NO ATHLETIC CAMP

Evening Post, Volume cxxiv, Issue 148, 20 December 1937, Page 13

NO ATHLETIC CAMP

As insufficient support was forthcoming, the training camp for athletes, which it-was proposed to hold at Trentham from December 27 to January 8, has been cancelled.

se~en to explode beyond the mark aimed at—twice, at least, within recent months, this phenomenon has been observed, if the accounts of eye-wit-nesses are to be believed.

Let us disabuse ourselves of such fairy tales. A torpedo is merely a mechanically-controlled submarine, with the difference that it contains its explosive charge within itself, is .set to run at a certain depth, upon a certain course, and for a certain distance, after which, under peace conditions, it rises to the surface and is recovered, and under war conditions it sinks. The charge .explodes only when it hits .its mark—the exception to this rule occurs when either by maladjustment or the configuration of the sea bed, it strikes the bottom in shallow water aiid explodes. Submerged floating wreckage is also a possible cause for detonation, but is so unlikely that it can be ruled out. NOT OFTEN SIGHTED. Finally, a submarine which knows its work is not often sighted when engaged in an attack. The periscope is always difficult to pick out even in calm water and is kept down very ! much more than it is raised.

I have* seen the whole Grand Fleet weigh, anchor in the dark and leave its anchorage at Scapa in a spate of wild gun-fire at an imaginary periscope (this was in the early days of the war). Time and time again, in later days, from Jutland onwards, were periscopes sighted and torpedo-tracks observed which were subsequently proved not to have been there. Even the blackflsh fin showing above water has ha'tt, and will still have,' submarine honours paid to it. ,No modern improvements can do away with the mantle of invisibility to.the eye which is the prerogative of the submarine, and the Mediterranean patrols would be placed in this respect in just the same difficulties as the submarine hunters of the Great War.

Once sighted or located by modern methods, submarines still have to be destroyed, and where it is necessary the task will, no doubt, be performed as efficiently as is technically possible. '

In dealing with operations of this kind—at any rate upon the. high seas, as opposed to waters protected by mine fields and other apparatus—it is as well to recognise two salient facts.

It is safe to say that only a small percentage of reported attacks ever take pjace at all (conversely many unsuccessful attacks are made without the knowledge of the attacker) and that possibly an even smaller percentage of submarines attacked are actually accounted for.