer and safer way.
Early in the sixties, an Austrian artillery officer attached to the
coast defenses conceived the idea of sending out the launch without a
crew. He made some drawings of a big toy boat, to be driven by steam or
hot air or even by clockwork, and steered from the shore by long ropes.
As it would have no crew, this boat could carry the explosives in its
hull, and the spars which were to project from it in all directions
would carry no torpedoes themselves but would serve to explode the
boat’s cargo of guncotton by firing a pistol into it, as soon as one of
the spars came into contact with the target. Before he could carry out
his ideas any further, this officer died and his plans were turned over
to Captain Lupuis of the Austrian navy. Lupuis experimented diligently
with surface torpedoes till 1864, but found that he would have to
discover some better steering-device than ropes from the shore and some
other motive-power than steam or clockwork. So he consulted with Mr.
Whitehead, the English manager of a firm of engine manufacturers at the
seaport of Fiume.
Whitehead gave the torpedo a fish-shaped hull, so that it could run
beneath instead of on the surface. For motive-power he used compressed
air, which proved much superior to either steam or clockwork. And by
improving its rudders, he enabled the little craft to keep its course
without the aid of guide-ropes from the shore. The chief defect of the
first Whitehead torpedoes, which were finished and tried in 1866, was
that they kept bobbing to the surface, or else they would dive too
deep and pass harmlessly under the target. To correct this defect,
Whitehead invented by 1868 what he called the “balance chamber.” Then,
as now, each torpedo was divided into a number of separate compartments
or chambers, and in one of these the inventor placed a most ingenious
device for keeping the torpedo at a uniform depth. The contents of the
balance-chamber was Whitehead’s great secret, and it was not revealed
to the public for twenty years.
The automobile or, as it was then called, the “submarine locomotive”
torpedo was now a practicable, though by no means perfected, weapon,
and the Austrian naval authorities gave it a thorough trial at Fiume
in 1868. Whitehead rigged up a crude ejecting tube on the bow of a
gunboat, and successfully discharged two of his torpedoes at a yacht.
The Austrian government promptly adopted the weapon, but could not
obtain a monopoly of it, for Whitehead was a patriotic Englishman.
The British admiralty invited him to England two years later, and
after careful trials of its own, induced the English government to buy
Whitehead’s secret and manufacturing rights for $45,000. Other nations
soon added “Whiteheads” to their navies, and in 1873 there was built in
Norway a large, fast steam launch for the express purpose of carrying
torpedoes and discharging them at an enemy. Every one began to build
larger and swifter launches, till they evolved the torpedo-boat and the
destroyer of to-day.
The torpedo itself has undergone a similar development in size and
efficiency. The difference between the Whiteheads of forty-five years
ago and those of to-day is strikingly shown in the following table:
BRITISH NAVAL TORPEDOES OF 1870
_Length, _Diameter, _Charge, _Range, _Speed,
Feet_ Inches_ Pounds_ Yards_ Knots_
Large 14 16 67 600 7.5
guncotton
Small 13 10.58 in. 14 18 200 8.5
dynamite
BRITISH NAVAL TORPEDOES OF 1915
Large 21 21 330 12,000 48
guncotton
Small 18 18 200 16,000 36
guncotton
The length of a large modern torpedo, it will be observed, is only
three inches less than that of Fulton’s famous submarine boat of 1801.
A Whitehead torpedo is really a small automatic submarine, steered and
controlled by the most ingenious and sensitive machinery, as surely as
if it were manned by a crew of Lilliputian seamen.
Projecting from the head is the “striker,” a rod which, when the
torpedo runs into anything hard, is driven back in against a detonator
or “percussion-cap” of fulminate of mercury. Just as the hammer of
a toy “cap-pistol” explodes a paper cap, so the sudden shock of the
in-driven striker explodes the fulminate, which is instantly expanded
to more than two thousand times its former size. This, in turn, gives a
severe blow to the surrounding “primer” of dry guncotton. The primer is
exploded, and by its own expansion sets off the main charge of several
hundred pounds of wet guncotton.
The reason for this is that though wet guncotton is safe to handle
because a very great shock is required to make it explode, dry
guncotton is much less so, while a shell or torpedo filled with
fulminate of mercury would be more dangerous to its owners than to
their enemies, because the slightest jar might set it off prematurely.
Every precaution is taken to prevent a torpedo’s exploding too soon and
damaging the vessel from which it is fired.
When the torpedo is shot out of the tube, by compressed air, like a pea
from a pea-shooter, the striker is held fast by the “jammer”: a small
propellor-shaped collar, whose blades begin to revolve as soon as they
strike the water, till the collar has unscrewed itself and dropped off
after the torpedo has traveled about forty feet. A copper pin that runs
through the striker-rod is not removed but must be broken short off by
a blow of considerable violence, such as would be given by running into
a ship’s hull. As a third safeguard, there is a strong safety-catch,
that must be released by hand, just before the torpedo is placed in the
tube.
The explosive charge of two or three hundred pounds of wet guncotton
is called the “war-head.” In peace and for target-practice it is
replaced by a dummy head of thick steel. The usual target is the space
between two buoys moored a ship’s length or less apart. At the end
of a practice run, the torpedo rises to the surface, where it can be
recovered and used again. This is distinctly worth while, for a modern
torpedo costs more than seven thousand dollars.
Back of the war-head is the air-chamber, that contains the motive-power
of this miniature submarine. The air is either packed into it by
powerful pumps, on shore or shipboard, or else drawn from one of the
storage flasks of compressed air, a number of which are carried on
every submarine. The air-chamber of a modern torpedo is charged at a
pressure of from 2000 to 2500 pounds per square inch. As the torpedo
leaves the tube, a lever on its back is struck and knocked over by
a little projecting piece of metal, and the starting-valve of the
air-chamber is opened. But if the compressed air were allowed to
reach and start the engines at once, they would begin to revolve the
propellors while they were still in the air inside the tube. This would
cause the screws to “race,” or spin round too rapidly and perhaps
break off. So there is a “delaying-valve,” which keeps the air away
from the engines till another valve-lever is swung over by the impact
of the water against a little metal flap.
As the compressed air rushes through the pipe from the chamber to the
engine-room, it passes through a “reducing-valve,” which keeps it from
spurting at the start and lagging at the finish. By supplying the air
to the engines at a reduced but uniform pressure, this device enables
the torpedo to maintain the same speed throughout the run. At the same
time the compressed air is heated by a small jet of burning oil, with a
consequent increase in pressure, power, and speed, estimated at 30 per
cent. All these devices are kept not in the air-chamber itself but in
the next compartment, the balance-chamber.
Here is the famous little machine, once a close-kept secret but now
known to all the world, that holds the torpedo at any desired depth.
Think of a push-button, working in a tube open to the sea, with the
water pressure pushing the button in and a spiral spring inside shoving
it out. This push-button--called a “hydrostatic valve”--is connected
by a system of levers with the two diving-planes or horizontal rudders
that steer the torpedo up or down. By turning a screw, the spring
can be adjusted to exert a force equal to the pressure of the water
at any given depth. If the torpedo dives too deep, the increased
water-pressure forces in the valve, moves the levers, raises the
diving-planes, and steers the torpedo towards the surface. As the water
pressure grows less, the spring forces out the valve, depresses the
diving-planes, and brings the miniature submarine down to its proper
depth again. When his torpedoes grew too big to be controlled by the
comparatively feeble force exerted by the hydrostatic valve, Whitehead
invented the “servo-motor”: an auxiliary, compressed-air engine, less
than five inches long, sensitive enough to respond to the slightest
movement of the valve levers but strong enough to steer the largest
torpedo, exactly as the steam steering-gear moves the huge rudder of an
ocean liner.
There is also a heavy pendulum, swinging fore and aft and attached to
the diving-planes, that checks any sudden up-or-down movement of the
torpedo by inclining the planes and restoring the horizontal position.
Next comes the engine-room, with its three-cylinder motor, capable of
developing from thirty-five to fifty-five horse-power. The exhaust air
from the engine passes out through the stern in a constant stream of
bubbles, leaving a broad white streak on the surface of the water as
the torpedo speeds to its mark.
The aftermost compartment is called the buoyancy chamber. Besides
adding to the floatability of the torpedo, this space also holds the
engine shaft and the gear attaching it to the twin propellors. The
first Whiteheads were single-screw boats. But the revolution of the
propellor in one direction set up a reaction that caused the torpedo
itself to partially revolve or heel over in the other, disturbing its
rudders and swerving it from its course. This reaction is neutralized
by using two propellers, one revolving to the right, the other to the
left. Instead of being placed side by side, as on a steamer, they are
mounted one behind the other, with the shaft of one revolving inside
the hollow shaft of the other, and in the opposite direction.
Long after they could be depended on to keep a proper depth, the
Whiteheads and other self-propelled torpedoes were liable to swing
suddenly to port or starboard, or even turn completely round. During
the war between Chile and Peru, in 1879, the Peruvian ironclad
_Huascar_ discharged an automobile torpedo that went halfway to the
target, changed its mind, and was coming back to blow up its owners
when an officer swam out to meet it and succeeded in turning it aside,
for the torpedoes of that time were slow and small as well as erratic.
Nowadays a torpedo is kept on a straight course by a gyroscope placed
in the buoyancy chamber. Nearly every boy knows the gyroscopic top,
like a little flywheel, that you can spin on the edge of a tumbler.
The upper part of this toy is a heavy little metal wheel, and if you
try to push it over while it is spinning, it resists and pushes back,
as if it were alive. A similar wheel, weighing about two pounds, is
placed in the buoyancy chamber of a Whitehead. When the torpedo starts,
it releases either a powerful spring or an auxiliary compressed air
engine that sets the gyroscope to spinning at more than two thousand
revolutions a minute. It revolves vertically, in the fore-and-aft line
of the torpedo, and is mounted on a pivoted stand. If the torpedo
deviates from its straight course, the gyroscope does not, and the
consequent change in their relative positions brings the flywheel into
contact with a lever running to the servo-motor that controls the two
vertical rudders, which soon set the torpedo right again.
[Illustration: Cross-section of a Whitehead Torpedo.
Redrawn from the Illustrated London News.
A, Striker which, when driven in, fires the charge; B, Safety
pin, which is removed just before the torpedo is discharged;
C, Detonating charge; D, Explosive-head, or war-head; filled
with guncotton; E, Primer charge of dry guncotton in cylinder;
F, Balance chamber; G, Starting pin; H, Buoyancy chamber;
I, Propellor shaft; J, Vertical rudder; K, Twin screws; L,
Horizontal rudder; M, Gyroscope controlling torpedo’s course;
N, Engines propelling machinery; O, Pendulum acting on the
horizontal rudder which controls the depth of submergence; P,
Hydrostatic valve; Q, Air-chamber, filled with compressed air;
provides motive-power for the engines; R, “Jammer” or release
propellor.
]
Thus guided and driven, a modern torpedo speeds swiftly and surely to
its target, there to blow itself into a thousand pieces, with a force
sufficient to sink a ship a thousand times its size.
The Whitehead is used by every navy in the world except the German,
which has its own torpedo: the “Schwartzkopf.” This, however, is
practically identical with the Whitehead, except that its hull is
made of bronze instead of steel and its war-head is charged with
trinitrotuluol, or T.N.T., a much more powerful explosive than
guncotton.
After the Russo-Japanese War, when several Russian battleships kept
afloat although they had been struck by Japanese torpedoes, many naval
experts declared that an exploding war-head spent most of its energy in
throwing a great column of water up into the air, instead of blowing
in the side of the ship. So Commander Davis of the United States navy
invented his “gun-torpedo.” This is like a Whitehead in every respect
except that instead of a charge of guncotton it carries in its head
a short eight-inch cannon loaded with an armor-piercing shell and a
small charge of powder. In this type of torpedo, the impact of the
striker against the target serves to fire the gun. The shell then
passes easily through the thin side of the ship below the armor-belt
and through any protecting coal-bunkers and bulkheads it may encounter,
till it reaches the ship’s vitals, where it is exploded by the delayed
action of an adjustable time-fuse. What would happen if it burst in
a magazine or boiler-room is best left to the imagination. Several
Davis gun-torpedoes have been built and used against targets with very
satisfactory results, but they have not yet been used in actual warfare.
[Illustration:
Courtesy of the Electric Boat Company.
Davis Gun-Torpedo after discharge, showing eight-inch gun forward of
air-flask.]
Mr. Edward F. Chandler, M.E., one of the foremost torpedo-experts in
America, is dissatisfied with the compressed-air driven gyroscope,
both because it does not begin to revolve till after the torpedo has
been launched and perhaps deflected from its true course, and because
it cannot be made to spin continuously throughout the long run of a
modern torpedo. He proposes to remove the compressed-air servo-motors,
both for this purpose and for controlling the horizontal rudders by
the hydrostatic valve, and replace them with an electrical-driven
gyroscope and depth-gear. The increased efficiency of the latter would
enable him to get rid of the heavy, uncertain pendulum, thus allowing
for the weight of the storage batteries. Mr. Chandler declares that
his electrically-controlled torpedo can be lowered over the side of a
small boat, headed in any desired direction, and started, without any
launching-tube.[9]
[Illustration:
Courtesy of the Electric Boat Company.
Effect of Davis Gun-Torpedo on a specially-constructed target.]
Though the automobile torpedo has been brought to so high a state
of perfection, the original idea of steering from the shore has not
been abandoned. The Brennan and Sims-Edison controllable torpedoes
were driven and steered by electricity, receiving the current through
wires trailed astern and carrying little masts and flags above the
surface to guide the operator on shore. But these also served as a
warning to the enemy and gave him too good a chance either to avoid the
torpedo or destroy it with machine-gun fire. Then, too, the trailing
wires reduced its speed and were always liable to get tangled in the
propellors. Controllable torpedoes of this type were abandoned before
the outbreak of the present war and will probably never be used in
action.
A new and more promising sort of controllable torpedo was immediately
suggested by the invention of wireless telegraphy. Many inventors have
been working to perfect such a weapon, and a young American engineer,
Mr. John Hays Hammond, Jr., seems to have succeeded. From his wireless
station on shore, Mr. Hammond can make a small, crewless electric
launch run hither and yon as he pleases about the harbor of Gloucester,
Massachusetts. The commander and many of the officers of the United
States coast artillery corps have carefully inspected and tested this
craft, which promises to be the forerunner of a new and most formidable
species of coast defense torpedo.
CHAPTER VI
FREAKS AND FAILURES
During the half-century following the death of Fulton, scarcely a
year went by without the designing or launching of a new man-power
submarine. Some of these boats, notably those of the Bavarian Wilhelm
Bauer, were surprisingly good, others were most amazingly bad, but none
of them led to anything better. Inventor after inventor wasted his
substance discovering what Van Drebel, Bushnell, and Fulton had known
before him, only to die and have the same facts painfully rediscovered
by some one on the other side of the earth.
A striking example of this lack of progress is Halstead’s _Intelligent
Whale_. Built for the United States navy at New York, in the winter
of 1864-5, this craft is no more modern and much less efficient
than Fulton’s _Nautilus_ of 1801. The _Intelligent Whale_ is a fat,
cigar-shaped, iron vessel propelled by a screw cranked by manpower and
submerged by dropping two heavy anchors to the bottom and then warping
the boat down to any desired depth. A diver can then emerge from a
door in the submarine’s bottom, to place a mine under a hostile ship.
It was not until 1872 that the _Intelligent Whale_ was sent on a trial
trip in Newark Bay. Manned by an utterly inexperienced and very nervous
crew, the clumsy submarine got entirely out of control and had to be
hauled up by a cable that had been thoughtfully attached to her before
she went down. Fortunately no lives had been lost, but the wildest
stories were told and printed, till the imaginary death-roll ran up to
forty-nine. The _Intelligent Whale_ was hauled up on dry land and can
still be seen on exhibition at the corner of Third Street and Perry
Avenue in the Brooklyn Navy Yard.
Lack of motive-power was the reason why man-sized submarines lagged
behind their little automatic brethren, the Whitehead torpedoes.
Compressed air was just the thing for a spurt, but when two Frenchmen,
Captain Bourgois and M. Brun, built the _Plongeur_, a steel submarine
146 feet long and 12 feet in diameter, at Rochefort in 1863, and fitted
it with an eighty-horse-power, compressed-air engine, they discovered
that the storage-flasks emptied themselves too quickly to permit a
voyage of any length.
The _Plongeur_ also proved that while you can sink a boat to the
bottom by filling her ballast-tanks or make her rise to the surface by
emptying them, you cannot make her float suspended between two bodies
of water except by holding her there by some mechanical means. Without
anything of the kind, the _Plongeur_ kept bouncing up and down like a
rubber ball. Once her inventors navigated her horizontally for some
distance, only to find that she had been sliding on her stomach along
the soft muddy bottom of a canal. Better results were obtained after
the _Plongeur_ was fitted with a crude pair of diving-planes. But the
inefficiency of her compressed-air engine caused her to be condemned
and turned into a water tank.
[Illustration: The _Intelligent Whale_.
Drawn by Lieutenant F. M. Barber, U. S. N., in 1875.]
Electricity was first applied in 1861 by another Frenchman, named
Olivier Riou. This is the ideal motive-power for underwater boats, and
it was at this time that Jules Verne described the ideal submarine in
his immortal story of “Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea.” But
before we can have a _Nautilus_ like Captain Nemo’s we must discover an
electric storage battery of unheard-of lightness and capacity.
[Illustration: _Le Plongeur._]
There was a great revival of French interest in electric submarines
after Admiral Aube, who was a lifelong submarine “fan,” became minister
of marine in 1886. In spite of much ridicule and opposition, he
authorized the construction of a small experimental vessel of this type
called the _Gymnote_. She was a wild little thing that did everything
short of turning somersaults when she dived, but she was enough of
a success to be followed by a larger craft named, after the great
engineer who had designed her predecessor, the _Gustave Zédé_.
“The history of the _Gustave Zédé_ shows how much in earnest the French
were in the matter of submarines. When she was first launched she was
a failure in almost every respect, and it was only after some years,
during which many alterations and improvements were carried out, that
she became a serviceable craft. At first nothing would induce the
_Gustave Zédé_ to quit the surface, and when at last she did plunge she
did it so effectually that she went down to the bottom in 10 fathoms
of water at an angle of 30 degrees. The committee of engineers were on
board at the time, and it speaks well for their patriotism that they
did not as a result of their unpleasant experience condemn the _Gustave
Zédé_ and advise the government to spend no more money on submarine
craft.”[10]
Twenty-nine other electric submarines were built for the French navy
between 1886 and 1901. During the same period, a French gentleman
named M. Goubet built and experimented with two very small electric
submarines, each of which was manned by two men, who sat back to back
on a sort of settee stuffed with machinery. Little or big, all these
French boats had the same fatal defect: lack of power. Their storage
batteries, called on to propel them above, as well as below, the
surface, became exhausted after a few hours’ cruising. They were as
useless for practical naval warfare as an electric run-about would be
to haul guns or carry supplies in Flanders.
But if compressed-air and electricity were too quickly exhausted,
gasoline or petroleum was even less practicable for submarine
navigation. To set an oil-engine, that derives its power from the
explosion of a mixture of oil-vapor and air, at work in a small
closed space like the interior of a submarine, would soon make it
uninhabitable. While Mr. Holland was puzzling how to overcome
this difficulty, in the middle eighties, a Swedish inventor named
Nordenfeldt was building submarines to be run by steam-power.
Mr. Nordenfeldt, who is remembered to-day as the inventor of the famous
gun that bears his name, had taken up the idea of an English clergyman
named Garett, who in 1878 had built a submarine called the _Resurgam_,
or “I Shall Rise.” Garett’s second boat, built a year later, had a
steam-engine. When the vessel was submerged, the smoke-stack was closed
by a sliding panel, the furnace doors were shut tight, and the engine
run by the steam given off by a big tank full of bottled-up hot water.
Nordenfeldt improved this system till his hot-water tanks gave off
enough steam to propel his boat beneath the surface for a distance of
fourteen miles.
He also rediscovered and patented Bushnell’s device for submerging a
boat by pushing it straight down and holding it under with a vertical
propellor. His first submarine had two of these, placed in sponsons or
projections on either side of the center of the hull. The Nordenfeldt
boats, with their cigar-shaped hulls and projecting smoke-stacks,
looked like larger editions of the Civil War _Davids_, and like them,
could be submerged by taking in water-ballast till only a strip of deck
with the funnel and conning-tower projected above the surface. Then the
vertical propellors would begin to revolve and force the boat straight
down on an even keel. Mr. Nordenfeldt insisted with great earnestness
that this was the only safe and proper way to submerge a submarine. If
you tried to steer it downward with any kind of driving-planes, he
declared, then the boat was liable to keep on descending, before you
could pull its head up, till it either struck the bottom or was crushed
in by the pressure of too great a depth of water. There was a great
deal of truth in this, but Mr. Nordenfeldt failed to realize that if
one of his vertical propellors pushed only a little harder than the
other, then the keel of his own submarine was going to be anything but
even.
[Illustration: Steam Submarine _Nordenfeldt II_, at Constantinople,
1887. Observe vertical-acting propellors on deck.
Reproduced from “Submarine Navigation, Past and Present” by Alan H.
Burgoyne, by permission of E. P. Dutton & Company.]
The first Nordenfeldt boat was launched in 1886 and bought by Greece,
after a fairly successful trial in the Bay of Salamis. Two larger and
more powerful submarines: _Nordenfeldt II_ and _III_, were promptly
ordered by Greece’s naval rival Turkey. Each of these was 125 feet
long, or nearly twice the length of the Greek boat, and each carried
its two vertical propellors on deck, one forward and the other aft.
Both boats were shipped in sections to Constantinople in 1887, but
only _Nordenfeldt II_ was put together and tried. She was one of the
first submarines to be armed with a bow torpedo-tube for discharging
Whiteheads, and as a surface torpedo-boat, she was a distinct success.
But when they tried to navigate her under water there was a circus.
No sooner did one of the crew take two steps forward in the engine-room
than down went the bow. The hot water in the boilers and the cold
water in the ballast-tanks ran downhill, increasing the slant still
further. English engineers, Turkish sailors, monkey-wrenches, hot
ashes, Whitehead torpedoes, and other movables came tumbling after,
till the submarine was nearly standing on her head, with everything
inside packed into the bow like toys in the toe of a Christmas
stocking. The little vertical propellors pushed and pulled and the
crew clawed their way aft, till suddenly up came her head, down went
her tail, and everything went gurgling and clattering down to the
other end. _Nordenfeldt II_ was a perpetual see-saw, and no mortal
power could keep her on an even keel. Once they succeeded in steadying
her long enough to fire a torpedo. Where it went to, no man can tell,
but the sudden lightening of the bow and the recoil of the discharge
made the submarine rear up and sit down so hard that she began to
sink stern-foremost. The water was blown out of her ballast tanks by
steam-pressure, and the main engine started full speed ahead, till
she shot up to the surface like a flying-fish. The Turkish naval
authorities, watching the trials from the shores of the Golden Horn,
were so impressed by these antics that they bought the boat. But it was
impossible to keep a crew on her, for every native engineer or seaman
who was sent on board prudently deserted on the first dark night. So
the _Nordenfeldt II_ rusted away till she fell to pieces, long before
the Allied fleets began the forcing of the Dardanelles.
Fantastic though their performances seem to us to-day, these submarines
represent the best work of some of the most capable inventors and naval
engineers of the nineteenth century. With them deserve to be mentioned
the boats of the Russian Drzewiecki and the Spaniard Peral. Failures
though they were, they taught the world many valuable lessons about the
laws controlling the actions of submerged bodies.
[Illustration: Bauer’s Submarine Concert, Cronstadt Harbor, 1855. See
footnote, page 120
An original drawing by the author, Alan H. Burgoyne; reproduced from
“Submarine Navigation, Past and Present,” by permission of E. P. Dutton
& Company.]
