WITH THE FRENCH FLEET

Otago Daily Times, Issue 17324, 25 May 1918, Page 8

WITH THE FRENCH FLEET

CONVOY WORK IN THE ATLANTIC. THE TERROR OF U BOATS. (From ITio Times Special Correspondent with the French Navy.) Far west of the western front, removed u° m -k whole breadth of France, there is still another battLe front, hundreds j of miles in. length, along which the sailors of our Allies, with somo assistance from 1 our own ships and men, carry on day and night & constant running fight with the 5 enemy. It is common knowledge that the great bulk of the French flttit is in the Mediterranean. The smaller vessels that rej I? 11111 ° n west and north-west coasts of Franco are practically all engaged in one > way or another in the light with the sub--1 marines. That was and is true of every . single one of tho sea-going boats in the s uincr* harbour of the first of tho great f naval ports which I visited the other day ! on the invitation of the French Admiralty, f Lying alongside tho massive stone quay, i with their bows pointing seawards, was a . long row of slender, grey, grim-looking 1 French submarines, among them a British - boat, just arrived in port, no longer in her - first youth, but still full of lifo and of \ fight. Close by a bunch of American t destroyers were being warped into position alongside each other against the high sea 1 wall. Farther out two of the transports that the American destroyers liad escorted ■/ acrosstho Atlantic, carrying troops were being t unloaded. The bigger of the two transports, i in other days a well-known Gorman liner, 3 presented, with its surrounding cluster of tugs and lighters, an indistinguishable 5 j uln hle of hulls and masts and air-shafts, - half hidden in the smoke of its forest of funnels. Inside it and beyond it towards a the long breakwater a number of graceful - American yachts and French and British d trawlers were riding at anchor, and in nnd out between 'them went launches and - gunboats of various sizes. GREAT WIRELESS STATION. It was not, however, till I had climbed to £ the top of a steep bluff that I began to see the thing in its right perspective. Below the bluff in front was a channel leading to " the open waters of the Atlantic on the left, along which all' ships entering or leaving ■' the port have to paes. Behind and to the £ right the glistening waters of the bay , stretch far away, washing against the sides of a handful of big warships, a brown- , sailed fleet of fishing smacks, and 10 or a ;j dozen tramp steamers. Overhead there was a constant humming of fieh-like seaplanes. And—one more touch to complete , the picture—far away out of sight on the mainland six graceful columns of iron lat--8 ticework, carrying long films of slender " wiro and held in position by stout steel " hawsers, towered nearly 600 ft"into the air, 1 the outward and _ visible sign of the great r new wireless station erected in full work--0 ing order by French naval engineers in 1 six montlis, from which France can talk > half way round the world. J Thanks to the co-operation of the agencies employed, it is more and more 1 difficult and dangerous for the enemy submarines v-o stay long enough on the surface to do the damage that they otherwise 3 would Every time that one is seen its e position and the date of its appearance (if i it is not sent to the bottom) are carefully . charted, and the route and time of depar- - turo of the convoys of transports or tramps 3 arranged accordingly. i The flotillas which pass up and down 7 the French Atlantic seaboard between I Kngland njid Spain vary in number from b two to 30, or even more, the principle e being that the vessels in any given con--3 voy must all bo of the same average - speed. Besides furnishing (with some t help from American boats) escorts to F these convoys while in French waters, a the French navy also sends larger 9 destroyers several hundred miles out to sea to meet the transports coming from l America and accompany them into port i, over the last and most dangerous part of t the passage across; so far not a single r one of these transports has been torpedoed a on its way to a French harbour. J Coastwise traffic has not been so for- ,, tunate, but that, on account of its much 9 greater volume and lower speed, is only i natural. When one thinks of the considerl ft ble number of U boats that manage to i creep down Channel or round the north b Jpast of Scotland, and then. lie off the ! French coast right in the track of the convoys, the really astonishing thing is v that they do not make themselves much } more felt than they do. i There are two main reasons for their g comparative harmlessness—their dread, first of all, of the fast gunboats and aircraft by which they are constantly being chased, T and, secondly, of the guns of the escorts 3 accompanying the convoys. They are also 7 bothered by the numerous rocks and fierce currents of this part, of the coast —far more effective _ than nets —which prevent them from going as close inshore as they would like. Still, they are bound to be troublesome, and the difficulties of the men whose business it is to protect the convoys are greatly increased by the fact that many of the boats belong to neutral nations, and are often as ignorant of the businesslike discioline of the French navy as they arc of the French language and oodo of naval signals. IN DANGEROUS WATERS. In the course of a five or six hours' trip in an 800-ton gunboat (with the admiral in charge of the whole organisation on t board), we overtook and passed one flotilla 3 and met another coming in the opposite £ direction. It was a June morning that had t strayed into February, fresh and sparkling, . with just enough swell as we put into the 3 Atlantic to make an occasional handhold a 1 gateful support. As we were going through 5 dangerous waters everything was prepared B for action and possible emergencies, life--3 belts lying bandy on the rails and in the i boats, guns ready loaded, and smoke-balls 3 dicpth-chargcs in their proper places. s There were five or six look-outs, each re--1 sponsible for his own sector of the surj. rounding sea and horizqn, and five seat circling round orseout'ng ahead and , on either side of the boat. After about an , hours run a smudge of smoko on the skyline, which rapidly thickened into a black cloud, showed that w • were overtaking the small convoy which had left earlier in 5 the morning, and soon after we had over- , hauled and passed them another larger - cloud came into view, from which, little by 1 little, first the hulls and then the masts : and funnels of a flotilla of about a dozen ? tramps emerged, steaming along in two 3 columns, with an esoort of several French . and American boats. • From tho point of view of safety, the ' ?r ze ?. tl i e flotala wa s just about the ideal. ! If all these merchant convoys oould be ■ planned on tho same model the number of losses would in all probability become 6ull smaller than it is. Consequently, the pressing need of those who manage the 5 convoys is a larger supply of boats suitable as escorts. From the statement made a few ■ days ago in tho Chamber, it anpears that energetic steps are being taken to reinforce tho present supply of French shipping, and as soon as that is an accomplished fact it seems so mo that the menace of the U boat in these waters will become a thing - of the past. Meanwhile, the quiet heroism j with which tho sailors of France deal with ; it is worthy of the best traditions of the [ French navy.