THE GREAT NET.

Wanganui Herald, Volume L, Issue 14697, 31 August 1915, Page 8

THE GREAT NET.

r TRAP MBMARINES. DOVER STRAITS BARRED BY MILES OF STEEL MESH. WASHINGTON, August 28. The general opinion regarding the change in Germany’s attitude regarding the submarinings is that it is closely allied to the British Admiralty’s avowals ol important German losses, and Lord Selbornc’s declaration that the British Navv has the submarine menace well in hand. fßv John L. Bnldorston, in Boston Globe.) NORTHERN FRANCE, rune 17. There are 5,712,000 wire traps for the Kaiser’s submarines in the English Channel. If a boat so much as pokes its nose into one of these naps it is doomed. " Diagonally across the Straits of Dover, from, a point a very short distance north of the entrance of Folkestone Harbour to Cape Gris Nez, on the coast of France, stretches a great net containing 8,712,000 wire meshes. Each mesh is IS inches square, each mesh is a trap; “rat traps,” the men on the waiting destroyers call them. No matter how carefully and slowly an “unter-sea hoot” creeps along beneath the surface, if its nose slides into one of the wire squares it has no more chance of escape than a timber wolf in the Northern wilds upon whose leg snaps down the steel fang of the hunter’s snare. The net runs across the strait in a south-easterly direction. Cape Gris Nez, where the trap ends on the French coast, is the point of that I nlge in the French coast which sticks » Lit between Boulogne, on the south, tad Calais, on the north: English (dies again for a time after a lapse «.f lob years. Gape Gris Nez. besides being noted ; ; the French terminus of tne net, will one nay bear a monument to mark the spot where Reginald R. Warnei • :rd. after destroying the Zeppelin, brought his aeroplane down in the i irk, a few feet from destruction, al- ; iosl on the very brink of the cliff." WAS CHURCHILL'S PLAN. There are several thousand Englishmen." who helped in making the most formidable and gigantic war device of all the ages, and at least 2000 in,ire who helped to put it in position. AH of them are very proud of their job. Most of them know that, whatever advantages secrecy may have had when the net was first “planted,” the Germans know all about it now The source of the information in this story need not be indicated more 1 1, arly. From three to six months is i -.pally imposed on British subjects v ho violate the Defence of the Realm Act by talking about naval or military

: crets. A steward on the Olympic got six ■ 'onths for telling in a Liverpool rest urant how he watched the torpedoed . idacious sink. A fireman from the .' -iuitania is serving three months for t scribing dn public how that liner : n on a rock in the Mersey when : acting for the Dardanelles with two i. >ients on board. Ail sorts of rumours have been fly- ■ a around the world for months coni ■ ruing submarine nets. Probably all ■ e their start ..o some whisper of the ' arh about what history will call the ■ teat fliannel net . It owes its exis- ■ ace to Winston Churchill, until a ■ wntli ago First Lord of the Admir- . Ly. He foresaw the German submai ne warfare even before war broke > at. i’ARTED FROM CONAN DOYLE’S STORY. Sir Arthur Conan Doyle wrote a Cory early in 1914 describing the carvation of England into a shameful •■ eace following submarine attacks on car food shpis. Perhaps this sto v y impressed the Admiralty in London, as it is said to have impressed the Admiralty in Berlin. The first idea of the Channel net may have come to some Admiralty expert as he pondered the ingenious prophecy of the creator of Sherlock Holmes. Whoever thought of it first, the credit for its actual construction goes to Churchill. Not long ago, in his first speech after he had been dropped from the Admiralty to an obscure post in the Cabinet, Winston Churchill made a speech in which he said he waits for his justification against the attacks upon him for the time when the records of his stewardship can be made public. Perhaps when he said that he had the great net in mind, as well as the 1 eet mobilisation be ordered just be i jrc the war, and the responsibility i e took in ordering Die construction i f new super-Dreadnoughts rushed at r.really increased cost, far exceeding the sums authorised by Parliament, to which order England owes the present presence of the Queen Elizabeth at the Dardanelles and her sister ship, the Warspite, in JelliCoe’s Grand Flew., on the Orkneys. The great net has been one of the chief factors in the British campaigns on sea and land, as will be made clear. ORDERED BEFORE THE RAIDS BEGAN. The order for the construction of the great net was given months before Germany proclaimed the submarine war zone around the British Isles It was given even before Von Tirpitz, in an interview with an American reporter, intimated that the submarine war was planned. A great firm of wire drawers was given the order and 2000 meif were kept on the work day and night, iir 12 hour shifts. They did not know what they were working on, but guessed correctly enough. Week after week for months trains of flat cars bore sections away, covered with canvas against prying eyes. The depth of the net is 150 feet. Great leaden anchors attached to the bottom keep it in position. To keep the weights at the bottom from drag-