But many of the underwater craft invented between 1850 and 1900 can be
classified only as freaks. Most of them, fortunately, were designed
but never built, and those that were launched miraculously refrained
from drowning any of their crews. There were submarines armed with
steam-driven gimlets: the
“nimble tail,
Made like an auger, with which tail she wriggles,
Betwixt the ribs of a ship and sinks it straight,”
that Ben Jonson playfully ascribed to Van Drebel. Dr. Lacomme, in
1869, proposed a submarine railroad from Calais to Dover, with tracks
laid on the bottom of the Channel and cars that could cast off their
wheels and rise to the surface in case of accident. Lieutenant André
Constantin designed, during the siege of Paris, a boat to be submerged
by drawing in pistons working in large cylinders open to the water. A
vessel was actually built on this principle in England in 1888, and
submerged in Tilbury Docks, where the soft mud at the bottom choked
the cylinders so that the pistons could not be driven out again and
the boat was brought up with considerable difficulty. Two particularly
delirious inventors claimed that their submarines could also be used as
dirigible balloons. Boucher’s underwater boat of 1886 was to have gills
like a fish, so that it need never rise to the surface for air, and was
further adorned with spring-buffers on the bottom, oars, a propellor
under the center of the keel, and a movable tail for sculling the
vessel forward. There were submarines with paddle-wheels, submarines
with fins, and submarines with wings. A Venezuelan dentist, Señor
Lacavalerier, invented a double-hulled, cigar-shaped boat, whose outer
hull was threaded like a screw, and by revolving round the fixed inner
hull, bored its way through the water. But he had been anticipated and
outdone by Apostoloff, a Russian, who not only designed a submarine on
the same principle but intended it to carry a large cabin suspended on
davits above the surface of the water, and declared that his vessel
would cross the Atlantic at an average speed of 111 knots an hour.
[Illustration: Apostoloff’s Proposed Submarine.
An original drawing by the author, Alan H. Burgoyne; reproduced from
“Submarine Navigation, Past and Present,” by permission of E. P. Dutton
& Company.]
As late as 1898 the Spanish government, neglecting the promising
little electric boat built ten years before by Señor Peral, was
experimenting with two highly impossible submarines, one of which was
to be propelled by a huge clock-spring, while the other was perfectly
round. Needless to say, neither the sphere nor the toy boat ever
encountered the American fleet.
At the same time, the United States government declined to accept the
war services of the already practicable boats of the two American
inventors who were about to usher in the present era of submarine
warfare: Simon Lake and John P. Holland.
CHAPTER VII
JOHN P. HOLLAND
When the _Merrimac_ rammed the _Cumberland_, burned the _Congress_, and
was fought to a standstill next day by the little _Monitor_, all the
world realized that there had been a revolution in naval warfare. The
age of the wooden warship was gone forever, the day of the ironclad
had come. And a twenty-year-old Irish school-teacher began to wonder
what would be the next revolution; what new craft might be invented
that would dethrone the ironclad. This young Irishman’s name was John
P. Holland, and he decided to devote his life to the perfection of the
submarine.
Like Robert Fulton, Admiral Von Tirpitz, and the Frenchman who built
the _Rotterdam Boat_ in 1652, Holland relied on submarines to break
the power of the British fleet. Though born a British subject, in the
little village of Liscannor, County Clare in the year 1842, he had
seen too many of his fellow countrymen starved to death or driven into
exile not to hate the stupid tyranny that characterized England’s
rule of Ireland in those bitter, far-off days. He longed for the day
of Ireland’s independence, and that day seemed to be brought much
nearer by the American Civil War. Not only had many thousand brave
Irish-Americans become trained veterans but Great Britain and the
United States had been brought to the verge of war by the sinking of
American ships by the _Alabama_ and other British-built, Confederate
commerce-destroyers. When that Anglo-American war broke out, there
would be an army ready to come over and free Ireland--if only the
troublesome British navy could be put out of the way. And already the
English were launching ironclad after ironclad to replace their now
useless steam-frigates and ships-of-the-line. It is no use trying to
outbuild or outfight the British navy above water, and John P. Holland
realized this in 1862, as several kings and emperors have, before or
since.
[Illustration: The _Holland No. 1_. Designed to carry a torpedo and
fix it to the bottom of a ship, on the general principle of Bushnell’s
_Turtle_.
Drawn by Lieutenant F. M. Barber, U. S. N., in 1875.]
Though his friends in Cork kept laughing at him, Holland worked
steadily on his plans for a submarine boat, throughout the sixties.
Presently he came to America and obtained a job as school-teacher in
Paterson, New Jersey. There he built and launched his first submarine
in 1875. It was a sharp-pointed, little, cigar-shaped affair, only
sixteen feet long and two feet in diameter amidships. This craft was
designed to carry a torpedo and fix it to the bottom of a ship, on the
general principle of Bushnell’s _Turtle_. It was divided into four
compartments, with air-chambers fore and aft. Air-pipes led to where
Holland sat in the middle, with his head in a respirator shaped like a
diver’s helmet, and his feet working pedals that turned the propellor.
There was nothing revolutionary about this _Holland No. 1_. A similar
underwater bicycle is said to have been invented by Alvary Templo in
1826, and Drzewiecki used one at Odessa in 1877. But Holland used
his to teach himself how to build something better. Just as the
Wright brothers learned how to build and fly aeroplanes by coasting
down through the air from the tops of the Kitty Hawk sand-hills in
their motorless “glider,” so John P. Holland found how to make and
navigate submarines by diving under the surface of the Passaic River
and adjacent waters, and swimming around there in his _No. 1_ and her
successors.
The _Holland No. 2_ was launched in 1877 and became immediately and
prophetically stuck in the mud. She had a double hull, the space
between being used as a ballast-tank, whose contents leaked constantly
into the interior, and she was driven intermittently by a four
horse-power petroleum engine of primitive design. After a series of
trials that entertained his neighbors and taught the inventor that the
best place for a single horizontal rudder is the stern, Holland took
the engine out of the boat and sank her under the Falls Bridge, where
she lies to this day.
He then entered into negotiations with the Fenian Brotherhood, a secret
society organized for the purpose of setting up an Irish republic by
militant methods. Though not a Fenian himself, Holland was thoroughly
in sympathy with the brotherhood, and offered to show them how they
could get round, or rather under, the British navy. You may have seen a
once-familiar lithograph of a green-painted superdreadnought of strange
design flying the Crownless Harp, and named the Irish battleship
_Emerald Isle_. The only real Irish warships of modern times, however,
were the two submarines Holland persuaded the Fenians to have him build
at their expense.
Rear-Admiral Philip Hichborn, former Chief Constructor, U.S.N., said of
these two boats:
“She (the earlier one) was the first submarine since Bushnell’s time
employing water ballast and always retaining buoyancy, in which
provision was made to insure a fixed center of gravity and a fixed
absolute weight. Moreover, she was the first buoyant submarine to be
steered down and up in the vertical plane by horizontal-rudder action
as she was pushed forward by her motor, instead of being pushed up
and down by vertical-acting mechanism.[11] Her petroleum engine,
provided for motive-power and for charging her compressed-air flasks,
was inefficient, and the boat therefore failed as a practical craft;
but in her were demonstrated all the chief principles of successful,
brain-directed, submarine navigation. In 1881, Holland turned out a
larger and better boat in which he led the world far and away in the
solution of submarine problems, and for a couple of years demonstrated
that he could perfectly control his craft in the vertical plane.
Eventually, through financial complications, she was taken to New
Haven, where she now is.”
[Illustration:
Photo by Brown Bros.
The _Fenian Ram_.
(Photographed by Mr. Simon Lake, in the shed at New Haven.)]
Political as well as financial complications caused the internment of
this submarine, which a New York reporter, with picturesque inaccuracy,
called the _Fenian Ram_. The Irish at home were by this time thinking
less of fighting for independence and more for peacefully obtaining
home rule, while the arbitration and payment of the “Alabama claims” by
Great Britain had removed all danger of a war between that country and
the United States. Under these circumstances, many of the Fenians felt
that it was wasted money for their society to spend any more of its
funds on warships it could never find use for. This led to dissensions
which culminated in a party of Fenians seizing the _Ram_ and taking it
to a shed on the premises of one of their members at New Haven, where
it has remained ever since.
But the construction and performances of this submarine, and of
several others which he soon afterwards built for himself, won Holland
such a reputation that when Secretary Whitney decided in 1888 that
submarines would be a good thing for the United States navy, the great
Philadelphia ship-building firm of Cramps submitted two designs:
Holland’s and Nordenfeldt’s, and the former won the award. But after
nearly twelve months had been spent in settling preliminary details,
and when a contract for building an experimental boat was just about to
be awarded, there came a change of administration and the matter was
dropped.
This was a great disappointment for Holland, and the next four or five
years were lean ones for the inventor. He had built five boats and
designed a sixth without their having brought him a cent of profit.
It was not until March 3, 1893, that Congress appropriated the money
for the construction of an experimental submarine, and inventors were
invited to submit their designs. By this time John P. Holland had
not only spent all his own money, but all he could borrow from his
relatives and friends. To make matters worse, the country was then
passing through a financial panic, when very few people had any money
to lend or invest. And all the security Holland could offer was his
faith in the future of the submarine, which at that time was a stock
joke of the comic papers, together with those other two crack-brained
projects, the flying-machine and the horseless carriage.
“I know I can win that competition and build that boat for the
Government,” said Holland to a young lawyer whom he had met at lunch in
a downtown New York restaurant, “if I can only raise the money to pay
the fees and other expenses. I need exactly $347.19.”
“What do you want the nineteen cents for?” asked the other.
“To buy a certain kind of ruler I need for drawing my plans.”
“If you’ve figured it out as closely as all that,” replied the lawyer,
“I’ll take a chance and lend you the money.”
He did so, receiving in exchange a large block of stock in the
new-formed Holland Torpedo-boat Company. To-day his stock is worth
several million dollars.
Mr. Holland won the competition and after two years’ delay his
company began the construction of the _Plunger_. This submarine
was to be propelled by steam while running on the surface and by
storage-batteries when submerged. Double propulsion of this type had
been first installed by a Southerner named Alstitt on a submarine he
built at Mobile, Alabama, in 1863, and theoretically discussed in a
book written in 1887 by Commander Hovgaard of the Danish navy. Though
a great improvement on any type of single propulsion, this system had
many drawbacks, the chief of which was the length of time--from fifteen
to thirty minutes--that it took for the oil-burning surface engine
to cool and rid itself of hot gases before it was safe to seal the
funnel and dive. Though the _Plunger_ was launched in 1897, she was
never finished, for Mr. Holland foresaw her defects. He persuaded the
Government to let his company pay back the money already spent on the
_Plunger_ and build an entirely new boat.
_Holland No. 8_ was built accordingly, but failed to work properly.
Finally came the ninth and last of her line, the first of the modern
submarines, the world-famous _Holland_.
She was a chunky little porpoise of a boat, 10 feet 7 inches deep and
only 53 feet 10 inches long, and looking even shorter and thicker than
she was because of the narrow, comb-like superstructure running fore
and aft along the deck. But her shape and dimensions were the results
of twenty-five years’ experience. Built at Mr. Lewis Nixon’s shipyards
at Elizabethport, New Jersey, the _Holland_ was launched in the early
spring of 1898, between the blowing-up of the _Maine_ and the outbreak
of the Spanish-American War. But though John P. Holland repeatedly
begged to be allowed to take his submarine into Santiago Harbor and
torpedo Cervera’s fleet, the naval authorities at Washington were too
conservative-minded to let him try.
“United States warship goes down with all hands!” the small boys (I was
one of them) used to shout at this time, and then explain that it was
only another dive of the “Holland submarine.” Strictly speaking, the
_Holland_ was not a United States warship till October 13, 1900, when
she was formally placed in commission under the command of Lieutenant
Harry H. Caldwell, who had been on her during many of the exhaustive
series of trials in which the little undersea destroyer proved to
even the most conservative officers of our navy that the day of the
submarine had come at last.
[Illustration:
Courtesy of the Electric Boat Company
U. S. S. _Holland_, in Drydock with the Russian Battleship _Retvizan_.]
Propelled on the surface by a fifty horse-power gasoline motor, the
_Holland_ had a cruising radius of 1500 miles at a speed of seven knots
an hour. Submerged, she was driven by electric storage-batteries. This
effective combination of oil-engines with an electric motor is one of
John P. Holland’s great discoveries, and is used in every submarine
to-day. When her tanks were filled till her deck was flush with the
water, and the two horizontal rudders at the stern began to steer her
downwards, the _Holland_ could dive to a depth of twenty-eight feet
in five seconds. She had no periscope, for that instrument was then
crude and unsatisfactory. To take aim, the captain of the _Holland_
had to make a quick “porpoise dive,” up to the surface and down again,
exposing the conning-tower for the few seconds needed to take aim and
judge the distance to the target. Though by this means the _Holland_
succeeded in getting within striking-distance of the _Kearsarge_ and
the _New York_ without being detected, during the summer manœuvers of
the Atlantic fleet off Newport in 1900, it has proved fatal to the only
submarine that has tried it in actual warfare (see page 160).
Less than half the length of the _Nordenfeldt II_, the _Holland_ did
not pitch or see-saw when submerged. Each of her crew of six sat on
a low stool beside the machinery he was to operate, and there was no
moving about when below the surface. Neither did the boat stand on her
tail when a torpedo was discharged from the bow-tube, for the loss of
weight was immediately compensated by admitting an equivalent amount of
water into a tank. Originally the _Holland_ had a stern torpedo-tube as
well, besides a pneumatic gun for throwing eighty pounds of dynamite
half a mile through the air, but these were later removed.
How the _Holland_ impressed our naval officers at that time is best
shown in the oft-quoted testimony of Admiral Dewey before the naval
committee of the House of Representatives in 1900.
“Gentlemen, I saw the operation of the boat down off Mount Vernon the
other day. Several members of this committee were there. I think we
were all very much impressed with its performance. My aid, Lieutenant
Caldwell, was on board. The boat did everything that the owners
proposed to do. I said then, and I have said it since, that if they had
had two of those things at Manila, I could never have held it with the
squadron I had. The moral effect--to my mind, it is infinitely superior
to mines or torpedoes or anything of the kind. With those craft moving
under water it would wear people out. With two of those in Galveston
all the navies of the world could not blockade the place.”
[Illustration:
Photo by Brown Bros.
John P. Holland.]
The _Holland_ was purchased by the United States Government on April
11, 1900, for $150,000. She had cost her builders, exclusive of any
office expenses or salaries of officers, $236,615.43. But it had
been a profitable investment for the Holland Torpedo-boat Company,
for on August 25, the United States navy contracted with it for the
construction of six more submarines. And in the autumn of the same
year, though it was not announced to the public till March 1, 1901,
five other _Hollands_ were ordered through the agency of Vickers Sons,
and Maxim by the British admiralty. Soon every maritime nation was
either buying _Hollands_ or paying royalties on the inventor’s patents,
and building bigger, faster, better submarines every year.
The original _Holland_ had outlived her fighting value when she was
condemned by Secretary Daniels in June, 1915, to be broken up and
sold as junk. There is still room in the Brooklyn Navy Yard for that
worthless and meaningless relic, the _Intelligent Whale_, but there was
none for the _Holland_ submarine, whose place in history is with the
_Clairmont_ and the _Monitor_.
John P. Holland withdrew in 1904 from the Holland Torpedo-boat Company,
which has since become merged with the Electric Boat Company, that
builds most of the submarines for the United States navy, and many for
the navies of foreign powers. Like most other great inventive geniuses,
Holland was not a trained engineer, and it was perhaps inevitable that
disputes should have arisen between him and his associates as to the
carrying out of his ideas. His last years were embittered by the belief
that the submarines of to-day were distorted and worthless developments
of his original type. Whether or not he was mistaken, only time can
tell. That to John P. Holland, more than to any other man since David
Bushnell and Robert Fulton, the world owes the modern submarine, cannot
be denied. His death, on August 12, 1914, was but little noticed in the
turmoil and confusion of the first weeks of the great European War. But
when the naval histories of that war are written, his name will not be
forgotten.
CHAPTER VIII
THE LAKE SUBMARINES
John P. Holland was not the only inventor who responded to the
invitation of the United States navy department to submit designs for
a proposed submarine boat in 1893. That invitation had been issued and
an appropriation of $200,000 made by Congress on the recommendation
of Commander Folger, chief of ordnance, after he had seen a trial
trip on Lake Michigan of an underwater boat invented by Mr. George C.
Baker. This was an egg-shaped craft, propelled by a steam engine on the
surface and storage-batteries when submerged, and controlled by two
adjustable propellers, mounted on either side of the boat on a shaft
running athwartship. These screws could be turned in any direction,
so as to push or pull the vessel forward, downward, or at any desired
angle. Mr. Baker submitted designs for a larger boat of the same kind,
but they were not accepted.
The third inventor who entered the 1893 competition was Mr. Simon
Lake, then a resident of Baltimore. He sent in the plans of the most
astonishing-looking craft that had startled the eyes of the navy
department since Ericsson’s original monitor. It had two cigar-shaped
hulls, one inside the other, the space between being used for
ballast-tanks. It had no less than five propellors: twin screws aft
for propulsion, a single screw working in an open transverse tunnel
forward,[12] to “swing the vessel at rest to facilitate pointing her
torpedos,” and two downhaul or vertical-acting propellers “for holding
vessel to depth when not under way.” These were not placed on deck,
as on the _Nordenfeldt II_, but in slots in the keel. Other features
of the bottom were two anchor weights, a detachable “emergency keel,”
and a diving compartment. On deck were a folding periscope and a “gun
arranged in water-tight, revolving turret for defense purposes or
attack on unarmored surface craft.” There were four torpedo tubes,
two forward and two aft, according to the modern German practice.
The motive-power was the then usual combination of steam and storage
batteries. But the two remaining features of the 1893 model Lake
submarine were extremely unusual.
[Illustration:
Courtesy International Marine Engineering.
Lake 1893 Design as Submitted to the U. S. Navy Department.]
Instead of one pair of horizontal rudders, there were four pairs, two
large and two small. The latter, placed near the bow and stern, were
“levelling vanes, designed automatically to hold the vessel on a level
keel when under way”; while the larger ones were called “hydroplanes”
and so located and designed as to steer the submarine under, not by
making it dive bow-foremost but by causing it to submerge on an even
keel. How this was to be accomplished will be explained presently. The
other new thing about the Lake boat was that it was mounted on wheels
for running along the sea-bottom. There were three of these wheels: a
large pair forward on a strong axle for bearing the vessel’s weight,
and a small steering-wheel on the bottom of the rudder.
[Illustration:
Courtesy of Mr. Simon Lake.
The _Argonaut Junior_.]
This submarine was never built, however, for the congressional
appropriation was awarded to the Holland Torpedo-boat Company and Mr.
Lake had at that time no means for building so elaborate a vessel
by himself. What he did build was the simplest and crudest little
submarine imaginable: the _Argonaut Jr._ She was a triangular box of
yellow pine, fourteen feet long and five feet deep, mounted on three
solid wooden wheels. She was trundled along the bottom of Sandy Hook
Bay by one or two men cranking the axle of the two driving wheels. The
boat was provided with an air-lock and diver’s compartment “so arranged
that by putting an air pressure on the diver’s compartment equal to
the water pressure outside, a bottom door could be opened and no water
would come into the vessel. Then by putting on a pair of rubber boots
the operator could walk around on the sea bottom and push the boat
along with him and pick up objects, such as clams, oysters, etc., from
the sea bottom.”[13]
Enough people were convinced by the performances of this simple
craft of the soundness of Mr. Lake’s theories that the inventor was
able to raise sufficient capital to build a larger submarine. This
boat, which was designed in 1895 and built at Baltimore in 1897, was
called the _Argonaut_. When launched, she had a cigar-shaped hull
thirty-six feet long by nine in diameter, mounted on a pair of large
toothed driving-wheels forward and a guiding-wheel on the rudder. The
driving-wheels could be disconnected and left to revolve freely while
the boat was driven by its single-screw propeller. There was a diver’s
compartment in the bottom and a “lookout compartment in the extreme
bow, with a powerful searchlight to light up a pathway in front of her
as she moved along over the waterbed. The searchlight I later found of
little value except for night work in clear water. In clear water the
sunlight would permit of as good vision without the use of the light
as with it, while if the water was not clear, no amount of light would
permit of vision through it for any considerable distance.”
Storage batteries were carried only for working the searchlight and
illuminating the interior of the boat. The _Argonaut_ was propelled,
both above and below the surface, by a thirty horse-power gasoline
engine, the first one to be installed in a submarine. There was enough
air to run it on, even when submerged, because the _Argonaut_ was
ventilated through a hose running to a float on the surface: a device
later changed to two pipe masts long enough to let her run along the
bottom at a depth of fifty feet.
[Illustration:
Courtesy of International Marine Engineering.
_Argonaut_ as Originally Built.]
The _Argonaut_ had no hydroplanes or horizontal rudders of any kind.
She was submerged, like the _Intelligent Whale_, by “two anchor
weights, each weighing 1000 pounds, attached to cables, and capable of
being hauled up or lowered by a drum and mechanism within the boat....
When it is desired to submerge the vessel the anchor weights are first
lowered to the bottom; water is then allowed to enter the water-ballast
compartments until her buoyancy is less than the weight of the two
anchors, say 1500 pounds; the cables connecting with the weights are
then hauled in, and the vessel is thus hauled to the bottom, until she
comes to rest on her three wheels. The weights are then hauled into
their pockets in the keel, and it is evident that she is resting on
the wheels with a weight equal to the difference between her buoyancy
with the weights at the bottom, and the weights in their pockets, or
500 pounds. Now this weight may be increased or diminished, either
by admitting more water into the ballast tanks or by pumping some
out. Thus it will be seen that we have perfect control of the vessel
in submerging her, as we may haul her down as fast or as slow as we
please, and by having her rest on the bottom with sufficient weight to
prevent the currents from moving her out of her course we may start up
our propeller or driving-wheels and drive her at will over the bottom,
the same as a tricycle is propelled on the surface of the earth in the
upper air. In muddy bottoms, we rest with a weight not much over 100
pounds; while on hard bottoms, or where there are strong currents,
we sometimes rest on the bottom with a weight of from 1000 to 1500
pounds....
“In the rivers we invariably found a muddy bed; in Chesapeake Bay we
found bottoms of various kinds, in some places so soft that our divers
would sink up to their knees, while in other places the ground would
be hard, and at one place we ran across a bottom which was composed of
a loose gravel, resembling shelled corn. Out in the ocean, however,
was found the ideal submarine course, consisting of a fine gray sand,
almost as hard as a macadamized road, and very level and uniform.”
During this cruise under the waters of Chesapeake Bay, the _Argonaut_
came on the wrecks of several sunken vessels, which Mr. Lake or some
member of his crew examined through the open door in the bottom of the
diving-compartment. The air inside was kept at a sufficiently high
pressure to keep the water from entering, and the man in the submarine
could pull up pieces of the wreck with a short boathook, or even reach
down and place his bare hand on the back of a big fish swimming past.
Sometimes members of the crew would put on diving-suits and walk out
over the bottom, keeping in communication with the boat by telephone.
Telephone stations were even established on the bottom of the bay, with
cables running to the nearest exchange on shore, and conversations
were held with people in Baltimore, Washington, and New York. (Perhaps
the commanders of German submarines in British waters to-day are using
this method to communicate with German spies in London, Dublin, and
Liverpool.)
The Spanish-American War was being fought while Mr. Lake was making
these experiments. The entrance to Hampton Roads was planted with
electric mines, but though he was forbidden to go too near them, the
inventor proved that nothing would be easier than to locate the cable
connecting them with the shore, haul it up into the diver’s compartment
of the _Argonaut_ and cut it. He did this with a dummy cable of his
own, and then repeatedly begged the navy department to let him take the
_Argonaut_ into the harbor of Santiago de Cuba and disable the mines
that were keeping Admiral Sampson’s fleet from going in and smashing
the Spanish squadron there. But his offer, like that of John P.
Holland, was refused.
