WAR AND SUBMARINES

Greymouth Evening Star, 28 December 1934, Page 8

WAR AND SUBMARINES

. EARL JELLICOE’S REPLY. Earl Jellicoe publishes a book today “The Submarine Peril,” which is primarily a vigorous defence of the Admiralty's anti-submarine policy during the critical year of 1917, when the. author was First Sea Lord (writes Hector C. Bywater, in the Loncon “Daily Telegraph”). . It denies the charges of timidity and sloth brought against the then Board of Admiralty by Mr Lloyd George, explains the delay in instituting ocean convoys and reveals the complex organisation which had to be created before the convoy system became practicable. Writing with unrivalled knowledge of what was happening behind the scenes at Whitehall, the author reveals much that has hitherto been secret history. He repudiates emphatically the suggestion that the convoy system was forced upon a reluctant and lethargic Admiralty by Mr Lloyd George and by other civilian influence. In one sentence he says: “The views of experienced naval officers on a technical question involving the greatest responsibility could not possibly be affected by outside opinion, however high the quarter from which that opinion emanated.” Mr Lloyd George, it appears, occasionally received Junior naval officers who went to him with proposals for dealing with the submarine; menace. Lord Jellicoe comments: “Personally I never heard of these proposals. It is true that Mr Lloyd George did make one or two suggestions for dealing with the menace, but these were of such a nature that they could not have emanated from the brain of any «naval officer. “They were not, however, so strange as one sent to me in 1917 by a gentleman who said that the obvious solution of the danger was to fill the North Sea with Eno’s Fruit Salt, which would, he said, force the submarines to the surface.’’

According to Lord Jellicoe, Mr Lloyd George appeared to be “obsessed” with the idea that more weight attached to the opinions of junior officers than those of their seniors. 1

“In this connection I recollect, when present at a meeting of the War Cabinet, hearing the Chief of the General Staff inform the Cabinet of the views of Sir Douglas Haig on some military operations. . Air Lloyd George interrupted and said: '1 do not agree with the Commander-in-Chief. I have a letter here from a subaltern in the trenches which gives an entirely different opinion.’ ”

SEA COMMAND LOST. In 1917 Mr Lloyd George made Hie extraordinary suggestion that the Grand Fleet should be brought south to bombard Zeebrugge. “That was a I proposition which needed little argu-1 rncnt to cause it to be negatived,” is j Lord Jellicoe’s dry comment. And) again: “One of my difficulties wasj to make the Prime Minister realise that, the whole of the Allied cause was dependent upon the Grand Fleet being in a position to hold the surface command of the sea.” It was impossible, the author states, to institute an effective convoy system prior to America’s entry into the war, owing to the shortage of escort vessels and for other cogent reasons. At the same time, the book itself is not without evidence of the Admiralty’s tendency to exaggerate the difficulties of convoy, as well as of their somewhat naive surprise when the system, having at last been tried, proved remarkably successful.

How urgent was the need for drastic action may be gathered from Lord Jellicoe’s own admission that, after February 1, 1917, “the command of tho sea was in the hands of enemy submarines.’’ It is hardly surprising that in these dire circumstances the War Cabinet should have deemed it their duty to “ginger up” the Admiralty’s anti-submarine measures, which at that date were notoriously ineffectual. On the otjher hand, it se-ems that the Cabinet’s own realisation of the peril was belated. • It was necessary, the author states, to be very outspoken to the War Cabinet on the submarine danger, even at the risk of being accused of pessimism. He adds that as early as May 1917, he and Sir William Robertson endeavoured to persuade the Food Controller to introduce rationing.

Mr Winston Churchill’s assertion, in his “World Crisis,” that our scale of oil-fuel reserves “stoood the test of war,” is described as “far from true,” the fact being that the shortage of oil in 1917 was so serious that the speed of the Grand Fleet and other warships laid to be limited. Lord Jellicoe also corrects a statement by the American Adml. Sims, which has received world-wide publicity and is still quoted as proof that at the most critical period of the Üboat campaign the British Admiralty could offer only counsels of despair. In his book, “The Victory at Sea,” Adml. Sims mentions an interview he had with Lord Jellicoe on arriving in England, at which the latter stated that there was “absolutely no solution” for the U-boat problem. What Lord Jellicoe did say was that “tho counter-measures being devised could not be immediately successful, as time was required fortheir pre Auction." This correction puts an entirely different complexion on the matte.'.

A dramatic change in our naval policy that took place early in 1918 is disclosed. Sir David Beatty, then Commandcr-in-Chief, Grand Fleet, declared at. an Admiralty Conference that, it was, in his opinion, “no longer desirable to provoke a fleet action, even if the opportunity should occur, but rather to contain the enemy in bis bases until the general situation becomes more favourable to u.s.” Yet. at this date the Grand Fleet had fortytwo Dreadnoughts to Germany’s twenty-four.

BREAKWATER PROPOSAL. Lord Jellicoe writes: “I find it. difficult to reconcile the decision they (the War Cabinet) arrived at with the views expressed to me by Mr Lloyd George in 1917. In that year he pressed for more offensive action on the part of the Navy in general and the Grand Fleet in particular. “The change of view was presum-

ably duo to a somewhat tardy realisa- , ticn by the War Cabinet of some of the dangers attendant upon a system of convoy for merchantile trade.” | In 1917 the U.S. engineers who had ■ come over with Col. House’s mission told Lord Jellicoe that they had brought proposals for building a breakwatei across the North Sea to pi event the exit of German submarines intojhe Atlantic. On this the author drily lemarks: “The proposals [ were, of course, not put forward.” j Details arc given of the enormous movement of U.S. and Canadian troops across the Atlantic with neg-' ligibie loss. Between January and November, 1918, 1,037,116 troops were brought over with a loss of 637, or 0.061 per cent. The Olympic, Mauretania, and Aquitania alone conveyed 135,000. The largest Atlantic convoy left New York in June, 1918. It comprised 47 ships, all of which arrived safely.

At the height of the U-boat crisis nearly 3,000 naval vessels and 250 aircraft were operating against a total of 178 hostile submarines. Further, 180,000 mines were laid to trap the undersea pests. Incidentally it was not until two-and-a-half years after tho outbreak of war that we developed a really efficient mine. Earl Jellicoe’s book is at once an important historical record and a grave warning, for, as he is able to demonstrate, our present Navy is in no condition to cope with a determined unndersea offensive. He asks: “Is it not time that provision is made to ensure the Empire against possible future disaster? Can we be assured that submarine attacks upon merchant ships, as carried out in the last war, will not also be practised by a nation lighting with its back to the wall? Can we be sure that treaty agreements can be relied upon under such conditions?'’ Emphasis is laid on the difficult position in which the Admiralty would be placed should it become essential in the near future to introduce a convey system for the protection of our trade. “Our difficulties in 1917 were very great. Those that would face a future Board would be indeed forjlnidable unless it is realised that our naval forces are inadequate for the work that may be required of them, and steps are taken to make up our deficiencies. “The fast vessels needed for escort against submarine attack cannot be improvised; cruisers take two years to construct, and even sloops cannot be built, I think, in less than some eight months.”