U-Boat Menace

Manawatu Times, Volume 65, Issue 120, 22 May 1940, Page 4

U-Boat Menace

DEFEATED BY DESTROYERS (By Col. Frederick Palmer} The “Asdig," the new device for fighting the submarine menace, held my altontiou with undiminished fascination. in smooth and rough seas, during a two-days' visit 1 paid on board one of the British destroyers patrolling the North Sea hunting submarines. It is no far-fetched conclusion to say that what, looks like only another item in the battery of a warship's mechanism is the long-sougfit-for answer to undor-sea warfare. The antisubmarine detector device . has played an invaluable part in dol creasing the number of merchant vessels torpedoed. It serves as a warning of the fate awaiting Germany’s muchheralded, mass-produced submarine, as a third force in her threatened crashing offensive by air and land. As far back as tho first years of the last war, tho destroyer was a sleuth hound without ears, depending solely on sight for tho detection of the enemy. Only a periscope pricking the surface of the sea told her of the prescnco of a submarine. The periscope is a small target for gunfire and can I>e quickly submerged. Half-way through the lust war, there appeared the depth charge, the well-known ash-cuu filled with high explosives, which was set to detonate at a given depth in the hope of seriously damaging or wrecking a U-boat. Since, however, there was no way of knowing which wny a U-boat had turned, tho work of directing the dropping of depth charges was very largely a matter of chance. A listening do vice was developed in the latter part of the last war, but while helpful, it was limited in radius and not very reliable. The British retain the imperishable memory of the period of unrestricted submarine warfare in the spring and summer of 1917, when shipping was being sunk at an alarmingly dangerous mtio to building. If any nation had a vital interest in perfecting a listening device, it was sea-bound Britain. The subject was worth tho attention of her best scientific minds and laboratory experts. There were reports of prolonged labours and experiments and finally these had their reward in the shape of i an effective anti-submarine device. Now this device has had its test under war conditions.

The existence and purpose of the “Asdig" are generally known and no-! where better than in German naval circles. Prisoners taken from captured sunmarines vainly express their curiosity about tho “Asdig." Tho crows of German submarines are said to wear shoes with soft felt soles lest tleir footsteps should be heard. Naturally no secret is more sedulously guarded than that of tho “Asdig's’’ mechanism. The little part ono sees of it leaves it as much of a mystery as a voice over the radio is to the primitive savage. An expert ear and a kind of sixth sense are necessary to one who has to interpret its messages. Undoubtedly results have shown that the “Asdig" has at least fulfi'iod its early promise in tho results achieved as a great aid to mastering the submarine menace.

Armed with the “Asdig," tha huntor can follow a submarine's course under water and have a definite location for a target on which to drop a succession of depth charges. Binc*e the advent of the “Asdig,"

there is less room for scepticism about tho reported numbers of submarines destroyed by tho Allies. Formerly tho only proof officially accepted was a prisoner or a bit of wreckage, or even a piece of clothing worn by one of the boat’s crew. Now the assumption is more readily accepted that depth charges are securing a larger number of victims. When submarine after submarine never returns to her home port, the prospect is not encouraging for crews in training. At the present timo Germany may perhaps be only holding her hand prior to a mass submarine attack, but it is hard to believe after what I saw that the submarine's chances have not become vory slim except against stray ships far away from the submarine's deadly enemy, tho destroyer.

Since tho war broke out, Britain’s destroyers have been on patrol night and day, returning to port only for fuel and food or fore more depth charges lor use against submarines. Britain has hastened the building of more destroyers and patrol vessels. A destroyer's torpedoes hold a threat to a more heavily armed ship, i which her speed enables her to run 1 away from or trail as sho summons aid from her bigger sisters t' or a battle J chase. She might be described as a grey-j hound with a bull-terrier bite. With superior battleship power behind them, destroyers and fast cruisers can defend their own commerce, capture enemy merchant ships or consign them to barnacled internment it neutral ports or rusting idleness in their Consider tho day's work of this destroyer—shepherding neutral ships to anchorage in the Downs to show their navicerts or bo searche' 1 for contraband; guarding troop and leave ships across the Channel to France, and ever watching the listening device for any sign of enemy submarines; answering 'planes' summons and speeding up to 35 knots to add her depth charges to a plane’s bombs to get a submarine. One incident I encountered was a burst of rifle fire to end tho danger of a drifting mine.