Neutral ships, in order to escape attack by German submarines had to resort to unusual methods of self-identification. The use of flags belonging to neutral countries by the merchantmen of belligerent powers made the usual identification by colors almost impossible, the German admiralty claiming that the commanders of submarines were unable to wait long enough, after stopping a vessel, to ascertain whether she had a right to fly one flag or another. Consequently the ships belonging to Dutch and American lines had their names painted with large lettering along their sides. At night, streamers of electric lights were hung over the sides to illuminate these letterings; and on the decks of many of the neutral ships their names and nationalities were painted in large letters so that they might be identified by aircraft. Owing to such precautions the Dutch steamship _Prinzes Juliana_ escaped being sunk by a torpedo on the 3d of March, 1915. A submarine ran a parallel course to that followed by the Dutch ship, but after examining the lettering on her sides the commander of the German craft saw that she was not legitimate game and turned off. Not always did the German submarines themselves succeed in escaping unharmed in their raiding of allied merchantmen. Rewards were offered in Great Britain for the sinking of German submersibles by the commanders of British merchantmen. Instructions were issued in the British shipping periodicals, showing how a submarine might be sunk by being rammed. It was officially announced on the 5th of March, 1915, by the British admiralty, that the _U-8_ had been rammed and sunk by a British warship. The crew of twenty-nine was rescued and brought to Dover. For the British this was a stroke of good fortune, for while the _U-8_ was of an earlier type it was a dangerous craft, having a total displacement of 300 tons, a radius of operation of 1,200 miles, a speed of 13 knots when traveling "light" and a speed of 8 knots when submerged. On the same day the French minister of marine announced that a French warship had come upon a German submarine of the type of the _U-2_ in the North Sea and that after firing at the hull of the vessel and hitting it three times it was seen to sink and did not reappear. During the last week of February and the first week of March, 1915, bad weather on the waters surrounding the British Isles hampered the operations of German submarines to an extent which led the British public to believe that the submarine warfare on merchantmen had been abandoned, but they were disillusioned when on the 9th of March, 1915, three British ships were sunk by the underwater craft. The steamship _Tangistan_ was torpedoed off Scarborough, the _Blackwood_ off Hastings and the _Princess Victoria_ near Liverpool. Part of this was believed to be the work of the _U-16_.