Norwich Bulletin Newspaper, June 23, 1915, Page 13

Awash or Submerged, These Porpoiselike YWar Engines of De- Are Ever Rip Out the a Dread- 1 5cud Away Operate — Submarine Strength of the Re- spective Nations Now at War. D TLES VE RNE,‘ decades ago, wrote «of the then unbe- lievable adven- tures of Capt. Nemo and his fa- bled submarine, the Nautflus. Sep- tember 22 of year the “Unter- seeboten, Number Nine"—or, to give it the more fa- niliar designation it bears in the Ger- nan submarine flotilla, the *U-9"— yroved to the world that Verne, dream- thought-to-be-impossible vis- . Wwas even then pointing a prophetic Inger toward one of the most danger- jus engines of war in today's all-Eu- ‘crean struggle. stilities the subma- boat its appearance in the conflict, picking off unprotect- isolated ships of small tonnage. real significance of the deadly “water bugs” of modern sea & dic not become apparent until hat September morning when, in a haze which spread across the of the bleak North sea, majesty’s crulsers Abou- and Cre gray-bulked st a leaden sky oa petrol duty. Something very like the shadow of |_great porpoise stood toward the iboul It was the Germsn subma- The periscope of the sub- aersible, cutting the sluggish waves, old the Germar. crew, safe inside her lgar-shaped skin, that the British v, a fair mark, half a nauti- al mile aw Somewhere sent Sttle 1a: ine, 1 within the cold steel the German “water bug” an coughed and a spindle tor- tube, headed unerringly urney of death and destruc- ripped to her vitals on rd beam, the Aboukir wal- , stricken to the death. Her con- s closed in to stand by, the Hogye d ahead, the Cressy about 400 yards er st )0 or e n her port beam, both lowering boats o pick up survivors, under the mi: aken belief that the wounded ship ad struck a mine. Thirty-five minutes later the Abou- tir went to the bottom, to be followed t short intervals by the Hogue and he Cressy, upon which the submarine ad opened fire. So within a short our the little U-9 had cleared the Faves of three of England’s great ghting craft and sent down with them ixty officers and fourteen hundred aen’ And here is the message which the sent to the world through her tor- t September 22, in the gray edo forth = - submarine is the great- st offensive as well as defensive craft wver designed. - x * No super-dreadnought can withstand he attack of a submarine torpedo, and ultra battleship’s only safety lies Awask, or submerged, the invisible, and since the Aboukir and her man aboard the thou- rmored hulls of the warring na- fes must keep constantly before his aind the fear that without warning or be & ubmarine travel ot nking tgmn, wy nuto of the day or night, lou re and his hundred sai- | srmen brothers of war may be wiped rom the face of the shifting sea at ho tick of a single moment! Ths United States government real- zed these truths in the late eighties, at | time when the British admiralty coffed at the idea, declaring that a ubmarine was but a weapon of defense or a weaker nation. But Great Brit- in was converted, and her first sub- sarine was launched at Barrow-in- 'urniss November 2, 1901. Today the Inited States has fifty-one of these raft built or building and eight, one # which is to be of the giant sea- oing type, authorized, while Great tritain in January, 1914, had seventy- wo built and twenty-two building. Germany at first held an opinion akin o that of England. But in 1905 she, 00, became convinced, and at the be- inning of this vear she had twenty- our built and twelve building. France, the fisst nation to actually aake of a submarine—or rather a so- alled “submersible”—an engine of rar, had at the same time seventy-five 1ilt and eighteen building; Japan, hirteen built and two building; Rus- fa thirty built and twenty-five build- ng, and Austria about eight built;.so at somewhere in the seven seas to- ay th are approximately 324 of hese mosquito war vessels, each capa- e of doing untold damage. = * & been a far cry from the first al torpedo boat to the present ha fiicte all of the first-class navies of the SR by ’ fi bodied only the rudimentary principles as shown in the submarines of today, but in almost every modern type of submersible the influence of the Hol- land boat can be traced, although the modern submarine Is a craft of some 800 tons displacement, with a surface speed of seventeen knots, and the United States is at present asking bids for the construction of a seagoing mod- el, to be approximately of 3900 tons displacement, a twenty-knot speed and armed not only with torpedo tubes, but with rapid-fire rifles. The submarines