UNPROTECTED NAVAL HARBOUR.

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume LII, Issue 113, 17 May 1918, Page 2

UNPROTECTED NAVAL HARBOUR.

HOW GERMANY MISSED HER OPPORTUNITY.

How seriously the German submarine might have Crippled" the British Navy in the early days of the; war, when there was not a single British naval harbour protected from submarine attack, was told hy Lord Jellicoe, formerly Tirst Sea Lord of the Admiralty in - a speech at the annual meeting in February of the Hull Sailors' Orphanage. "The work of the Fleet was a good deal more arduous in the early days of the war than it has been since," said Lord Jellicoe. "In those days there were no bases) protected from submarine attack, and the Fleet was hunted from pillar to post to find j security. •to carry out the necessary operations of coaliog. Some of the coaling operations were performed' under' very exciting conditions, the base being open to ~any submarine that cared to come in.

"If the Germans knew, it, they never had the pluck to try it. If they had done so they might have reaped a rich harvest. But we always had to be thinking of the possibility of such attack, arid whenever I was inside a base I spent many anxious moments, and some very amusing moments—amusing to look back upon, I mean, but not amusing at the time. There were constant scares of submarines, and we knew that if a sub-! marine got inside the harbour it might sink" a, battle-ship with each of the ten or twelve torpedoes it carried. Put yourself ia such a. position, and you. may be able to appreciate the anxiety that was felt whenever a signal was 1 given that a submarine had been sighted near by. "As -usual. Sn time of anxiety, we called upon the merchant marine, and an arrangement was made that 'if a submarine got inside a base merchant ships should place themselves!" alongside until the warships could get under %vay. Then, if the torpedoes were fired, the merchant ships would'receive them instead of the battleships. That was.tile ."arrangement. ■ The , merchant usual, did exactly what they were asked. Scores of small craft dashed about the ihart)6ur ,- at full speed to keep the submarine under water-, and if they saw it; to endeavour to ram it. It was extraordinary, having regard to the.conditions.\>f sea, and weather,' ifhat many collisions did not occur:' The skills .with which *he whole programme \was carried out time after time was. a great testimony to the seamanship of those in charge of the trawlers and bigger- ships.;"