“In 1898, also,” says Mr. Lake, “the _Argonaut_ made the trip from
Norfolk to New York under her own power and unescorted. In her original
form she was a cigar-shaped craft with only a small percentage of
reserve buoyancy in her surface cruising condition. We were caught
out in the severe November northeast storm of 1898 in which over two
hundred vessels were lost and we did not succeed in reaching a harbor
in the ‘horseshoe’ back of Sandy Hook until three o’clock in the
morning. The seas were so rough they would break over her conning-tower
in such masses I was obliged to lash myself fast to prevent being swept
overboard. It was freezing weather and I was soaked and covered with
ice on reaching harbor.”
[Illustration:
Courtesy of International Marine Engineering.
_Argonaut_ as Rebuilt.]
Mr. Lake then sent the _Argonaut_ to a Brooklyn shipyard, where her
original cigar-shaped hull was cut in half, and lengthened twenty
feet, after which a light ship-shaped superstructure was built over
her low sloping topsides. To keep it from being crushed in by water
pressure when submerged, scupper-like openings were cut in the thin
plating where it joined the stout, pressure-resisting hull, so that
the superstructure automatically filled itself with sea-water on
submerging and drained itself on rising again. Though uninhabitable,
its interior supplied useful storage space, particularly for the
gasoline fuel tanks, which, as Mr. Lake had already discovered, gave
off fumes that soon rendered the air inside the submarine unbreathable,
unless the tanks were kept outside instead of inside the hull. The
swan-bow and long bowsprit of the new superstructure, together with
the two ventilator-masts, gave the rebuilt _Argonaut_ a schooner-like
appearance, and her bowsprit has been compared to the whip-socket on
the dashboard of the earliest automobiles. But Mr. Lake declares that
this was no useless leftover but a practicable spring-buffer to guard
against running into submerged rocks, while the bobstay helped the
_Argonaut_ to climb over the obstruction, as she could over anything
on the sea-bottom she could get her bows over.
Primarily, the superstructure served to make the submarine more
seaworthy as a surface craft. Until then, most inventors and designers
of undersea boats had confined their attentions to the problems of
underwater navigation only, because, as had been pointed out by the
monk Mersenne before 1648, even during the most violent storms the
disturbance is felt but a little distance below the surface. But Mr.
Lake realized that a submarine, like every other kind of boat, spends
most of its existence on top of the water and that it is not always
desirable to submerge whenever a moderate-sized wave sweeps over one
of the old-fashioned, low-lying, cigar-shaped vessels. With her new
superstructure, the _Argonaut_ rode the waves as lightly as any yacht
and ushered in the era of the sea-going submarine.
It was not until a year later that the _Narval_, a large double-hulled
submarine with a ship-shaped outer shell of light, perforated plating,
was launched in France. She was propelled by steam on the surface and
by storage batteries when submerged. To distinguish this sea-going
torpedo-boat, that could be submerged, from the earlier and simpler
submarines designed and engined for underwater work only, her designer,
M. Labeuf, called the _Narval_ a “submersible.” As the old type of
boat soon became extinct, the distinction was not necessary and the
old name “submarine” is still applied to all underwater craft. That
Simon Lake and not M. Labeuf first gave the modern sea-going submarine
its characteristic and essential superstructure is easily proved by
dates. The _Narval_ was launched in October, 1899, the _Argonaut_ was
remodeled in December, 1898, and on April 2, 1897, Mr. Lake applied for
and was presently granted the pioneer patent on a “combined surface
and submarine vessel,” the space between its cylindrical hull and the
superstructure “being adapted to be filled with water when the vessel
is submerged and thus rendered capable of resisting the pressure of the
water.”
But though in her remodeled form she became the forerunner of the
long grim submarine cruisers of to-day, the _Argonaut_ herself had
been built to serve not as a warship but as a commercial vessel. Like
her namesakes who followed Jason in the _Argo_ to far-off Colchis for
the Golden Fleece, she was to go forth in search of hidden treasure.
She was to have been the first of a fleet of wheeled bottom-workers,
salvaging the cargoes of wrecked ships; from the mail-bags of the
latest lost liner to ingots and pieces-of-eight from the sand-clogged
hulks of long-sunk Spanish galleons, or bringing up sponges, coral, and
pearls from the depths of the tropic seas. But though he investigated a
few wrecks and ingeniously transferred a few tons of coal from one into
a submarine lighter by means of a pipe-line and a powerful force-pump,
Mr. Lake has done nothing more to develop the fascinating commercial
possibilities of the submarine since 1901, because he has been kept too
busy building undersea warships for the United States and other naval
powers.
[Illustration:
Courtesy of International Marine Engineering.
The Rebuilt _Argonaut_, Showing Pipe-masts and Ship-shaped
Superstructure.]
Mr. Lake declares that one of his up-to-date wheeled submarines could
enter a harbor-mouth defended by booms and nettings that would keep out
either surface torpedo boats or ordinary submarines. The smooth-backed
bottom-worker of this special type would slip under the netting like a
cat under a bead portière. If the netting were fastened down, a diver
would step out through the door in the bottom of the submarine and
either cut the netting from its moorings or attach a bomb to blow a
hole for the bottom-worker to go in through. An ordinary submarine,
entering a hostile harbor, would be in constant danger of running
aground in shallow water and either sticking there or rebounding to the
surface, to be seen and fired at by the enemy. Even if its commander
succeeded in keeping to the deep channel by dead reckoning--a process
akin to flying blindfolded in an aeroplane up a crooked ravine and
remembering just when and where to turn--even if he dodged the rocks
and sand bars, he would be liable to bump the nose of his boat against
an anchored contact mine (see Chapter XI). But the Lake bottom-worker
would trundle steadily along, sampling the bottom to find where it was,
and passing safely under the mines floating far above it. The divers
would make short work of cutting the mine cables, or they might plant
mines of their own under the ships in the harbor and blow them up as
Bushnell tried to. Using electric motors and storage air-flasks, with
no pipe masts or other “surface-indications” to betray its presence,
one of these boats could remain snugly hid at the bottom of an enemy’s
harbor as long as its supplies held out.
[Illustration:
Courtesy of Mr. Simon Lake.
Cross-section of Diving-compartment on a Lake Submarine.]
As yet, however, we have not heard of any such exploits in the present
war, though they seem perfectly feasible. Mr. Lake sold a boat designed
for this sort of work and called the _Protector_ to Russia in 1906.
The most characteristic feature of the Lake submarines is not the
wheels, which are found only on those specially designed for bottom
working, but the hydroplanes. These are horizontal rudders that are
so placed and designed as to steer the boat forward and downward, but
at the same time keeping it on an even keel. Bushnell and Nordenfeldt
forced their boats straight up and down like buckets in a well, John
P. Holland made his tip up its tail and dive like a loon, but Mr.
Lake conceived the idea of having his boat descend like a suitcase
carried by a man walking down-stairs: the suitcase moves steadily
forward and downward towards the front door but it remains level. The
first method with its vertical propellers wasted too much energy, the
second incurred the risk of diving too fast and too deep, no matter
whether the single pair of horizontal rudders were placed on the bow,
or amidships, or on the stern. So Mr. Lake used two pairs of horizontal
rudders “located at equal distances forward and aft of the center of
gravity and buoyancy of the vessel when in the submerged condition, so
as not to disturb the trim of the vessel when the planes were inclined
down or up to cause the vessel to submerge or rise when under way.”
These he called hydroplanes, to distinguish them from another set of
smaller horizontal rudders, which at first he called “leveling-vanes”
and which were not used to steer the submarine under but manipulated
to keep her at a constant depth and on a level keel while running
submerged.
In theory, the early Lake boats were submerged on an even keel; in
practice, they went under at an angle of several degrees. But they made
nothing like the abrupt dives of the _Holland_.
“As the Electric Boat Company’s boats (Holland type) increased in
size,” declares Chief Constructor D. W. Taylor, U.S.N., “bow rudders
were fitted, and nowadays all submarines of this type in our navy
are fitted with bow rudders as well as stern rudders. The Lake type
submarines are still fitted with hydroplanes. But as you may see, means
for effecting submergence have approached each other very closely: in
fact, speaking generally, submarines all over the world now have two or
more sets of diving-rudders; the most general arrangement is one pair
forward and one pair aft; in some types three pairs are fitted, but
this arrangement is more unusual.
“In general it may be said then that modern submarines of both types
submerge in practically the same way. They assume a very slight angle
of inclination, say a degree and a half or two degrees, and submerge at
this angle. This may be said to be practically on an even keel.”
[Illustration:
Courtesy of International Marine Engineering.
Cross-section of the _Protector_, showing wheels stowed away when not
running on the sea bottom.]
The credit of originating this now world-wide practice of “level-keel
submergence” obviously belongs, as “Who’s Who in America” gives it, to
“Lake, Simon, naval architect, mechanical engineer. Born at
Pleasantville, New Jersey, September 4, 1866; son of John Christopher
and Miriam M. (Adams) Lake; educated at Clinton Liberal Institute,
Fort Plain, New York, and Franklin Institute, Philadelphia; married
Margaret Vogel of Baltimore, June 9, 1890. Inventor of even keel type
of submarine torpedo boats; built first experimental boat, 1894;
built _Argonaut_, 1897 (first submarine to operate successfully in the
open sea); has designed and built many submarine torpedo boats for the
United States and foreign countries; spent several years in Russia,
Germany, and England, designing, building, and acting in an advisory
capacity in construction of submarine boats. Also inventor of submarine
apparatus for locating and recovering sunken vessels and their cargoes;
submarine apparatus for pearl and sponge fishing, heavy oil internal
combustion engine for marine propulsion, etc. Member of the Society of
Naval Architects and Marine Engineers, American Society of Mechanical
Engineers, American Society of Naval Engineers, Institute of Naval
Architects (London), Schiffsbautechnische Gesellschaft (Berlin). Mason.
_Clubs_, Engineers’ (New York), Algonquin, (Bridgeport, Connecticut).
_Home_, Milford, Connecticut. _Office_, Bridgeport, Connecticut.”
[Illustration: Mr. Simon Lake.]
When the Krupps first took up the idea of constructing submarines for
the German and Russian governments, the great German firm consulted
with Mr. Lake, who was at that time living in Europe. An elaborate
contract was drawn up between them. The Krupps agreed to employ Mr.
Lake in an advisory capacity and to build “Lake type” boats, both in
Russia, where they were to erect a factory and share the profits with
him, and in Germany, on a royalty basis. Before he could sign this
contract, Mr. Lake had to obtain the permission of the directors of
his own company in Bridgeport. In the meanwhile, he gave the German
company his most secret plans and specifications. But the Krupps never
signed the contract, withdrew from going into Russia, and their lawyer
coolly told Mr. Lake that, as he had failed to patent his inventions
in Germany, his clients were perfectly free to build “Lake type”
submarines there without paying him anything and were going to do so.
The famous Krupp-built German submarines that are playing so prominent
a part in the present war are therefore partly of American design.
Whenever Mr. Lake reads that another one of them has been destroyed by
the Allies, his emotions must be rather mixed.
CHAPTER IX
A TRIP IN A MODERN SUBMARINE
Lieutenant Perry Scope, commanding the X-class flotilla, was sitting
in his comfortable little office on the mother-ship _Ozark_, when
I entered with a letter from the secretary of the navy, giving me
permission to go on board a United States submarine. Without such
authorization no civilian may set foot on the narrow decks of our
undersea destroyers, though he may visit a battleship with no more
formality than walking into a public park.
“We’re too small and full of machinery to hold a crowd,” explained the
lieutenant, “and the crowd wouldn’t enjoy it if they came. No nice
white decks for the girls to dance on or fourteen-inch guns for them
to sit on while they have their pictures taken. Besides, everything’s
oily--you’d better put on a suit of overalls instead of those white
flannels.”
There were plenty of spare overalls on the _Ozark_, for she was the
mother-ship of a family of six young submarines. Built as a coast
defense monitor shortly after the Spanish War, she had long since been
retired from the fighting-line, and was now the floating headquarters,
dormitory, hospital, machine-shop, bakery, and general store for the
six officers and the hundred and fifty men of the flotilla.
[Illustration:
Photo by Brown Bros.
U. S. Submarine _E-2_.
Note wireless, navigating-bridge, and openings for flooding
superstructure when submerging.]
Moored alongside the parent-ship, the submarine _X-4_ was filling her
fuel-tanks with oil through a pipe-line, in preparation for the day’s
cruise and target-practice I was to be lucky enough to witness. Two
hundred and fifty feet long, flat-decked and straight-stemmed, she
looked, except for the lack of funnels, much more like a surface-going
torpedo-boat than the landsman’s conventional idea of a submarine.
“I thought she would be cigar-shaped,” I said as we went on board.
“She is--underneath,” answered Lieutenant Scope. “What you see is only
a light-weight superstructure or false hull built over the real one.
See those holes in it, just above the water line? They are to flood the
superstructure with whenever we submerge, otherwise the water pressure
would crush in these thin steel plates like veneering. But it makes
us much more seaworthy for surface work, gives us a certain amount of
deckroom, and stowage-space for various useful articles, such as this.”
Part of the deck rose straight up into the air, like the top of a
freight-elevator coming up through the sidewalk. Beneath the canopy
thus formed was a short-barreled, three-inch gun.
“Fires a twelve-pound shell, like the field-pieces the landing-parties
take ashore from the battleships,” explained the naval officer, as
he trained the vicious-looking little cannon all around the compass.
“Small enough to be handy, big enough to sink any merchant ship afloat,
or smash anything that flies.”
Here he pointed the muzzle straight up as if gunning for hostile
aeroplanes.
“And please observe,” he concluded, as the gun sank down into its
lair again, “how that armored hatch-cover protects the gun-crew from
shrapnel or falling bombs.”
I followed him to the conning-tower, or, as he always spoke of it,
the turret. The little round bandbox of the _Holland_ has developed
into a tall, tapering structure, sharply pointed fore and aft to
lessen resistance when running submerged. Above the turret was a small
navigating-bridge, screened and roofed with canvas, where a red-haired
quartermaster stood by the steering-wheel, and saluted as we came
up the ladder. The lieutenant put the engine-room telegraph over to
“Start,” and a mighty motor throbbed underneath our feet. Then the
mooring was cast off, the telegraph put over to “Slow Ahead,” and the
_X-4_ put out to sea.
“How long a cruise could she make?” I asked.
“Four thousand miles is her radius,” answered her commander. “Back in
1915, ten American-designed submarines crossed from Canada to England
under their own power.”
“Yet it is only a few years since we were told that submarines could
only be used for coast defense, unless they were carried inside their
mother-ships and launched near the scene of battle,” I remarked. “Or
that each battleship should carry a dinky little submarine on deck and
lower it over the side like a steam-launch.”
“People said the same thing about torpedo-boats,” agreed the
lieutenant; “they began as launches--now look at the size of that
destroyer smoking along over there. Ericsson thought that any ironclad
bigger than a Civil War monitor would be an unwieldy monster. Even
John P. Holland fought tooth and nail against increasing the length of
his submarines. This boat of mine is five times the length of the old
_Holland_, but she’s only a primitive ancestor of the perfect submarine
of the future.”
“She isn’t a submarine at all,” I replied presently, as the _X-4_ swept
on down the coast at a good twenty-two knots, her foredeck buried in
foam and the sea-breeze singing through the antennæ of her wireless.
“She’s nothing but a big motor-boat.”
“And she’s got some big motors,” replied the lieutenant. “Better step
below and have a look at them.”
I went down through the open hatchway to the interior of the boat
and aft to the engine-room. There I found two long, many-cylindered
oil-engines of strange design, presided over by a big blond engineer
whose grease-spotted dungarees gave no hint as to his rating.
“What kind of machines are these?” I shouted above the roar they made.
“And why do you need two of them?”
“Diesel heavy-oil engines,” he answered. “One for each propeller.”
“What is the difference between one of these and the gasoline engine of
a motor-car? I know a little about that.”
“Do you know what the carburetor is?” asked the engineer.
[Illustration:
Courtesy of International Marine Engineering.
A Submarine Cruiser, or Fleet Submarine (Lake Type).
The parts indicated by numbers in this illustration are as follows:
1, main ballast tanks; 2, fuel tanks; 3, keel; 4, safety drop
keel; 5, habitable superstructure; 6, escape and safety chambers;
7, disappearing anti-air craft guns; 8, rapid fire gun; 9,
torpedo tubes; 10, torpedoes; 11, twin deck torpedo tubes; 12,
torpedo firing tank; 13, anchor; 14, periscopes; 15, wireless;
16, crew’s quarters; 17, officers’ quarters; 18, war-head
stowage; 19, torpedo hatch; 20, diving chamber; 21, electric
storage battery; 22, galley; 23, steering gear; 24, binnacle; 25,
searchlight; 26, conning-tower; 27, diving station; 28, control
tank; 29, compressed air flasks; 30, forward engine room and
engines; 31, after engine room and engines; 32, central control
compartment; 33, torpedo room; 34, electric motor room; 35,
switchboard; 36, ballast pump; 37, auxiliary machinery room; 38,
hydroplane; 39, vertical rudders; 40, signal masts.
]
“That’s where the gasoline is mixed with air, before it goes into the
cylinder.”
The engineer nodded.
“The mixture is sucked into the cylinder by the down-stroke of the
piston. The up-stroke compresses it, and then the mixture is exploded
by an electric spark from the spark-plug. The force of the explosion
drives the piston down, and the next stroke up drives out the refuse
gases. That’s how an ordinary, four-cycle gasoline motor works.
“But the Diesel engine,” he continued, “doesn’t need any carburetor
or spark-plug. When the piston makes its first upward or
compression-stroke, there is nothing in the cylinder but pure air. This
is compressed to a pressure of about 500 pounds a square inch--and when
you squeeze anything as hard as that, you make it mighty hot--”
“Like a blacksmith pounding a piece of cold iron to a red heat?” I
suggested. The engineer nodded again.
“That compressed air is so hot that the oil which has been spurted in
through an injection-valve is exploded, and drives the piston down on
the power-stroke. The waste gases are then blown out by compressed air.
There are an air-compressor and a storage tank just for scavenging, or
blowing the waste gases out of every three power-cylinders.”
“What are the advantages of the Diesel over the gasoline engine?”
[Illustration:
Courtesy of the Electric Boat Company.
Auxiliary Switchboard and Electric Cook-stove, in a U. S. Submarine.]
“In the first place, it gives more power. You see, three out of every
four strokes made by the piston of a gasoline engine--suction-stroke,
compression-stroke, and scavenging-stroke--waste power instead of
producing it. But the Diesel is what we call a two-cycle engine; its
piston makes only two trips for each power-stroke. In the second
place, it is cheaper, because instead of gasoline it uses heavy,
low-price oil. And this makes it much safer, for the heavy oil does
not vaporize so easily. The air in some of the old submarines that
used gasoline motors would get so that it was like trying to breathe
inside a carburetor, and there was always the chance of a spark from
the electric motors exploding the whole business, and your waking up to
find the trained nurse changing your bandages. The German navy refused
to build a submarine as long as there was nothing better than gasoline
to propel it on the surface. They didn’t launch their _U-1_ till
1906, after Dr. Diesel had got his motor into practicable shape. It
cost him twenty years of hard work, but without his motor we couldn’t
have the modern submarine. And they’re using it more and more in ocean
freighters. There’s a line of motor-ships running to-day between
Scandinavia and San Francisco, through the Panama Canal.
“Aft of the Diesel, here,” continued the engineer, “is our electric
motor, for propelling her when submerged. Reverse it and have it driven
by the Diesel engine, and the motor serves as a dynamo to generate
electricity for charging the batteries. As long as we can get oil and
come to the surface to use it, we can never run short of ‘juice.’[14]
“Besides turning the propeller, the electricity from the batteries
lights the boat, and turns the ventilating fans, works the
air-compressor for the torpedo-tubes, drives all the big and little
pumps, runs a lot of auxiliary motors that haul up the anchor, turn the
rudders, and do other odd jobs, it heats the boat in cold weather--”
“And cooks the grub all the year round, don’t forget that, Joe,” said
another member of the crew. “Luncheon is served in the palm room.”
We ate from a swinging table let down from the ceiling of the main- or
living-compartment of the submarine, that extended forward from the
engine-room to the tiny officers’ cabin and the torpedo room in the
bows. Tiers of canvas bunks folded up against the walls showed where
the crew slept when on a cruise. For lunch that day we had bread baked
on the mother-ship, butter out of a can, fried ham, fried potatoes,
and coffee hot from a little electric stove such as you can see
in the kitchenette of a light-housekeeping apartment on shore. The
lieutenant’s lunch was carried up to him on the bridge. When the meal
was over, most of the men went on deck, and my friend the engineer put
a large cigar in his mouth. I took out a box of matches and was about
to strike one for his benefit when he stopped me, saying,
“Don’t ever strike a light in a submarine or a dynamite factory. It’s
unhealthy.”
[Illustration:
Courtesy of the Electric Boat Company.
Forward deck of a U. S. Submarine, in cruising trim.]
I apologized profusely.
“The air is so much better than I had expected that I forgot where I
was.”
“Yes,” said the engineer, chewing his unlighted cigar, “there is plenty
of good air in a big modern boat like this, running on the surface in
calm weather and with the main hatch and all ventilators open. But
come with us when we’re bucking high seas or running submerged on a
breathing-diet of canned air flavored with oil, and you’ll understand
why so many good men have been invalided out of the flotilla with
lung-trouble. We’re the only warships without any dogs or parrots
or other mascots on board, for no animal could endure the air in a
submarine.”
[Illustration:
Courtesy of the Electric Boat Company.
Same, preparing to submerge. Railing stowed away and bow-rudders
extended.]
“I thought every submarine carried a cage of white mice, because they
began to squeak as soon as the air began to get bad and so warned the
crew.”
“That was a crude device of the early days,” replied the engineer. “We
don’t carry white mice any more, though I believe they still use them
in the British navy.”
I went up on deck, to find that the _X-4_ had reached the
practice-grounds and was being made ready for a dive. Her crew
were busy dismantling and stowing away the bridge and the light
deck-railing, hauling down the flag, and closing all ventilators and
other openings.
“How long has it taken you to get ready?” I asked Lieutenant Scope.
“Twenty minutes,” he answered. “But the real diving takes only two
minutes. We’ll go below now, sink her to condition, and run her under
with the diving rudders.”
“What are those things unfolding themselves on either side of the
bows?” I asked. “I thought the diving rudders were carried astern.”
“Modern submarines are so long that they need them both fore and aft,”
replied the lieutenant. “As you see, the diving rudders fold flat
against the side of the boat where they will be out of harm’s way when
we are running on the surface or lying alongside the mother-ship.
Better come below now, for we’re going to dive.”
We descended into the turret and the hatch was closed. The Diesel
engines had already been stopped and the electric motors were now
turning the propellers.
“Why are those big electric pumps working down there?” I asked.
“Pumping water into the ballast-tanks.”
“But doesn’t the water run into the tanks anyhow, as soon as you open
the valves?” I asked the lieutenant.
“Turn a tumbler upside down and force it down into a basin of water,”
he replied, “and you trap some air in the top of the tumbler, which
prevents the water from rising beyond a certain point. The same thing
takes place in our tanks, and to fill them we have to force in the
water with powerful pumps that compress the air in the tanks to a very
small part of its original bulk. This compressed air acts as a powerful
spring to drive the water out of the tanks again when we wish to rise.
By blowing out the tanks, a submarine can come to the surface in twenty
seconds or one sixth the time it takes to submerge.”
“When are we going under?” I asked him. The lieutenant looked at his
watch and answered,
“We have been submerged for the last four minutes.”
I experienced a feeling of the most profound disappointment. Ever since
I had been a very small boy I had been looking forward to the time when
I should go down in a submarine boat, and now that time had passed
without my realizing it.
“But why didn’t I feel the boat tilt when she dived?” I demanded.
“Because she went down a very gentle slope, between two and three
degrees at the steepest. The only way you could have noticed it would
have been to watch these gages.”
Large dials on the wall of the turret indicated that the _X-4_ was
running on what was practically an even keel at a depth of sixteen feet
and under a consequent water-pressure of 1024 pounds on every square
foot of her hull.
“How deep could she go?”
