SOME U-BOAT QUERIES

Evening Post, Volume XCV, Issue 23, 26 January 1918, Page 9

SOME U-BOAT QUERIES

WHAT IS GERMANY DOING?

Not by any means for the first time itf the history of the war the U-boat in "well in hand" (writes Richard ThirkeE in the London Daily Mail). As long ago a 6 21st September it was announced by a "high naval authority"—obviously an Admiralty official—that the submarine was "defeated," but since then the loss o£ 161 British merchantmen has been re j corded (probably representing a rate o£ 2,000,000 tons a year, or 30 per cent above our optimistically estimated output for 1917), besides seven British warships, all sunk by U-boats. How many ship* "damaged" in the same period are now breaking up on the beaches' where they were stranded we do not know.

We are told very little about either the U-boat or our work against it, and in putting the following questions I do so not so much in the expectation of getting an answer to them as in the hope of suggesting to the man in the street certain important matters to be borne in mind when any phase of the submarine question is being considered. . In the first place, what is Germany doing with her U-boats? Mr. Lloyd George told us in August, and the First Lord of the Admiralty recently repeated the statement, that enemy submarines are being built faster than we are de j stroying them. As a general review o£ the position that 16 not affected by the fact that we are able to destroy five boats in a single day. Luck must fluctuate in the sinking of submarines as ii doe 6in the sinking of merchantmen. Although Germany's flotillas are increasing, her attempts to sink our merchantmen are falling off. There wera 625 in the first thireteen weeks of the present campaign, 505 in the second, and only 318 in the third, the reduction in the activity, measured by these figures, being only a trifle under 50 per cent. .

How is that to be explained? R*member first of all that Germany is engaged in a ruthless campaign of destruction against the entire shipping of the world, without regard to its flag, and that of all the nations whose ships ara being sunk three only—Britain, France, and Italy—issue any. regular statement of their losses. See what this means. One week our sinkings may fall to zero. In that same week a score of ships belonging to another Power might be sent to the bottom, and if that Power wera neither France nor Italy we should be( told nothing about it, but allowed toi congratulate ourselves—for the nth timei —on the collapse of the U-boat.' Certain publicists went into mild hysterics over the loss of only one big ship in the week ending 11th November; but they, passed over in silence the fact that foe the following week the figure expanded' 900 per cent, and that the present week shows a further increase.

Again, accepting the official assurances that Germany is completing XJ-. boats faster than we are sinking them, may we'ask if they are being sent to sea as fast as they are completed? It is not an idle question. In the United States orders have been placed for 636 merchantmen, the colossal sum of 1800 million dollars having been Bet aside for the construction of these and subsequent programmes. Is it not feasible that Germany is expanding her flotillas as rapidly as possible, and yet keeping the bulii of them at home to be specially trained] and organised for a. great Atlantic offensive in the spring? Nothing is mora probable, and few theories could mora reasonably explain the fact that while the U-boats are mounting in numbers their efforts against British shipping should show such a remarkable decline. We are presumably entitled to suppose that the naval staff at the Admiralty is prepared, and is extending its preparations, to prevent the egress of the new U-boat campaigners into the Atlantic;. The policy of scattering email craft over the wide seas will not avail in the days that are coming. The only real solution is to barrage the German ports; or i i that cannot be done, then the North Sea.,