World War, 1914-1918 -- Naval operations -- Submarine; World War, 1914-1918 -- United States
In many ingenious ways the chasers supplemented the work of other
anti-submarine craft. Destroyers and other patrol boats kept track of
the foe pretty well so long as he remained on the surface; the business
of the chaser, we must remember, was to find him after he had submerged.
The Commander-in-Chief on shore sometimes sent a radio that a German had
appeared at an indicated spot, and disappeared beneath the waves; the
chasers would then start for this location and begin hunting with their
listeners. Aircraft which sighted submarines would send similar
messages; convoys that had been attacked, individual ships that had been
torpedoed, destroyers which had spotted their prey, only to lose track
of it as soon as it submerged, would call upon the chasers to take up
the battle where they had abandoned it.
As long as the chasers operated in the waters which I have indicated,
those between Start Point and Lizard Head, they "got" no submarine; the
explanation was simple, for as soon as the chasers and British hunting
vessels became active here, the Germans abandoned this field of
operations. This was the reason that the operative area of the Plymouth
detachment was extended. Some of the chasers were now sent around Land's
End and up the north Cornish coast, where colliers bound from Wales to
France were proving tempting bait for the U-boats; others operated
farther out to sea, off the Scilly Islands and west of Brest. In these
regions their contacts with the submarine were quite frequent.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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