OUR BALTIC SUBMARINES

Evening Star, Issue 15907, 13 September 1915, Page 7

OUR BALTIC SUBMARINES

On the announcement being made from Petrograd early in Jwly of a British submarine baring torpedoed a. German preDrcadnought of the Deulchla.nd class, 'The Times's'. naval correspondent wrote: This announcement affords the first admission of .the fact that British submarines have been at work in the Baltic, although reports that such was the case have been current for.six months past,'. When the light cruiser Gazelle was torpedoed near the island of Rugen on January 25 it was asserted that a British, boat had fired the torpedo which damaged her, and the -Berliner Tagsblatt' pointed out that there were two ways in which British submarines could get into the Baltic, one by the Great Belt, although it is tihicklv strewn with mines, and the other by beimr shipped m sections overland from Archangel to Kronstadt. It was impossible, said the Berlin journal, that the vessels could have entered the Baltic hv wa.v of the sound, because it is too shallow,' the entrance too narrow, aoid the traffic too great. Continental and American papers have, however, mentioned frequently that British submarines are operating in the Although British submarines have not yet had many opportunities for distinction in the war being denied chances such as those which the German boats have made for themselves by their attacks upon weak merchant ships, they have proved themselves ready, able, and quick to turn to good account such as have oome their" 1 wav This is shown bv the exploits of the vessels in the Sea of Marmora,'particularly Ell and El 4, whose captains have both earned the Victoria Cross. The presence of British submarines in the Baltic is, of course no reflection whatever -upon the Russian flotilla, Which consists a&iost entirely of smaller boats of older patterns. The last issue of the ' Dickinson Return' showed thai the largest Russian submarines were of 450 te/jts, «r litfle more than half the size of the British "E" boats. The return also showed,, however, that -larger boats, fitted with no f ewer than eight torpedo tubes, were under 'construction,-and there can bo no doubt that in the hands of the Russian seamen..these- vessels will bo able to emulate the acluevements of then- confreres in. the British service.