a T Vv 9 CRT Sat DC IT A NY Tl 0 CT A A By ADMIRAL WILLIAM SOWDEN SIMS HE DAILY BRITISH WHIG' sre 0 Difficulties of Mine La * 9g yin in the North Sea Was there no more satisfactory way of destroying submarines than 4 pursuing them with destroyers, . Sloops, chasers, and other craft in the pen seas? It is hardly surprising that our methods impressed certain 'of our critics as tedious and ill-con- «ceived, and that a mere glance at a small map of the North Sea suggest- a far more reasonable solution of the problem. The bases from which 'the German submarines found their 'way to the at centers of shipping Were Ostend and Zeebrugge on the Belgian coast, Wilhemshaven and . ven gn the German coast, and the harbor of Kiel in the Baltic Sea. From all these points the voyage to the waters that lay west and south of . Ireland was a long and difficult one; in order to reach these hunting * grounds, the German craft had either to s through the Straits of Dover "to Bat or through the wide pas- sage way of the North Sea that stretched between the Shetland Is- i s and Norway, and thence sail | + 8round the northern coast of Ireland. ~~ We necessarily had little success in attempting to interfere with the U- boats while they were making these y open sea voyages, but con- | centrated our efforts on trying to op- pose them after they had reached the critical areas. But a casual glance at the map con- vinced many people that our pro- cedure was 'a mistake. And most newspaper readers in these days were iving much' attention to this map. y a, periodicals, published in Great Britain and the United States, were . fond of exhibiting to their readers . diagrams of the North Sea; these '4 contained one heavy black . | bar drawn across the Straits of Dover and another drawn across the north- ~~ ern (passage from Scotland to Nor- - way. The accompanying printed mat- i ter informed the public that these F res illustrated the one effective answer" to the submarine. The black bars of printer's ink represent- ed barrages of mines and nets, which, if they were once laid between the indicated spots, would blow to pieces any submarine which attempted to force a way across. Not a single German U-boat could therefore suc- ceed in getting out of the North Sea. [All the trans-Atlantic ships 'which («contained the food supplies and war . | materials so essential to Allied suc- "cess, would thus be able to land on the ' west coast of England and France; the guibmayie Rouee, Would auto- * matically disappear and the war on tthe sea would be won. Unfortunate- "ly, it was not only the pictorial § employed on newspapers and magazines who insisted that this was the royal road to success, Plenty of naval men, in the United States and Europe, were constantly making © contention, and statesmen in our own country and in Allied countries were similarly fascinated. by this ) When I arrived in London, in April 1917, the grgat plan of confining the submarines' to their bases was every- where a lively topic of discussion ere was not a London club in which e Admiralty was not denounced for | its stupidity in not adopting such a rectly obvious plan. The way to pp a a swarm of hornets--such was the favorite simile--was to an- nihilate them in their nests, and not to hunt and attack them, one by one, after they had escaped into the open. What the situation needed was not.a long and wearisome campaign, in- i volving unlimited - new construction, to offset the increasing losses of life and shipping, and altogether too pro- bable defeat in the end, but a swift and terrible blow, which would end the submarine menace overnight. "Dig Them Out." The naval officers who expressed fears that, under the shipping condi- tions prevailing in 1917, such a. bril- liant performance could not ssibly be carried out in time to avoid defeat, merely gained a reputation . for timidity and lack of resourcefulness. When the First Lord of the Admir- alty, Winston Churchill, in 1915, de- clared that the British fleet would "dig the Germans out of their holes like rats," his remarks did not great. ly impress naval strategists, but fey certainly sounded a note which was popular in England. One fact, not generally known at The unusually strong tides and rough weather experienced in the vieinity of the Straits of Dover are well known. As one British officer expressed it at the time, "our ex- perience in attempting to close the Straits has involved both blood and tears" --blood because of the men who were lost in laying the mines and nets, and tears because the arduous work of weeks would be swept away in a storm of a single night. In ad- dition, at this stage of the war, the British were still experimenting with mines; they had discovered gradually that ffie design which they had used up td that time--the same design which was used