HUNTING SUBMARINES.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LIII, Issue 16338, 19 September 1916, Page 8

HUNTING SUBMARINES.

TRAWLERS AND MOTOR-BOATS HOW THE SEAS ARE SWEPT. BRITAIN'S AUXILIARY NAVY.. The work of British trawlers ant] the auxiliary craft in chasing and fighting German submarines is the subject of a descriptive article by Alfred Noyes, the sea poet. He writes:— To begin with, a body of men, larger than the United States Army, was chosen from the longshore fishermen and trawler news. They were gradually chilled, disciplined, and trained and put into naval | uniform. They were < husen, of course, on an entirely different principle from that of the army. They were tough sea dogs, of all ages, inured to all the ways of the sea, but not at all to any form of discipline. This in itself implies very great preliminaries—for the finished product is fi': to man a battleship. In the meantime their fishing boats trawlers, and drifters were gradually taken over by the Government and 'itted out for the hunt, some 3000 of them. To these were added a fleet of fast motor-boats, specially built for scouting purposes. They were stationed at various points all round the coast. Night and day in all weather?, action replacing section, these trawlers and drifters string themselves out from coast to coast; while on shore thousands of workers are turning out their special munitions and equipment—nets, mines, and a dozen mysteries which may not ba mentioned. From one of their bases a patrol boat took me out along one of the longest lines of the flotilla. This innocent line of trawlers, strung out for me 50 miles, had more nightmares in store for the German submarine than a fleet of battleships. It was an odd sensation to approach trawler after trawler and note the one obviously unusual feature of each—the menacing black gun at bow and stern. They were good guns, too—English, French and Japanese. The patrol boat carried a Uotchkiss, and most of the trawlers had equally efficient weaponsA Thousand Perils. j There were other unusual features in 'every trawler, drifter and whaler, features | that made one catch one's breath when ! their significance was realised. About this I may say very little. But in the matter of the nets, it was demonstrated to me that within 25 minute: any submarine reported in most of our home waters can be. enclosed in a steel trap from which there is no escape. The vague rumours that we heard in the earlier stages of the | war led one to suppose that these nets I might be used, perhaps, in the English j Channel and other narrow waters. But I have seen traps 100 miles long, traps that could shift their position and change then? shape at a signal. A submarine may enter their zone, indeed, and even go to America. She may even do some damage within their lines. But if she does this, her position is known, and if there he any future damage done, it will probably have to he don.: by another submarine. For she has called upon a thousand perils, from every point, of thecompass, to close upon her return journey. II havo actually seen the course of a (Join man submarine thought itself undiscoveredmarked from day to day on the chart at an English base- The cluea to all the ramifications of this work are . held by a few men at the Admiralty in ' London. Telephone and telegraph keep them in constant touch with every seaport in the Kingdom. Services to Neutrals,

Throughout this work of the auxiliary fleet it is worth noting that in their records of rescue and salvage a good half of their care is devoted to the v ips of neutral*. It is England that sweeps the sea for mines, marks them off on hci 1 charts, warns, delays and guides the traffic of the world through a thousand unknown perils. But neutrals have not always escaped f and in talking to the men on these traro.' lers 1 was struck by the fact that a large proportion of their tales referred, as i have said above, to the salvage or tLo actual saving of neutral ships. Often, as in the case of the Falaba, the rescue work is attended with many perils to the auxiliary concerned. From the Falaba 116 persons wero rescued, and tho drifter was "bilged," a phrase thab in this case meant "almost foundered." On a few occasions the hunters have themselves been trapped. Three men taken >,f! a trawler by a submarine endured an 80 hours' nightmare under the sea that shattered the mind of ono and left permanent traces on the other two. Periodically revolvers were put to their heads and they were ordered, on pain of death, to tell all they knew of our naval dispositions. They saw a good deal of the internal routine of the Herman submarine also, and noted characteristically that the German crewon this boat, at any rate—were very "jumpy," too "jumpy" even to take a square meal. They munched biscuits at their stations at odd momentsGuns Heard Overhead. On the third morning they heard gnn« going overhead, and watched the Germans handing out shells to their own guns. Finally" a torpedo was fired, and they heard'it take effect. Then they emerged I into the red wash of dawn and saw only j the floating wreckage of the big ship that ; had been sunk, ;md among the wreckage j a small boat. They were bundled into ! this, told they were' free to row to Eng- | land or Nineveh, and the submarine left I them—three 'longshore fishermen, who had | passed through the latest invention of the i modern scientific devil, two who could still j pull at the oars, but the other too crazy j to steer, as his little personal part of the price paid by England for sweeping and patrolling the seas of civilisation. Two German Submarines. But even with neutrals the auxiliary fleet finds it necessary sometimes to add the wisdom of the serpent to its general philanthropy. On one occasion a neutral tank steamer was overhauled. She was believed to be carrying suspiciously large supplies to a suspiciously vague destination, but was allowed to proceed for political reasons and in the name of the freedom of the seas. Nevertheless, with innocent fishing boats dotting our waters at intervals of half-a-mile, and wireless telegraphv to help them, the sea has almost as many eves and ears today as it has fishes, and'at Husk a drifter rolled up to our neutral friend again. " lie- rra it's twins," said the gunner, training his' 12-pounder on her: and twins it wm For tucked close under either quarter lav a German submarine, quietly beinc W." Before they could ™>»merge I or bunk away, the cow of the drifter had i | 10ar; led the' neutnl and had persuaded " the crews of the submarines. w,th the help lof a dozen revolvers, that they were prisoners of war. .