Thereafter progress became rapid, as the following figures show: In June, 1917, aeroplanes and seaplanes patrolling for anti-submarine operations covered 75,000 miles, sighted 17 submarines, and were able to attack 7 of them.

When the Anti-Submarine Division started in December, 1916, the earlier devices to which attention was devoted were: (1) The design and manufacture of howitzers firing shell fitted to explode some 40 to 60 feet under water with which to attack submarines when submerged.

When it became possible to adopt the system of bringing merchant ships in convoys through the submarine zone under the escort of a screen of destroyers, this system became in itself, to a certain extent, an offensive operation, since it necessarily forced the enemy submarines desirous of obtaining results into positions in which they themselves were open to violent attack by depth charges dropped by destroyers.

352,902 November ... 327,245 Another disturbing feature was the knowledge that we were not sinking enemy submarines at any appreciable rate, whilst we knew that the Germans had under construction a very large number of these vessels, and that they were thus rapidly adding to their fleet.

Eventually, with great difficulty, a force of six destroyers was collected from various sources in the spring of 1917, and used in the Channel solely for hunting submarines; this number was really quite inadequate, and it was not long before they had to be taken for convoy work.

There was one very important factor in the situation, viz., the comparative rate at which the Germans could produce submarines and at which we could build vessels suitable for anti-submarine warfare and for defence of commerce.

It is as well to correct a common misapprehension as to the value of depth charges in destroying submarines.

I am conscious of many shortcomings in the book, but it may prove of interest to those who desire to know something of the measures which gradually wore down the German submarine effort, and, at any rate, it is the only record likely to be available in the near future of the work of fighting the submarines in 1917.

Besides this, the enemy had lost three submarines and two Zeppelin airships, besides a number of smaller aircraft.

to catch submarines.

Further up the creek you will see the Feldmarschall afloat and uninjured, save for the engines that our naval party had destroyed, and ready, to our amazement, at the capture of the town, to be towed to Durban and to carry British freight to British ports, and maybe meet a destroying German submarine upon the way.

I ween Your fertile brain had brought to life the hell-born submarine, You killed the unarmed merchantmen, you murdered in the dark, You sent the child and mother to feed your friend the shark.

So long as the majority of the German submarine attacks upon shipping were made by gun-fire, the method of defence was comparatively simple, in that it merely involved the supply to merchant ships of guns of sufficient power to prevent the submarine engaging at ranges at which the fire could not be returned.

The hydrophone had been in the experimental stage and under trial for a considerable period, but it had not so far developed into an effective instrument for locating submarines, and although trials of the different patterns which had been devised were pushed forward with energy, many months elapsed before it became a practicable proposition.

During the early years of the war it would seem that they maintained this figure, and they succeeded in building their smaller submarines of the U.B. and U.C. types in some six to eight months, as U.B. and U.C. boats began to be delivered as early as April, 1915, and it is certain that they were not ordered before August, 1914.

We are going to supply their Mediterranean submarines with petrol.

As already mentioned, it was anticipated that they would send submarines to work off the United States coast immediately after the declaration of war by that country.

Charles Addams (A); 2Jun69; R462671. Japanese fishermen taking in their nets, the catch included a one-man submarine.

And there lay the submarine, silent and closed.

This set the engineer to muttering threats against the stranger who had stolen the submarine, and caused him for the hundredth time to remark: "H'I 'ates t' think what'll 'appen t' 'em, once h'I gets me 'ands on 'em.

But there remained the problem of getting the submarine through that six-foot roof to the water beneath.

Again, since for success it was essential to induce the submarine to come within close range so that the decoy ship's gunfire should be immediately effective, it was necessary that her disguise should stand the closest possible examination through the periscope of a submarine.

Merchant ships had been armed as rapidly as possible, and in addition efforts had been made to intercept the submarines en route to these areas both in the vicinity of German waters and farther afield.

The truth is, she has been the bond-slave of Germany, bound to watch Germany as a slave watches a master, bound to launch submarine for submarine and cast gun for gun, to sweep all her youth into her army, to subdue her trade, her literature, her education, her whole life to the necessity of preparations imposed upon her by her drill-master over the Rhine.

"An' communicate with the ginks that have been chasing us ever since we left the submarine," concluded the boy.