SUBMARINES.

Waipawa Mail, Volume XXXVI, Issue 7750, 18 July 1916, Page 1

SUBMARINES.

HOW THEY ARE CAUGHT. TAR CARPET AT SEA. Travellers arriving from England bring interesting accounts of how the British Navy is dealing with the submarine peril. It will he remembered that the first submarine campaign collapsed owing to the destruction of practically the whole of the German undersea fleet by many ingenious devices. Nets caught the unwary submersibles in clasps of steel, and with the aid of a “listener,’’-the presence and location of many other submarines were made known to eager patrols. What might be descried as the most sensitive of telephones, accurately attuned to the whirr of the submarine machinery, but unaffected by any other sound, would indicate immediately to the waiting war-boats that a submarine was hanging round. The patrol boats, in communication by wireless, would compare notes as regards the sounds, and the comparison would give them an almost exact idea of their distance from the German craft and the direction in which she was making. In the lull between the first and second campaigns the German Navy possibly brought new ideas to eliminate much of the danger of the nets and the possibility of capture. The British Navy—judging by the second lull in the submarine activities of Germany has apparently been equally ready with new ideas for combating undersea craft, and the ingenuity of the officers of the finest fleet in the world, combined with the vigilant watching and waiting in the North Sea, has had due effect on the piracy policy of the Kaiser’s navy. THOROUGHNESS IN LITTLE THINGS. Nothing goes overboard from a war boat, not even an empty cigarette packet. The British Navy is not lacking in admiration for the German application of science in small matters. The duty of the war boat is to find out where the submarine is, not to be dogged by it till the opportunity for torpedoing comes. Consequently nothing goes over the side of the war boat, because a submarine, finding a cigarette packet, for instance, will examine it with the minutest care. Experts will tell how long it has been in the water; tides give the clue as to how far it has travelled, and the submarine alters its course accordingly. Years ago an imaginative person, undeservedly overlooked by naval historians, invented the term Jack Tar for the fighting sailor man. His reason viewed from this distance —is obscure, but with all his imagination lie probably never foresaw that in the stirring days and nightß of 1916 the Jack Tar term would have unexpected significance. Wherever the submarine has been cocking a baleful eye over the waves, Jack lias been very busy with tar—tar of the quite ordinary kind that the stay-at-homes walk over when it has dried hard on the roads and pathways. And the ordinary tar has saved thousands of tons of the Allies ’ commerce, thousands of lives probably, and been a source of considerable annoyance to sundry German submarine commanders trained to expect nets and dodge mines, but totally unprepared for warfare with a black, sticky liquid that isn’t mentioned in the Teutonic text books for the encouragement of frightfulness. BLINDING THE PERISCOPES. An ingenious navy, out to catch the wary submersible, contrived a method that gave opportunities of capture of prisoners as well as destruction of craft. Whenever a submarine arose and its periscope revealed a foemen more than worthy of its torpedo, it would naturally dive and run, and live to rise some other day. “We've got to blind him,” said the Navy, and brilliant, or maybe lucky, gunners at times smashed a periscope and sent the submersible groping blindly into the depths. But that was slow. Then came the tar idea. Somewhere in England trawler upon trawler began loading huge tanks with tar, and out along the trade routes, where the submarines were likeliest to lurk, the trawlers steamed, pouring out the thick black liquid till the blue of the waves was replaced with huge patches of dense black. Some of the patches were 10 and 15 miles square. Above the tar carpets patrol boats kept unceasing vigil, waiting for the submarines to rise. Sooner or later the German craft would of necessity come up to breathe and take a peep round, and if he rose from directly under the tar, then it was a case of good-bye, little submarine, good-bye. The face of a submarine periscope has about the same radius as a dinner plate. An indicator tells the commander of the submerged boat when he is nearing the surface. When he knows that the periscope is just about to reach the surface he leaves the indicator to see what the periscope is about to reveal, and ready to give the command to dive immediately if 1 lie has come up in a dangerous location. One can picture the periscope coming slowly out of the depths and passing through the slimy tar on the surface of the sea. The submarine commander watches in vain for a glimpse of sunlight. The periscope as it rises higher passes through the tar, which adheres to its face, blinding it. The periscope is revealed to the waiting patrol boats, tint the submarine commander is still waiting for light, quite unaware of his danger. He rises higher, and the top of his craft is exposed. This is what the British gunners have waited for. There is a whirr and a roar, and the astonished German officers and crew find the top of their submarine ripped off as with a knife. The chagrined Teuton finds ho cannot submerge, except to drown, and with the best of taste he prefers a British in- | ternment camp to Davy Jones’ locker.