“One hundred and fifty feet--if she had to. The strong inner hull of a
modern submarine is built up of three quarter inch plates of the best
mild steel and well braced and strengthened from within. But as a rule
there is no need of our diving below sixty feet at the deepest, or far
enough to clear the keel of the largest ship. You will notice how the
depth-control man is holding her steady by manipulating the forward
horizontal rudders, just as an aviator steadies his aeroplane.”
[Illustration:
Courtesy of the Electric Boat Company.
Depth-control Station, U. S. Submarine.
Wheel governing horizontal rudders, gages showing depth, trim, etc.]
“He must be a strong man to handle those two big horizontal rudders.”
“He has an electric motor to do the hard work for him, as has the
quartermaster steering the course here with the vertical rudder.”
The same red-headed petty officer that I had noticed on the bridge now
grasped the spokes of a smaller steering-wheel inside the conning-tower.
“What is that queer-looking thing whirling round and round in front of
him?” I asked.
“A Sperry gyroscopic compass,” replied the lieutenant. “An ordinary
magnetic compass could not be relied on to point in any particular
direction if it was shut up in a steel box full of charged electric
wires, like the turret of a submarine. We tried to remedy this by
building conning-towers of copper, till Mr. Sperry perfected a compass
that has no magnetic needle, but operates on the principle of the
gyroscope. You know that a heavy, rapidly rotating wheel resists any
tendency to being shifted relative to space?”
“Yes.”
[Illustration: Cross-section of a Periscope.]
“The earth, revolving on its axis, is nothing but a big gyroscope--that
is why it stays put. The little gyroscope on this compass spins at
right angles to the revolution of the earth and so keeps in a due north
and south line. But the frame it is mounted on turns with the ship,
so the relative positions of the frame and the gyro-axis show in what
direction the submarine is heading.”
“And you can see what’s ahead of you through the periscope. Who
invented that?”
“The idea is a very old one. Certain French and Dutch inventors
designed submarines with periscopes as long ago as the eighteen-fifties.
In the Civil War, the light-draft river-monitor _Osage_ had attached to
her turret a crude periscope made by her chief engineer, Thomas Doughty,
out of a piece of three-inch steam-pipe with holes cut at each of its
ends at opposite sides, and pieces of looking-glass inserted as
reflectors. By means of this instrument her captain, now Rear-Admiral,
Thomas O. Selfridge, was able to look over the high banks of the Red
River when the _Osage_ had run aground in a bend and was being attacked
by three thousand dismounted Confederate cavalry, who were repulsed with
the loss of four hundred killed or wounded by the fire of the monitor’s
11-inch guns, directed through the periscope.[15]
“But as late as 1900 the periscope was so crude and unsatisfactory an
instrument that John P. Holland would have nothing to do with it. The
credit for bringing it to its present efficiency belongs chiefly to
the Germans, who kept many of their scientists working together on the
solution of the difficult problems of optics that were involved.
“By turning this little crank,” the lieutenant continued, “I can
revolve the reflector at the top of the tube. This reflector contains
a prism which reflects the image of the object in view down through a
system of lenses in the tube to another prism here at the bottom, where
the observer sees it through an eyepiece and telescope lenses.”
I looked into the eyepiece, which was so much like that of an
old-fashioned stereoscope that I felt that it, too, ought to work back
and forth after the manner of a slide trombone. I found myself looking
out over the broad blue waters of a sunlit bay. I noticed a squall
blackening the surface of the water, a catboat running before it, and
the gleam of the brass instruments of the band playing on the after
deck of a big white excursion steamer half a mile away.
“I can almost imagine I can hear the music of that band,” I exclaimed.
“The optical illusion is perfect.”
“It has to be,” rejoined the lieutenant. “If the image were in the
least distorted or out of perspective, we couldn’t aim straight.”
“What do you do when the periscope is wet with spray?” I asked him.
“Wash the glass with a jet of alcohol and dry it from the inside with
a current of warm air passing up and down the tube. A periscope-tube
is double: the outer one passing through a stuffing-box in the hull,
and the inner tube revolving inside it. The old-fashioned single tubes
were too hard to revolve and the resistance of the water used to bend
them aft and cause leakage. We can raise and lower the periscopes at
will, and all our larger boats have two of them, so that they can keep
a lookout in two directions at once, besides having a spare eye in case
the first is put out.”
“What are those two little things that big naval tug is towing over
there?” I inquired.
“The target for our torpedo practice,” replied Lieutenant Scope. “We
shall try to put four Whiteheads between those two buoys as the tug
tows them past at an unknown range and speed. If you step forward to
the torpedo room you can see them loading the tubes.”
As I walked forward it occurred to me that the twenty-odd men on board
the _X-4_ seemed to be moving about inside her with perfect freedom,
without disturbing her trim. I mentioned this to one of the crew.
[Illustration:
Courtesy of the Electric Boat Company.
Forward torpedo-compartment, U. S. Submarine, showing
breech-mechanism of four tubes. Round opening above is the
escape-hatch.
]
“It’s the trimming-tanks that keep her level,” he explained. “As we’re
walking forward, our weight in water is being automatically pumped from
the trimming-tank in the bow to the one astern. A submarine is just one
blamed tank after another. Stand clear of that chain-fall, sir; they’re
loading No. 1 tube.”
Stripped to the waist like an old-time gun-crew, four beautifully
muscled young gunner’s mates were hoisting, with an ingenious
arrangement of chains and pulleys, a torpedo from the magazine. The
breach of the tube was opened and the long Whitehead thrust in, two
flanges on its sides being fitted into deep grooves in the sides of
the tube, so that the torpedo would not spin like a rifle-bullet but be
launched on an even keel. The breach was closed, and the men stood by
expectantly.
“Skipper’s up in the conning-tower, taking aim through the periscope,”
explained the man who had told me about trimming-tanks. “The tubes
being fixed in the bow, he has to train the whole boat like a gun.
Likewise he’s got to figure out how far it is to the target and how
fast the tug is towing it, how many seconds it’s going to take the
torpedo to get there, and how much he’s got to allow for its being
carried off its course by tide and currents. When he gets good and
ready, the lieutenant’ll press a little electric button and you’ll
hear--”
“THUD!” went the compressed air in the tube, and the submarine
shuddered slightly with the shock of the recoil. But that was all.
“There she goes!” said my friend the tank-expert. “As soon as the
Whitehead was expelled, a compensation-tank just above the tube was
flooded with enough water to make good the loss in weight.”
“What keeps the sea-water from rushing into the tube after the torpedo
leaves it?” I asked.
“A conical-shaped cap on the bow of the boat keeps both tubes closed
except when you want to fire one of them. Then the cap, which is
pivoted on its upper edge, swings to port or starboard just long enough
for the torpedo to get clear and swings back before the water can get
in.”
Four of the ten torpedoes carried in the magazine were sped on their
way to the unseen target. I returned to the turret as the wireless
operator entered and handed a typewritten slip to Lieutenant Scope, who
smiled happily and said to me,
“The captain of the tug reports that all four shots were hits and all
four torpedoes have been safely recovered.”
I was too astonished to congratulate him on his marksmanship, as I
should have done.
“How in the name of miracles!” I gasped. “Can you receive a wireless
telegram under the sea?”
“By the Fessenden oscillator,” he replied, and added to the wireless
man,
“Take this gentleman below and show him how it works.”
“Did you ever have another chap knock two stone together under water
when you were taking a dive?” asked the operator. I nodded in vivid
recollection.
“Then you have some idea how sounds are magnified under water. It is an
old idea to put submarine bells down under lighthouses and fit ships
with some kind of receiver so that the bells can be heard and warning
given when it is too foggy to see the light. The advantage over the
old-style bell-buoy lies in the fact that sound travels about four
times as fast through water as through air,[16] and goes further and
straighter because it isn’t deflected by winds or what the aviators
call ‘air-pockets.’ The man who knows most about these things is
Professor Fessenden, of the Submarine Signal Company of Boston, who
first realized the possibility of telegraphing through water.[17]
[Illustration:
Courtesy of the American Magazine.
Fessenden oscillator outside the hull of a ship. The “ear” of a modern
vessel.]
“Fastened outside the hull of this boat is one of the Fessenden
oscillators: a steel disk eighteen inches in diameter, that can be
vibrated very rapidly by electricity. These vibrations travel through
the water, like wireless waves through the ether, till they strike the
oscillator on another vessel and set it to vibrating in sympathy. To
send a message, I start and stop the oscillator with this key so as
to form the dots and dashes of the Morse code. To receive, I sit here
with these receivers over my ears and ‘listen in,’ just like a wireless
operator, till I pick up our call ‘X-4,’ ‘X-4.’”
“How far can you send a message under water?”
“Ten miles is the furthest I’ve ever sent one. Professor Fessenden has
sent messages more than thirty miles. The invention only dates back to
1913 and what it will do in the future, there is no telling.”
[Illustration:
Courtesy of the American Magazine.
Professor Fessenden receiving a message sent through several miles of
sea-water by his “Oscillator.”]
“Even now, couldn’t a surface vessel act as eyes for a whole flotilla
of submarines and tell them where to go and when to strike by coaching
them through the Fessenden oscillator?”
The operator nodded.
“We’re doing it to-day, in practice. But don’t forget that an enemy’s
ship carrying a pair of oscillators can hear a submarine coming two
miles away. You can make out the beat of a propeller at that distance
every time.”
“But how can you tell how far away and in what direction it is?”
“I can’t, with a single oscillator like ours. But a ship carries two
of them, one on each side of the hull, like the ears on a man’s head.
And just as a man knows whether a shout he hears comes from the right
or left, because he hears it more with one ear than the other, so the
skipper of a surface craft can look at the indicator that registers the
relative intensity of the vibrations received by the port and starboard
oscillators and say,
“‘There’s somebody three points off the starboard bow, mile and three
quarters away, and heading for us. Nothing in sight, so it must be one
of those blamed submarines.’
“And away he steams, full speed ahead and cutting zigzags. Or maybe
he gets his rapid-fire guns ready and watches for Mr. Submarine to
rise--like the _X-4_’s doing now.”
Freed of the dead weight of many tons of sea water blown from her
ballast-tanks by compressed air, the submarine rose to the surface like
a balloon. Ventilators and hatch-covers were thrown open and we swarmed
up on deck to fill our grateful lungs with the good sea air. Three
motor-boats from the tug throbbed up alongside with the four torpedoes
we had discharged.
“Those boats wait, one this side of the target, one near it and the
third over on the far side, to mark the shots and catch the torpedoes
after they rise to the surface at the end of their run,” said
Lieutenant Scope. “We very seldom lose a torpedo nowadays. They tell a
story about one that dived to the bottom and was driven by the force of
its own engines into forty feet of soft mud, where it stayed till it
happened to be dug up by a dredger.”
The four torpedoes were hoisted aboard, drained of the sea water that
had flooded their air-chambers, cleaned and lowered through the torpedo
hatch forward down into the magazine. By this time the bridge and
railing were again in place and the flags fluttering over the taffrail
as the _X-4_, her day’s work done, sped swiftly up the coast to home
and mother-ship.
CHAPTER X
ACCIDENTS AND SAFETY DEVICES
The following submarines, with all or part of their crews, have been
accidentally lost in time of peace:
_Date_ _Name_ _Nationality_ _Men Lost_
March 18, 1904 A-1 British 11
June 20, 1904 Delfin Russian 26
June 8, 1905 A-8 British 14
July 6, 1905 Farfadet French 14
October 16, 1906 Lutin French 13
April 26, 1909 Foca Italian 13
June 12, 1909 Kambala Russian 20
July 14, 1909 C-11 British 13
April 15, 1910 No. 6. Japanese 14
May 26, 1910 Pluviôse French 26
January 17, 1911 U-3 German 3
February 2, 1912 A-3 British 14
June 8, 1912 Vendémiaire French 24
October 4, 1912 B-2 British 15
June 8, 1913 E-5 British 3
December 10, 1913 C-14 British none
January 16, 1914 A-7 British 11
March 25, 1915 F-4 American 21
The _A-1_ was engaged in manœuvers off Spithead, England, when she rose
to the surface right under the bows of the fast-steaming Union Castle
Liner _Berwick Castle_. Before anything could be done, the sharp prow
of the steamer had cut a great gash in the thin hull of the submarine
and sent her to the bottom with all her crew. This was in broad
daylight; her sister-ship _C-11_ was rammed and sunk by another liner
three years later, at night. The _Pluviôse_ of the French navy escaped
the bow of an on-coming cross-channel steamer when the submarine came
up at the entrance to Calais Harbor, only to have her topsides crushed
in by a blow from one of the paddle-wheels. Collisions like these are
less likely to happen nowadays, for the navigating officer of a modern
submarine can take a look round the horizon through the periscope from
a depth sufficient to let most steamers pass harmlessly over him, and
in case of darkness or fog, he can detect the vibrations of approaching
propellers by means of the Fessenden oscillator or some similar device.
Yet the frequency with which submarines have been intentionally rammed
and sunk in the present war shows that they would still be liable to
rise blindly to their destruction in time of peace.
The vapor from a leaking fuel-tank, making an explosive mixture with
the air inside the submarine and set off by a spark from the electrical
machinery, has caused many accidents of another kind. Such an explosion
took place on the original _Holland_, shortly after she was taken into
the government service, but fortunately without killing any one. As the
crew of the British _A-5_ were filling the fuel tanks of their vessel
with gasoline, some of them were blown up through the open hatchway
and into the sea by a burst of flaming vapor that killed six men and
terribly injured twelve more. A rescue party that entered the boat to
save the men still left aboard had several of its own members disabled
by a second explosion. The vessel itself, however, was almost unharmed.
But not long afterwards, another submarine of the same ill-fated
class, the _A-8_, was lying off Plymouth breakwater with her hatches
open, when the people on shore heard three distinct explosions on board
her and saw her suddenly submerge. Her crew evidently got the hatches
closed before she went down, as they sent up signals that they were
alive but unable to rise. Two hours later a fourth explosion took place
and all hope was abandoned.
This danger has been guarded against by better construction of tanks
and valves, and very greatly lessened by the substitution of the
heavy oil used in the Diesel engines for the more costly and volatile
gasoline.
Besides igniting explosive oil vapors with their sparks, the
old-fashioned sulphuric acid and lead storage batteries still used in
many submarines are a great source of danger in themselves. The jars
are too easily broken, and the leaking acid eats into the steel plating
of the boat, weakening it if not actually letting in the sea water.
And if salt water comes in contact with a battery of this type, then
chlorin gas--the same poisonous gas that the Germans use against the
Allies’ trenches--is generated and the crew are in very great danger
of suffocation. The new Edison alkali storage battery, besides being
lighter and more durable, uses no acid and cannot give off chlorin when
saturated with sea water.
[Illustration:
Redrawn from the London Sphere.
Side-elevation of a Modern Submarine,
A, Running on the surface; B, In awash condition; C, Submerging; D,
Exposing periscope; E, Fully submerged; F, Resting on the bottom.]
The remaining great danger is that a submarine may get out of control
and submerge too quickly, so that it either strikes the bottom, at
the risk of being crushed in or entangled, or descends to so great
a depth that its sides are forced in by the pressure of the water
outside, which also prevents the submarine from discharging the water
in its ballast tanks and escaping to the surface. Detachable safety
weights and keels to lighten the boat in such an emergency date back
to the time of Bushnell and J. Day. A more modern device is to have a
hydrostatic valve (see page 51) set to correspond with the pressure of
a certain depth of water, so that if the submarine goes below this the
valve will be forced in and automatically “blow the tanks.”
A submarine that sank too deep was the _No. 6_, of the Imperial
Japanese navy, which disappeared while manœuvering in Hiroshima Bay, on
April 15, 1910. When she was found, her entire crew lay dead at their
stations, and in the conning-tower, beside the body of the commander,
was the following letter written by that officer, Lieutenant Takuma
Faotomu:
“Although there is indeed no excuse to make for the sinking of his
Imperial Majesty’s boat, and for the doing away of subordinates through
my heedlessness, all on board the boat have discharged their duties
well and in everything acted calmly until death. Although we are dying
in the pursuance of our duty to the State, the only regret we have is
due to anxiety lest the men of the world misunderstand the matter,
and that thereby a blow may be given to the future development of the
submarine.
“Gentlemen, we hope you will be increasingly diligent and not fail
to appreciate the cause of the accident, and that you will devote
your entire energy to investigate everything and so secure the future
development of submarines. If this be done we have nothing to regret.
“While going through gasoline submerged exercises we submerged too far,
and when we attempted to shut the sluice-valve, the chain broke.
“Then we tried to close the sluice-valve by hand, but it was too late,
for the afterpart was full of water, and the boat sank at an angle
of about twenty-five degrees. The boat came to rest at an incline of
about twelve degrees, pointing towards the stern. The switchboard being
under water the electric lights went out. Offensive gas developed and
breathing became difficult. The boat sank about 10 A.M. on the 15th,
and though suffering at the time from this offensive gas, we endeavored
to expel the water by hand pumps. As the vessel went down we expelled
the water from the main tank. As the light has gone out the gage cannot
be seen, but we know the water has been expelled from the main tank.
“We cannot use the electric current at all. The battery is leaking but
no salt water has reached it and chlorin gas has not developed. We only
rely on the hand pump now.
“The above was written under the light of the conning-tower, at about
11.45 o’clock. We are now soaked by the water that has made its way
in. Our clothes are wet and we feel cold. I had been accustomed to
warn my shipmates that their behavior (in an emergency) should be calm
and deliberate, as well as brave, yet not too deliberate, lest work be
retarded. People may be tempted to ridicule this after this failure,
but I am perfectly confident that my words have not been mistaken.
“The depth gage of the conning-tower indicates 52 feet, and despite our
efforts to expel the water the pump stopped and would not work after 12
o’clock. The depth in this neighborhood being ten fathoms, the reading
may be correct.
“The officers and men of submarines should be chosen from the bravest
of the brave or there will be annoyances in cases like this. Happily
all the members of this crew have discharged their duties well and I am
satisfied. I have always expected death whenever I left my home, and
therefore my will is already in the drawer at Karasaki. (This remark
applies only to my private affairs and is really superfluous. Messrs.
Taguchi and Asami will please inform my father of this.)
“I respectfully request that none of the families left by my
subordinates suffer. The only thing I am anxious about is this.
“Atmospheric pressure is increasing and I feel as if my tympanum were
breaking.
“12.30 o’clock. Respiration is extraordinarily difficult. I mean I am
breathing gasoline. I am intoxicated with gasoline.
“It is 12.40 o’clock.”
Those were the last words written by Lieutenant Takuma Faotomu, bravest
of the brave.
Very many ingenious devices have been invented to enable the crew of
a stranded submarine to escape. The best-known and most widely used
is some form of the air-lock or diver’s chamber, as described in the
chapter on the Lake boats. Through this the crew can pass in succession
to the water outside and swim to the surface. If the depth is so great
that an unprotected swimmer would be crushed by the weight of water
above him, there is a great variety of safety-helmets, and of jackets
with mouth-pieces leading to tanks containing enough air under moderate
pressure to inflate the lungs and cheeks so that the internal pressure
of the body will counteract that of the water. An escaping seaman,
burdened with such a device, cannot rise unaided to the surface but
must climb or be hauled up by a rope let down from above. Moreover,
he must not ascend too rapidly, or the pressure within his body will
dangerously exceed that without, as if he had been suddenly picked up
at the seashore and carried to the top of the Andes. The human body is
too delicate and elaborate a structure to be carelessly turned into
a compressed-air tank. The surplus oxygen forms bubbles which try to
force their way out through the tissues of the body, causing intense
pain, and possibly paralysis or death. To avoid this, divers are
brought up from any great depth by slow and careful stages, unless they
can be placed at once in specially-constructed tanks on shore, where
the pressure they are under can be gradually reduced to normal.
[Illustration:
Courtesy of the Scientific American.
One Type of Safety-jacket.]
A covered lifeboat carried in a socket on the submarine’s deck, so that
in case of accidental stranding the crew could get into the small boat
from below, close the hatch cover, release the lifeboat from within,
and rise safely and comfortably to the surface, was an attractive
feature of the _Plongeur_ in 1863, and of many projected but unbuilt
submarines since then. A detachable conning-tower, containing a small
lifeboat that could be launched after the safety compartment had risen
to the surface, has also been designed and patented more than once.
Theoretically, these devices seem admirable but naval architects will
have none of them. The reason for this is very simple. A submarine is
primarily a warship, an instrument of destruction, and its carrying
capacity is too limited to permit several hundredweight of torpedoes or
supplies being crowded out by a lifeboat or a score of safety-helmets.
A divers’ compartment and one or two ordinary diving-suits--for these
things are of military value--and a buoy that can be sent up to mark
the spot where the boat has gone down are as much as you can expect to
find in the average naval submarine.
One of the most instructive accidents that ever happened to an undersea
boat was the loss and rescue of the German _U-3_. She sank to the
bottom of Kiel Harbor on January 17, 1911. A small spherical buoy
was released and rose to the surface, where it was picked up and a
telephone attached to the end of the thin wire cable.
“Hello!”
“Hello! This is the captain of the _U-3_ speaking. We cannot rise, but
we are resting easy and have air enough to last forty-eight hours.”
“Good. The steam salvage-dock _Vulcan_ has been sent for and will be
here before then, Herr Kapitan.”
But before the _Vulcan_ arrived, it occurred to some one in authority
to attempt to raise the _U-3_ with a large floating crane then
available. The strong steel chain ready coiled at the lower end of the
buoy-line was drawn up and made fast to the crane, which could not
lift the 300-ton submarine bodily, but succeeded in hauling up its bow
sufficiently for the twenty-seven petty officers and seamen on board
the _U-3_ to be shot up through the torpedo tube to the surface. The
captain and his two lieutenants chose to remain. Shortly afterwards
the chain slipped and broke off one of the boat’s ventilators, letting
water into the hull and drowning all three officers.
Then the sea-going, steam salvage-dock _Vulcan_ reached the scene and
brought the _U-3_ to the surface in three hours.
“The _Vulcan_ is a double-hulled vessel, 230 feet in length with a
lifting capacity of 500 tons. The width between the two hulls is
sufficient to admit with good clearance the largest submarines. At
a suitable height a shelf is formed along each wall of the interior
opening, and upon this rests the removable floor of the dock. The two
hulls of the ship are each built with water-tight compartments of large
capacity, similar to those which are found in the side walls of the
ordinary floating dock. When a sunken submarine is to be raised, the
_Vulcan_ steams to the wreck and is moored securely in position above
it. Spanning the well between the two hulls are two massive gantry
cranes, each provided with heavy lifting tackle driven by electric
motors. The first operation is to fill the compartments until the
vessel has sunk to the required depth. The floor of the dock is then
moved clear of the well. The lifting tackles are now lowered and made
fast, either to chains which have been slung around the body of the
submarine, or to two massive eyebolts which are permanently riveted
into the submarine’s hull. At the order to hoist away, the submarine
is lifted free from the mud and drawn up within the well, until its
bottom is clear of the supporting shelves on the inner faces of the two
hulls, above referred to. The dock floor is then placed in position on
the shelves, the water is pumped out of the two hulls, and the _Vulcan_
rises, lifting the submarine and the dock floor clear of the water.”[18]
[Illustration:
Courtesy of the Scientific American.
The _Vulcan_ salvaging the _U-3_.]
A similar vessel was built by the French government as a result of
public indignation over the delay in raising the sunken _Pluviôse_.
Great Britain has a salvage dock with a lifting capacity of 1000
tons. But the most remarkable craft of this kind belongs to Italy and
was designed by the famous engineer Major Cesare Laurenti, technical
director of the Fiat-San Giorgio works, builders of some of the world’s
best submarines. She is a twin-hulled vessel, fitted not only to pick
a sunken submarine from the sea bottom, but to care for it in every
way, for she is also a floating dry-dock, capable of repairing two of
the largest submarines, besides being a fully equipped mother-ship for
a flotilla of six. With the ends of her central tunnel closed by a
false stem and stern, and propelled by twin screws driven by powerful
Diesel engines, she is a fast and seaworthy vessel, capable of keeping
company with her flotilla on a surface cruise. She carries a sufficient
armament of quick-firing guns to beat off a hostile destroyer. But the
most noteworthy feature of the Laurenti dock is a long steel cylinder,
capable of enduring great pressure from within, that is used to test
the resisting strength of new submarines. A new boat, or a section of a
proposed new type, is placed in this tube, which is filled with water
that is then compressed by pumps, reproducing the effect of submergence
to any desired depth.
