‘When we hit against the net we stretched it taut and thus actuated the mine detonators, the mines being attached to the net at the depth at which a submarine usually proceeds. If we had attempted to attack the torpedo-boat, or for any other reasons had remained a little longer at the depth at which the periscope can be used, we should have run into the net in just the way that the enemy would have wished--viz., so that the mines would have exploded alongside or underneath us. What actually happened was that the mine exploded above us, and the main force was expended in the line of least resistance (viz., upwards), and we suffered nothing more than a fearful fright, and perhaps a few disfigurements to the thin plating of the superstructure.’ U. 202 was certainly lucky this time. And though she was saved by sheer luck and nothing else, it is not unnatural, considering the ever-growing roll of those which fail to escape, that Lieut.-Commander Freiherr Spiegel von und zu Peckelsheim should enlarge upon his terror at the moment and his self-congratulation afterwards. But he is mistaken if he thinks that he has come through the worst that can happen to a submarine commander. His struggle in the net was short and easy, when compared with the feats of a Bruce or a Cochrane in passing and repassing the barrage off Kilid Bahr; and the jar he got from his mine seems to have affected his head more than his boat. In older navies, and among less excitable nations, these things are reported more quietly--more from a professional than a sensational point of view. ‘I think,’ writes Commander Courtney Boyle of a very similar accident, ‘I must have caught the moorings of a mine with my tail as I was turning, and exploded it ... the whole boat was very badly shaken.’ Not a word more about it, though his cruise continued for more than ten days afterwards. Without disparaging the German officer (who no doubt shares the national temperament, and knows how to move his audience), we may take pleasure in noting that the steadiness of nerve and the scientific view are in our favour. Given anything like a fair fight, and a reasonable time for play, it will not be the Peckelsheims who will win against our men. An experience of another kind is described in a number of the _Illustrierte Zeitung_ of July 12, 1917. The date of the engagement was February 22, in the same year.