Submarine and Anti-submarineNewbolt, Henry John, Sir
History
Submarine and Anti-submarine
Newbolt, Henry John, Sir
Submarines (Ships); World War, 1914-1918 -- Naval operations -- Submarine
The rest of the bag is, for the most part, a forbidden subject. The
items are many, the loss to the enemy was great; but as he is racking
his brains to get or guess the details, it is no part of our business
to help him. There are, however, two items of which we may speak with
open satisfaction. One is the capture of a German trawler--of this we
have already heard from the Admiral Commanding our Submarine Base,
in Chapter IV. The simple story is that Lieut.-Commander G. Kellett,
finding his boat (S. 1) so far disabled that she could not get home
on her own engines, took over a German trawler by force, without
attracting undue attention, and came safely into port, towed from enemy
waters by an enemy boat. The remaining item hardly falls within our
range; but though not submarine work, it is work actually done by a
submarine, and may be classed, perhaps, with the destruction of the
ammunition train by Lieut.-Commander Cochrane at Yarandji. On May 4,
1916, a Zeppelin (L. 7) fell to Lieut.-Commander F. E. B. Feilman, in
E. 31, and he brought home seven of her crew as prisoners.
Even this is not all. In 1916, our submarines inflicted on the
German Fleet itself four blows, which, though they were none of them
actually fatal, must yet have been extremely damaging to the nerve
of the Service, and certainly cost heavily for repairs both in time
and labour. On August 19, the _Westfalen_--a battle-ship of 18,000
tons, built in 1908--was torpedoed by Lieut.-Commander Turner, in
E. 23. On October 19, Lieut.-Commander Jessop severely damaged the
light cruiser _München_, of 3,200 tons; and on November 5, Commander
Lawrence (in J. 1) achieved the brilliant feat of torpedoing two German
Dreadnoughts--the _Grosser Kurfurst_, which was laid down in 1913 and
finished since the War began, and the _Kronprinz_, which was both laid
down and commissioned since August 1914. A success of this kind, though
not final, may well be set against the sinking of much older and more
vulnerable ships, like the _Formidable_, _Triumph_, and _Majestic_;
and it must be remembered that the disappearance of these three from
our Navy List, however regrettable, had absolutely no effect on the
relative strength of the British and German Battle Fleets; whereas the
loss, for some months at any rate, of two great Dreadnoughts like the
_Grosser Kurfurst_ and _Kronprinz_--coming as it did shortly after the
Jutland losses--carried the inferiority of Admiral von Scheer’s force
to the point of impotence. In the match of submarine against war-ship,
our boats had succeeded where the U-boats had signally failed.
CHAPTER VII
WAR-SHIP _v._ SUBMARINE
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