of Great Britain's fleet today are frankly developments of the Holland idea. That calls for a single, spindle-shaped hull—built in the shape of a glant cigar. It is made submersible by the action of horizon- tal rudders acting in conjunction with “ballast tanks” which may be flooded with water. These boats dive as a po; poise dives, nose first, instead of si ing with an even keel. They are driven by 1,600 horsepower heavy oil enzines at a’surface speed of seventeen and are of some 1,200 tons dispi ment. What the British empire thinks of the submarine today as a defense i best illustrated by the changes she made in guarding her own coast line and ports. Before the coming of the submarine she depended for this serv ice almost entirely upon her so-called coast and port guard ships, and with these—often they were outworn hul ready for action ofter a fashion manned with apologies for ace- and crews— | England deluded herself with the belicf But these ships have | she was secur long been abolished, and such harbors as Queens Ferry, Hull, Harwich, Port- The report read: “The sinking of the Aboukir was, of course, in the ordinary hazard of pa- trol duty. The Hogue and the Cres: however, were sunk because they has tened to the assistance of their con- sort, presenting an easy and certain target for submarine attack. Wounded ships should therefore be left to th. own resources.” _The French and German s differ’ from the Honam“fl—}x‘??{“lmi they use a double-hulled eraft, amg have departed from the spindle Shame gonstructing thelr _submarines mors ‘Ship-shape.” The French developaq their type from the Narval submapine designed by M. Labeuf. The German type, whilt adopting the double-hull feature. is known as the Krupp-Ger- mania boat, and is the outcome of the designs of M. D'Equivelly, supploe mented, it is said, by a generous piracy of American submarine ideas. The French boats are of about 830 tons dis- placement, and for surface travel are driven by 4,000-horsepower steam ture eir bines. The Russlan submarine is the latest type of Holland boat of about 850 tons displacement. Even before the exploit of 7-9, Great Britaln was gIving consideroois thought to the menace of the subma rine, and in June a controversy arose between many of her foremost naval experts as to the importance of this engine in maritime war, and what steps could be taken to offset the ter- rible destructive possibilities of these craft. Under conditions existin navies of the world foday, gner let'e submarine zet under way, sink until she 1s traveling wash, or, better still, sink completely beneath the sur- face, and there is no known prevent. ive to insure the safety of any above the water crulser, torpedo boat de- stroyers to the contrary notwithstand- ng. *® * %X Great Britain's experts knew all of this, and that was why Sir Percy Scott dared the wrath of all the armor-forg- ers of the empire who glory in the con. struction of super-dreadnoughts, by advocating the construction of no more vessels of the ‘“ultra” types, but smaller craft in greater numbers, He argued that Yoday a fleet of five aread. noughts, representing an outlay of close on to $30,000,000, may be sent to the bottom as were thé three eruisars i the North sea, With one torpedo to enep craft; whereas had the fleet consicted of, let us say, ten smaller vessels 1 ¥. Holland, an American focted the first practical its sort. Of his boat, which t in the Potomac river, Ad- wvey said: “Had the Spaniards two such b , I would never becn able 1o take Manila.” ave Tae 3iclland toat, at tasg period em- many of them would esca attack unscathed. e Falling in this, he advises the ad- miralty “to reinforce the bottoms of England’s dreadnoughts with an addi- tional belt of four-inch armor plate, and to construct many additional buoy- apx ~ lons in their hulls. An- other argument for replacing the dreadnought with the seagoing sub- marine torpedo boat is the fact that a dreadnought requires an annual outlay of $1,000,000 for upkeep, as asainst §25,000 which will provide for the tor- pedo boat. | "It is a human impossibility, say the I naval experts, after reviewing the ex- ploit of the U-9, to predict any limita- tions for the construction of subma- | rines; and they believe that the da; is not far off when the non-submersi- land, Southampton, Berehave >orts 2 s vill Dy £ the mouth, Plymouth and Medwas }«g'rmy']f‘";t"“,,‘,‘,],{"2“2,3\‘:3:5 e etet ot each has its torpedo flotilla for defense. | “gitra" and “super” submarines. * * k ,*i And what Great Britain thinks today| It Is a common prophecy, too, at this of the submarine as a weapon of of-|time, among naval men, that before fense is best set forth in the offlcial|the great European war has passed report following the sinking of theq into history the world will see one or Aboukir, the Hogue and the Cressy.