The United States navy tests each new submarine built for it by
actually lowering the boat, with no one in it, to a depth of 200 feet.
We have no Laurenti dock, no _Vulcan_, no sea-going salvage dock of any
kind. The tender _Fulton_ has a powerful crane, but she cannot be on
the Atlantic and Pacific coasts and in the Far East, simultaneously.
“The difficulties encountered in raising the sunken British submarine
_A-3_,” wrote Mr. R. G. Skerrett in the “Scientific American” some
years ago, “have in them a note of warning for us. We are steadily
adding to our flotilla of under-water boats, and yet we have no proper
facilities in the government service for the prompt salvage of any of
these boats should they be carried suddenly to the bottom. We have been
fortunate so far in escaping serious accidents, but that is no reason
for assuming that we are any more likely to be immune from disaster
than any other naval service. We should profit by the catastrophes
which have befallen England, Russia, France, Germany, and Japan, and no
longer continue unprepared for kindred mishaps.”[19]
We refused to profit and we continued unprepared. Then came a brief
official cablegram from Hawaii, “Honolulu, March 25, 1915. U. S.
submarine _F-4_ left tender at 9 A.M. for submerged run. Failed to
return to surface.”
The other two submarines on the station and motor-boats from the
tender _Alert_ cruised about till they found the spot where oil and
air-bubbles were coming to the surface. Two tugs then swept the bottom
with a two-thousand foot sweep of chains and wire cables, which caught
early the next morning on what proved to be the lost submarine, in
three hundred feet of water, about a mile and a half outside the
entrance to Honolulu Harbor.
For twenty-four hours or so the navy department held out the hope
that the men on board her were still alive and might be rescued. But
there was nothing ready to rescue them with. Three weeks were spent
in building the windlasses for an improvised salvage-dock made out of
two mud scows. In the meanwhile, a detachment of the department’s most
skilled divers were sent out from the Brooklyn Navy Yard. With their
aid, strong wire cables were passed under the submarine’s hull. While
engaged on this work, one of the divers, Chief Gunner’s Mate Frank
Crilley, broke all deep submergence records by descending to a depth
of 288 feet. As a result, his lungs were severely injured and he soon
afterwards developed pneumonia.
The wire ropes chafed through and were replaced by chains. Then the
_F-4_ was lifted from the bottom and towed inshore to a depth of fifty
feet. Here a heavy storm set in and the lines had to be cast off. Six
big cylindrical-shaped pontoons were then built at San Francisco and
brought out to Honolulu on the cruiser _Maryland_. Divers passed fresh
chains under the _F-4_, the pontoons were sunk on either side of her,
and coupled together. Then the water was blown out of the pontoons
by compressed-air piped down from above, the _F-4_ was raised to the
surface, and towed into dry dock.
No decipherable written record was discovered inside her hull, which
was filled with sand washed in through a large hole made in the plating
by the chafing of the chains. But the story of the disaster was written
in the plates and rivets of the vessel herself, and skilfully deduced
and reconstructed by a board of inquiry, headed by Rear-Admiral
Boush. Their report, which was not made public till October 27, told
dramatically how the corroded condition of the lead lining in the
battery tanks had let the acid eat away the rivets in the port wall
of the forward tank. Salt water thus entered part of the battery,
producing chlorin gas, which exploded violently, admitting more water,
till the submarine began to sink by the head, in spite of the raising
of her diving-rudders.
“Automatic blow was tripped, and blow valve on auxiliary tank opened
in the endeavor to check downward momentum. Manœuvering with propellers
probably took place. The appreciable length of time requisite for air
to build up in ballast tanks for the expulsion of sufficient quantities
of water resulted in the vessel reaching crushing depth.
“Seams of the vessel began to open, and probably through open torpedo
tubes and seams water entered the vessel and a condition of positive
buoyancy was never attained.
“There followed actual disaster. The vessel began filling with water.
The personnel abandoned stations and many sought refuge in the engine
room, closing the door. Under great pressure the engine room bulkhead
failed suddenly, leaving the vessel on the bottom, completely flooded.”
All the boats of the “F” class had already been withdrawn from the
service, by order of Secretary Daniels. Their place at Honolulu was
taken by four boats of the “K” class, which made the 2100 mile voyage
out from San Francisco under their own power.
CHAPTER XI
MINES
THE MINE SWEEPERS
“‘Ware mine!”
“Starboard your helm.”... “Full speed ahead!”
The squat craft duly swings--
A hand’s breadth off, a thing of dread
The sullen breaker flings.
Carefully, slowly, patiently,
The men of Grimsby Town
Grope their way on the rolling sea--
The storm-swept, treacherous, gray North Sea--
Keeping the death-rate down.
--H. INGAMELLS, in the “London Spectator.”
A mine is a torpedo that has no motive-power of its own but is either
anchored or set adrift in the supposed path of an enemy’s ship. We have
already seen how Bushnell used drifting mines at Philadelphia in 1777.
Anchored mines are among the many inventions of Robert Fulton. The
following description of the original type, illustrated by an engraving
made by himself, is taken from Fulton’s “Torpedo War and Submarine
Explosions.”
[Illustration: Fulton’s Anchored Torpedoes.]
“Plate II represents the anchored torpedo, so arranged as to blow
up a vessel which should run against it; _B_ is a copper case two
feet long, twelve inches diameter, capable of containing one hundred
pounds of powder. _A_ is a brass box, in which there is a lock similar
to a common gun lock, with a barrel two inches long, to contain a
musket charge of powder: the box, with the lock cocked and barrel
charged, is screwed to the copper case _B_. _H_ is a lever which has a
communication to the lock inside of the box, and in its present state
holds the lock cocked and ready to fire. _C_ is a deal box filled with
cork, and tied to the case _B_. The object of the cork is to render
the torpedo about fifteen or twenty pounds specifically lighter than
water, and give it a tendency to rise to the surface. It is held down
to any given depth under water by a weight of fifty or sixty pounds
as at _F_: there is also a small anchor _G_, to prevent a strong tide
moving it from its position. With torpedoes prepared, and knowing
the depth of water in all our bays and harbors, it is only necessary
to fix the weight _F_ at such a distance from the torpedo, as when
thrown into the water, _F_ will hold it ten, twelve, or fifteen feet
below the surface at low water, it will then be more or less below the
surface at high water, or at different times of the tide; but it should
never be so deep as the usual draft of a frigate or ship-of-the-line.
When anchored, it will, during the flood tide, stand in its present
position; at slack water it will stand perpendicular to the weight _F_,
as at _D_; during the ebb it will be at _E_. At ten feet under water
the waves, in boisterous weather, would have little or no tendency to
disturb the torpedo; for that if the hollow of a wave should sink ten
feet below what would be the calm surface, the wave would run twenty
feet high, which I believe is never the case in any of our bays and
harbors. All the experience which I have on this kind of torpedo is,
that in the month of October, 1805, I had one of them anchored nine
feet under water, in the British Channel near Dover; the weather was
severe, the waves ran high, it kept its position for twenty-four hours,
and, when taken up, the powder was dry and the lock in good order. The
torpedo thus anchored, it is obvious, that if a ship in sailing should
strike the lever _H_, the explosion would be instantaneous, and she
be immediately destroyed; hence, to defend our bays or harbors, let
a hundred, or more if necessary, of these engines be anchored in the
channel, as for example, the Narrows, to defend New York.
“The figure to the right of the plate is an end view of the torpedo.
_H-H_ shews its lever forked, to give the better chance of being struck.
“Having described this instrument in a way which I hope will be
understood,” continues Fulton, “I may be permitted to put the following
question to my reader, which is: Knowing that the explosion of one
hundred pounds of powder, or more if required, under the bottom of a
ship-of-the-line, would destroy her, and seeing, that if a ship in
sailing should strike the lever of an anchored torpedo, she would be
blown up, would he have the courage, or shall I say the temerity,
to sail into a channel where one or more hundred of such engines
were anchored? I rely on each gentleman’s sense of prudence and
self-preservation, to answer this question to my satisfaction. Should
the apprehension of danger become as strong on the minds of those who
investigate this subject as it is on mine, we may reasonably conclude
that the same regard to self-preservation will make an enemy cautious
in approaching waters where such engines are placed; for however brave
sailors may be, there is no danger so distressing to the mind of a
seaman, or so calculated to destroy his confidence, as that which is
invisible and instantaneous destruction.”
But Admiral Farragut at Mobile Bay, half a century later, did have the
“temerity to sail into a channel where one or more hundred of such
engines were anchored.” The monitor _Tecumseh_ struck and exploded a
mine that sent her to the bottom with almost her entire crew. The
rest of the fleet began to waver when, from the main-rigging of the
_Hartford_ Farragut shouted his immortal command:
“Full steam ahead! Damn the torpedoes!”
[Illustration: Sinking of the U. S. S. _Tecumseh_, by a Confederate
mine, in Mobile Bay.]
As the flagship led the way through the mine-field, those on board
heard mine after mine bump against her bottom, but though the levers
were struck and the primers snapped, the powder-charges failed to
explode. Hastily improvised out of beer-kegs and other receptacles,
with tin or iron covers that became rusty and useless soon after they
were placed under water, many of the Confederate mines were in this
respect inferior to the well-built copper torpedoes of Fulton. Yet
crude as they were, they destroyed more than forty Northern warships,
transports, and supply vessels.
[Illustration:
From Scharf’s History of the Confederate States Navy.
A Confederate “Keg-Torpedo.”]
Percussion-caps instead of flintlocks were now used to explode contact
mines. A new type of anchored torpedo, set off by an electric spark
through a wire running to an operator on shore, was also a favorite
with the Confederates. Because they are exploded not by contact with
the ship’s hull but by the closing of the circuit by the operator
when he observes an enemy’s vessel to be above one of them, these are
called “observation mines.” In the Civil War, many effective mines
of this sort were made out of whisky demijohns. One of these blew up
the gunboat _Cairo_, in the Yazoo River, in the autumn of 1862. The
double-ended, river gunboat _Commodore Jones_ was blown to pieces by an
observation mine, whose operator was subsequently captured and tied to
the cut-water of another Federal gunboat as a warning and a hostage.
During the bombardment of Fort Sumter by the United States fleet in
1863, the _New Ironsides_ lay for an hour directly above an observation
mine made of boiler iron and containing a ton of gunpowder but which
failed to explode despite all the efforts of the operator. He was
naturally accused of treachery and it would have gone hard with him had
it not been discovered, soon after the _New Ironsides_ ceased firing
and stood out to sea, that the shore end of the wire had been severed
by the wheel of an ammunition wagon.
[Illustration: U. S. IRON-CLAD “CAIRO” (BLOWN UP BY CONFEDERATE
TORPEDO).
From Scharf’s History of the Confederate States Navy.
First Warship Destroyed by a Mine.]
During the Franco-Prussian War, the powerful French fleet blockaded the
German coast but did not attack the shore batteries, which were well
protected by mines. After peace was declared the foreign consuls at one
of the North German seaports congratulated the burgomaster on having
planted and taken up so many mines without a single accident. Unknown
to any one, the prudent burgomaster had unloaded them first, and they
kept the French away just as well.
In the Spanish-American War, Admiral Dewey was able to enter Manila
Bay and destroy the Spanish squadron there because its commander “had
repeatedly asked for torpedoes (mines) from Madrid, but had received
none and his attempts to make them had been failures.”[20] It was the
mine-fields and not the feeble shore batteries that kept Sampson’s
fleet out of Havana and Santiago. At Guantanamo, now a United States
naval station, the _Texas_ and the _Marblehead_ each “struck her
propeller against a contact mine, which failed to explode only because
it was incrusted with a thick growth of barnacles. Gratitude for the
vessels’ escape may fairly be divided between divine care to which the
gallant and devout Captain Philip attributed it in his report, and the
Spaniards’ neglect to maintain a proper inspection of these defenses.
A number of these torpedoes, which were of French manufacture, and
contained forty-six and a half kilograms (one hundred and two pounds)
of guncotton, were afterward dragged up in the channel.”[21]
[Illustration:
From Scharf’s History of the Confederate States Navy.
A Confederate “Buoyant Torpedo” or Contact-mine.]
At the siege of Port Arthur in 1904, the Japanese fleet planted mines
outside the harbor to keep the Russians in, and the Russians came out
and planted mines of their own to entrap the blockaders. While engaged
in this work, the Russian mine-layer _Yenisei_ had a mine which
had just been lowered through her specially constructed sternports
thrown by a wave against her rudder, and was blown to atoms by the
consequent explosion of three hundred more in her hold. The flagship
_Petropavlosk_, returning from a sortie on April 13, struck a Japanese
contact-mine and went down with the loss of six hundred men, including
Vereshchagin, the famous painter of war-scenes, and Admiral Makaroff,
who was not only the commander but the heart and soul of the Russian
fleet.[22] A month later, another mine cost the Japanese their finest
battleship, the _Hatsuse_. Nor was the loss confined either to the
belligerents or to the duration of the war. Nearly one hundred Chinese
and other neutral merchant vessels were sunk by some of the many mines
torn loose from their anchors by storms to drift, the least noticeable
and most terrible of derelicts, over all the seas of the Far East, long
after peace was declared.
The same thing on a larger scale will doubtless take place as a result
of the present European War. From the Baltic to the Dardanelles, both
sides have sown the waters thick with contact mines, hundreds of which
have already broken loose and been cast up on the shores of Denmark,
Holland, and other neutral lands. How many more have been picked up
on the coasts of the different belligerent countries, the military
censors have naturally kept a close secret; how many of these infernal
machines are now drifting about the North Sea, the North Atlantic, and
the Mediterranean it is impossible to compute. Scarcely a week passes
without the publication of such news items as the following extracts
from “Current events in Norway,” in the “American-Scandinavian Review”
for July-August, 1915:
“One hundred and fifty mines had been brought into Bergen up to April
12. The steamer _Caprivi_ of Bergen, which sank after being struck
by a mine off the coast of Ireland, was on its way from Baltimore
with a cargo of 4150 tons of grain, the property of the Norwegian
government.... The German government has declared its willingness to
comply with the demand of the Norwegian government for compensation for
the _Belridge_, provided it be proved that the sinking of the steamer
was the result of a German torpedo. The pieces of the shell found in
the side of the vessel are to be sent to the German government, and
in case there should be any disagreement about the facts they will be
submitted to arbitration.”
Unfortunately in most cases where a neutral ship is so sunk, the
exploding mine automatically destroys all evidence of its own origin,
and each belligerent promptly and positively declares that it must have
been planted, if not deliberately set adrift, by the other side. The
neutral is left to get what satisfaction he can out of the ruling of
the last Hague Conference that all contact mines must be so constructed
as to become harmless after breaking loose from their moorings. There
is nothing mechanically difficult about installing such a safety
device, and all the great powers now at war with each other solemnly
pledged themselves to do so. But the temptation of perhaps destroying a
hostile battleship as the _Hatsuse_ was destroyed, by a drifting mine,
has apparently been too great.
Premature explosion of the mine during handling and planting, such
as caused the destruction of the _Yenisei_ is, of course, carefully
guarded against. One of the simplest and most effective safety devices
is that used in the British navy, where the external parts of the
exploding apparatus are sealed with a thick layer of sugar, which is
dissolved by the sea-water after being submerged for a few minutes.
By then the mine-laying vessel has had time to get safely out of the
neighborhood.
Modern mines are of various shapes and sizes but are as a rule either
spherical or shaped like a pear with the stem down. The anchor is a
hollow, flat-bottomed cylinder, containing its own anchor cable wound
on a windlass, and making a convenient base or stand for the explosive
chamber or mine proper, so that the whole apparatus can be stood or
trundled about the deck of a mine-layer like a barrel. Once placed in
the water either by being dropped through the overhanging stern-ports
of a large sea-going mine-planter like the U.S.S. _San Francisco_, or
lowered over the side of a smaller craft by a derrick boom, the weight
of its anchor causes the mine to assume an upright position. This
releases a small weight or plummet at the end of a short line attached
to a spring that keeps the windlass inside the anchor from revolving.
When the plummet has sunk to the end of its cord, its weight pulls
down the spring, and the windlass begins to revolve and unreel the
cable, the end of which is, of course, made fast to the bottom of the
mine. This causes the anchor, which has been held up by the buoyancy
of the mine, to sink, and follows the plummet till the latter touches
the bottom. Freed of the plummet’s weight, the spring now flies up and
stops the windlass. But the hollow anchor is now filled with water,
whose additional weight drags the mine under. When the anchor rests on
the bottom, the mine will be at the same distance beneath the surface
of the water as the anchor had to sink after the windlass stopped, or
the length of the plummet’s line. By regulating that, a mine can be
made automatically to set itself at any desired depth.
[Illustration:
(Redrawn from the London Sphere.)
Modern Contact-Mine.
A, Mine-Planter; B, Mine being dropped overboard; C, Plummet-line
extended; D, Anchor sinking; E, Plummet touching bottom; F, Mine
submerged and anchored; G, Battleship striking mine; 1, The
“Striker”; 2, Charge of Explosives; 3, Air-space, for Buoyancy;
4, Mine-case; 5, Anchor; 6, Plummet.
]
Mines are almost never laid singly but in groups, the area of water so
planted being called a “mine field.” A secret, zigzag channel is often
left clear for the benefit of friendly craft. The rows of mines are
usually “staggered” or placed like the men on a checker-board, so that
if a hostile vessel passes through an opening in the first row she will
strike a mine in the second. Another device is to couple together the
mooring cables of two or more mines so that a ship passing between them
will draw them in against her sides.
Contact may cause explosion in any one of several different ways. The
head or sides of the mine may be studded with projecting rods like the
striker on the nose of a Whitehead, to be either driven directly in
against a detonating charge of fulminate or else open the jaws of a
clutch and release the spring of a firing-pin. Such external movable
parts, however, are too prone to become overgrown and clogged with
barnacles and the like. A more modern way is to have the shock of the
collision with the ship’s hull dislodge a heavy ball held in a cup
inside the mine. The fall of this weight sets in motion machinery which
fires the detonating charge. Or the device may not be mechanical but
electrical, as in the type of mine that, when drawn far enough over
to one side by a vessel passing over it, spills a cupful of mercury.
This stream of liquid metal closes an electric circuit, so that an
electric current passes through a piece of platinum wire embedded in
fulminate and heats it red-hot, with obvious results. This current may
be obtained either from a storage-battery carried in the mine itself,
or through a wire running down the mooring cable and over the bottom
to the shore. Most shore-control mines are so designed that they can
either be fired by observation, or else turned into electro-contact
mines of the above-mentioned type by arranging the switches in the
controlling station. It is also possible to have the contact serve
to warn the operator on shore by ringing a bell and indicating the
position of the intruding ship in the mine-field.
Just as barbed-wire entanglements on land are blown out of the way by
small charges of high explosives, so mined areas of the sea can be
cleared by “counter-mining.” One or more strings of linked-together
mines, of a small, easily-handled type, are carefully placed by
light-draft vessels in the waters already planted by the enemy.
When these are exploded together, the concussion is enough to
destroy any anchored mines near at hand, either by setting off their
exploding-devices or causing their cases to leak, so that they will be
filled with water and sink harmlessly to the bottom. Or a channel may
be cleared by “sweeping” it with a drag-rope towed along the bottom
by two small steamers, exploding the mines or tearing them up by the
roots. Very effective work of this kind has been done by the small
steam-trawlers used by the North Sea fishermen, and if anything of the
sort is ever necessary in American waters we may be thankful for the
powerful sea-going tugs now towing strings of barges up and down our
coasts.
[Illustration: U. S. Mine-planter _San Francisco_.]
But even a light field-piece on shore can shell and sink the sort
of small, unarmored craft that must be used for mine-sweeping. When
a fleet attacks a channel or harbor entrance properly defended by
both mine-fields and batteries, each supporting the other, there
comes a time when the naval forces must wait till troops can be
landed to drive away the forces protecting the rear of the batteries,
so that the mine-sweepers can advance and clear a channel for the
superdreadnoughts. The most striking example of this is the holding of
the Allied fleet by the Turks at the Dardanelles.
There, too, effective use is being made of the latest, which is an
adaptation of the oldest type of torpedo: the drifting mine.[23] This
twentieth-century improvement on Bushnell’s “kegs charged with powder”
floats upright, with a vertical-acting propeller on top and another on
its bottom, and a hydrostatic valve set to maintain it at any desired
depth. Should it rise or sink, the change in pressure will cause the
valve to act on the principle already explained in connection with
the Whitehead torpedo (see page 44). Controlled by the valve, the
little compressed-air motor attached to the vertical propellers will
cause them to make a few revolutions, just enough to keep the mine
at a constant depth beneath the surface of the Dardanelles, as the
four-mile-an-hour current carries it down against the Anglo-French
fleet. Within a few hours of each other, during the furious bombardment
of the forts on March 18, 1915, the French battleship _Bouvet_ was
struck by one of these drifting mines and went down stern-foremost,
then H.M.S. _Ocean_ was sunk by another, and the _Irresistible_ forced
to run ashore to escape sinking, only to be pounded to pieces by the
guns of the forts. A feature of this type of mine is that its size and
shape enable it to be launched through a torpedo tube, either from a
surface craft or from a submarine.
Ordinary contact-mines, without anchors and attached to floats that
held them a few feet below the surface of the water, are sometimes
dropped overboard from a vessel closely pursued by an enemy. A small
mine so dropped by a German light cruiser returning from an attempted
raid on the English coast, early in the war, was struck by the pursuing
British submarine _D-5_ and sent her to the bottom. The _D-5_ was
running awash at the time and only two officers and two seamen were
saved.
CHAPTER XII
THE SUBMARINE IN ACTION
“Hit and hard hit! The blow went home
The muffled knocking stroke,
The steam that overrides the foam,
The foam that thins to smoke,
The smoke that cloaks the deep aboil,
The deep that chokes her throes,
Till, streaked with ash and sleeked with oil,
The lukewarm whirlpools close!”
--KIPLING.
The first submarine in history to sink a hostile warship without also
sinking herself is the _E-9_ of the British navy. Together with most
of her consorts, she was sent, at the outbreak of the present war, to
explore and reconnoiter off the German coast and the island fortress
of Heligoland to find where the enemy’s ships were lying, how they
were protected and how they might be attacked. After six weeks of
such work, the _E-9_ entered Heligoland Bight on September 13, 1914,
and discharged two torpedoes at the German light cruiser _Hela_. One
exploded against her bow and the other amidships, and the cruiser went
down almost immediately, drowning many of her crew.
[Illustration:
Copyright, London Sphere & N. Y. Herald.
English Submarine Rescuing English Sailors.]
Another British submarine had already appeared in action off Heligoland
but as a saver instead of a destroyer of human life. On the 28th
of August a number of German torpedo-craft and light cruisers
were decoyed out to sea by the appearance and pretended flight of
some English destroyers. (It has been declared but not officially
confirmed that the “bait” consisted not of destroyers but two British
submarines, which rose to the surface where one of them pretended to
be disabled and was slowly towed away by the other till their pursuers
were almost within range, when the line was cast off and both boats
dived to safety.) The Germans found themselves attacked by a larger
British flotilla and a confused sort of battle followed. During the
mêlée, an English cruiser lowered a whaleboat that picked up several
survivors of a sunken German vessel. The cruiser was then driven away
by a more powerful German ship, and the crew of the whaleboat found
themselves left in the enemy’s waters without arms, food, or navigating
instruments. Suddenly a periscope rose out of the water alongside,
followed by the conning-tower and hull of the British submarine _E-4_,
which took the Englishmen on board and left the Germans the whaleboat,
after which both parties went home rejoicing.
