THE DOVER STRAITS

Evening Post, Volume CXX, Issue 112, 7 November 1935, Page 25

THE DOVER STRAITS

A WAR-TIME PROBLEM

SUBMARINES PASS THROUGH

THE NAVY'S ANSWER

Early in December, 1917, I felt that I had no choice but to fight an action for what I regarded as essential to the conduct of the anti-submarine campaign, and ultimate victory, writes Admiral' Sir Roger Keyes in the "Daily Telegraph." In a Plans Division memorandum, I pointed out that a telegram by Admiral Bacon disclosed a very unsatisfactory state of affairs, in view of the great activity of the enemy submarines.in the Channel and Irish Sea; 'in fact, large and small submarines continued to pass to and from their field of operations through the Straits of Dover without any apparent inconvenience. ' We had very definite information as to their procedure; that our barrage was entirely ineffective could no longer be denied; anti-submarine measures in the Straits was therefore confined to actions by patrol craft; but there was no effective patrol by night or day. I referred to our unsuccessful efforts to persuade Admiral Bacon to carry out an anti-submarine operation, for which twenty? drifters and large quantities of mined nets had been pror vided. It was clear now that the Admiral had no intention of using searchlights or flares. I was strongly of the opinion that if he had acted reasonably and energetically when he was informed early in October that submarines were. passing through the Straits without suffering any inconvenience, a few of those which were known to have passed through during the last two months would have been destroyed, and losses in the Channel would have been considerably reduced. THE NIGHT PATROL. : Also, had the proposals for illuminating and -patrolling the deep minefield, as soon as it was laid, been accepted and put into force, there would have been some chance . of driving enemy submarines down on to the mines. The deep mines were, however, laid on November 21, and it was only now that steps were being taken to institute a;night patrol, and a quite inadequate o.ie at that. Moreover, he still had no -intention of using lights or flares. I followed this up a few days later by calling f ttention to the fact that during the p,ist six weeks the necessity for instituting an efficient patrol had been repeatedly brought to the notice of the'Vice-/admiral at Dover. Up to the present no adequate steps had been taken, and imemy submarines continued to stream through the Straits. The Northern route appeared to have been almost abanioned.. Consequently our losses were proportionately increased, owing to the longer time the submarines;" "could spend on thi.'ir hunting ground. During the period Hovember 1-December 9 it was definite y known by the Naval Intelligence D apartment that 35 German submarines had passed through the Straits, and trbm evidence in their possession they considered that another 15 submarines had made the passage. The measures which the Admiral proposed were so inaccurate that the Admiralty must either order certain action to becafried out and accept the responsibility, or they must accept the still greater responsibility of knowing that the Vice-Admiral's plans were inadequate to deal with . a situation which was vitally affecting our power to carry on the war. It could hardly be questioned that., if the Admiralty had not been lulled into a false sense of security by Admiral Bacon's claim that submarines, were not passing through the Straits, steps would have been taken many months previously to deal with the unsatisfactory situation. I submitted that the strongest measures possible were necessary and that time was passing. [Sir John Jellicoe did not accept in its entirety Sir Roger's sweeping indictment, but called Admiral Bacon to London and ordered that the deep minefields should be patrolled night and day and illuminated. A few days later the Channel Barrage Committee issued its final report, and this promptly influenced Sir Eric Geddes to take immediate action.] On the morning of December 20, we heard that during the previous night the patrol over the deep minefield, though still very inadequate in numbers, had used flares and searchlights for the first time, with the result that a German submarine (identified later as U59). had been forced to dive hurriedly, and had been blown up on a mine. This was a great stroke of good fortune for Plans Division. The odds were all in favour of the submarine getting through unscathed, as the patrol vessels were a considerable distance apart; and the minefield, which had been lying idle for a month—there being no inducement for the enemy to enter it—had been rapidly deteriorating, a number of mines having broken adrift in the winter gales. However, U59 provided an overwhelming argument in support of the policy Plans Division had so insistently urged, and Sir Reginald Bason had so strenuously resisted. U59 actually sealed Admiral Bacon's fate, for the First Lord—Sir Eric Geddes—had been watching the battle about the Dover Straits with the keenest interest. 'ft was, in fact, a struggle between two schools of naval thought, which are really quite irreconcilable in war. On one hand was the Materiel School, whose outlook could be summed up in the phase I heard when I joined the Grand Fleet: "If we never leave the Flow, we win the war." Admiral Bacon was one of the chief exponents of this school; having suffered severely from enemy raids in the past, he had no intention of risking any of his vessels in another, and had continued to rely on physical obstructions long after they had been proved to be utterly ineffective. RISKS NECESSARY. On the other hand was a school which welcomed the help of every possible scientific or physical aid, but knew that to make them operative ships and men must be employed, and risks must be faced. In our long maritime history, Great Britain had never had to face a greater menace to her sea communications than the enemy's ruthless submarine campaign of 1917-18. It is on record that Sir John Jellicoe stated categorically at a War Cabinet meeting on June 19, 1917, that unless the Flanders coast was captured before the winter, and we cleared the Germans out of Zeebrugge, we should not be able to go on with the war next year, through lack of shipping. Hence the military campaign 'of 1917 to capture the Belgian coast was persisted in, but ended so disastrously in the mud on Passchendaele Ridge. I felt passionately that the capture of the Flanders bases by the Army was not essential, that the Navy .could and should overcome the submarine menace, and that the issue would be decided, as of old, by the endurance and bravery of British seamen—not by passive physical defences, such as those which had been relied upon for the last two and a half years in the

