MARINE SALVAGE.

Auckland Star, Volume LV, Issue 77, 31 March 1924, Page 7

MARINE SALVAGE.

SECRETS OF THE WAR. 500 VESSELS SAVED. ADDRESS BY SIR F. YOUNG. An illustrated description of incidents of the Great War of which the averagi: person has only a passing knowledge, if that, was given members of the Rotary Club this afternoon in the course of an illustrated address by Sir Frederick Young, who has had a long association with marine salvage, and was director of marine salvage during the war, when 500 vessels and 62 million tons of cargo were saved. He commenced his address by showing the principle of lifting a submerged vessel by the use of wire hawsers and pontoons. Some of the vessels were deep in mud and clay, and a passage had to be cleared in such cases to allow the wires to be passed round the ship. The rising tide then lifted the sunken craft off the bottom. Some of Sir Frederick's photographs were obtained from Germans, and one of these showed the submarine U5, which gave a great deal of trouble in the Channel. She was accustomed to come across the shoal bank until she struck the channel, and there her deadly cargo of mines was strewn. One day the state of the tide was misjudged, and the submarine was left on the shoal. This vessel was afterwards taken up ; the Thames. A number of slides were then shown illustrating the nature of the damage done by torpedoes. Usually the hole made was about 40 feet by 30 feet and extended to one or two compartments. One ship so damaged was repaired and torpedoed on no less than three occasions. Sir Frederick then went on to deal with the Kl3, an ill-fated vessel built after the battle of Heligoland Bight. This engagement showed that submarines were too slow to keep up with battleships, and the class of ship known as the Kl3 was devised. It was a particularly big submarine, 300 feet in length, and having a displacement of 2600 tons, and carried two six-inch guns. It had a speed above water of 28 knots, and 16 when submerged. On her trial trip with some 80 people aboard she foundered, as the result of four ventilators leading into the stokehold not being closed. After she sank it was ascertained that there were a number of her unfortunate complement alive. The task of rescue was a precarious one. During the work a figure floated up to the surface and grabbed the diver. It was the captain of the vessel, who had been released through the conning tower, into which compressed air had been released. The captain of the second ship of the class was released simultaneously, but unfortunately the force of the air drove him against the beams and he was killed. The other captain was able to give valuable information, and the vessel was raised and 48 people saved, after being 56 hours under water. The hospital ship Asturias, torpedoed with all lights burning, was shown in a sinking condition off Bold Head, Devonshire. She floated into the head and was kept from sinking as the result of 16,000 tons of water an hour being pumped from her. Another interesting German picture showed the loss of a German Zeppelin. One snap showed it floating through the sky badly maimed, and successive slides showed her gradually but surely falling until she grounded and was wrecked at Ostend. The lecture was heartily appreciated.