Shortly after this, the German submarine _U-15_ boldly attacked a
British squadron, but revealed herself by the white wake of her
periscope as it cut through the calm water. A beautifully aimed shot
from the cruiser _Birmingham_ smashed the periscope. The submarine
dived, temporarily safe but blinded, for she was an old-fashioned craft
with only one observation instrument. Her commander now essayed a swift
“porpoise dive” up to the surface and down again, exposing only the
conning-tower for a very few seconds. But a broadside blazed from the
_Birmingham_, a shell struck squarely against the conning-tower, and
the sea poured in through the ragged death-wound in the deck of the
_U-15_.
[Illustration: Copyright, London Sphere & N. Y. Herald.
Engagement between the _Birmingham_ and the _U-15_.
1. Submarine’s periscope shot away.
2. Submarine dives, temporarily safe but blinded.
3. Submarine exposes conning-tower.
4. Conning-tower shot away, _U-15_ sinking.
]
But these early affairs were now overshadowed as completely as the
first Union victories in West Virginia were overshadowed by Bull Run.
Another British squadron encountered another German submarine and this
time the periscope was not detected. Lieutenant-Commander Otto von
Weddigen had had ample time to take up an ideal position beside the
path of his enemies, who passed in slow and stately procession before
the bow torpedo-tubes of the _U-9_. The German officer pressed a button
and saw through his periscope the white path of the “Schwartzkopf” as
it sped straight and true to the tall side of the _Aboukir_. He saw
the cruiser heaved into the air by the shock of the bursting war-head,
then watched her settle and go down. Round swung her nearest consort
to the rescue, lowering her lifeboats as she came. But scarcely had
the survivors of the _Aboukir’s_ company set foot on the deck of the
_Hogue_ than she, too, was torpedoed, and the half-naked men of both
crews went tumbling down the slope of the upturned side as she rolled
over and sank. Up steamed the _Cressy_, her gun-crews standing by their
useless pieces, splendid in helpless bravery. Half reluctantly, von
Weddigen sent his remaining foe to the bottom and slipped away under
the waves, the victor of the strangest naval battle in history.
Not a German had received the slightest injury; fourteen hundred
Englishmen had been killed. It was the loss of these trained officers
and seamen, and not that of three old cruisers that would soon have
been sent to the scrap heap, that was felt by the British navy.
Realizing that no fears for their own lives would keep the officers of
a British ship from attempting to rescue the drowning crew of another,
the Admiralty issued the following order:
“It has been necessary to point out for the future guidance of his
Majesty’s ships that the conditions that prevail when one vessel of
a squadron is injured in a mine-field or exposed to submarine attack
are analogous to those which occur in an action and that the rule of
leaving disabled ships to their own resources is applicable, so far at
any rate as large vessels are concerned. No act of humanity, whether to
friend or foe, should lead to a neglect of the proper precautions and
dispositions of war, and no measures can be taken to save life which
prejudice the military situation.”
Another old cruiser, the _Hermes_, that had been turned into a floating
base for sea-planes, was torpedoed off Dunkirk by a German submarine,
most of the crew being rescued by French torpedo boats. On New Year’s
day, 1915, the battleship _Formidable_ was likewise sent to the
bottom of the English Channel. She too was a rather old ship, of the
same class as the _Bulwark_, which had been destroyed by an internal
explosion two weeks earlier in the Medway, and the _Irresistible_,
afterwards sunk by a mine in the Dardanelles.
But there was nothing small or old about the _Audacious_. She was--or
is--a 24,800 ton superdreadnought, launched in 1911 and carrying ten
thirteen-and-a-half-inch guns. This stupendous war-engine was found
rolling helpless in the Irish Sea, her after compartments flooded by
a great hole made either by a drifting mine or, what is more likely
considering its position, by a torpedo from a German submarine. The
White Star liner _Olympic_, which had been summoned by wireless,
took the disabled warship in tow for several hours, after which the
_Audacious_ was cast off and abandoned. A photograph taken by one of
the _Olympic’s_ passengers and afterwards widely circulated shows
the huge ironclad down by the stern, listing heavily to one side,
and apparently on the point of sinking. But her loss has never been
admitted by the British Admiralty, and it has been repeatedly declared
by reputable persons that the _Audacious_ was kept afloat till the
_Olympic_ was out of sight, and was then towed by naval vessels into
Belfast, where she was drydocked and repaired at Harland and Wolff’s
shipyard to be sent back to the fighting line. Her fate is one of the
most interesting of the many mysteries of the war and will probably not
be made clear till peace has come. The silence of the British Admiralty
is explained by the standing orders forbidding the revealing of the
whereabouts of any of his Majesty’s ships, particularly when helpless
and disabled. It should be noted in this connection that the German
government has never admitted the loss of the battleship _Pommern_
which the Russians insist was sunk by one of their submarines in the
Baltic.
[Illustration:
Copyright, Illustrated London News & N. Y. Sun.
Sinking of the _Aboukir_, _Cressy_, and _Hogue_.]
Because the overwhelming strength of the Allied fleet has kept
the German and Austrian battleships safely locked up behind shore
batteries, mine-fields and nettings, the Allies’ submarines have had
comparatively few targets to try their skill on. The activity of
the British submarines in the North Sea at the outbreak of the war
has already been referred to, and a year later they found another
opportunity in the Baltic. There the German fleet had the same
preponderance over the Russian as the English had over the German
battleships in the North Sea, but the British dreadnoughts could not be
sent through the long tortuous passage of the Skagerrack and Cattegat,
thick-sown with German mines, without cutting the British fleet in half
and giving the Germans a splendid chance to defeat either half and then
slip back through the Kiel Canal and destroy the other. So England
sent some of her submarines instead. One of these joined the Russian
squadron defending the Gulf of Riga against a German fleet and decided
the fight by disabling the great battle-cruiser _Moltke_. Another,
the _E-13_, ran ashore on the Danish island of Saltholm on August 19,
1915, and was warned by the commander of a Danish torpedo-boat that she
would be allowed twenty-four hours to get off. Before the time-limit
had expired and while three Danish torpedo-boats were standing by, two
German destroyers steamed up, torpedoed the _E-13_, and killed half her
crew by gun-fire: an outrageous violation of Denmark’s neutrality.[24]
Daredevil deeds have been done by the submarines of both sides in the
Dardanelles. The little _B-11_ swam up the straits, threading her way
through mine-field after mine-field, her captain keeping his course by
“dead-reckoning” with map and compass and stop watch. To have exposed
his periscope would have drawn the fire of the many shore batteries, to
have dived a few feet too far in those shallow waters would have meant
running aground, to have misjudged the swirling, changing currents
might have meant annihilation. But Commander Holbrook brought his
vessel safely through, torpedoed and sank the guard-ship _Messudieh_,
a Turkish ironclad of the vintage of 1874, and returned to receive
the Victoria Cross from his king and a gigantic “Iron Cross” from his
brother officers. The _E-11_ went up even to Constantinople, torpedoed
a Turkish transport within sight of the city and threw the whole
waterfront into a panic. More transports and store-ships were sunk or
driven on shore in the Sea of Marmora, a gunboat was torpedoed, and
then the _Kheyr-el-din_, an old 10,000 ton battleship that had been the
_Kurfürst Freiderich Wilhelm_ before the kaiser sold her to Turkey,
was sent to the bottom of the same waters by British submarines. One
of them the _E-15_ ran aground in the Dardanelles and was forced to
surrender to the Turks, but before they could float her off and make
use of her, two steam launches dashed upstream through the fire of the
shore batteries and torpedoed the stranded submarine as Cushing blew
up the _Albemarle_.
But on the same day as the _E-11’s_ first exploit--May 25, 1915, the
British battleship _Triumph_ went down with most of her crew off
Gallipoli, torpedoed by a German submarine. The _U-51_ had made the
2400 mile trip from the North Sea, using as tenders a number of small
tank steamers flying the Spanish flag. These vessels intentionally
drew the attention of the cordon of British destroyers drawn across
the Straits of Gibraltar and were captured, while the submarine swam
safely through and traversed the Mediterranean to the Dardanelles.
Two days after her first exploit, the _U-51_ or perhaps one of her
Austrian consorts, sank another British battleship, the _Majestic_, off
Gallipoli. The _U-51_ has been reported sunk by Russian warships in the
Black Sea.
[Illustration:
Copyright, London Sphere & N. Y. Herald.
Tiny target afforded by Periscopes in rough weather.]
If they could sink two battleships in three days, why didn’t the German
undersea boats sink a dozen or so more and raise the siege of the
Dardanelles? Enver Pasha, the Turkish minister of war, declared that
“the presence of the submarines destroyed all hopes of Russia’s ever
effectively landing troops on the coast north of Constantinople.” Then
why did they permit the landing of British, Australian, New Zealand,
and French troops on the Gallipoli Peninsula and the plains of ancient
Troy? It was not until August, 1915, that the transport _Royal Edward_
was sunk in the Mediterranean by an Austrian submarine. Perhaps before
this war is over some British transport may be torpedoed in the North
Sea or the English Channel, but for more than a year and a half since
its outbreak, troop-ships and store-ships have been crossing to
France as if there were not a hostile “U-boat” in the world. Equally
mysterious has been the immunity of the light-draft monitors and
obsolescent gunboats off the Flemish coast, where their heavy guns did
so much to check the first German drive on Calais, and have harassed
the invaders’ right flank ever since. Many of these are mere floating
platforms for one or two modern guns, all are slow-steaming, and they
are not always in water too shallow for an undersea boat to swim in,
yet none have been sunk by a submarine since the loss of the _Hermes_,
in the autumn of 1914. Zeebrugge, the Belgian port that has been made
the headquarters for German submarines in the North Sea, has been
several times bombarded by the British fleet and, according to reports
from Amsterdam, half-built submarines on the shore there have been
destroyed by shell-fire. Why did the completed undersea boats in the
harbor fail to come out and torpedo or drive away the attacking fleet?
We have been shown what modern submarines can do; what prevents them
from doing much more?
Shortly after von Weddigen’s great exploit, a German submarine rose
to the surface so near the British destroyer _Badger_ that before the
undersea boat could submerge again she was rammed, cut open and sunk.
One of the most picturesque and least expected features of this war has
been the revival of old ways; soldiers are again wearing breastplates
and metal helmets and fighting with crossbows and catapults, while
against the modern submarine, seamen are effectively using the most
ancient of all naval weapons: the ram. It takes two minutes for the
average undersea boat to submerge, during which time a thirty-knot
destroyer can come charging up from a mile away, with a good chance
of scoring a hit with her forward 3- or 4-inch gun, even if she gets
there too late to ram. In the case of the _U-12_, the submarine dived
deep enough to get her hull and superstructure out of harm’s way, only
to have the top of her conning-tower crushed in by the destroyer as it
passed over her. When the inrush of water forced the _U-12_ to rise
to the surface and surrender, her crew discovered that the main hatch
could not be opened because one of the periscopes had been bent down
across it. Some of them succeeded in climbing out of the torpedo-hatch
and jumping overboard before the _U-12_ went down for good. As she sank
stern-foremost, it was observed that both of her bow-tubes were empty;
evidence that she had vainly launched two torpedoes at the British
flotilla that were hunting her down. Though several British destroyers
and torpedo-boats have been sent to the bottom by German submarines,
and the English _E-9_ has sunk the German destroyer _S-126_, yet the
nimble surface torpedo-craft have usually proved too difficult for
the undersea boats to hit with their fixed tubes that can only fire
straight ahead or astern.
It has been pointed out that the _Aboukir_, _Cressy_ and _Hogue_, the
_Formidable_, and the _Audacious_ were all moving slowly and unescorted
by any destroyers when they were attacked and sunk. The same was
true of the _Leon Gambetta_ and the _Giuseppe Garibaldi_, when they
were sent to the bottom of the Mediterranean by Austrian submarines.
Under modern conditions, such isolated big ships are in much the
same perilous position as would have been a lonely battery of Union
artillery marching through a country swarming with Confederate cavalry.
While an escort of destroyers is no sure guarantee against submarine
attack, their presence certainly seems to act as a powerful deterrent.
Waters suspected of containing hostile submarines are swept, very much
as they would be for mines, by pairs of destroyers or steam trawlers,
dragging an arrangement of strong cables between them. Sometimes this
is festooned with explosives to blow in the side of any undersea boat
it may touch. Usually the vessels engaged in this work use a large net.
When they feel the weight of a catch, it is said that they let go the
ends and leave it to the submarine’s own twin propellers to entangle
themselves thoroughly. An undersea boat so entrapped is helpless to do
anything but either sink or else empty her tanks and try to rise and
surrender. A submarine in trouble usually sends up notification in the
form of large quantities of escaping oil and gas.
Inventors have been busy devising new kinds of traps, snares, and
exaggerated lobster-pots to be placed in the waters about the British
Isles. How many German submarines have poked their noses into these
devices probably not even the British Admiralty could tell, if it
was so minded, but the traps are said to have been put down very
plentifully and most of the published designs are extremely ingenious.
Individual torpedo-nets for ships have rather gone out of fashion, but
the most effective way of keeping submarines out of a harbor is to
close its entrance with booms and nettings. The principal naval bases
on both sides are undoubtedly so protected. It has been persistently
reported that the immunity of British transports crossing the channel
is due to a double line of booms, nets and mines stretching from one
shore to the other, and enclosing a broad, safe channel outside which
the “U-boats” roam hungrily. There would seem to be no great difficulty
in building such a barrier, but it would be extremely difficult to keep
intact in heavy weather and for that reason most of our naval officers
are skeptical of its existence.
Microphones which have been placed under water off the coasts of
France, Great Britain, and Ireland have succeeded in detecting the
presence of submarines at a distance of fifty-five miles. This device
has been perfected by the joint labors of an American electrical
engineer, Mr. William Dubilier, and Professor Tissot of the French
Academy of Science. These two gentlemen, experimenting with microphones
and a submarine placed at their disposal by the French government,
“discovered in the course of the tests that the underwater craft were
sources of sound waves of exceedingly high frequency, quite distinctive
from any other subaqueous sounds. While the cause of the high-pitched
sound is known to the inventors, it cannot be divulged since it would
then be possible for German submarine constructors to eliminate the
source of the tell-tale sound waves, and thus render void the purpose
of the detector installation.”[25]
These microphones, it is believed, are usually arranged in a
semicircle. Each instrument records sound waves best when they come
from one particular direction. The operator on shore, listening to
a device that eliminates all other sounds coming in from under the
sea, can tell by the way a passing submarine affects the different
microphones in the semicircle how far off and in what direction it is
moving, and so warns and summons the ever-watchful patrol boats.
Air craft are doubtless being much used in the hunt for submarines,
for an aviator at a height of several hundred feet can distinctly see
a submarine swimming beneath him in clear water with a good light
reflected from the bottom. Early in the war, the pilot and observer
of a “Taube” that was brought down in the North Sea were rescued by
a British submarine. In the attack on Cuxhaven a combined force of
submarines, sea-planes, and light cruisers was resisted by the German
shore-batteries, destroyers, “U-boats”, aeroplanes and Zeppelins. As
the British sea-planes returned from dropping bombs on the Cuxhaven
navy yard or taking observations above the Kiel Canal, some of them
were shot down by the Germans but the aviators were picked up, as had
been arranged beforehand, by English submarines. In the spring of 1915
there was an engagement between a Zeppelin and a British submarine in
which each side claimed the victory. On August 26 of the same year the
secretary of the British Admiralty announced:
“Squadron Commander Arthur Bigsworth, R.N., destroyed single-handed a
German submarine this morning by bombs dropped from an aeroplane. The
submarine was observed to be completely wrecked, and sank off Ostend.
[Illustration:
Copyright, Illustrated London News & Flying.
Photograph of a submarine, twenty feet below the surface, taken from
the aeroplane, whose shadow is shown in the picture.]
“It is not the practice of the Admiralty to publish statements
regarding the losses of German submarines, important though they have
been, in cases where the enemy has no other source of information as
to the time and place at which these losses have occurred. In the case
referred to above, however, the brilliant feat of Squadron Commander
Bigsworth was performed in the immediate neighborhood of the coast in
occupation of the enemy and the position of the sunken submarine has
been located by a German destroyer.”
“This is inexact,” replied the German Admiralty. “The submarine was
attacked but not hit and returned to port undamaged. One of our
submarines on August 16 destroyed by gunfire the benzol factory with
the attached benzol warehouses and coke furnaces near Harrington,
England. The statement of the English press that the submarine attacked
the open towns of Harrington, Parton, and Whitehaven is inexact.”
Equally interesting but unfortunately lacking in details are the
reports from the Adriatic of submarines fighting submarines. There have
been three such duels, in one an Austrian sank an Italian submarine,
in another the Italian was victorious, while after the third both were
found lying on the bottom, each torn open by the other’s torpedo.
As it is a physical impossibility for the pilot of one submarine to
see another under the water, it would seem as if at least one of the
combatants in each of these fights must have been running on the
surface at the time.
Both Mr. Simon Lake and the late John P. Holland were absolutely
confident that submarines could not fight submarines, that surface
craft would be utterly unable to injure or resist them, and that
therefore the submarine boat would make naval warfare impossible and do
more than anything else to bring about permanent peace.
All that can be said at present is that the actual situation is much
more complex than had been expected. Submarines have sunk many surface
warships but have suffered heavily themselves. The German government
has admitted the loss of over a dozen “U-boats,” while the unofficial
estimates of their enemies’ run as high as thirty-five or fifty German
submarines destroyed or captured. Admiral Beatty’s victorious squadron,
pursuing the German battle-cruisers after the second North Sea fight,
turned and retreated at the wake of a single torpedo and the glimpse of
hostile periscopes. But the submarine has not yet driven the surface
warship from the seas and it has signally failed against transports.
Its moral effect has been very great: British submarines have
terrorized the citizens of Constantinople; while the victories of their
beloved “U-boats” have cheered the German people as the victories of
our frigates cheered us in 1812, and have been a somewhat similar shock
to the nerves of the British navy. But that sturdy organization has
recovered from more than one attack of nerves. And as the war goes on,
it becomes increasingly clear that it is unfair to expect unsupported
submarines, any more than unsupported frigates a century ago, to do the
work of an entire navy. Like the aeroplane, the submarine was first
derided as useless, next hailed as a complete substitute for all other
arms, then found to be an indispensable auxiliary, whose scope and
value are now being determined.
CHAPTER XIII
THE SUBMARINE BLOCKADE
“It is true that submarine boats have improved, but they are
as useless as ever. Nevertheless, the German navy is carefully
watching their progress, though it has no reason to make
experiments itself.”
ADMIRAL VON TIRPITZ, in 1901.
“DANGER!
Being the Log of Captain John Sirius
by
Sir Arthur Conan Doyle.”
If you have not read the above-mentioned story by the author of
Sherlock Holmes, I advise you to go to the nearest public library and
ask for it. For those that cannot spare the time to do this, here are a
brief outline and a few quotations.
Captain John Sirius is supposed to be chief of submarines in the navy
of Norland, a small European kingdom at war with England. With only
eight submarines, he establishes a blockade of Great Britain and begins
sinking all ships bringing in food. He enters a French harbor, though
France is at peace with his country, and sinks three British ships that
have taken refuge there.
“I suppose,” says the captain, “they thought they were safe in French
waters but what did I care about three-mile limits and international
law! The view of my government was that England was blockaded, food
contraband, and vessels carrying it to be destroyed. The lawyers could
argue about it afterwards. My business was to starve the enemy any way
I could.”
Presently he overtook an American ship and sank her by gunfire as her
skipper shouted protests over the rail.
“It was all the same to me what flag she flew so long as she was
engaged in carrying contraband of war to the British Isles.... Of
course I knew there would be a big row afterwards and there was.”
“The terror I had caused had cleared the Channel.”
“There was talk of a British invasion (of Norland) but I knew this to
be absolute nonsense, for the British had learned by this time that it
would be sheer murder to send transports full of soldiers to sea in the
face of submarines. When they have a Channel tunnel, they can use their
fine expeditionary force upon the Continent but until then it might not
exist so far as Europe is concerned.”
“Heavens, what would England have done against a foe with thirty or
forty submarines?”
The British navy could do nothing to stop Captain John Sirius. One
of his submarines was sunk by an armed liner, but with the remaining
seven he sank the _Olympic_ and so many other vessels that no one
dared try to bring food into Great Britain. At the end of six weeks,
fifty thousand people there had died of starvation and the British
government had to make peace with Norland and pay for all the damage
the submarines had done to neutrals.
As a warning to his countrymen, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle wrote this
story in May, 1914. Before it was published,[26] England was at war
with Germany. On February 4, 1915, the famous “War Zone Decree” was
published in Berlin.
“The waters around Great Britain, including the whole of the English
Channel, are declared hereby to be included within the zone of war, and
after the 18th inst, all enemy merchant vessels encountered in these
waters will be destroyed, even if it may not be possible always to save
their crews and passengers.
“Within this war-zone neutral vessels are exposed to danger since, in
view of the misuse of the neutral flags ordered by the government of
Great Britain on the 31st ult., and of the hazards of naval warfare,
neutral ships cannot always be prevented from suffering from the
attacks intended for enemy ships.
“The routes of navigation around the north of the Shetland Islands in
the eastern part of the North Sea and in a strip thirty miles wide
along the Dutch coast are not open to the danger-zone.”
But those routes had been closed three months before by the British
government, which declared that it had had the North Sea planted with
anchored contact mines, but that all ships trading to neutral ports
would, if they first called at some British port, be given safe conduct
to Holland or Scandinavia, by way of the English Channel. This way
would run through the proposed “war-zone.”
International law says nothing about either “war-zones” or submarines.
In all probability, special rules for undersea warfare will be drawn
up by a conference of delegates from the leading countries of the
world soon after the end of the present war. But till then, no such
conference can be held, and the United States has always maintained,
even when it has been to its disadvantage to do so, that no one nation
can change international law to suit herself. We insist that the game
be played according to the rules. A submarine has no more rights than
any other warship. It may sink a merchantman if the latter tries
to fight or escape. If the captured vessel is found to be carrying
contraband to the enemy’s country, the warship may either take her into
port as a prize or, if this is impracticable, sink her. But before an
unarmed and unresisting merchant vessel can be sunk, the passengers and
crew must be given time and opportunity to escape.
President Wilson gave notice on February 10, 1915, that if, by act of
the commander of any German warship, an American vessel or the lives of
American citizens should be lost on the high seas, the United States
“would be constrained to hold the Imperial government of Germany to
a strict accountability for such acts of their naval authorities and
to take any steps that might be necessary to safeguard American lives
and property and to secure to American citizens the full enjoyments of
their acknowledged rights on the high seas.”
On the same day, a note to Great Britain voiced our objection to the
“explicit sanction by a belligerent government for its merchant ships
generally to fly the flag of a neutral power within certain portions
of the high seas which are presumed to be frequented with hostile
warships.”
To this Sir Edward Grey replied that “the British government have no
intention of advising their merchant shipping to use foreign flags as a
general practice or resort to them otherwise than for escaping capture
or destruction.”
Such “sailing under false colors” to fool the enemy’s cruisers is an
old and well-established right of merchantmen of belligerent countries.
Its abuse, under present-day conditions, however, might have given the
German submarine commanders a plausible excuse for sinking neutral
vessels. To avoid this, neutral shipowners began to paint the name,
port, and national colors on the broadside of each of their steamers,
plain enough to be read from afar through a periscope.
Then the time came for the war-zone decree to be put into effect, and
the world watched with great interest and no little apprehension to see
what the submarine blockaders could do.
[Illustration:
Copyright, London Sphere & N. Y. Herald.
German Submarine Pursuing English Merchantman.
(Note stern torpedo-tubes, and funnel for carrying off exhaust from
Diesel engine.)]
Seven British ships were sunk during the first six days. Then came
a lull, followed by the announcement by the British Admiralty that
between February 23 to March 3, 3805 transoceanic ships had arrived
at British ports, 669 had cleared and none had been lost, while two
German submarines had been sunk. During the eleven weeks between the
establishing of the blockade and the sinking of the _Lusitania_,
forty-two oversea vessels and twenty-eight fishing boats of British
registry had been sunk by the submarines, but 16,190 liners and
freighters had safely run the blockade. The largest number of vessels
sunk by the “U-boats” in any one week was thirty-six, between June 23
and 30; while nineteen British merchantmen, with a total tonnage of
76,000, and three fishing vessels were destroyed either by submarines
or mines during the week ending August 25. The total number sunk in
the first six months was 485. But with more than fifteen hundred ships
coming and going every week, the submarine blockade of the British
Isles was obviously a failure.