|more conflicts wherein the deadly lit- tle submarine “waterbugs,” in co-oper- taneously from above and below the ) /)__ ation with Zeppelins or armored aero-|a type planes, will strike a hostile fleet simul- | | doomed Liege water, and in almost the twinkling of an eye, totally annihilate some of the greatest ships afloat. Already has a Russian_ perfected the plans for a cruiser” which can be lowered aval officer submersible | in th water until her decks are awash, pre-| senting little or no target to an enemy, | and rendering her gray-painted self almost invisible. A craft such as this, should it prove practical, equipped | with the new “heavy oil burners’—a| type of smokeless engine recently per- fected—would give to the great battle ships of the world a type possessing man of the advantages which now malke the submarines the most dreaded form of ritime war engine. | As a matter of fact, any of the na-| tions now at war may possess.a sub { mersible cruiser, or a giant form of| submarine, for all the rest of the world may know about it. And, just Ger many produced in the trenches before a monster siege gun of before seen, so she, or tions, may suddenly ar and sow the wa- never any ¢f the other na ve the wand of Jhe Deadly ters of the seas with some hitherto un- heard-of form of submarine. This gigantic possibility in the con- struction of submarines has. even at this early date given rise to weird ru- mors. It is practically certain that the U-9 sank the three British cruisers in the North sea. She is a small torpedo boat, even as the submarines go today, and was an ideal craft for operations in the spot where the cruisers were at- tacked. She may or may not have been aided by other ships of her class. Yet the report became current that the deadly work of September 22 had been done by a gigantic submarine, 400 feet over all, and armed not with torpedo tubes, but with a singzle 18- nch rifle, carrying a 2,800-pound pro- ectile propelled by the stupendous force of a 250-pound charge of Maka- rite, an explosive named after the ill- fated Russian submarine expert Maka- roff, who went down with the cruiser Petroplofsk, torpedoed off Port Arthur. But, needless to say, the naval experts give this report scant credence. Some idea of the rapid development “Watker Bugs” Jhe Fsuropean War. - in the size of the submarine boats of the nations may be galned by a com- parison between the first craft of this character launched by skeptical Eng- land, purely as an engine for harbor defense, and the ones which are ad- mitted today as being her highest type of submersible. = > * The first of her submarines, launched in 1901, was sixty-three feet over all, with a beam of eleven feet nine Inches and a displacement of a scant 120 tons. When _ running awash this boat was propelled by gasoline engines. Her speed was eight knots on the surface and six knots submerged. As a means of navigation she had a periscope and two compasses. For use in the single torpedo tube of which her entire arma- ment consisted, she carried five short and three long eighteen-inch torpedoes, one always in place in the tube. And even then, this pigmy “waterbus” was a formidable enemy. The “E" class of British submarines today are a vastly different engin. however. They are approximately 176 feet long, twenty-three feet in the beam and of 800 tons displacement. Upon the surface, they make fifteen knots an hour. The armament also has been improved, a greater number o tubes having been: provided, and in place of the old eighteen-inch torpedo, six of the new twenty-one-inch style are to be found on each boat. weapons carry in thelr war-head 300 pounds of gun-cotton and travel under their own mechanism, when once launched, at a speed of thirty-six knots. On these new boats two extra peri- scopes have been added, as well as a small “flying bridge” abaft, to permit the crew to come up “on deck” for a breath of fresh air. The submarine of the latest class also has two propellers R e p resentative Otis T. Wingo of Arkansas has en- joyed some funny experiences in his life. When he first came to Washing- ton as a member he was invited to go out in the coun- try for a game of golf, but declined. This story &ot back home in the local papers, and in a short time he received the following from a constitu- ent: Dear Sir: I seen fn the paper where Tou chat we call u wouldn't. I thing Qid, hecause we send you up to Washington for no such purpose. P. S.