HUNTING THE HUNTERS.

Colonist, Volume LVII, Issue 13995, 27 January 1916, Page 2

HUNTING THE HUNTERS.

HOW TBE HUN SEA-PIRATES ARE

ROUNDED UP.

THE ODDS AGAINST THEM

(From the "New York World.")

When the war began on August Ist, 1914, official figures were at hand as to the number of German submarines. They totalled just 45—27 submarines built land commissioned, and 18 build ing. To turn out a submarine in time of peace takes two years. Therefore itmight be presumed no more could be iiinshed 'lipvte this present date. But more were ■fmis.hed. How? Because tho intensive Germans begau specialising on submarines, and before long wcro finishing them in nine months' time, scores of them, perhaps two or three :i week. This was achieved by working in three-hour shifts of fresh men, 24 hours' a day. But theiV is-.something else needful (besides the submarine to make, thi.s kind of naval warfare undersea s successful, and that is a crew for her. The submarine crew is the highest type of .specialised fighter that this mar has developed. More work is required to contrive a crew for iai submarine than to build 'the submarine itself. And though Germany won't admit it, the loss of 50 odd submarine crews is a worse blow than the loss of the boats. And, if the truth must be told,, the surviving crews'are in a panic. When they leave, home waters- they -/hardly1 eixpect to come back, tjieste-v dreadful days. They know—"no quarter".is the British "rule, remembering the Lusitania. The crew of a German battleship or cruiser, sunk in a fair fight, gets all the honours of war, and is rescued to the last man possible, butsubmarine crews are never taken alive —in fact..they are never taken at all. John Bull lias, a more expeditious way with him.

NETTING "TIN-FISH."

Many are the methods of getting the submarine, of which the chiefest are four: —Nets, torpedo boats, "chasers," and fake trawlers. Minor ways of sub-marino-ge'tting are mines, "gumming the'eve" of the periscope wilih oil, aeroplanes, and microphones, which are said to detect a submarine 75 miles away. Netting the submarine is a dandy sport—for the Briton. The netting most often used is made of stout galvanised wife, chiefly bought in the Uuited States; with a'lSft mesh. This is cut in lengths of 170 ft., with a depth of 45ft. On top of this great net are lashed immense blocks of wood for buoys. Two oil-burning destroyers now take the netting and hang it between them, ias deep down in the water as it will read), arid are ready,to go submarine-hunting. The range of a submarine's periscope is little over a mile in any'sort of sea. Vessels that are belching smoke and lie on the horizon can be picked up for three to five miles, hut no more. A periscope ©an be seen as far as it sees, if watchful eyes' are on the job. Tho twin net-bearing destroyers spy a periscope. They chart the submarine's direction and speed (outi of sightrange) to a point directly, ahead. Nov. 7 the lashings are. cut. away and the net left in the German's path, while the destroyers sneak out of eye-shot. Three times out of four, it is declared, the ■submarine g£ts tangled in the not. Her delicate machinery is disarranged and her .balance upset. She may turn turtle. Now the rest is easy. Half a minute later som«..2S or SO souls mro coffined in stool for all eternity at the •bottom of the sea. there to await tho Judgment Day. It has only taken one shot from a-.throe-inch rapid-fire gun.

MOTOR-BOAT CHASERS.

Eight or ton submarines, so British Admiralty reports admit, have escaped accidentally by changing their courses alter the nets halve been let go. But