ging it down, bnoys are attached at the top. Front the ■ spot near Folkestone where the nets start to Cape Gris Nez is almost exactly 25 miles. That net was woven and placed in position in a few days over five months. After the war, when there isn't any (Tensor, the British will challenge their Yankee cousins to show the equal of this bit of hustling. GAP IN THE NET. About half-way across there is a gap in the net, leaving, an S-shaped course for ships. Unless a captain knows the secret of the buoys—and there are many falsa ones strewn about to fool the intruder—the passage is not possible. To make doubly sure that nothing unauthofiseu gets through, either on or below the surface, two destroyers are constantly on guard at the gap. They are relieved every three days, for the strain of ceaseless watching for periscopes caunot be borne by the officers for a longer time without a dangerous deadening of the faculties of observation. When a neutral ship, bound to or from Holland or Scandinavia approaches the net, she is stopped by a destroyer. After an officer hoards her and satisfies himself that she is what she pretends to be, she is led through -he “S" by the warship. Tue merchant captain cannot perceiving the nature of the obstruction, which his. peculiar course enables him !o escape. But lie is not told. He cannot discover the exact line of the net, even by the buoys which hold it in its place, because exactly similar buoys are bobbing about for a quarter of a mile on either side of the barrier. SAFETY FOR SOLDIERS. The Ureal Net has (tone for England very much less than was expected. The ■sinking of the Lusitania, the British Admiralty believed s>x months ago, would be impossible when the net, then in process of construction, was fastened in the sea. The whole Irish Sea, as well as the Channel, it was thought, could he closed to the Kaiser's submarines. The net lias, however, fulfilled the -hief aim of its existence, and has exerted an important influence on land as well as sea operations. Without rlie loss of a single man, England at ibis writing has set over the seas many hundreds of thousands of men. At least two-thirds have crossed the Ghannel between Folkestone anil Boulogne, protected by the Great Net, which has been in operation since shortly after the Germans opened the lorpedo war in February, though it was not completely put down until much later.

Boniogne is the chief British base in France, and most of the Army stores and all the transports are sent across from Folkestone to Boulogne. They are, therefore, protected by the Great Net from attack by submarines coming south from Zeebrugge, the German ; übraarine base on the Belgian coast, and from submarines coming sputli from the German harDours. South of the net ships bound from Folketsone to Boulogne are as safe ;:s on Lake Erie. They nave no escorts. Not one has been attacked, much less torpedoed, since the net was : n etched. Not one submarine has been sighted in these waters since the net was stretched. There are no holes m the net. SUBMARINE CRUISERS. Churchill was justified, when the great barrier was being made, in believing that it typuld prevent German excursions into Ihe Irish Sea. But ihe Germans brought out the “submarine cruiser,” which can travel 2500 miles without receiving fresh supplies of fuel. These boats, the U29 and her still more formidable sisters, completed since the war began, went around the north of Scotland, and have ever since been terrorising shipping in* St. George’s Channel, chasing ships right up to the bar of the Mersey and torpedoing helpless victims all the way down to Fastnet Rock, at the southern tip of Ireland, and even off the roast of Ireland in the open sea, if it was a torpedo and not- a mine which damaged the American ship Nebraskan. Most Englishmen believe that these submarines which operate in the Irish Sea have babes on the sparsely inhabited Irish coasts, especially on the west <oast, where there are many miles of uninhabited, deeply indented, rocky sea shore, suitable for havens of pirates, ancient or modern. It is unite possible, but the weight of expert opinion inclines to the belief that these sea terrors of the Kaiser all come from Cuxhayen and Wilhelmshaven, and that every time they run out of torpedoes and fuel they return all the way to their home base,

