GRIM LIFE ON U-BOATS

Patea Mail, 13 November 1939, Page 4

GRIM LIFE ON U-BOATS

At the Nuremberg Party Congress, and Oliver places where the groat ones of the Jteich foregather, 1 have seen middle-aged Jiaval officers wearing on the left breast of their unriforms, just above the waistline, a bronze badge bearing the device of a submarine.

Those are the “stars" of the Gorman Navy, the men who were U-boat commanders in Ihe last war, write Mr. G. Ward-Price, i’.n a recent issue of the Dailv Mail.

Prom them J. have hoard something of the life on board a submarine engaged in the Gorman Navy's present occupation of destroying merchant ships. It is a grim mission, and one which I gather was not congenial either to the officers Or naval ratings engaged upon it. There is a certain sympathy between all seafaring men, born of 'their common experience of the perils of the deep, and I have always found that the U-boat commanders were more ready to talk of the dangers which! they faced from the British anti-submarine devices than to boast of their own exploits in sinking defenceless merchantmen. The German submarines .in 'the last war wore manned by volunteers, who returned again ami again to their nefarious task. I bclieve.it is right to sav that there wore never more limn a score or two officers found capable of standing the strain of the hunted life which Gorman submarines led in search of their prey, Bach time 'they put, out from Kiel or Zeobrugge, or the other bases that thov used, they regarded fhemscloves and their crews as doomed to destruction.

WORTE 111 AX IX LABT WAR If’ that were so in the last war it must be tar worse for the Gerpran submarines that arc now at sea. ( One of the admitted mistakes of the British .Admiralty in lilld —In, was that it had not reckoned sufficiently until the possibilities of the submarine as a commerce destroyer. ’That is not 'the case to-day. What arc Germany's resources in this form of naval action? ‘‘Brassey’s Naval Annual,” published at the beginning of the year, places the number of German submarines of 500 tons or over at 31. Xo smaller cruft would be effective for deep sea -work, the remainder of the German submarine flotilla being designed as coast defence vessels for use in tbe Baltic.

It us, of course, possible, and even probable,.- Hurt Germany has been secretly building submarines for some vears past. They could be manufactured in sections at inland iacloilcs, ready for assembly at German ports when war broke out. OXIO TillXG 18 GEKTAIX But, however many submarines Germany may possess in her dockyards, one thing which is certain is that she is short of'the highly trained technicians required to handle them effectively. A submarine is the most difficult of all craft to navigate, and if she had been training officers and cre,v,s to man them on anything like the scale of the last war, this would certainly have become known to tbe outside world. In recent years I have several Himes been a guest on board flagships of the Royal Xavy ami I have heard senior officers dismiss among themselves the problem with which the fleet has now principally to deal. 'Their confidence is absolute and it would bo a mistake t 0 doubt the efficiency of the measures they have taken if, in the very first week of a three year war, they have not reached their maximum effectiveness. ■ The silence which -the Admiralty is preserving ns to the number of enemy submarines ,it lias sunk already is part of a system which will have a progressively demoralising effect upon those members of the German Xavy who have yet to set out on similar missions. Admiral Raeder, the ( ommancl-er-in-Chief of the German Fleet, would greatly welcome such figures, however disastrous they may be for the force under bis command, as they would inform him what replacements he will be called upon to make. With the wharves of (heir own deepsea ports staining empty and idle, it must bo trying indeed tor the German sailors to see their only ships that can venture outside home waters vanishing to meet an unknown fate.