Straits of Dover, the principal gateway of our sea communications.

In Lord Fisher—the Arch Priest of the Materiel School—and Winston Churchill—whose whole outlook on war was vigorously offensive—we had had a wonderful combination, if they could only have worked in harmony at the Admiralty. But after their departure in May, 1915, all offensive spirit seemed to have fled from the Admiralty, and it was fearfully difficult to revive it. When Sir Eric Geddes was appointed First Lord of the Admiralty, he was definitely charged by the War Cabinet to do so. PROFESSORS' DISCOVERIES. Professors Bragg and MacLellan had made great progress. It was decided to establish an experimental station for them on tzhe Clyde, where the depth of water was approximately the same as that in the Channel. While preparations were being made, however, the two professors carried out some experiments at Aberdour, on the Firth of Forth, where we had an experimental hydrophone station. ' They laid their indicating loops across the Forth and were able to prove that they gave definite indication of vessels passing over them. The obvious outcome of this was that the entry of a vessel into a controlled minefield could be detected by surrounding it with indicating loops. The mines in the deep minefield exploded on contact, those in a controlled minefield would be on an electric circuit, and could be exploded by an operator at a distance of about two miles, when a hostile vessel was known to be within the danger zone. This revived the idea of: the concrete towers, which had been dropped, as it was felt that the expense of building them could not be justified, if they were only to act as searchlight platforms to illuminate the mined areas.

The Committee recommended that the proposals in their interim report as to the extension of the-deep minefield, ;its patron and illumination, and the laying of an explosive surface obstruction (when it could be developed), should be applied at the earliest possible moment, to bar the Channel between Folkestone and Grisnez.

~ We also recommended that ships carrying searchlights should be moored at intervals, two miles apart, across the Channel; that indicating loops should be laid to the eastward and westward of the patrolled areas, with observation stations in France and England; and that mined detector loops should be laid in the channels used by our trade along the British and French coasts.

Our professors had also made considerable progress in the design of a magnetic ground mine, and if this matured we recommended these should be laid in certain channels in which the soundings did not exceed fifteen fathoms. The mined detector loops had immense possibilities, and we recommended that the building of towers from-which to operate them, should be seriously considered. We were advised that ten towers would cost under £500,000, and be ready in six months.

We thought that a barrage, on the lines we had recommended might be completely effective .without the towers; but a combination of towers ai;d mined loops promised to make a simple, absolute, and easily maintained barrier, in all conditions of weather, and would thus release a great many patrol vessels for anti-submarine work elsewhere; for this reason we felt that the expenditure would be justified.

The sole responsibility for defeating the submarine menace rested on the Board of Admiralty, not on any individual admiral, and we concluded our recommendation by reiterating an opinion expressed in pur interim report, despite the adverse criticism it had aroused on the\score that itf was opposed to Service procedure and custom:

"In order to ensure the success ' of any barrage' scheme across the Channel, the construction, maintenance, defence, and patrol of the same should be under the control of an officer, who should be solely and directly responsible to the Admiralty for all matters relating thereto."

In other words, if the Admiral at Dover was not prepared to carry out measures which the Admiralty considered necessary, they would have to change the admiral, since there could not, of course, be two responsible Naval authorities in one area, and the situation was far too serious' and urgent to stand on any ceremony or precedent.

It is evident that Sir Eric Geddes was in no mood to tolerate any halfmeasures in the Dover Straits, but all that we were told at the time was that he had suggested to Sir John Jellicoe —who had borne immense responsibilities for over three years—that it was time he took a rest.

On Christmas Eve Sir Rosslyn Wemyss was appointed First Sea Lord.