in the American Navy --had been defective. But the process of developing new mines in war time had proved slow and difficult; and the demands of the army on the munition factories had prevented the Admir- alty from obtaining a sufficient performing such indispensable sen vice. The overwhelming fact was that we needed all the surface craft we could assemble for the convoy system. The destroyers which we had available for this purpose were entirely in- adequate; to have rea any of them for other duties would at that time have meant destruction to the Allied cause. The object was to in- crease the enemy's difficulty in at- tempting to sweep a passage through it and facilitate its defense by our forces. The impossibility of defend- ing a mine barrier placed too far south was shown by experience in that area of the North Sea which was known as the "wet triangle," By April, 1917, the British had laid more than 30,000 mines in the Bight of Heligoland, and were then increasing these obstructions at the rate of 3,000 mines a month, In charge of the mine-1 that time, demonstrated the futility of the whole idea. Most newspaper critics assumed that the barrage from Dover to Calais was keeping the sub- marines out of the Channel. That the destroyers, aircraft, and other patrols were safely escorting troop ships and other vessels across the nnel was a fact of which the British public was justly proud. Yet it did not necessar- ily follow that the submarines could not use the Channel as a passage way from their German bases to their operating areas in the focus of Allied shipping routes, The mines and nets in the Channel, of which s0 much was printed in the first three years of the war, did not offer an effective barrier to the submarines. This was due to various reasons too complicated for description in an article of this brief natyre, nn ONLY TABLETS MARKED "BAYER" ARE ASPIRIN Not Aspirin at All without the "Bayer Cross~ , Neural: of contains complete Then you are getting genuine Anpirin. pre. Yiisians for over ow made in Handy tin boxes con 12 tab- | lets cost but a few cents. also sell larger "Bayer" REAR-ADMIRAL STRAUSS ( Fourth Officer from the right) aying forces, with his staff at head- quarters in Inverness. number. The work bevwi0is was a glorious one, as will ap- pear when all of the facts come to public knowledge. But in 1917 this patrol was not preventing the U-boats from slipping through the Channel. The Straits of Dover, at the point where this so-called barrage was sup- posed to have existed, is about twenty miles wide. The passage way be- tween Scotland and Norway is 250 miles wide. The water in the Channel has an average depth of a few fathoms; in the northern expanse of the North Sea it reaches an average depth of 600 feet, Mining in such deep waters had never been under- en or even considered before by any nation. The English Channel is celebrated for its strong tides and stormy weather, but it is not the scene of the tempestuous gales which rage so frequently in the winter months in these northern waters, If the British navy had not succeeded in constructing an effective mine bar- rier across the English Channel, what was the likelihood. that success would crown an effort to build a much greater obstruction in the far more difficult waters to the north? Barrage Must Be Protected. . The point which few understood at that time was the mere building of the barrage would not in itself prev- ent the escape of submarines from the North Sea. Resides building such a barrage, it would be necessary to pro- tect it with surface vessels. er- wise German mine sweepers could visit the scene, and Sweep up enou; of the obstruction to make a hole through which their submarines could pass. It is evident that, in a barra Sxiending 250 miles, it would not M4 dificult find some place in which conduct such sweeping it is also clear that It cB reid considerable number of patrolling vessels to watch such an extensive barrier and to interfere with such Operations. Moreover, we could not send our mine layers into the North Sea without destroyer escort; that is, it would be necessary to detach a considerable part of our forces to Jrokee 2 hese ships hile they wot ying their mines. ose responsi for anti-submarine operations believ. ring and summer of ve been unwise to these anti-submarine vessels from the areas in which they were 1 of the Dover, kind in the history of warfare. It of American inventors, sive field did not from sending their submarines to sea. The enemy sweepers were dragging out channels through the minefields almost as rapidly as the British were Putting them down; we could not pre- vent s, because protecting vessels could not remain bases without losses from submarine attacks. Moreover, the Germans also laid mines in the same area in order Ie