ABOARD A DESTROYER

Waikato Times, Volume 89, Issue 13892, 18 October 1918, Page 7

ABOARD A DESTROYER

CONVOYING TRANSPORTS. SUBMARINES FOUGHT. 1.01)1 iing for ;t convoy of transports in a thick fog olf the French Atlantic const is a groat expo "mice for a landlubber on a French des'.D.cr (writes Laurence .Jorrold in tic Dadj Telegraph). This, for tlie I rencli destroyer, is only the -Lilly dr;dg-. r \ which has been done curing three !■ t:«1 a-half years of war. 1 Merely siiw .Tie day's normal work. The e'd'T'y sKlp_ per galla.ntly joining from the Hoserve, as so many of our own lctncd officers have done, apol.igiod \a~ the taineness of the day. "I ask i irrio.); it is just the ordinary -un; nr.fortunately we have nothing sc"i*MUonal to show you. If we had had we would have done so, but everything at s<a is just luck." The mere working day of t!i" !'.tt!e destroyer, now old, but still very lit, was interesting enough to the landsman. 1 was glad indeed to be just in the boat, and with the officers and men in their ordinary drudgery, and nothing faked, in what I saw. Just everyday work tiiat has been carried on (juicily each day since the war from Dunkirk to Bayonnc. This particular litLle elderly destroyer of 'IOO toils was at Dunkirk, and has run 'between Dunkirk and Bordeaux countless times, convoying merchantmen. We set out before daybreak on our destroyer's daily job of meeting merchantmen and looking out for submarines. There are a good many submarines round here, but I must say they must have a bad time of it. Our boat and a thousand other boats at" incessantly darting hither and thither over their heads, and they can scarcely put theit nosq ftlvovo the water for a "\';nviit. One docs nut envy the life of the German submarine sailor. Wo pick our way by chart and compass through an opaque white fog, and cannot sec 200 yards ahead. The coast is a deadly one, strewn with rocks and islands. The skipper gropes liis way f'-om Ivuoy to Viioy alld lighthouse to lighthouse, each barely soil .JCiOl'o one is upon it.

LOOKING FOR VICTIMS - "'Splendid weather for submarines," said the skipper. ''How? Good for the submarines?" "No, good for us. This is the best sort of weather in which to see a submarine, and, of course, hit it when y<?u see it, It comes up, peers through its perieope, find cannot seo anything, and you suddenly oorge upon it.'' We did rot come upon one, hut we suddenly heard guns. Our five little guns were ready, with a man at each, and our torpedo tubes. We were very keen to fire, but we had nothing to fire upon in the mist. The explanation came later from a wireless message—"Submarine 30 miles off." Another and a luckier destroyer had been in that spot 30 miles away, and fired and torpedoed and dropped depth charges, and come back, triumphantly sure it had done for the submarine.

We were still groping our way through the thick fog. We wore still peering for buoys and lighthouses, also looking for the convoy coming from England, to find which seemed to the landsman worse than finding a needle in a bundle of hay. Having reached the worst danger zone we dashed up and down from east to west. "Can't miss the convoy now," said the skipper. Around us were darting those marvellous little U-boat chasers, built in America, and peaceful fishing l>oats were unconcernedly fishing. After we had rushed up and down for a little while, sure enough parts of the convoy appeared from out of the fog. We signalled, the U-boat chasers replied, and we and the tiny chasers began our stunts.

The Admiral's sta.T remained a little sceptical. "They often say they have done for the submarine," said the Admiral's aide-de-camp. But it is the staff's job always *to be healthily sceptical. CONVOYS PICKED UP.

The convoy came slowly and placidly on. The skipper was too busy to say anything al>out what he was doing, but I just watched him do it. Having picked up the convoy, now clearly seen, the fog having risen in the sunshine, we round it; we followed a good old camouround it; we followed a good old eamoflaged 5000-ton steamer at her own peaceful speed, and suddenly, with an order from the skipper into the speaking tube, dashed on, turned round just ahead of the steamer, raced back past the stern of her, and raced oil agr.iu. Then we did zigzags in front of the. steamer and other steamers; then we zigzagged on either side of the convoy. It was like a fly buzzing round a plodding ox, but our 400 tons were not teasing, they were saving the 5000. ton cargo Iwats. The skipper was quite pleased. "You see how she picked up?" Our little 11-year-old destroyer did indeed pick up. She could crawl beside the steamer, and in a few moments get up to 18 or 20 knots, swerve round down astern of the steamer, then up again, and loading once more, after which she zigzagged like an acrobat on a bicycle. "Good little boat," said the skipper. "Speed and zigzagging are our only real methods against submarines." After a few more stunts the danger wme was passed. We just signalled imperiously to the convoy, "Follow us!" and made straight for the anchorage.

Tl)»»n wo inspected a convoy painted ail over curiously, and looking exactly like so many Cubist pictures planted in the green sea. We passed aNo a flotilla of those discreet, heroic minesweepers going out once more, as they do day by day, to the Atlanta But the greatest sight of all which we saw on getting at the anchorage was a fleet of ships starting for England under an escort of countless torpedoboats and little chasers. This i s the largest fleet that has ever sailed in any time. The escorting boats started waltzing round the great sailing fleet, and I imagine are still doing their vigihnt tricks around it even now as I write.

"Our men don't look much," said the skipper in my eleven-year-old torpedo.lnjat; "they don't look much, but they are the best chaps in the world. They are all Bretons, and they have faithful unto death. They have been doing this same old job all round the Atlantic coast since the war began." Incidentally, the second officer said that nobody bothers alvont danger on Ivoard. "A torjM'do amidships, and we should nil go down 111 a minute or two. Then why l>other?" These French sailors have, in the Atlantic, been in their own more modest way doing the same great silent work that our men do elsewhere. And the little destroyer I sailed in "wears" the French Military Cross on her quarter-deck, won at Dunkirk.