World War, 1914-1918 -- Naval operations -- Submarine
You never can be certain if they have seen you or
not, and the tendency is to take it for granted that they have done so.
If you are then in enemy waters you must be on the _qui vive_ for
being hunted by the usual methods; if not in actual enemy local waters,
you feel that your chance of a target has gone for the day, and that
even if a target does come by, she will be well protected and on the
look-out for periscopes. On the whole, however, the German aircraft did
not do much, and they certainly did not make the British submarines
nervous. The game, in fact, rather worked the other way, as far as the
Zeppelins were concerned. It was easy to work out (the German being of
a methodical and regular nature), from the continued reports of our
boats of the times and rendezvous of Zeppelin patrols, just where a
Zeppelin might be expected to be found, and the resultant action by our
own aircraft brought two of these huge sea-scouts down in flames. It
should be mentioned that our boats are supplied with "sky-searcher"
periscopes, which can either sweep the horizon or swivel so as to watch
the motions of anything from the horizontal plane up to the zenith. A
seaplane is a different proposition. Submarine "C 25" was attacked by
five German seaplanes off Harwich on 6th July 1918. Several thousand
rounds of machine-gun ammunition were fired at her and a number of
bombs dropped. The bombs, even when they hit direct, did very little
damage, being of probably not more than 10 lb. weight. The incendiary
bullets from the machine-guns, however, killed the captain (Lieutenant
Bell) and five men, who from a position on the bridge were trying to
drive off the enemy with a Lewis gun. As the incident occurred close to
the English coast, the success of the enemy on this occasion may be put
down to the fact that the submarine, under the impression that the
aircraft must be friendly, made no attempt to dive until the bursting
of a couple of bombs on her hull rendered her incapable of submerging.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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