Chapter I: 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