THE DEPTH CHARGE

Otago Daily Times, Issue 17823, 3 January 1920, Page 7

THE DEPTH CHARGE

NEMESIS AND THE U-BOAT. " Admiral Sims, of the American Navy, has more Temarkable revelations in his story of the defeat of Germany's bud* marines. Among other things he tells, in the November Pearson's Magazine, ixoyr the deadly depth-charge was invented. . j "The story o( the invention of the depth-charge makes clear the part which it was intended to play in anti-submarine warfare. Admiral Jellicoe told me the' story," says Admiral Sims, "when I aeked him who. really invented this annihilating missile. . " 'No man in particular,' he said, 'Iti came into existence almost spontaneously in response to a pressing need. '"• '—Admiral Madden's Idea.—

"'One day, when the Grand Fleet was cruising in the North Sea, a submarine fired a torpedoe at one of the cruisers. The cruiser saw the periscope and the wake of the torpedoe, and had little difficulty in so manoeuvring as to avoid being struck. She then went full speed to tie spot from which the submarine had fired, its torpedoe, in the hope of ramming it. >'r " |But, by the time she arrived, the submarine had submerged so deeply that the cruiser passed over her without doing her any harm. Yet the officers and crew could see the submerged hull; there the enemy lay in full view of her pursuers, yet perfectly safe! The office? reported this incident to me in the presence of Admiral Madden, second'in command. ■"•l " 'Wouldn't it have been fine,' said Madden, 'if they had had on board a minio so designed that, when dropped overboard, it would have exploded when it reached the depth at which the submarine was lying!' .; "'That remark,* continued Admiral Jcllicoe, 'gave us the germinal idea of the depth-charge. I asked the Admiralty to get to work and produce a "mine" that would act in the way that Admiral Madden had suggested. " 'It proved to be very simple to con-structs-an ordinary steel cylinder, filled with T.N.T. ; this was fitted with a vf*y simple firing appliance which was set off by the pressure of the water, and could be so adjusted that it would explode the charge at any depth desired. This apparatus was so sjmple and so necessary that we at once began to manufacture it.'

—"Ashcans."—

"The depth-charge looked like an innocent domestic ashcan, and that was the name by which it became popularly known; Each destroyer eventually carried 20 or 30 at the stern; a mere pull on the lever would make one drop into the water. "Many desft-oyers also carried strangelooking howitzers, mad e in the shape of a Y, from which two ashcans could be hurled 50 yards or more from each aide of the vessel. The explosion, when it ensued within the one hundred yards I have mentioned was usually fatal to the submarine, would drive the plates inward, sometimes making .a leak so larjre .that the vessel would sink almost instantaneously. "In the course of the war several of onr' own submarines were depth-charged by our own destroyers, and from" the crews we obtained life-like descriptions of the resultant sensations. It was found that men who had passed through such an ordeal were rendered permanently unfit for service. The state of nerves which followed; such an experience was not unlike that now war psychosis known as shell-shock. "One of our officers who had such an adventure told me that the explosion of' a single depth-charge nnder the water might be compared to the concussion pro* dueed by the simultaneous firing of all the 14-inch guns of a battleship."