THE BRITISH WAY

Dominion, Volume 33, Issue 69, 14 December 1939, Page 10

THE BRITISH WAY

Submarine And Liner

BREMEN ALLOWED TO PASS (By S.D.W.) There is a great lack of imagination in the Admiralty communique in today’s news announcing that the Gennan liner Bremen on her way to Germany passed within torpedo range of a British submarine, but that the rules of sea warfare, of course, precluded the submarine from torpedoing the liner without warning. A “naval expert” goes on to explain that international law prohibits the sinking of a merchant vessel without warning and without making provision for those.on hoard reaching safety.

All this is completely true, as also is the statement that th - action of the submarine in not torpedoing . the Bremen contrasts with German violations of international law. But whereas the British method is merely to record the fact, that the Bremen passed within torpedo range of a British submarine without being attacked, lie German official news agency is quick to turn the incident to account by distorting the facts. It alleges that the submarine “approached the Bremer, within torpedo range in the North Sea but was forced to submerge by a German aeroplane which was not escorting the liner. It was just the submarine’s bad luck that the plane happened to see Iter.” The implication is, of course, that the British submarine would have attacked the Bremen but for the appearance of the aeroplane. British Methods. Since the meeting of the submarine and the liner was, doubtless, quite fortuitous, the introduction of a chance aeroplane into the German story .is probably a pure invention. Except in the special ease of operations against German ore carriers in the Baltic for a short period during the Great War, British submarines have never been employed as commerce raiders. In the Baltic no ship was torpedoed without warning, the safety of the German crews was always seen to and not a life was lost. The ease of the Bremen clearly illustrates the impossibility of a submarine making a prize of a liner of such size and speed as the German ship. Had the Bremen encountered a British cruiser or even a destroyer, there can be little doubt that site would have been captured and taken into port. But with a submarine the matter was far otherwise. The Bremen with her 28 knots would have been able to outsteam the submarine with ease. Moreover,'had she been able to force the liner to stop by means of her gun, the submarine could not have spared sufficient mon as a prize crew for a ship manned by hundreds; and in any case, witli no boat available she could not have put. an armed guard on board the huge steamer. Regard For Sea Law. Thus the only way in which the submarine could have dealt with the Bremen would have been to torpedo her: and in the British Navy this is not done. Neither in the Great War, nor in the present struggle, has a British submarine ever caused the death of any member of the crew of any merchant ship, whether enemy or neutral. Strict compliance with the international rules of sea warfare has ever been the rule in the Royal Navy. One need not ask what would have happened had the Bremen been the Queen Mary or the Normandie and the submarine German instead of British. A Long Voyage. That the Bremen has at last reached her home port need cause little regret. Her capture or her destruction would not have shortened the war by 10 seconds and her arrival in Germany will afford but a Barmecidal satisfaction to her owners and to Germany. The Bremen left New York in the latter end of August and proceeding round the north of Iceland, managed to reach the Russian port of Murmansk. That, she should have taken nearly four months to get from New York to Germany by devious ways is really a testimony "to the effective control of the seas exercised by the British Navy. It only remit ins to add that had the British submarine torpedoed the Bremen and caused the loss of but a single life, the whole of Britain's case for the effective exercise of her full belligerent rights nt sea would have been destroyed. The substance of Britain’s case—and that, of neutral countries also —against Germany is her complete disregard of the accepted rules of naval warfare and her wanton and inhuman methods against merchant shipping. Great Britain’s hands are clean.