BEATING THE U BOATS.

Wanganui Herald, Volume LI, Issue 15193, 13 April 1917, Page 5

BEATING THE U BOATS.

SMOKE SCREEN SAVES CUNARDER, (Special to Auckland Star.) SAN FRANSISCO, March 13. Equipped with elaborate 'apparatus for creating smoke-screens, and armed with one of the now British naval 6-in guns, the Cimard liner Carmania reached the port of New York safely from Liverpool with sixty passengers and mails. She is the first merchant vessel to reach Now York with the smoke-screen apparatus, and to it she owes her escape from U-boat attack. The inventive genius of Great Britain in creating the smoke-screen apparatus made the experts of America rub their eyes with surprise and plainly revealed to their minds that John Bull was brimful of practical ideas for grappling with the German submarine menace.

' Since her return to merchant service, after serving an auxiliary cruiser, U-boat commanders have sought the giant Carmania- time and again. The fact that she has been iising smoke as a protection was not. learned, until her arrival in New York Harbour. Mounted on either side of the after bridge are two huge, ordinary appearing ventilators. Except that" they are larger, they are no different in shape and colouring than the other ventilators. In an emergenc, when the periscope, of a U-boat is perceived, the bridge officer, by means of an electrical contrivance, turns the ventilator openings towards the point from which attack is anticipated, and in less than fifteen seconds huge clouds of dense, black smoke roll astern of the vessel, effectually screening her from the enemy's gunners.