trap he, British ) Rinelayers; and ese 0 ons re. n very con- sderatle Towses on ach side. ese iments made the egress of a submarine a difficult ang nerve- process; it sometimes requir- ed two or three days and the assist: ance of a dozen or so surface vessels to get a few submarines through the Heligoland Bight into open waters, several were unquestionably destroy- ed in the operation, yet the activity of submarines in the Atlantic showed that these minefields had by no means succeeded in proving more than a harrassing measure. It was estimat- ed that the North Sea Yet this vast explo- | revent the Germansif such a mine were to' 50 near the German | de: I have already made the point; and I cannot make it too frequently, that time is often the essential element in war--and in this case it was of vital importance. Whether a program is a wise one or not depends not only upon the feasibility of the plan itself, but upon the time and the circumstasces in which it is proposed. In the spring of 1917 the situation which we were facing was that the German subma- rines were destroying Allied shipping at the rate of nearly 800,000 tons a { month. The one thing which was cer- {tain was that, if this destruction {should continue for four or five | months, the Allies would be obliged tc surrender, unconditionally. The | pressing problem was to find methods {that would check these depredations land that would check them in time. | The convoy system was the one naval plan--the point cannot be made too emphatically---which in April and May of 1917 held forth the certainty of immediately accomplishing this re- sult. Other. methods of opposing the | submarines were developed { magnificently supplemented the con- | voy; but the convoy, at least in the |spring and summer of 1917, was the {one sure method of salvation for the [Allied cause. To have started the { North Sea barrage in the spring and summer of 1917, would have meant abandoning the convoy system; this | would have been sheer madness. o It Couldn't Be Done. | Thus in 1917 the North Sea barrage jwas not a ready answer to the popular | proposal "to seal the rats up in their {hole." We did not have a mine which | could be laid in such deep waters in | sufficient numbers to have formed any | barrier at all; and even if we had possessed one, the construction of the arrage would have demanded such an enormous number that they could not have been manufactured in time to finish the barrage until late in the year 1918. Presently, the situation began to change. The principal fact which made possible this great enter- prise was the invention of an entirely new type of mine. The ol mine con- sisted of a huge steel globe, filled with high explosive, which could be fired only by contact. That is, it was neces- sary for-the surface of a ship, such as a submarine, to strike against the surface of the mine, to start the mechanism which ignited the ex- plosive charge. The mere fact that this immediate contact was essential, enormously increased the difficulty of suctessfully mining waters that range in depth from 400 to 900 feet. If the mines were laid anywhere near the surface, the submarine, merely by diving beneath them, could avoid all danger; if they were laid any con- siderable depth, it could sail with | complete: safety above them. Thus. which | |tion estimated that [sent to America to co-operate with our Navy expressed great enthusiasm {over it; and some time about the be- {ginning of August the Bureau of | Ordnance came to the conclusion that {it was a demonstrated success. The | details of Mr. Browne's invention are [too intricate for description in this { place, but its main point is compre- | hensible enough. | Its great advantage | was that it was not necessary for the {submarine to strike the mine in order {to produce the desired explosion. The | mine could be located at any depth {and from it a long "antenna," a thin | copper cable reached up to within a {few feet of the surface, where it was | supported in that position by a small {metal buoy. Any metallic substance, {such as the hull of a submarine, {simply by striking this 'antenna at | any point, would produce an electric jeurrent, which, instantaneously trans- {mitted to the rhine, would cause this niine to explode. The great advant- | age of this device is at once apparent. | Only about one-fourth the number. re- | conditions would | | quired under the old |now be necessary. The Mining Sec- 100,000 mines would form .a barrier that would be | extremely dangerous to submarines passing over it or through it, where- | as, under, the old conditions, about 400,000 would have been required. This implies more than a mere saving | in manufacturing resources; it meant | that we should need a proportionately | smaller number of mine laying ships, | crews, officers, bases, and