Chapter II: Introduction

WHILE Great Britain remains an island, with dominion over palm and pine, it is to the sea that her four hundred millions of people must look for the key to all that has been achieved in the past and all that the future promises in the quickening dawn of a new era.

Not only over Great Britain alone, however, does the ocean cast its spell, for it is the free highway of the world, sailed by the ships of all nations, without other hindrances than those of stormy nature, and navigated without restriction from pole to pole by the seamen of all races. It was the international meeting-place, where ensigns were "dipped" in friendly greeting, and since the dawn of history there has been a freemasonry of the sea which knew no distinction of nation or creed.

When the call of humanity boomed across the dark, storm-tossed waters the answer came readily from beneath whatever flag the sound was heard. But in August, 1914, there came a change, so dramatic, so sudden, that maritime nations were stunned. Germany, in an excess of war fever, broke the sea laws, and laughed while women and children drowned. Crime followed crime, and the great voice of the Republican West protested in unison with that of the Imperial East. Still the Black Eagle laughed as it flew far and wide, carrying death to whomsoever came within its shadow, regardless of race and sex.

But there was an avenger upon the seas, one who had been rocked in its cradle from time immemorial, and to whom the world appealed to save the lives of their seamen. It sailed beneath the White Ensign and the Blue, and with aid from France, Italy and Japan it fought by day and by night, in winter gale and snow, and in summer heat and fog, in torrid zone and regions of perpetual ice to free the seas of the traitorous monster who had, in the twentieth century, hoisted the black flag of piracy and murder. For three years this ceaseless war was waged, and then, with her wonderful patience exhausted, the great sister nation of the mother tongue joined her fleets and armies with those of the battle-worn Allies and peace came to a long-suffering world.

In that abyss of war there was romance sufficient for many generations of novelists and historians. Many were the epic fights, unimportant in themselves, but which need only a Kingsley or a Stevenson to make them famous for all time. So with the happenings to be described in this book, many of them historically unimportant compared with the epoch-making events of which they formed a decimal part, but told in plain words; just records of romance on England's sea frontier in the years 1914-1918.

Although jealous of any encroachment on the space available for the description of guerrilla war at sea, there are many things which must first be said regarding the organisation and training of what may appropriately be termed the "New Navy," which took the sea to combat the submarine and the mine; also of the novel weapons devised amid the whirl of war for their use, protection and offensive power. Into this brief recital of the events leading to the real thing an endeavour will be made to infuse the life and local colour, which, however, would be more appropriate in a personal narrative than in a general description of anti-submarine warfare of to-day, but without which much that is essential could not be written without dire risk of tiring the reader before the first few chapters had been passed.

The names of places and ships have necessarily been changed to avoid anything of a personal character, and all references to existing or dead officers and men have been rigidly excluded as objectionable and unnecessary in a book dealing entirely with events.

Many of the incidents described--written while the events stood out in clear, mental perspective--could no doubt be duplicated and easily surpassed by many whose fortunes took them into zones of sea war during the historic years just past. If such is found to be the case, then the object of this book has been accomplished, for it sets out to tell, not of great epoch-making events, but of the organisation, men, ships, weapons and ordinary incidents of life in what, for lack of a better term, has been called the "New Navy"--a production of the World War.

It may be that an apology is due for placing yet another war book before a war-weary public, but an effort has been made to make of the following chapters _a record of British maritime achievement_, more than a narrative of sea fighting, although to do this without introducing the human element, the arduous nature of the work, the monotony, the danger and, finally, the compensating moments of excitement would have been to falsify the account and belittle the achievement.

There are many books available, full of exciting stories of sea and land war, but no other, so far as the Author knows, which describes in detail and in plain phraseology those important "little things"--liable to be overlooked amid the whirl of war--which go to make an anti-submarine personnel, fleet and base, together with an account of "how it was done."

CONTENTS

CHAPTER PAGE
I. THE TASK OF THE ALLIED NAVIES 17

II. THE NEW NAVY--TRAINING AN ANTI-SUBMARINE FORCE 36

III. A NAVAL UNIVERSITY IN TIME OF WAR 47

IV. THE NEW FLEETS IN BEING 50

V. THE HYDROPHONE AND THE DEPTH CHARGE 70

VI. SOME CURIOUS WEAPONS OF ANTI-SUBMARINE WARFARE 85

VII. MYSTERY SHIPS 96

VIII. A TYPICAL WAR BASE 102

IX. THE CONVOY SYSTEM 116

X. THE MYSTERIES OF SUBMARINE HUNTING EXPLAINED 126

XI. THE MYSTERIES OF GERMAN MINE-LAYING EXPLAINED 143

XII. THE MYSTERIES OF MINESWEEPING EXPLAINED 157

XIII. THE MINE BARRAGE 179

XIV. OFF TO THE ZONES OF WAR 187

XV. A MEMORABLE CHRISTMAS 192

XVI. THE DERELICT 202

XVII. MINED-IN 209

XVIII. THE CASUALTY 220

XIX. HOW H.M. TRAWLER NO. 6 LOST HER REFIT 226

XX. THE RAIDER 233

XXI. THE S.O.S. 238

XXII. IN THE SHADOW OF A BIG SEA FIGHT 248

XXIII. A NIGHT ATTACK 258

XXIV. MYSTERIES OF THE GREAT SEA WASTES 264

XXV. FROM OUT THE CLOUDS AND THE UNDER-SEAS 273

XXVI. ON THE SEA FLANK OF THE ALLIED ARMIES 286

INDEX 301

List of Illustrations

SURRENDER OF THE GERMAN SUBMARINE FLEET _Frontispiece_

FACING
PAGE
PLAN OF A 55 FEET COASTAL MOTOR BOAT 16

LARGE HEAVILY ARMED GERMAN SUBMARINE 32

MOTOR LAUNCH HULLS BEING CONSTRUCTED 56

A 40 FEET COASTAL MOTOR BOAT AT FULL SPEED 64

ANOTHER VIEW OF THE SAME BOAT AT FULL SPEED 64

DROPPING DEPTH CHARGES 80

INNOCENT-LOOKING BUT DEADLY 96

HIDDEN TORPEDO TUBES OF H.M.S. _HYDERABAD_ 96

AFTER-DECK OF THE _HYDERABAD_ (BEFORE ACTION) 104

AFTER-DECK OF THE _HYDERABAD_ (PREPARED FOR ACTION) 104

MOCK WHEEL AND COMPASS PEDESTAL OF THE _HYDERABAD_ 112

MOCK WHEEL AND COMPASS PEDESTAL OF THE _HYDERABAD_ (COLLAPSED) 112

MOTOR LAUNCH CLEARED FOR ACTION 120

A WRECKED COASTAL MOTOR BOAT 136

CAPTIVE MINE-LAYING SUBMARINE 144

A MINESWEEPER 160

A PARAVANE 176

MORSE SIGNALLING 184

MOTOR LAUNCH OF THE NAVAL PATROL 216

A MONITOR 280

SUBMARINE WARFARE

OF TO-DAY