World War, 1914-1918 -- Naval operations -- Submarine
The French seaplane patrol service also did wonderful things, as was to
be expected, for our Allies took aircraft seriously when we only
regarded them as expensive toys for wealthy folk with suicidal
tendencies. In a single month, and in various samples of weather, their
seaplanes made as many as 3139 flights. During the thirty days under
review, ten submarines were attacked, six mine-fields were located, and
nine night bombardments carried out. French airships also made 141
trips.
So much for statistics, which is the practical in undress uniform. Now
for the more picturesque aspect of the Service. A couple of French
sea-hawks were watching the Channel, and came across a German
submersible on the surface. Apparently the commander of the U-boat had
not the slightest notion that there was an enemy “up above the world so
high” until he was attacked. When the rude awakening came he began to
submerge. The boat was not quite so quick in her movements as the
seaplanes. The airmen dived with extraordinary rapidity, and both scored
a bull’s-eye on the target.
[Illustration:
A Seaplane of the R.N.A.S keeping a Watchful Eye on an Enemy Submarine
]
“The leading machine,” says the semi-official note, “then returned to
its base for a further supply of bombs, leaving the other machine to
keep a look-out. The latter, a few seconds after the attack, saw the
forepart of the submarine emerge at an angle of 45 degrees. Then the
submarine slowly rose to the surface, without, however, being able to
regain a horizontal position, and again disappeared in a violent
whirlpool. Three times at short intervals the submarine attempted to
rise to the surface, taking at each attempt a stronger list to
starboard. Then the observer saw the whole of the submarine’s port side
exposed, while the submarine rested on its beam ends. Finally the vessel
disappeared without having succeeded in getting its conning-tower above
water.”
One Sunday a British pilot and a Frenchman attached to the R.N.A.S. were
on the spy for U-boats off the Belgian coast. They had scarcely been in
the air half an hour, and had reached a height of about 9000 feet, when
they saw two submarines lying side by side on the surface. The spot was
some five miles west of Nieuport, where the water is shallow. To the
aviators it looked very much as though the craft were just above a
sandbank. So much the better for the attackers. The boats would have
furnished lovely targets had there been no look-out below, but it was
first of all necessary to decrease the distance separating the airmen
from the objects about to be attacked, and during the descent the
Germans saw their enemy. One of the submarines managed to get away,
leaving the other to fend for herself. At 600 feet Lieutenant de Sincay
dropped a bomb right on the conning-tower. A second missile did such
terrible execution that the boat sank like a stone.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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