making the 1000-mile trip by the northern route. The policing of the British coast is so strict that for a ship, even if ostensibly a neutral, to either hide snbmailne, supplies or transfer them at sea to the submarines, seems to those who know the precautions taken less likely • ban the periodical return home of the U boats. WHERE .GERMANIA STILL RULES. The great net offers mute testimony against the secret base theory. If tins German submarines operating in the Irish Sea were able to take oa supplies without returning around Scotland to Germany, there would bo nothing to prevent them "rounding the south-of England and attacking shipping >n the Channel. They have not done so. No submarine has been reported in the Straits of Dover south of the net since the net was'put down. Submarines have, however, operated off Cherbourg, and their appearance there was

another . painful surprise-- to the i British Admiralty, .-.and caused the French line to take itajdew York packets .out of the danger zone and run them from Marseilles instead "of Havre. " * • « I The distance between tile net and the nearest German port is too great to be made by even the U2O type witnout re-charging, since a German sub- |. marine to reach the southern side of j the net must already have run some 1300 miles. ■ *■ These submarine cruisers are just ' able to travel from Cuxhaven and I Wilhelinshaveii to Cherbourg and I make the long trip home again by the ; Scottish route, probably to be met 1 and supplied 100 miles or more'from the German coa.st, beyond the Heligoj land tegion, where for some distance into the North Sea Germania rules the waves, at present, whatever the English say. i GREAT BAIT FOR SUBMARINES.' The greatest bait for the German I submarines at present, excepting JelI licoe’s grand fleet itself, is the army • traffic between Folkestone and Bouj logne. j So thickly do these ships ply hackI wardand forward that the traveller on j the Folkestone-Boulogne boat can see, as a rule, from .three to ten at any time I once counted twelve. The great net prevents attacks from the north; it seems practically certain that attacks from the south are not made only because they are not possible, and that they are not possible because a submarine could not make them and return in safety to its rase. U8 A VICTIM. The first question asked when news of the net is learned: “How many submarines has it caught?” The answer is a puzzler. Only British naval officers know, and they won’t taUf. The U8 . was certainly one, and ,it is believed to have been the first victim, She surrendered on March 8. Her nose stuck in the net, and some signal, probably electric, warned the patrol. Destroyers from all sides sped for the submarine like angry wasps. as the U8 could not either dive, go on, or retreat, her captain noisted the white flag. More were caught, undoubtedly, hut no news is allowed to leak out. Probably the Berlin authorities soon learned what the trouble was, and since then the submarines have probably given the Dover Straits a wide berth.

OTHER NETS. V There are, however, other nets. Trawlers in the North Sea nave adapted their usual methods of fishing to the search for the iron fish. The ships work in couples in waters where submarines are known to be active, and slowly drag the sea With a large net, one end of which is securely fastened to each ship. Then, when a violent strain shows they have made a catch, the two ships are. supposed to turn instantly toward each other and come together. The submarine is thus entangled hopelessly in the toils; ? Tim ends of the net are thrown overboard, heavily weighted with junk, and the submarine is dragged to the bottom of the ocean, the coffin of her hapless crew That some such scheme as this has been tried is a fact, but whether any results have been attained cannot be learned. The .Admiralty says nothing. There are many, rumours afloat, some of them circumstantial, concerning the supposed success of this adaptation of thhe trawling,-principle to naval war--the‘trawling .principle to naval warfare. Rumour has even connected the mysterious fate of Captain Weddegen and his U29 with the fishing nets. —-