It was a costly failure from the military point of view. The
expenditure of torpedoes alone must have been considerable and a modern
Whitehead or Schwartzkopf costs from five to eight thousand dollars and
takes several months to build. How many of the “U-boats” themselves
have fallen prey to the British patroling craft, traps, mines, and
drag-nets cannot be computed with any accuracy, but by the first of
September, 1915, the number declared to be lost “on the authority of
a high official in the British Admiralty” ran anywhere from thirty to
fifty. Even if she has been completing a new submarine every week since
the war began, Germany cannot afford the loss of so much material,
and still, less, of so many trained men. Captain Persius, one of
the foremost German writers on naval affairs, pointed this out in a
newspaper article that brought a hurricane of angry criticism about
his ears. How great has been the wear and tear on the nervous systems
of the submarine crews is shown by the following extract from the
statement of Captain Hansen of the captured _U-16_.
“It is fearfully trying on the nerves. Not every man can endure it.
While running under the sea there is deathlike stillness in the boats,
as the electrical machinery is noiseless.... As the air becomes heated
it gets poor and mixed with the odor of oil from the machinery. The
atmosphere becomes fearful. An overpowering sleepiness often attacks
new men and one requires the utmost will power to keep awake. I have
had men who did not want to eat during the first three days out because
they did not want to lose that amount of time from sleep. Day after day
spent in such cramped quarters, where there is hardly room to stretch
your legs, and remaining constantly on the alert, is a tremendous
strain on the nerves.”
But if there is discomfort below the surface there is peril of death
above. Yet a submarine must spend as much time as possible on top of
the water, even off the enemy’s coast, to spare the precious storage
batteries and let the Diesel engines grind oil into electricity
by using the electric motor as a dynamo. If she could renew her
batteries under water or pick up a useable supply of current as she
can pick up a drum of oil from a given spot on the sea-bottom, then
the modern submarine would indeed be a hard fish to catch. As it is,
great ingenuity has been shown by the German skippers in minimizing
the dangers of surface cruising and at the same time stalking their
prey. One big submarine masqueraded as a steamer, with dummy masts and
funnel. Innocent-looking steam trawlers flying neutral flags acted as
screens and lookouts, besides carrying supplies. One of these boldly
entered a British harbor, where it was noticed that her decks were
cumbered with very many coils of rope. The authorities investigated
and found snugly stowed in the center of each a large can of fuel-oil.
Another trawler, flying the Dutch flag, was stopped in the North Sea
by a British cruiser and searched by a boarding-party. They were going
back into their boat, after finding everything apparently as it should
be, when one of the Englishmen noticed a mysterious pipe sticking out
of the trawler’s side. They swarmed on board again and discovered
that the fishing-boat had a complete double hull, the space between
being filled with oil. The trawler’s crew were removed to the cruiser
and a strong detachment of bluejackets left in their place. A few
hours afterwards, there was a swirl of water alongside and a German
submarine came up for refreshments. It was promptly captured and so was
another that presently followed it: a good day’s catch for one small
fishing-boat.
Because of the uncertainty and danger of depending on underwater caches
and tenders, each blockader usually returned at the end of two or three
weeks to Heligoland, Zeebruge, Ostend, or some other base to take on
supplies, report progress and rest the crew. This of course reduces
the number of submarines actually on guard. How large that number may
have been at any particular time since the blockade began is unknown to
everybody except a few persons in Berlin. At the outbreak of the war,
Germany had between twenty and twenty-five submarines in commission
and a dozen or so under construction. If, as is claimed, the Germans
have been completing a new undersea boat every week since the war
began, that would have given them by August 1, 1915, a flotilla of
seventy-seven, exclusive of losses. If only thirty had been lost, that
would have left fewer than fifty submarines to blockade more than
fifty seaports, great and small, scattered over more than twenty-five
hundred miles of coast.
Moreover, these widely scattered blockaders would have to be on duty
by night as well as by day. But at night or in fog the periscope is
useless; to intercept an incoming steamer, running swiftly and without
lights, the submarine must rise and cruise on the surface. It cannot
use a searchlight to locate the blockade-runner without consuming
much precious voltage and at the same time attracting the nearest
patrol-boat.
The same disadvantages apply to sending wireless messages from one
blockading submarine to another. And as the wireless apparatus of an
undersea boat is necessarily low-powered and has a narrow radius, while
“oscillators,” bells, and other underwater signaling devices are still
in their infancy, it would seem as if the German “U-boats” in British
waters must have been suffering from lack of coöperation and team-play.
If the captain of a Union gunboat, lying off Charleston during the
Civil War, caught a glimpse of a blockade runner, he could alarm the
rest of the fleet with rockets and signal guns, but the commander of
the _U-99_ off Queenstown cannot count on his consorts if he himself
fails to sink an approaching liner.
Perhaps the most notable shortcoming of the submarine blockade has
been its failure to inspire terror. Contrary to the expectations of
nearly every forecaster from Robert Fulton to Conan Doyle, the sinking
of the first merchant vessels by submarines failed to frighten away
any others. Cargo rates are high in war-time and insurance covers the
owners’ risk, so few sailing orders were canceled. As for the captains,
they are not noted for timidity, and professional pride is strong among
them; most of them have families to provide for, and every one of
them knows that behind him stands an eager young mate with a master’s
ticket, ready to take the risk and take out the ship if the skipper
quits. So the merchant marine accepted the submarine as one of the
risks of the trade.
When a big German submarine rose up off the Irish coast within easy
gunshot of the homeward-bound British steamer _Anglo-Californian_ and
signaled for her to heave to, the plucky English skipper slammed his
engine-room telegraph over to “Full speed ahead.” Away dashed the
steamer and after her came the submarine,[27] making good practice
with her 8.8 centimeter gun. Twenty shrapnel shells burst over the
_Anglo-Californian_, riddling her upper works, slaughtering thirty of
her cargo of horses, killing seven of her crew and wounding eight more.
Steering with his own hands, Captain Archibald Panlow held his vessel
on her course till a shrapnel bullet killed him, when the wheel was
taken by his son, the second mate, who brought the _Anglo-Californian_
safely into Queenstown. It is men of this breed who have kept Admiral
von Tirpitz from saying, in the words of the fictitious Captain John
Sirius,
“The terror I had caused had cleared the channel.”
But because the “Campaign of Frightfulness” has failed and a few score
of unsupported submarines have been unable to blockade the British
Isles, it is stupid to pretend that there has been no progress since
1901 and say as Admiral von Tirpitz said then,
“Submarines are as useless as ever.”
Like every other type of naval craft, submarines are useful but not
omnipotent. We have seen what they can do in action and what they have
failed to do. As scouts in the enemy’s waters they are invaluable. As
commerce destroyers, they do the work of the swift-sailing privateers
of a century ago. In the fall of 1915, British submarines in the
Baltic almost put a stop to the trade between Germany and Sweden. But
to blockade a coast effectively, submarines must have tenders, which
must have destroyers and light cruisers to defend them, which in turn
require the support of battle-cruisers and dreadnoughts, with their
attendant host of colliers, hospital ships and air-scouts. Nor can a
coast be long defended by submarines, mine-fields and shore-batteries,
if there are not enough trained troops to keep the enemy, who can
always land at some remote spot, from marching round to the rear of
the coast-defenses. This war is simply repeating the old, old lesson
that there are no cheap and easy substitutes for a real army and a real
navy.
CHAPTER XIV
THE SUBMARINE AND NEUTRALS
Both Admiral von Tirpitz and the Austrian Admiralty seem to have begun
their submarine campaigns after the method of Captain John Sirius: to
starve the enemy any way they could and let the lawyers argue about it
afterwards. From the beginning of the blockade, Scandinavian, Dutch,
and Spanish vessels, even when bound from one neutral port to another,
were torpedoed and sunk without warning by the German submarines. Their
governments protested vigorously but without effect. Then came the turn
of the United States.
The _Falaba_, a small British passenger steamer outward bound from
Liverpool to the west coast of Africa was pursued and overtaken off
the coast of Wales on March 28, 1915, by the fast German submarine
_U-28_. Realizing that their vessel would be sunk but expecting that
their lives would be spared, the crew and passengers began filling
and lowering away the boats as rapidly as possible but without panic.
The wireless operator had been sending calls for help but ceased when
ordered to by the captain of the _U-28_. No patrol boats were in sight
and the submarine was standing by on the surface, with both gun and
torpedo-tubes trained on the motionless steamer and in absolute command
of the situation. Without the slightest excuse or warning, a torpedo
was then discharged and exploded against the _Falaba’s_ side, directly
beneath a half-lowered and crowded lifeboat. The lifeboat was blown to
pieces and the steamer sunk, with the loss of one hundred and twelve
lives, including that of an American citizen, Mr. Leon C. Thrasher, of
Hardwick, Massachusetts.
[Illustration:
_Photo by Brown Bros._
British Submarine, showing one type of disappearing deck-gun now in
use.]
This cold-blooded slaughter of the helpless horrified the rest of the
world and did Germany’s cause an incalculable amount of harm. The
German people were in no state of mind to realize this, for they had
gone literally submarine-mad. They rejoiced in the cartoons depicting
John Bull marooned on his island or dragged under and drowned by the
swarming “U-boats.” They sincerely believed that within a few months
the power of the British navy would be broken forever and that in
the meanwhile the German submarines could do no wrong. This feeling
was presently intensified by the loss of their hero, the gallant von
Weddigen. Decorated, together with every man of his crew, with the Iron
Cross and promoted to the command of a fine new submarine, the _U-29_,
he did effective work as a blockader and captured and sank several
prizes, but only after carefully removing those on board. Then the
_U-29_ was sunk with all hands, by an armed patrol boat, the British
declare: treacherously, the German people believe, by a merchant ship
whose crew von Weddigen was trying to spare.[28]
No attempt was made to warn the American tank steamer _Gulflight_,
bound for Rouen, France, with a contraband cargo of oil, when she was
torpedoed by a German submarine on May 1. The vessel stayed afloat but
the wireless operator and one of the sailors, terrified by the shock,
jumped overboard and were both drowned, while the captain died of heart
failure a few hours later on board the British patrol boat that took
off the crew and brought the _Gulflight_ into port.
On the same day that the _Gulflight_ was torpedoed, these two
advertisements appeared together in the New York newspapers:
[Illustration:
OCEAN STEAMSHIPS.
CUNARD
EUROPE VIA LIVERPOOL
LUSITANIA
Fastest and Largest Steamer
now in Atlantic Service Sails
SATURDAY, MAY 1, 10 A. M.
Transylvania, Fri., May 7, 5 P. M.
Orduna, Tues., May 18, 10 A. M.
Tuscania, Fri., May 21, 5 P. M.
LUSITANIA, Sat., May 29, 10 A. M.
Transylvania, Fri., June 4, 5 P. M.
Gibraltar--Genoa--Naples--Piraeus
S.S. Carpathia, Thur., May 13, Noon.
ROUND THE WORLD TOURS
Through bookings to all principal Ports of the World.
Company’s Office, 21-24 State St., N. Y.
NOTICE!
TRAVELERS intending to embark on the Atlantic voyage are
reminded that a state of war exists between Germany and
her allies and Great Britain and her allies; that the
zone of war includes the waters adjacent to the British
isles; that, in accordance with formal notice given by
the Imperial German Government, vessels flying the flag
of Great Britain, or of any of her allies, are liable to
destruction in those waters and that travelers sailing in
the war zone on ships of Great Britain or her allies do
so at their own risk.
IMPERIAL GERMAN EMBASSY,
WASHINGTON, D. C., APRIL 22, 1915
]
This warning was not taken seriously. It was pointed out that the
German submarines had sunk only comparatively small and slow steamers,
and generally believed that it would be impossible for them to hit a
fast-moving vessel. Not a single passenger canceled his passage on the
_Lusitania_, though all admitted that the Germans would have a perfect
right to sink her if they could, as she was laden with rifle-cartridges
and shell-cases for the Allies. But every passenger knew that he had a
perfect right to be taken off first, and trusted to the Government that
had given him his passports to maintain it.
The _Lusitania_ left New York on the first of May. At two o’clock
on the afternoon of Friday, May 7, she was about ten miles from the
Irish coast, off the Old Head of Kinsale, and running slowly to avoid
reaching Queenstown at an unfavorable turn of the tide, when Captain
Turner and many others saw a periscope rise out of the water about half
a mile away.
“I saw a torpedo speeding toward us,” declared the captain afterwards,
“and immediately I tried to change our course, but was unable to
manœuver out of the way. There was a terrible impact as the torpedo
struck the starboard side of the vessel, and a second torpedo followed
almost immediately. This one struck squarely over the boilers.
“I tried to turn the _Lusitania_ shoreward, hoping to beach her, but
her engines were crippled and it was impossible.
“There has been some criticism because I did not order the lifeboats
out sooner, but no matter what may be done there are always some to
criticize. Until the _Lusitania_ came to a standstill it was absolutely
impossible to launch the boats--they would have been swamped.”
The great ship heeled over to port so rapidly that by the time she
could be brought to a stop it was no longer possible to lower the boats
on the starboard side. There was no panic-stricken rush for the boats
that could be lowered; all was order and seemliness and quiet heroism.
Alfred Vanderbilt stripped off the lifebelt that might have saved him
and buckled it about a woman; Lindon Bates, Jr., was last seen trying
to save three children. Elbert Hubbard, Charles Klein, Justus Miles
Forman, and more than a hundred other Americans died, and died bravely.
As the _Lusitania_ went down beneath them, Charles Frohman smiled at
his companion and said:
“Why fear death? It is the most beautiful adventure of life.”
“I turned around to watch the great ship heel over,” said a passenger
who had dived overboard and swum to a safe distance.
“The monster took a sudden plunge, and I saw a crowd still on her
decks, and boats filled with helpless women and children glued to her
side. I sickened with horror at the sight.
“There was a thunderous roar, as of the collapse of a great building
on fire; then she disappeared, dragging with her hundreds of
fellow-creatures into the vortex. Many never rose to the surface, but
the sea rapidly grew thick with the figures of struggling men and women
and children.”
The total number of deaths was more than a thousand.
The most fitting comment on the sinking of the _Lusitania_ were the
words of Tinkling Cloud, a full-blooded Sioux Indian:
“Now you white men can never call us red men savages again.”
Resting its case on “Many sacred principles of justice and humanity,”
refusing to accept the warning published in the advertising columns
of the newspapers by the German embassy either “as an excuse or
palliation,” and assuming that the commanders of submarines guilty of
torpedoing without warning vessels carrying non-combatants had acted
“under a misapprehension of orders,” the United States concluded its
note to Germany, six days after the sinking of the _Lusitania_, with
these words of warning:
“The Imperial German government will not expect the government of the
United States to omit any word or act necessary to the performance of
its sacred duty of maintaining the rights of the United States and its
citizens and of safeguarding their free exercise and enjoyment.”
Before any reply had been made to this, a German submarine torpedoed
without warning the American freight steamer _Nebraskan_, on May 25,
a few hours after she had left Liverpool in ballast for the United
States. Fortunately no lives were lost, and although the _Nebraskan’s_
bows had been blown wide open by the explosion, she remained afloat
and was brought back to Liverpool under her own steam. The attack was
tardily admitted by Germany and explained by the fact that it had been
made at dusk, when the commander of the submarine had been unable to
recognize the steamer’s nationality.
On the last day of May, Germany’s answer was received. The Imperial
government declared that the _Lusitania_ had not been an unarmed
merchantman but an auxiliary cruiser of the British navy. That she
had had masked guns mounted on her lower deck, that she had Canadian
troops among her passengers, and that in violation of American law she
had been laden with high explosives which were the real cause of her
destruction because they were set off by the detonation of the single
torpedo that had been discharged by the submarine.
To these allegations, unaccompanied by the slightest proof and
contradicted by the testimony both of British and American
eye-witnesses, the United States replied calmly and categorically. It
was pointed out that if the German ambassador at Washington or the
German consul at New York had complained to the Federal authorities
before the _Lusitania_ sailed and either guns or troops had been found
concealed on her, she would have been interned. The statement of Mr.
Dudley Field Malone, collector of the Port of New York, that the
_Lusitania_ was not armed, may be accepted as final. Gustav Stahl, the
German reservist who signed an affidavit that he had seen guns on board
her, later pleaded guilty to a charge of perjury and was sentenced to
eighteen months in a Federal penitentiary. As for her cargo, every
passenger train and steamer in this country is allowed to transport
boxes of revolver and rifle cartridges--the only explosives carried
on the _Lusitania_--because it is extremely difficult to set off any
number of them together, either by heat or concussion.
Dropping these points, Germany then pledged the safety of American
ships in the war zone, if distinctly marked, and to facilitate American
travel offered to permit the United States to hoist its flag on four
belligerent passenger steamers. This, if accepted, would by implication
have made Americans fair game anywhere else on the high seas, and was
accordingly rejected in the strong American note of July 21.
“The rights of neutrals in time of war,” declared President Wilson
through the medium of Secretary Lansing, “are based upon principle, not
upon expediency, and the principles are immutable. It is the duty and
obligation of belligerents to find a way to adapt the new circumstances
to them.
“The events of the past two months have clearly indicated that it is
possible and practicable to conduct such submarine operations as have
characterized the activity of the Imperial German naval commanders
within the so-called war-zone in substantial accord with the accepted
practices of regulated warfare. The whole world has looked with
interest and increasing satisfaction at the demonstration of that
possibility by German naval commanders. It is manifestly possible,
therefore, to lift the whole practice of submarine attack above the
criticism which it has aroused and remove the chief causes of offense.”
Repetition by the commanders of German naval vessels of acts
contravening neutral rights “must be regarded by the Government of the
United States, where they effect American citizens, as deliberately
unfriendly.”
On July 9, a German submarine discharged a torpedo at the west-bound
Cunard liner _Orduna_, narrowly missed her, rose to the surface
and fired some twenty shells before the steamer got out of range.
Fortunately, none of these took effect. There were American passengers
on board and nothing but bad marksmanship averted another _Lusitania_
horror.
Three days later, another German submarine stopped an American freight
steamer, the _Leelanlaw_, and had her visited and searched by a
boarding party, who reported that she was carrying contraband to Great
Britain. Because the vessel could not be taken into a German port and
there was no time to throw her cargo overboard, the crew were taken off
and she was sunk.
Here was a perfectly proper procedure, where no neutral lives had been
endangered and the question of the damage to property could be settled
amicably in a court of law. It was to the practice in the _Leelanlaw_
case that President Wilson referred to so hopefully in his note of
July 21. Though the weeks went by without any answer from Germany, it
was hoped that the Imperial government had quietly amended the orders
to its submarine commanders and that no more passenger ships would be
attacked without warning.
But on the 19th of August, the White Star liner _Arabic_ sighted and
went to the rescue of a sinking ship. This proved to be the British
steamer _Dunsley_, which had been torpedoed by a German submarine.
As the _Arabic_ came up and prepared to lower her boats, another
torpedo from the same submarine exploded against the liner’s side,
killing several of her crew and sending her to the bottom in eleven
minutes. She went down within fifty miles of the resting place of the
_Lusitania_. She was sunk without warning and without cause, for she
had been bound to New York, with neither arms nor ammunition on board,
nor had she made the slightest attempt either to escape or attack
the submarine. She carried one hundred and eighty-one passengers,
twenty-five of whom were Americans. Two Americans were drowned.
The German government at once asked for time in which to explain, and
the Imperial chancellor hinted that the commander of the submarine that
sank the _Arabic_ might have “gone beyond his instructions, in which
case the Imperial government would not hesitate to give such complete
satisfaction to the United States as would conform to the friendly
relations existing between both governments.”
Great was the rejoicing on the first of September, when Ambassador von
Bernstorff declared himself authorized to say to the State Department
that:
“Liners will not be sunk by our submarines without warning and without
safety of the lives of non-combatants, provided that the liners do not
try to escape or offer resistance.”
But only three days afterwards, the west-bound Canadian liner
_Hesperian_ was sunk by the explosion of what seemed to have been a
torpedo launched without warning from a hostile submarine. And on top
of this disturbing incident came the German note on the sinking of the
_Arabic_, the perusal of which sent a chill through every peace-lover
in America. Affirming that the captain of the _Arabic_ had tried to
ram the submarine, the note declared that orders had been issued to
commanders of German submarines not to sink liners without provocation,
but added that if by mistake or otherwise liners were sunk without
provocation, Germany would not be responsible.
“The German government,” it ran, “is unable to acknowledge any
obligation to grant indemnity in the matter, even if the commander
should have been mistaken as to the aggressive intention of the
_Arabic_.
“If it should prove to be the case that it is impossible for the German
and American governments to reach a harmonious opinion on this point,
the German government would be prepared to submit the difference
of opinion, as being a question of international law, to The Hague
Tribunal for arbitration....
“In so doing, it assumes that, as matter of course, the arbitral
decision shall not be admitted to have the importance of a general
decision on the permissibility ... under international law of German
submarine warfare.”
Assuming that this extraordinary stand was based on a misapprehension
of the facts, the United States submitted to Germany the testimony of
American passengers on the _Arabic_, and the sworn affidavits of her
officers, that the submarine had not been sighted from the steamer and
that no attempt had been made to ram the undersea boat or do anything
but rescue the crew of the _Dunsley_.
By this time a change had come over the spirit of the Imperial German
government. It realized that the submarine blockade of the British
Isles had broken down, and that further examples of “Frightfulness” on
the high seas would do Germany no good and would probably force the
United States into the ranks of Germany’s enemies. The sensible and
obvious thing to do was to take the easy and honorable way out the
American government was holding open. On October 6, Ambassador von
Bernstorff gave out the following statement:
“Prompted by the desire to reach a satisfactory agreement with regard
to the _Arabic_ incident, my government has given me the following
instructions:
“The order issued by His Majesty the Emperor to the commanders of the
German submarines, of which I notified you on a previous occasion, has
been made so stringent that the recurrence of incidents similar to the
_Arabic_ case is considered out of the question.
“According to the report of Commander Schneider of the submarine which
sank the _Arabic_, and his affidavit, as well as those of his men,
Commander Schneider was convinced that the _Arabic_ intended to ram the
submarine.
“On the other hand, the Imperial government does not doubt the good
faith of the affidavit of the British officers of the _Arabic_,
according to which the _Arabic_ did not intend to ram the submarine.
The attack of the submarine was undertaken against the instructions
issued to the commander. The Imperial government regrets and disavows
this act, and has notified Commander Schneider accordingly.
“Under these circumstances, my government is prepared to pay an
indemnity for American lives which, to its deep regret, have been lost
on the _Arabic_. I am authorized to negotiate with you about the amount
of this indemnity.”
In the meantime, fragments of the metal box of high explosives that had
blown in the side of the _Hesperian_ had been picked up on her deck,
and forwarded by the British government to America. United States naval
experts examined the twisted bits of metal and declared them to have
been pieces, not of a mine, as the German government insists, but of an
automobile torpedo. However, in view of the fact that the _Hesperian_
was armed with a 4.7 gun, and because of the happy outcome of the
_Arabic_ affair, it seems unlikely that anything will be done about it.
But only a month later there was begun another “Campaign of
Frightfulness,” this time by Austrian submarines in the Mediterranean.
As the passengers on the Italian liner _Ancona_, one day out from
Naples to New York, were sitting at luncheon on November 7th,
they “felt a tremor through the ship as her engines stopped and
reversed.”[29] Then, while we were stopping, there was an explosion
forward. A shell had struck us.
“When I reached the deck,” continues Dr. Greil, “shell was fairly
pouring into us from the submarine, which we could see through the fog,
about 100 yards away. I hurried below to pack a few things in my trunk.
As I was standing over it, a shell came through the porthole and struck
my maid, who was standing at my side. It tore away her scalp and part
of her skull and went on through the wall, bursting somewhere inside
the ship.
