SUBMARINE MINES IN THE WAR

Dominion, Volume 32, Issue 256, 27 July 1939, Page 6

SUBMARINE MINES IN THE WAR

Activity By Britain MORE THAN 750,000 IN NORTH SEA “Submarine Mining in the Great War,’ was the subject of an address at the monthly luncheon of th e Wellington Returned Soldiers’ Association yesterday by Mr. D. F. Bauehop, who served as an engineer lieutenant-com-mander during the war. He contrasted the British and German methods of mining and the development which had taken place since the days of the old type of pontoon mine with its explosive charge on a boom which was placed beside the ship to be blown up. Submarine mining was not by any means confined to submarines, the great majority of British mines having been laid, by surface vessels. Because they did not have the necessary ships, practically all the mines laid by the Germans were by submarines. At the beginning of the war, one type of mine used by the British was tiie contact mine, made fast to nets, so that if a vessel ran into the net, a plunger exploded the mine—a rather crude arrangement. However, mining soon came to be put in charge of the

torpedo branch of the Admiralty and other types of mines were evolved. Testing stations were set up, where mines came in and were loaded, tested and distributed to the layers. Mining could only be used in certain waters. Some such as the Atlantic were too deep. They must also be free from heavy rises and falls of the tide. In the Bosphorus, a one-way tideway, the Turks had used drifting mines which had floated down on the continuous ebb-tide. Britain had mined the whole of the North Sea, from Scotland to Norway and had laid more than three-quarters of a million mines. The speaker explained the construction of a mine and sinker and the different principles on which German and British mines bad been operated. Toward the close of the war, he said, it had been intended to mine the Channel right across from Dover and a plan had been formulated for the setting up of ferro-concrete observation towers in the Channel. They were to serve as gun platforms, observation platforms and crews’ quarters and the idea was that when instruments inside the towers made known the presence of enemy submarines, the mines would be exploded from the towers. Three had actually been built and then the war ended. One tower was now being used as a lighthouse on the Scottish coast. A vote of thanks to the speaker was proposed by Professor J. Shelley.

The soloist at the luncheon was Mr. A. Barr, who sang two songs.