THE SUBMARINE WAR

Evening Star, Issue 16627, 9 January 1918, Page 8

THE SUBMARINE WAR

*— ILLUMINATING DETAILS. The first authoritative statement for L some time past of the fortunes of the subi marine campaign was inado in the House ; • of Commons on November 9 by Sir Eric < i Geddcs in his maiden speech both as an i M.P. and as. a Minister. His brother, i Sir Auckland Geddes,. also .occupied a seat i on the Treasury Bench, and amongst the . spectators in the gallery were Admiral i Jellicoe and Admiral Sims (United States I Navy). ' Sir Eric commenced by admitting that, though he had been very much, in favor ; of giving a more detailed, statement of British losses of tonnage than luib been i the practice in the past, he had come to the conclusion that this was quite impossible without giving the enemy valuable information. Since the beginning of the war, said ; Sir Eric, between 40 and 50 per oent. of i the Gerniau submarines commissioned aud parading in the North Sea, the Atlantic, and the Arctic Ocean have been sunk. (Cheers.) They were as sure of that as they could be of anything. During tho last quarter the enemy had lost as many submarines as during the whole of 1916. The German official' figures for August stated that 808,000 tons of British tonnage had been sunk. In fa.ct, the figures given were for all nationalities, but they ended by saying, " How can the British mercantile marine stand this?" Actually, they sank very little more fhan a third ol that amount of British tonnage, and a little more than half of all nationalities. * (Cheers.) For September their official figures are 672,0C0 tons ; that is, they have gone down "from 808,000 to 672,000. Really they sank far less than a third of that amount of British tonnage and less than half that amount of all nationalities. The Germans claim that our tonnage is falling so low that there are not enough ships at sea to enable their submarine commanders to maintain their bag. They say the game is getting veryscarce—that there is so little game on the ground that they cannot get a bag. In April, which was absolutoly the heaviest month of sinkings since the war began, they had no complaint. They did. very well. They got a good bag. In September last, which is the month they explain away because there- is not enough tonnage to sink, the overseas sailings of all ships, 1,600 tons and over, were ?.0 per oent. in number and 30 per cent, m tonnage higher than in April. The reason is that the long arm of the | British Navy has reached down into the J depths,- and the harvest Teaped by the submarines is poorer, and the number of German submarines that do not return is increasing. Since April they have steadily decreased, and latter'lv very markedly decreased. It has been an absolutely steady curve down to September. September was a most satisfactory month •-the best we have had since we began the intensive submarine warfare; and October is very' slightly worse than September, and is far better than any other month since the unrestricted submarine warfare began. I am' not juecling with the figures—l mean far better. (Cheers.) It is 30 per cent, lower than anv other month except September, and September was the best month. The total net reduction since the beginning of the war from all causes in British tonnage on the official register, and applying it only to ships that are ocean-going, 1.600 tons and over, is

2,500,0C0 tons, and that is 14 per cent, of the ships on the register of that cla.ss. That reduction has taken place during the period while our armies with, their magnificent equipment weTe receiving absolute priority, and that great growth of out navy was simultaneously achieved, to the detriment of mercantile shipbuilding. Now that the submarine is, for the ■present at any rate, doing less damage, and the resources of the country are again being devoted to a far greater and increasing extent to the upbuilding of the mercantile marine, I hope and look forward to the net' -results being still more favorable. There is one point that I would like to make which will, I think, interest the House. There is one thing which is almost the most potent protection against submarines that exists. It is- not an appliance. It is a gift of God given to men on the ships. It is their eyesight. It is the good look-out that is kept. A good look-out kept by an experienced man, covering a great many attacks by submarines, has given us the following facts : That if a submarine is sighted by the look-out on a vessel, whether the vessel is armed or not, it is seven to three on the Bhip in favor of getting away; out of every ten attacks when the submarine is sighted by the ship, seven of them fail, but of every ten attacks when the submarine is not sighted eight ships go down. ■At the outbreak of war Germany had about 5,000,000 • tons of shipping. To-day nearly half of it is sunk or in the hands of our Allies and of ourselves. She has got & 50 per cent, reduction, and none of her merchant ships go to sea. We have got a 14 per cent reduction. It is well, however, that the British public should be told what they are up against. We must consider the alliance as a whole. We must not be optimistic and say we can do .11 we like because submarine warfare is for the present, at any rate, going well with us- Some of our Allies may be better or may be worse off in some particulars ttan we are. I think the country has accepted the position that we must lay our Thais for a long war. I see no sign of it being a short one, and all by their economy can assist to defeat the submarines. The "fewer times a ship goes through the danger zone the less are her risks of being to the bottom. Let mo give some information upon the position ot the merchant shipping construction and the new national shipyards. If- we had continued dining the war with our merchant shipbuilding on its pre-war level we should have between 2,000,000 and 3,000,000 tons to the good, but expenditure of effort in one direction calls tor restricting in another, and we were fortunate that we started well supplied. Even so, we are less than two and a-half million tons down on the register of big ships. Might the country not justly take courage from the fact that in 1917, with our mercantile and munitions effort at the maximum, and with a call upon our manpower which reduced our available resources to the minimum, we shall have produced naval and mercantile tonnage to an extent almost equal to the beet year ever rocorded in our history, and in 1918 it will certainly be very much greater? We have decided that four new national yards at least will be necessary. We are encouraged by the responsible department to believe that steel will be forthcoming for the programme. The output of merchant tonnage for the first nine months of 1917 i s 120 per cent, higner than in the corresponding period of last year, and is very considerably higher than th e total output for the whole of 1915. Standard vessels have now been ordered, representing nearly 1,000,000 gross tons of shipping. More than half of these are already under construction. It is a variation oi an old theme made interesting by its delicate exaggerations. N The docks now centrally controlled have attained a remarkablo figure —9O per cent. of their possible maximum. This is indeed a strikingly satisfactory figure, and far better than peace-time commercial experience. Our monthly repairs of merchant ships is 1,100 completed—dry docked and afloat. During one month the' number of war vessels completing repairs was nearly I,ooo—that is, in addition to the 1,100 merchant ships—and that was by no means an abnormal month. Since the beginning of the war 31,000 war vessels, including patrol craft and mine-sweepers, have been docked or slipped, and those figures do not include repair work done for the vessels of our Allies. The arming of merchant vessels is proceeding, and ft is hoped that before long all merchant craft will be effectively armed.