“When I went on deck again I found the wildest excitement. It was like
the old-time stories one used to read of shipwrecks at sea. I will not
say anything about the crew because I could not say anything good.
They launched fifteen boats but only eight got away. I was in one of
these.... I do not believe the submarine fired deliberately on the
lifeboats. They were trying to sink the _Ancona_ with shells, but they
finally used a torpedo to send her to the bottom. I looked at my watch
when she took her last plunge. It was 12.45. We were picked up by the
French cruiser _Pluton_ about midnight.”
The commander of the submarine declared, in his official report, that
he had fired only because the _Ancona_ had tried to escape, that he had
ceased firing as soon as she came to a stop, that the loss of life was
due to the incompetence of the panic-stricken crew of the liner, whom
the Austrian officer allowed forty-five minutes in which to launch the
lifeboats. He admitted, however, that at the expiration of this time he
had torpedoed and sunk the _Ancona_, while there were still a number of
people on her decks.
About two hundred of the passengers and crew were drowned or killed by
shellfire. Among them were several American citizens.
“The conduct of the commander,” declared the strongly-worded American
note of December 6th, “can only be characterized as wanton slaughter
of defenseless non-combatants.”... The government of the United States
is unwilling ... to credit the Austro-Hungarian government with an
intention to permit its submarines to destroy the lives of helpless
men, women, and children. It prefers to believe that the commander of
the submarine committed this outrage without authority and contrary to
the general or special instructions which he had received.
“As the good relations of the two countries must rest upon a common
regard for law and humanity, the government of the United States
cannot be expected to do otherwise than to denounce the sinking of
the _Ancona_ as an illegal and indefensible act, and to demand that
the officer who perpetrated the deed be punished, and that reparation
by the payment of an indemnity be made for the citizens of the United
States who were killed or injured by the attack on the vessel.”
This undiplomatic language caused no little resentment in Vienna. But
after a restatement of the Austrian case, and a much milder rejoinder
from Washington, the American demands were apparently acceded to. In
the second Austro-Hungarian note, which was published in America on
January 1st, 1915, the government of the Dual-Monarchy disavowed the
act of its submarine commander, declared that he had acted in violation
of his orders and would be punished therefore, and agreed to pay an
indemnity for the American citizens who had been killed or injured.
“The Imperial and Royal Government,” the note continued, “agrees
thoroughly with the American Cabinet that the sacred commandments
of humanity must be observed also in war.... The Imperial and Royal
Government can also substantially concur in the principle expressed
... that private ships, in so far as they do not attempt to escape or
offer resistance, may not be destroyed without the persons aboard being
brought into safety.”
Like the settlement of the _Arabic_ case, this was hailed as a great
diplomatic victory for the United States. Unlike it, there was no
question of sharing the credit with the anti-submarine activities
of the Allies, whose merchant ships in the Mediterranean were being
torpedoed with startling frequency. On December 21st, the new 12,000
ton Japanese liner _Yasaka Maru_ was sunk without warning, near Port
Said. Thanks to the splendid discipline of her crew, no lives were
lost. There was an alleged American on board, but there was some
irregularity about his citizenship papers. Nor were there any Americans
aboard the French passenger ship _Ville de la Ciotat_, torpedoed on
Christmas Eve, with the loss of seventy lives. There was nothing to mar
the smug satisfaction of the American people on New Year’s Day.
Then came the news of the sinking of the Peninsular and Oriental liner
_Persia_, on December 30th, off the Island of Crete.
“I was in the dining room of the _Persia_ at 1.05 P.M.,” declares Mr.
Charles Grant of Boston, who was one of the two Americans on board. “I
had just finished my soup, and the steward was asking me what I would
take for my second course, when a terrific explosion occurred.
“The saloon became filled with smoke, broken glass and steam from the
boiler, which appeared to have burst. There was no panic on board. We
went on deck as though we were at drill, and reported at the lifeboats
on the starboard side, as the vessel had listed to port....
“The last I saw of the _Persia_, she had her bow in the air, five
minutes after the explosion....
“Robert McNeely, American Consul at Aden, sat at the same table with me
on the voyage. He was not seen, probably because his cabin was on the
port side.
“It was a horrible scene. The water was black as ink. Some passengers
were screaming, others were calling out good-by. Those in one boat sang
hymns.”
The _Persia_ was apparently torpedoed, without warning. Like the
_Hesperian_, she was armed with a 4.7 gun. One of the ship’s officers
saw the white wake of the torpedo. But no one saw the submarine.
The commander of that submarine evidently believed, like Captain
Sirius, in striking first and letting the lawyers talk about it
afterwards.
INDEX
_A-1_, 124.
_A-3_, 124, 135.
_A-5_, 125.
_A-7_, 124.
_A-8_, 124, 126.
_Aboukir_, 160, 169.
Accidents, 124.
Aeroplanes, 17, 71, 172.
Air-chamber, 47.
_Alabama_, 70.
_Albemarle_, 43, 166.
_Alert_, 136.
Alkmaar, 4.
Alstitt’s submarine, 75.
_Ancona_, 202.
_Anglo-Californian_, 187.
Apostoloff’s submarine, 66.
_Arabic_, 198, 205.
_Argo_, 92.
_Argonaut_, 85, 92, 98.
_Argonaut Jr._, 85.
_Argus_, 34.
_Asia_, 12.
Aube, Admiral, 59.
_Audacious_, 161, 169.
Awash condition, 127.
_B-2_, 124.
_B-11_, 165.
_Badger_, 168.
Baker’s submarine, 82.
Balance-chamber, 44, 48.
Ballast-tanks, 16, 38, 57, 82, 111, 138.
_Baralong_ case, 164, note.
Barber, Lieutenant F. M., 16.
Barlow, Joel, 26, 34.
Bates, Jr., Lindon, 194.
“Battle of the Kegs,” 23.
Bauer, Wilhelm, 56, 65, 120, note.
Beatty, Admiral, 175.
Beauregard, General, 39.
_Belridge_, 148.
_Berwick Castle_, 124.
Bigskorth, Squadron Commander, 172.
_Birmingham_, 159.
Blake, Mr., 10.
Blockade, 177 _et seq._
“Blowing the tanks,” 63, 112, 122, 128.
Booms, 92, 171.
Borelli, 10.
Boucher’s submarine, 66.
Bourgois, Captain, 57.
Bourne, William, 4.
Boush, Rear-Admiral, 137.
_Bouvet_, 154.
Boyle, Robert, 7.
British Hollands, 80.
British Navy, 30, 70, 72, 175, 178.
Brun, Monsieur, 57.
_Bulwark_, 161.
Buoyancy chamber, 49.
Bushnell, David, 6, 13 to 25, 28, 95, 128, 154.
_C-11_, 124.
_C-14_, 124.
Cable-cutting, 89, 95.
_Cairo_, 144.
Caldwell, Lieutenant H. C., 78, 79.
_Caprivi_, 148.
Carlson, Captain, 40.
_Cerberus_, 22.
Chandler, Mr. Edward F., 53.
Chlorin gas, 126, 129, 137.
_Clairmont_, 34, 81.
_Commodore Jones_, 144.
Compass, 18, 113.
Compensation-tank, 79, 118.
Compressed-air tank, 30, 57, 131.
Conning-tower, 12, 15, 28, 78, 103, 113.
Constantin’s submarine, 66.
Cooking, 108.
Copper sheathing, 18, 35.
_Cressy_, 160, 169.
Crilley, Frank, 137.
Cushing, Lieutenant, 43, 166.
_D-5_, 155.
Daniels, Secretary, 81, 138.
Dardanelles, the, 64, 147, 154, 165.
_David_, 36, 43, 61.
Davis, Commander, 52.
Day, J., 10, 128.
Delaying-valve, 47.
_Demologos_, 35.
Depth-control, 113.
Destroyers, 35, 104, 168, 170.
_Delfin_, 124.
Dewey, Admiral, 79, 145.
_Diable Marin_, 65, 120, note.
Diesel, Dr., 108.
Diesel engines, 104, 135, 184.
Divers, 14, 40, 56, 136.
Diving-bells, 4.
Diving compartment, 83, 88, 94, 130, 132.
Diving-planes, 28, 38, 48, 71, 72, 78, 111.
Dixon, Lieutenant, 40.
_Dorothea_, 32.
Doughty, Thomas, 115.
Doyle, Sir Arthur Conan, 178, 186.
Drzewiecki, 64, 71.
_Dunsely_, 198.
Dubilier, Mr. W., 171.
_E-4_, 160.
_E-5_, 124.
_E-9_, 156.
_E-11_, 165.
_E-13_, 164.
_E-15_, 165.
_Eagle_, 12, 18.
Edison battery, 126.
Eel-boats, 4, 14.
Electric Boat Company, 81, 96.
Electric motors, 108, 184.
Electric submarines, 59, 60, 66, 83, note.
_Emerald Isle_, 72.
Emergency drop-keel, 10, 15, 83, 128.
Enver Pasha, 166.
Ericsson, John, 82, 104.
Escape from sunken submarine, 130.
Even-keel submergence, 61, 96.
_F-4_, 124, 136.
_Falaba_, 189.
Faotomu, Lieutenant Takuma, 128.
_Farfadet_, 124.
Farragut, Admiral, 142.
Fenian Brotherhood, 71.
_Fenian Ram_, 73.
Fessenden oscillator, 119, 125.
Fishing for submarines, 170, 183.
_Foca_, 124.
Folger, Commander, 82.
Forman, Justus Miles, 194.
_Formidable_, 162, 169.
Frohman, Charles, 194.
_Fulton_, 135.
Fulton, Robert, 26 to 35, 69, 139, 186.
Gages, 20, 112, 129.
Garett, Rev. Mr., 61.
Gasoline engines, 86, 105.
Gasoline fumes, 90, 107, 125.
German contributions, 107, 115.
Gimlets, 16, 18, 64.
Goubet submarines, 60.
Grant, Charles, 205.
Greased leather, 6, 9.
Greil, Dr. Cecile L., 202.
_Giuseppe Garibaldi_, 169.
_Gulflight_, 191.
Guns, 83, 102, 174, 187, 202.
Guncotton, 46.
_Gustave Zédé_, 59.
_Gymnote_, 59.
Gyroscope, 50, 53, 114.
Gyroscopic compass, 113.
Hague Tribunal, 148, 200.
Halstead, 56.
Hammond, Jr., Mr. John Hays, 55.
Hanson, Captain, 183.
Harsdoffer, 5, 6.
_Hatsuse_, 147.
Hautefeullie, Abbé de, 7.
_Hela_, 155.
_Hermes_, 161, 168.
_Hesperian_, 199, 202, 206.
_Hogue_, 160, 169.
Holbrook, Commander, 165.
Holland, John P., 68 to 81, 95, 104, 115, 175.
_Holland_, 76 to 81, 86, 103, 104, 125.
_Holland No. 1_, 70.
_Holland No. 2_, 71.
_Holland No. 8_, 76.
Holland Torpedo-boat Company, 75, 79, 81.
“Horn of the Nautilus,” 29.
_Housatonic_, 40.
Howard, Ensign, 36.
Hovgaard, Commander, 75.
_Huascar_, 50.
Hubbard, Elbert, 194.
_Hundley_, 38 to 41.
Hydroplanes, 84, 95.
Hydrostatic valve, 48, 128, 154.
_Intelligent Whale_, 56, 81, 86.
International law, 178, 179, 200.
_Irresistible_, 154, 161.
James I, 5.
“Jammer,” the, 46.
Jefferson, Thomas, 14, 16, 22, 25.
Jonson, Ben, 3, 64.
_K_-class, 138.
_Kambala_, 124.
_Kearsarge_, 78.
_Kheyr-el-din_, 165.
Klein, Charles, 194.
Krupps, the, 99.
Labeuf, Monsieur, 91.
Lacavalerier, Señor, 66.
Lacomme, Dr., 64.
Lake, Mr. Simon, 82 to 99, 175.
Laurenti, Major Cesare, 134.
Laurenti dock, 134.
Le Son, 9.
Lee, Ezra, 15 to 22.
_Leelanlaw_, 198.
_Leon Gambetta_, 169.
Leveling-vanes, 96.
Lifeboats, 131.
List, Carl Frank, 187, 191.
Lord St. Vincent, Admiral, 32.
Lupuis, Captain, 44.
_Lusitania_, 181, 192 to 198.
_Lutin_, 124.
McNeely, Robert, 206.
_Maine_, 76.
_Majestic_, 166.
Makaroff, Admiral, 147.
Malone, Mr. Dudley Field, 196.
_Marblehead_, 146.
_Maryland_, 137.
_Merrimac_, 69.
Mersenne, 6, 91.
_Messudieh_, 165.
Microphones, 171.
Mines, Confederate, 143, 154, note.
contact, 139, 144, 148 to 155, 179.
drifting, 23, 139, 154.
electric, 89, 144, 151.
observation, 144.
Mine-field, 151, 165.
Mine-planter, 146, 149.
Mine-sweeping, 139, 152.
_Moltke_, 164.
_Monitor_, 42, 69, 81.
Mother-ship, 100, 111, 135.
_Mute_, 35.
Napier, John, 4.
Napoleon, 27, 32, 33.
_Narval_, 91.
_Nautilus_, Fulton’s, 27 to 31, 56, 72.
_Nautilus_, Jules Verne’s, 59.
Navigating bridge, 103, 111.
_Nebraskan_, 195.
Nemo, Captain, 59.
_New Ironsides_, 36, 144.
_New York_, 78.
Nordenfeldt, 28, 61, 74, 95.
_Nordenfeldt II_, 62, 78, 83.
Notes, American, 180, 195 to 197, 200, 203.
Austrian, 204.
British, 181.
German, 191, 199.
_No. 6_, 124, 128.
Oars, 6, 9, 16, 17, 66.
_Ocean_, 154.
Oil-engine, 60, 78, 104.
_Olympic_, 162, 178.
_Orduna_, 198.
_Osage_, 115.
Oxygen, 7, 131.
_Ozark_, 100.
Panlow, Captain Archibald, 187.
Panoramas, 26.
Payne, Lieutenant, 39.
Pendulum, 49, 53.
_Peral_, 64, 66.
“Peripatetic Coffin,” 39.
_Persia_, 205.
Persius, Captain, 183.
Periscope, 78, 83, 114, 125, 186.
_Petropavlosk_, 147.
Philip, Captain, 146.
Phosphorescence, 6, 19.
Pipe-masts, 86, 95.
Pitt, 32.
_Plongeur_, 57, 132.
_Plunger_, 75.
_Pluton_, 203.
_Pluviôse_, 124, 125, 134.
Pneumatic gun, 79.
_Pommern_, 163.
“Porpoise dive,” 78, 160.
Porter, Admiral David, 40.
“Primer,” the, 46.
Propellers, adjustable, 82.
primitive, 16, 28.
transverse, 83.
vertical-acting, 16, 28, 61, 83, 95 154.
_Protector_, 95.
Pumps, 16, 28, 111.
_Ramillies_, 35.
Ramming, 124, 168, 200.
Reducing-valve, 48.
Rescuing, 125, 156.
_Resurgam_, 61.
Riou, Olivier, 59.
Rogers, Commodore, 34.
_Rotterdam Boat_, 9, 14, 69.
_Royal Edward_, 166.
Rudders, bow, 96, 111.
horizontal (see diving-planes).
_S-126_, 169.
_San Francisco_, 149.
Safety-buoy, 132.
catch, 47.
helmets, 130.
jackets, 130.
Sails, 29, 31.
Salvage docks, 134.
Sampson, Admiral, 89, 146.
Schneider, Commander, 201.
Scope, Lieutenant Perry, 100.
Searchlight, 86, 186.
Selfridge, Rear-admiral, 115.
Servo-motor, 49, 53.
Sirius, Captain John, 177, 187, 189, 206.
Skerrett, Mr. R. G., 135.
_Spuyten Duyvil_, 42.
Stahl, Gustav, 196.
“Staple of News, the,” 3.
Steam submarine, 61.
Steamboat, 32, 34.
Storage-batteries, 59, 126, 184.
“Striker,” the, 46.
_Stromboli_, 42.
Submarine fighting submarine, 174.
Submarine railroad, 64.
Submersible, 91.
Superstructure, 90, 102.
Symons’s submarine, 9.
Taylor, D. W., Chief Constructor, U. S. N., 96.
Telephoning from submarines, 88, 132.
_Tecumseh_, 142.
Templo, Alvary, 71.
_Texas_, 146.
Thrasher, Leon C., 190.
Tinkling Cloud, 195.
Tissot, Professor, 171.
Torpedo, automobile, 44 to 55.
boats, 45, 103.
Brennan, 59.
Chandler, 53.
controllable, 43, 54, 55.
cost of, 47, 103.
Davis gun-, 52.
Fulton’s anchored, 139.
Hammond wireless, 55.
Torpedo-nets, 34, 170.
origin of name, 29.
practice, 116.
recovering, 47, 123.
Schwartzkopf, 52, 160.
Sims-Edison, 54.
spar, 37, 43.
tubes, 45, 46, 63, 117, 118, 133, 138.
wake of, 49, 206.
“Torpedo War and Submarine Explosions,” 35, 139.
Torpedo, Whitehead, 44 to 52, 117.
Transports, 166, 171, 178.
Trim, 96.
Trimming-tanks, 117.
Trinitrotuluol, 52.
_Triumph_, 166.
Trumbull, Governor, 14.
Turner, Captain, 193.
_Turtle_, 12, 14 to 22.
_U-1_, 108.
_U-3_, 124, 132.
_U-9_, 160.
_U-12_, 169.
_U-15_, 159.
_U-16_, 183.
_U-28_, 189.
_U-29_, 191.
_U-39_, 187, note.
_U-51_, 166.
Vanderbilt, Alfred, 194.
Vand der Wonde, Cornelius, 6.
Van Drebel, Cornelius, 4 to 9, 41.
_Vendémiaire_, 124.
Vereshchagin, 147.
Vickers Sons & Maxim, 80.
_Ville de la Ciotat_, 205.
Von Weddigen, Lieutenant-commander, 18, 160, 191.
Von Bernstorff, Ambassador, 199.
Von Tirpitz, Admiral, 69, 177, 187, 189.
_Vulcan_, 132.
Waddington, Mr. J. F., 83, note.
War-head, 47, 52.
War Zone, 30, 179.
Washington, George, 13, 17, 25.
Wheeled submarines, 84.
White mice, 13, 110.
Whitehead, Mr., 44.
Whitney, Secretary, 74.
Wilson, President, 180, 197, 198.
Wright brothers, 71.
_X-4_, 102 to 123.
_Yasaka Maru_, 205.
_Yenisei_, 146.
Zeppelins, 172.
FOOTNOTES
[1] Also spelled Van Drebbel, Drebell, Dreble, and Trebel. He is the
man Ben Jonson calls “Cornelius’ son.”
[2] Harsdoffer.
[3] “New Experiments touching the Spring of the Air and its Effects,”
by Robert Boyle, Oxford, 1662, p. 188.
[4] The only submarine built before this for military purposes,
the _Rotterdam Boat_, remained private property, and King James’s
“eel-boats” were merely pleasure craft.
[5] Sergeant Ezra Lee’s letter to Gen. David Humphreys, written in
1815. Published in the “Magazine of American History,” Vol. 29, p. 261.
[6] “General Washington and his associates in the secret took their
stations upon a house in Broadway, anxiously awaiting the result.” From
Ezra Lee’s obituary, New York “Commercial Advertiser,” November 15,
1821.
[7] According to Bushnell, the screw struck an iron bar securing the
rudder.
[8] This survivor was examined by the captain of the _Cerberus_, who
reported that the schooner’s crew had drawn the machine on board and by
rashly tampering with its mechanism caused it to explode.
[9] See the “Scientific American,” August 7, 1915.
[10] Herbert C. Fyfe, “Submarine Warfare,” p. 269.
[11] But Fulton’s _Nautilus_ could not possibly have made the dives
with which she is credited except by the use of the horizontal rudders
which she possessed in conjunction with the push of her man-power
propellor. Holland had carefully studied the plans and letters of
Bushnell and Fulton.
[12] Mr. J. F. Waddington used vertical propellers in tubes through the
vessel for keeping her on an even keel or submerging when stationary,
on a small electric submarine he invented, built and demonstrated at
Liverpool in 1886.
[13] Quotations in this chapter are from Mr. Lake’s articles published
in “International Marine Engineering,” and are here reprinted by his
kind permission.
[14] Electric current.
[15] From an article by Admiral Selfridge in the “Outlook.”
[16] The velocity of sound in dry air at a temperature of 32 degrees
Fahrenheit is about 1087 feet a second, in water at 44 degrees, about
4708 feet a second.
[17] The sound of the first gun of the salute fired by the Russian
fleet in Cronstadt harbor to celebrate the coronation of Alexander II
in 1855 was the signal for the crew of the submerged submarine _Le
Diable Marin_ to begin singing the National Anthem. Their voices,
accompanied by a band of four pieces, were distinctly heard above
the surface. This novel concert had been planned by Wilhelm Bauer,
the designer of the submarine and one of the earliest students of
under-water acoustics. He succeeded in signaling from one side of the
harbor to another by striking a submerged piece of sheet-iron with a
hammer.
[18] “Scientific American,” January 28, 1911, page 87.
[19] “Scientific American,” November 23, 1912.
[20] Titherington’s History of the Spanish-American War, p. 139.
[21] _Ibid._, page 202.
[22] He had done notable work with mines himself, during the
Russo-Turkish War of 1878.
[23] This was a very popular type with the Confederate Torpedo Service
in the Civil War.
[24] London, Jan. 4.--A British official statement issued to-day says:
“Sir Edward Grey, secretary for foreign affairs, has answered the
complaint by the Germans through the American embassies regarding the
destruction off the coast of Ireland of a German submarine and crew,
by the British auxiliary _Baralong_, by referring to various German
outrages.
“Sir Edward Grey offers to submit such incidents, including the
_Baralong_ case, to an impartial tribunal composed, say, of officers of
the United States navy.
“The Foreign Office has presented to the House of Commons the full
correspondence between Ambassador Page and Sir Edward Grey concerning
the case. A memorandum from Germany concerning the sinking of the
submarine includes affidavits from six Americans who were muleteers
aboard the steamer _Nicosian_ and witnessed the _Baralong’s_
destruction of the submarine. A further affidavit from Larimore
Holland, of Chattanooga, Tennessee, who was a member of the crew of the
_Baralong_, was submitted. All the affidavits speak of the _Baralong_
as disguised and flying the American flag.”
[25] “Scientific American,” October 16, 1915.
[26] In “Collier’s Weekly,” August 22, and 29, 1914.
[27] This submarine was the _U-39_. On board her was an American boy,
Carl Frank List, who was taken off a Norwegian ship and spent eleven
days on the _U-39_, during which time she sank eleven ships. In each
case the crew were given ample time to take to the boats. List’s
intensely interesting narrative appeared in the “New York American” for
September 3, 5, and 7, 1915.
[28] “Von Weddigen, I was told, met his death chasing an armed British
steamer. Commanding the _U-29_, he went after a whale of a British
freighter in the Irish Sea, signaled her to stop. She stopped but
hoisted the Spanish flag. As he came alongside, the steamer let
drive with her two four-point-sevens at the submarine, sinking it
immediately.” Statement of Carl Frank List.
[29] Statement of Dr. Cecile L. Greil, the only native-born American on
board.
Transcriber’s Notes
Punctuation, hyphenation, and spelling were made consistent when a
predominant preference was found in this book; otherwise they were not
changed.
Words spelled differently in quoted passages than in the author’s own
text have not been changed.
Simple typographical errors were silently corrected; occasional
unbalanced quotation marks retained.
Chapter II’s footnotes originally skipped number “3”. The omission is
not apparent in this eBook, in which all footnotes are in a single
ascending sequence.
Ambiguous hyphens at the ends of lines were retained.
For consistency, all occurrences of “bow-foremost” and “stern-foremost”
are hyphenated in this eBook.
Index not checked for proper alphabetization or correct page references.
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