—Please send me some free seeds. During the recent discussion of the issuing of emergency currency notes there was a great deal said about “call money” in New York. One of Wingo's constituents saw the items and wrote the representative that if there was money on_call in New York he would like to call for his at once, and please remit his quota at once. For one post office in Wingo's dis- trict there were two applicants, hus- band and wife, who both stood the ex- amination and made the same average. When he was asked to decide he re- plied to both that while he might take his chances of mediation in Mexico or even Rurope, to come between husband and wife required more nerve than he possessed. ¥ At one time Mr. Wingo was a colonel in the Arkansas State Guard, and at an annual encampment a sham battle took place. Shortly before the battle a big Trishman who was in the company from Wingo's home town came up with a aapper little lieutenant of another company, and, saiuting, said: “Colonel, I have captured a spy. What must I do_with him?” “On,” replied Wingo, carelessly, don’t care—drown him in the creek!” About fifteen minutes later as he was aid not | making his way across the field a drag- gled specimen of humanity tottered up to him. “What “Matte: is the matter?” asked Wingo Matter!” shouted the lieu tenant. “You told that blankety-blank Irishman to drown me in the creek and he came pretty near carrying out your orders! From New lJersey. Representative D. H. Drukker of New Jersey gave a few friends a surprise one evening the other month. He had been discussing agriculture with some members, and remarked that he had enjoyed straw- berrfes ralsed In the open in his na- tive state. The other con- gressmen hooted at the idea of Jersey selling strawberries from the fleld In the latter part of Sep- tember, but Drukker stuck to his point and invited the doubting Thomases to dine with him a few nights later. In the meantime he had wired for sev- eral quarts of berries to'a trucker near his home who made a specialty of late berries. The strawberries came and were served for dinner, much to the surprise of the gentlemen, who found it difficult to credit their own senses. Raspberries and strawberries in Oc- tober are now getting to be quite a fad among those up-to-date farmers who know how to do the stunt, which con- sists in pulling off from the plant the early blooms. et T— R e p resentative G. W. Taylor of Aabama tells a good story about a colored cook who presided over the destinies of the kitchen of a neighbor. Aunt Dinah was fat and forty, even if not fair. Her waflles were poems, her baked ham a symphony, while her fried chicken would have beguiled a St. Anthony himself from his anchorite's cell. But Aunt Dinah possessed not only a most correct taste in culinary mat- ters, but also a large brood of grand- children of various ages and sexes—a brood whose wealth of appetite was equaled only by the proverty in its sup- plies. But Dinah was fully up to the occa- sion. Every time the mistress was not looking she would annex a small pat of butter, half a cake, a few chops or sundry other things not likely to be missed. The mistress knew of this petty pil- fering, but preferred to appear ig- norant, because Aunt Dinah was a “pearl of great price.” even if a black one. But one day Dinah plainly saw that the mistress just as clearly ob- s;’r\'ed the stealing of a pot of cher- ries. 2 “Laws, Miss Sarah!” she cried, “I knows yvou is ‘shame of me, but I knows, too, you is more ‘shame of yer- self for watching. Inside Information. Representative William J. MacDon- ald of Michigan is from the famous Calumet dis trict, where the largest copper mines in the world are now be- ing worked on three-fourths time on account of the war. One day MaecDonald was a speech friend the subject happened to be the currency. After his lengthy dissertatior on the topic an old fellow in the audience rose and shouted: “What on airth does you know about money, anyway, man _Why, you ain’t got enough to pay your hotel bill!” : 2 Wasn’t a Lion. Representative H. D. Stephens of Mis- eissippl is a typical southerner in ap- pearance and speech. Every vis- itor to the south has noticed the pe- culiarity of the darky in eliminat- ing the “r” from all words in which it occurs. Stephens tells of an Incident which happened 4 ] > dovn on the Missis- sippi to illustrate this point. A northern visitor came to the state, hired a boat and a dusky son of Ham to punt him about in its muddy waters. But the boy pretended to be