WAR SECRETS

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume LV, Issue 17236, 16 April 1930, Page 3

WAR SECRETS

TOLD BY U-BOAT KING MISSING SUBMARINES TORI’EDO “FAMINE” * LONDON, Feb. 24. .Every German submarine winch put lo sea in the wan years of 1915-18 owed Us equipment and a large part of its lighting efficiency to a grey-lYaired, broad-Mionldered man who sat last night in tlie lounge of a London hotel. tie was Captain Gustave Luppe, tormarly Senior -Staff Officer in the Department of Submarine Operations, in charge of personnel and replacements. Captain Luppe is ho longer a German naval officer with a high command.; he is now a commercial man engaged ill negotiations with a group of English friends, but he carries in his memory more secrets of tlie intensive submarine warfare, against England Hum any other German living. ROLL <»E THE LOST “No one in your country —or in Germany, for that matter,” he said to a press representative, "Inis any real ioca of ihe difficulties under which we labored to ke"p our submarine warfare in hirer. “Wo lost in all 198 U-boats. What happened lo many ot them we never knew. They did not come hack, that was all. They were lost by mines, by gunfire, in nets —in a variety of dillercut ways. “As best we could we built to replace our losses, hut from 1916 onwards wo were building with indifferent material .material which was ollen pnakcsliitt. As the material fell away from the first class, so did our men. “Towards the end of the war we were training news in six months—altogether too short a time. Our submarines then were of such a class- that after a month at sea they needed two months for refit anil repairs, ‘•Thus, although at one time we had a ■tolal of 300. we cover had more than ICO in readiness. “We were short of torpedoes, short of everything Our requirements in torpedoes at one period were 180 a week. “To our submarines to sen and hack again was a task of immense, difficulty. They had lo pass through fields |of scores of thousands oT mines. ■‘Often our submarines, which had been to sea, and were returning, would be outside the minefields for days at a time, sending messages. “Which way can we come in?” and they bad to wait while a passage was sweat. The Work and anxiety were endless ”,