World War, 1914-1918 -- Naval operations -- Submarine
It is possibly something to do with this trait that brought the major
part of the U-boat successes into the hands of a few special officers.
The greater part of the captains did little; a few "aces" compiled huge
lists of sunken tonnage to their credit (or otherwise). Judged by
British Admiralty standards of efficiency, those few are the only ones
who in our Service would have been retained at all.
However, it is time I went on with the doings of our own boats. Human
beings are so much more important in war than are machines, that it is
a temptation to describe them for preference. I would like to be able
to talk about the submarine seamen also, but there is no ground for
comparison between our own men and the German machine-made U-boat hand.
One thinks of the German men as just things that opened or closed
valves when barked at, and who never took any interest in what was
going on outside their particular stations, or in what the boat was
doing. Our sailors are--well, to put it "socially," they seem to belong
more to the middle than the lower class. They are certainly not
machine-made or dull, and they are not reluctant to act according to
their own judgment in the absence of an officer's orders.
During the war our submarines sank 54 enemy warships and 274 other
vessels. These figures do not, of course, include the many warships
which were damaged but which were got back into harbour, although they
include the U-boats which our submarines destroyed. German ships are
very well subdivided in compartments and take a lot of killing.
Certainly on a modern war-vessel one torpedo-hit is very little use;
it takes about four to make certain of sinking her. The _Moltke_
(battle-cruiser) was hit with one torpedo forward in the Baltic by
Commander Laurence, and again off Hiorn's Reef by Lieutenant Allen
(right aft this time); on each occasion she got home safely. Our own
light cruiser _Falmouth_ had to receive four torpedoes in succession
before she sank. The _Prinz Adalbert_ was torpedoed by Commander Horton
in the Baltic off Cape Kola and returned safely to Kiel (she could not
take a hint, however, and after a long interval for repair she went
east again and met Commander Goodheart of "E 8," who sank her).
Commander Laurence in "J 1" hit the _Kronprinz_ and _Grosser Kurfurst_
(battleships) in the North Sea, but both were got home safely. Our
later submarines were fitted with larger torpedoes and tubes, but the
boats fitted with eighteen-inch torpedoes made up the larger part of
our flotillas, and it was realised by both our own and the enemy
submarines that it took several hits with the smaller-size weapon to
finish off a large ship. Perhaps the clearest case on record is that of
the _Marlborough_, the ship being hit by a torpedo at the Jutland
battle and remaining in the line at the Fleet speed and continuing her
firing as if she had never been touched. Older ships, as both sides
found to their cost, were much more vulnerable. Probably the Turkish
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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