ignorant of the art of rowing. “Look here, Jim, can't you row?” ask- ed the white man, in surprise. “Fur de land's sake, Mr. Smith,” ex- claimed Jim. “Er course, 1 caa't ro'—I ain’t no lien.” | 1 v when These | in place of the single screw of earlier day: Ever since the Invention of the sub- marine those seeking to improve this form of fighting craft have been held back by the necessity of solving a g00d many vital probiems which had to be overcome. * * * Compared with cther difficulties the problem of submergence, involving, as it did, the operation of sinking a heavy metal bulk beneath the surface and raising it at will, was accomplished with surprisingly little difficulty. To accomplish this the submarine boat of today is fitted with ballast tanks; and when the craft is traveling on the surface, or, as they term it “going light,” it can be made to sink so that the decks are ‘awash” or about level with the waves, by the simple expedi- ent of flooding theSe tanks. If it be- comes necessary to dive or to disap- pear entirely beneath the surface, this is done with the ald of horizontal rud- ders, controlled by electric mechan- ism, and not by taking more water into the tanks. The periscope solved the difficulties of learning what was going on upon the surface when the boat was sub- merged. The periscope is an instru- ment which_ protrudes above the sur- face and, through lenses, casts into lthe conning tower of the submarine a |reflection of the sea surface. Modern {periscopes have a range of sixty de- {grees of vision, and can be operated to sweep all degrees of the horizon. | With those problems disposed of the linventors were face to face with a third—the question of propuision. Va- rious forms of gas and petrol engines were tried out. But in the case of petrol the slightest leak would make of the submarines veritable death traps. So until that question was solved it was quite usual to find half a dozen white mice among the crew of a sub- marine. These little animals, swung in a cage high upon an overhead beam, could instantly detect the presence of gas, resulting from a petrol leak, and would squeak a warning in time for the boat to rise to the surface. Elec- trical engines are used almost entirely now for running submerged, and the petrol danger has been abolished by the installation of “heavy oil” engines for surface running. But over the heads of submarine crews there still lurks one ever-present dan- ger—the likelihood of disaster which may happen when the boat is submerged and cut off all chance of raising her. The history of submarines is filled with such instances. A score of such disasters have been recorded in the past decade. = * * There was the Russian Delphine, in 1904, sunk by a swell, and from whose hatches twenty-three corpses were taken. There was the British A-1, the same year, struck by a steamship and flooded. Thirteen of her crew perished. And the British A-5, one year later, was the vic- tim of a petrol explosion which killed six men. There was the French Faradet which {sank, with thirteen fatalities, and the Japanese No. 6, which ‘sank with all hands April 15, 1910, off Kuro, carrying with her fourteen men. Those are but a few of the most notable instance aud to avold this ever-present danger the makers of submarines have tried every sort of device. First they struck upon the scheme of sending up trapped crew, one at a time, by shooting them through the torpedo tubes, But there was always one man who had to perish—the last to go—for no one remained to perform the office of setting the mechanism to work for him. But_within the past few years has come the “submarine escape dress.” The nearest prototype to this equipment may be found in the smoke helmet of modern fire fighting. It consists of a plain tin helmet, with a front look-out glass to which ‘Is attached a loose canvas jacket which reaches to the waist. Attached to the jacket is a contrivance containing oxylithe powder, which, in contact with water, generates pure oxygen, and at the same time absorbs carbonic acid gas, so that the wearer of this contrivance is sure of a supply of fresh air. This dress may be donned in twenty seconds, and when once in place life can be supported with its aid for more than two hours. In the event of a collision and the filling of the submarine with water the crew can escape through the conning tower, and with a buoyancy provided by the generation of oxygen in the helmet float slowly though steadily to the sur- face. In the case of the submarine itself, a specially constructed dock is used for ! raising the sunken boat to the surface. i