supplies-- | all those things which are seldom con- | sidered by the amateur in warfare, | but which are as essential to its prosecution as the more spectacular details. , : I wish to emphasize the fact that, in laying such a barrage, our object was not to make an absolute barrier to the passage of submarines. To | have done this we' should have needed such an enormous number of mines that the operation would have been impossible. Nor would such a dense barrier have been necessary to suc- cess; a field that could be depended upon to destroy one-fourth or one- fifth of the submarines that attempt- ed the passage, would have represent- ed complete success. A circumstance which made the barrage a feasible enterprise was that, by the first of the year 1918 it was realized that the submarine had ceased to be a decisive factor in the war. 'It still remained a serious em- barrassment, and every measure which could possibly thwart it should be: adopted. But the writings of Ger- man officers, which have been publi- shed since the war, make it apparent that they themselves realized early | in 1918 that they would have to place | their hopes of victory on something else besides the submarine. The con- MINES READY FOR THE NORTH SBA This mine field, extending from the Shetland Islands to Norway, w anufacture of a new type of mine--the work was made possible by the m o be used at all, we should have had to plant several layers, one under the other, down to a depth of about 250 feet, so that the su , at whatever depth it might be sailing, would be likely to strike one of these obstructions, This such an enormous' number of mines as to render the whole pro- Ject impossible. r The Browne Mine. We Americans may take pride in the fact that it was an American who invented an entirely mine, and therefore solyed this di culty.~ In the summer of 1917, Mr. Ralph C. Browne, an electrical en- gineer of Salem, Mass, offered a sub- marine gun for the consideration of 8. P. Fullerwinder, U.S. then in cha BARRAGE as the greatest undertaking of its «© voy system and the other methods of fighting under-water craft which I have already described had caused a great decrease in sinkings. of 1917 the losses were nearly 900,000 tons; in November of the same year the losses were less than 800,000 tons. Meanwhile the construction of mer- chant shipping largely a result of the tremendous expansion of American ship-building facilities, was increas- ing at a tremendous rate. A diagram of these, the two essential factors in the submarine campaign, disclosed such a rapidly rising curve of new shipping, and such a rapidly falli curve of sinkings, that the time coul be. easily foreseen net amount of Allied shipping after the submarines had done their worst, would show a promising increase. But, as stated above, the submarines were still a distinct menace; - they were still causing serious losses, and it was, therefore, very important that we should leave no stone unturn- ed toward demonstrating beyond a shadow of doubt that warfare as con- ducted by these craft could be en- tirely put down. * The 'more success- fully we demonstrated this fact and : BILIOUS headache In April |. would his general morale break down and victory be assured. In war, where human lives; as. well as national in- terests, are at stake no thought what- ever can be given to expense. It is impossible to place a value on human life. Therefore, on November 2, 1917, the so-called "Northern Barrage" pro- ject was officially adopted by both the American and the British govern- ments. When I say that the pro-' posed mine field was as long as the distance from Washington to New York, some idea of its magnitude may be obtained. Nothing like it had ever been attempted before. The combined operation involved a mass of detail which the lay mind can hardly comprehend. The cost--3$40,- 000,000--is perhaps not an astonish- ing figure in the statistics of this war, but it gives some conception of the size of the undertaking. (To be continued) Copyright, 1920, by the 'World's Work. The copyright of these articles in Great Britain is strictly reserved by Pearson's Magazine, London; without their permission no quota- tion may be made. Published * by special arrangement with the Me- Clure Newspaper Syndicate, Rewards of Punishment. "Doctor," called the small boy, "come up to our house quick!" "Who is sick at your house?" ask- ed the dostor. "Everybody but me. I'd been naughty, so they would not give me any of the nice mushrooms that pa picked in the woods!"--The Coun try Gentleman. Over Their Heads. "How did he acquit himself in court?" "Used such highbrow language that even the court interpreter was baffled."--Yonkers Statesman. spoils many an expected enjoy- ment. 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