The herald., 1898-04-28
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! NAVAL FIGHTS AGAINST ODDS 1
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The naval officer who remarked that the
erection of a monument to the memory Of
the officers and crew Of the dynamite
cruiser vesuvius would be in order Just as
soon as that vessel went into action spoke
with a full understanding Of the probable
tiles attending the first engagement be-
tween the war ships of the United States
and Spain. He might have included the
heroes who will form the crews of the tor
pedo boats. the torpedo boat destroyers.
and even the armored cruisers and battle
ships. Their chances of life will be but a
trile better than those OF the men on the
vesuvius One we'll directed shell aimed at
this floating magazine Of dynamite means
instant annihilation. One round from q
rapid-fire gun has but to strike torpedo
boat in the right place to send her to tho
bottom. One torpedo, as has been demon.
strated in the harbor Of Havana, can tear
into fragments the most formidable battle
ship afloat.
In the days when iron and steel had not
supplanted oak in the construction of
fighting ships, when long toms, carron-
ades and ten-pounders were the equiva.
lents of breech-loading rifles and machine
guns, when, a full broadside at close
quarters lacked the destructiveness of a
single projectile from high-power rifle
over a range of four miles, the sailor felt
that as long as his ship f1oated he had as
good chance of reaching dry land as his
enemy. He had an abiding faith in the
! specific gravity of wood, and counted on
finding a piece of his ship for life pre-
server If the fight went the wrong way.
| Today he is in much the same fix as the
man who went sailing in q sieve before he
learned to swim.
| There was never a hope so forlorn, how
ever, that a leader was lacking and no
| leader ever failed to find those who would
| follow him. Today the navy Is being re-
cruited as rapidly as possible with men who
are of too high an order Of intelligence not
to know the perils before them. A certain
proportion Of these men will be assigned to
the torpedo boats, a branch of the service
which has been recognized as the most
hazardous Of all, making an exception in
favor of any actual work that may be at
tempted with such new-fangled ideas as
| the Holland and Raddatz submarine tor
pedo boats. Moral courage of the highest
order will be required of every officer AMI
enlisted man when the call Of duty takes
him into an engagement with any of these
deadly engines as his weapon of attack.
Experience has demonstrated that the
torpedo boat, whether operated above or
below the water, Is as much of menace
| to the life of its crew as 1t Is to the ship 1t
attacks. 1t may run the gantlet Of the
machine guns under cover Of darkness and
deliver fatal blow against the armored
| side Of the battle ship, but the chances are
as one in a hundred that the explosion
which sinks the big ship will destroy the
frail little boat and it's crew. The SUBJ
marine torpedo boat is an unknown guam
tity in actual warfare. unless its worth is
estimated by the results attending re-
peated trials Of similar boats during the
| civil war.
Recent trials of the Holland submarine
boat seem to have proved her an easily
managed craft, capable Of diving and
coming to the surface at the will of
the operator. Whether this fsh-like ma
chine will behave so nicely in time of war
remains to be seen. 1t is to be hoped that
she will establish better record than the
submarine boat constructed by the con-
federates in 1863 Naval officers have ex-
pressed grave doubts whether the Holland
will ever accomplish anything but the de-
struction of her crew, just as the confed-
crate boat did repeatedly in the attempts
to use her against union ships. And thereby
hangs story. of heroic daring equal to any
recorded in the history of the American
navy.
In the fall Of 1863 tiny, half submerged
torpedo boat attacked the new union
war vessel New Ironsides as she lay at an.
chor in the Charleston harbor. The at
| tack was successful, in that the torpedo
boat exploded three feet under the water
against the side of the New Ironsdes but
the force of the explosion was not great
enough to do any other damage than par
TALLY sink the little boat and make possible
the capture of her commanding officer. En-
couraged by this trial, the confederates
constructed another torpedo boat at Mobile
the same year after plans providing for
her use beneath the water. She was con-
structed Of boiler iron, her lines approach
ing those of the Holland boat very closely.
She was thirty-five feet long, and carried
crew of nine men. Eight Of these work.
ed hand propeller. while the other steered
the boat and regulated her movements be.
low the surface of the water. She could
PEELED on the surface, and in still water
could easily attain a speed Of four knots an
hour.
! Several successful experiments were
! conducted in the harbor at Mobile, and
then one day the boat failed to come to the
| top of the water She was raised, and the
bodies Of her crew were given more At
| ting burial. Then she was towed to the
| Charleston harbor and put into service.
She was designed to approach a vessel at
| anchor, dive under her keel while dragging
| floating torpedo, and thus bring the tor
| pedo against the side or bottom of the ves-
sell. The first night set for an attack re-
| suited in death for the nine men composing
the crew Of the boat. She was lying at the
wharf when a passing steamer swamped
her by the wash following.
Once again she was raised and tied up to
the Fort Sumter wharf. Once again she
sank, and six men went down with her.
Again she was brought to the surface, and
after being thoroughly repaired was placed
in charge of a lieutenant and eight more
men for trial in the Stone river. She be-
haved splendidly for day or two, and then
dived to the bottom and stuck her nose in
the mud. Nine men were suffocated. For
the fourth time the confederates raised this
ill-fated craft and resumed again the ex-
periments in the Charleston harbor. The
trials were successful until an attempt was
M o6a m diva 1tpdar vacSol at anchor