never once hns a , periscope sighted a , destroyer, whichlies low on the water * and lets out no smudge of smoke from ' its oil-burners. Gthei nets are hung 3 from huge. hollo>v glass, balls—;glass so - that the periscope cannot pick them out- against the surface- of the seg./ - These nets have regular tenders in the. J shape of torpedo boat's, which go their j round just as a fisherman goes his 1 rounds, looking for the fish caught by their gills. These cover the English I Channel and are floating- in many places 'en the North Sea, whore there is any likelihood or a pubmarin© being busy. Wlien a glass ball disappears there is a torpedo boat on the, job in a- jiffy, waiting for the victim to come to the surface—if she .can. The rest is easy. The king of .English outdoor sports just now is "chasing" submarine-",. Th© crews of tho chasers are getting to be experts at tho game. A chaser is a 35-mile-aii-nour motor 4>oat, 60 feet long iand ten feet beam, fitted with a dandy rapid-fire gun fore and aft. Light as a bubble, she floats on the water with barely a dent in the surface. She can move as _ fast as a torpedo. j\Tow, every subrfrarine makes what the experts call a ''surface wave." Even at GOft she leaves a distinct path, and 60ft is pretty deep for any submarine to venture. Besides this plain _ track thei^c are also innumerable bubbles of iair and globules of Q-il, continually escaping "to the surface, plain indication to "the observant eye of a su-bmar-in:t> hovering below. All _. right—tho 'chaser" catches the "surface wave." This spells the end of the su'bmnrine unless a storm comes up or a fog falls. For it is merely the business of tho speedier motor boat to keep above the wasve, and i'he time has got to come when the .siibmarin emust bob tip' to get her bearings or to see what she can see It is all over in ten seconds. Two thousand,of these little submar-ine-teasers now v warm # the navigable winters around the British Isles, and they arc getting heavy "bags" of game. The high record is 12 submarines in one week. Some three hundred more are building in Canada, and already 17' have been forwarded to the Mother Country on freighters, safely lashed to the decks. , 'FAKE" TRAWLERS. Now wo t-ome to the fake trawler, which includes the fake .freighter, perhaps the most interesting method of all, for it involves something more than mere watchfulness plus a net. This method involves initiative, and ingenuity. . / In the North Sea a. British patrol boat caane across a trawler on which the officers who went aboard discovered a. most interestingly large amount of stores —enough to k'cep that one particular ship at sea for a. year. She was flying the Norwegian fFag, and protested perfect neutrality Tho British were not to be bluffed. Search reveai.ee! the fact that the trawler was in reality a "mother ship" for .a flotilla of German submarines. Presto! The crew of the supposed trawler were sent to England in irons, and a crew of French and Euglislv sailors took their places. For three days the trawler hovered* around the bay. On the third morning a periscope popped tip out of the blue, and, observing that the horizon was clear of enemy ships, made for the trawler with a .friendly toot of its whistle. When thesubmarine got as near as the English captain of the trawler desired, lie merely "turned on the hose," which is a polite way of putting it when you want to\ say you are letting go with Xgui; rapid-fire gun. This vessel sur--.pro,--' :ed in a similar man ncr, and tliu third was bagged at a ei\ fime. To»nr>.%{>.boats them v.w^ with ihhv% } <.<.v Before tlie week wm- ' iin £hn ■-,'■■ /ilhers were cap+uretl •-+W." ', ; Vir- 1 A]l -•■"-' aro now- fighting for John Bull with

equal impartiality, thanks to the change of crews. "

THE PERIL FROM THE AIR.

Aeroplanes have a winning way witli them,-too. ft is their custom to fly ns slowly as possible over,the shallow; waters ■ around the English coast, aii'lspy out German submarines resting on the bottom, a regular trick of theirs. In this way the submarines' batteries are conseived, and the boats come to the isurface only at night to take in frosb air, which is a speedy process. So the,- ciii remain away from their base for long periods, watching for a favourable opportunity to rise to thei surface and bag a big ship. These! havo 'been the hardest to catch. And hero tlu- aeroplane has shown its great useiuluc-h. Thi' shallow water that surround-^ the coastline makes it possible for the aviator to spy out the submarine as she lies, blind and immobile on the bottom, even 100 ft deep. He notes th.3 position and notifies the nearest patrol boat, which speeds to the spot. Now it is only a case of waiting for the syibjj.arine to rise. You know the rest if you have read thus far. Minos are anchored from the bottom at about the cruising distance of a submarine from' the surface. One hit is enough.' Nothing ever comes up to tell the tale. • Months after, perhaps in Germany another submarine is listed as missing—yes, missing until the sea shall giver up its dead! "Gumming ihe eye" is another sport; A. tanker merely steams around in concentric circles at ..a ..spot, on the sea frequented by submarines, and the oil gets on tlie glass of the periscope and thus shuts'out the-view. Then the boat must open xip and let a man out on deck io clean the ] periscope. If a. "chaser" happens' to be around the submarine dosen't get a chance to submerge—of its own accord. Tile micvophone also has its uses. William Dublier,. of New York, saw its workings in Boulogne Harbour . last month. A British troopship bad fled into its landlocked safety, followed by a bloodthirsty submarine, more zealous than cautious. The detector, a set of resonant tubes affixed to a microphone and installed in the sea at several points off shore, gave the alarm and triangulation established the point at which the submarine, was submerged. A torpedo boat hurried off to the spot and sunk the menacing craft as «oon as she rose, in full sight of the cheering Tommies on their troopship!