HARRYING THE PIRATES

Dominion, Volume 11, Issue 85, 3 January 1918, Page 6

HARRYING THE PIRATES

DESTROYER THE U-BOAT'S WORST . FOE. Diaries taken from captured U-boat commanders furnish documentary ovidence that the destroyer is the most effective of present weapons against the submarines. "Avoided destroyer" is the oft-repeated entry. Ip fact, thesp logs show conclusively that the submarines are having a hard time of it. The convoying of merchantmen lias now reached a stage of''considerable perfection, after many months' work in training both the officers of merchant ships and the personnel of the patrol flotillas. .While systematic <3011voying was undertaken primarily ad a defensive measure, it has now developed that convoying is at the same time the best offensive measure yet devised against the U-boat. The offensive sida of convoying may best be shown by an illustration. When a submarine tries to torpedo a convoyed ship—as submarines are now compelled to do, owing to. the infrequency of unconvoyed ships—there is always a destroyer on the sceno, and the chances of her "getting" that particular submarine are correspondingly increased.' Tho wake of a torpedo is generally seen by the destroyer's lookouts,_ and it gives a good line on the direction where the submarine is lying. The destroyer immediately steers a course full speed 111 the line'shown by the torpedo's wake, aijd drops repeated depth-charges along this course. In a considerable proportion of cases this proves- effective, tor these depth-charges causo serious commotion over a considerable radius. A correspondent was told of three cases durin" the past fortnight m. which submarines were thus destroyed. _ in manv instances, 110 doubt, submarines are destroyed without any visible indication above water of their loss. Will others are badly crippled, as 111 the case 'of tho damaged Gorman U-boat which, was recently interned in Spain. One submarine which will never return to Germany was sunk under peculiar circumstances a- short time ago. This U-boat torpedoed a ship bound from the United States, firing its torpedo at .1 ranee of only about a hundred vards. It « extremely unwise and unsafe to fire a torpedo at sveil close range, but the U-boats must take their tareets as tliev get them tnoso dnvs. Tlie torpedoed ship was loaded with a cargo of heavy war !™ te o"V and the explosion was so forcible that it blew a large piece of heavy material through the deck of the ship and dropnod it oil tho submarine as the la-,tci was submerging. The hull of the sn - marine was crushed like an eggshell, and she saulc with all on boiuu.