The Washington herald., 1914-09-20
Mine SWEEPERS take
LIFE IN their HANDS
Daring Men Engaged in Dangerou,
Task of Removing from British Wa
tiers Explosives of Germans.
A FOE THAT STRIKES IN DARK

London. Sept. l9.-There are in this
great war more naval heroes than those
who wear gold lace on the bridge and
brilliant uniforms on the Quarterback.
Among these are the mine sweepers, who
daily take their lives in their hands that
British warships and merchant vessels
may have safe passage in the North Sea
These mine sweepers are naval re-
serves and they use trawlers for their
hazardous work. Their task is to re-
move from British waters the death
dealing mines strewn by the German
mine planters. Every move they make,
they place their lives in jeopardy. but
the trawlers proceed slowly, with eagle
eyed sailormen in their Iookouts.
Mine sweeping is done in this way: Two
trawlers work together. accompanied by
destroyer. Each trawler drags behind
her a steel hawser with a heavy iron
weight on the end, that scrapes along
the bottom OF the sea. These two iron
weights are connected by a wire The
two trawlers are thus connected by the
wire, which forms the mine met"
Several hundred yards apart the two
vessels pursue parallel courses, moving
slowly along. When there is a dragging
Of the wire, the men know they have
snagged a mine. Slowly the two boats
converge and tho German Internal ma
chine IS drawn to the surface where one
shot from the near by destroyer expIodes
it and one more menace to shipping Is
removed.
Contact mines already have played a
big part in the European war. When
hostilities began, and perhaps even be-
fore that. the Germans mined all of their
harbors, and strewed mines all over the
North Sea-
Since then, two British cruisers. several
merchant vessels and countless North
Sea trawlers have been sunk by the sIl-
ent, hidden messengers OF death. It
seemed like poetic justice when a Ger
man torpedo boat destroyer hit one of
the German mines and was blown to
atoms. In all. several hundred lives
have been lost through submarine mines
since the war began, and doubtless there
will be many more, because It is impos-
siole for the British mins sweepers to
draw the whole North Sea for mines.
and also the German mine planters are
still at work.
Strangely enough. though the sub
marines kill many noncombatants and
jeopardize peaceful shipping their use
Is sanctioned by the rules OF modern
warfare, agreed upon by the nations and
signed at The Hague. England, SO far
as known, has not resorted to mine lay
ing in this war, but that step is being
urged upon the admiralty.
The whole OF the Austro-Hungarian
waters are mined. Turkey has mined
her ports and the Bosphorus. It has
been limited that almost the whole Of the
Mediterranean is mined
So then these man Hrbo ara 6ayIv
dragging the waters of tho North Sea
and the channel, searching for the deadly
mines that may be found by the traw-
ler's prov before they are discovered by
the wire net" are performing a service
not only for their own country. but for
the navigators of every country. They
are serving not only the allies, but neu-
trail powers as we'll They are even serv-
ing Germany indirectly. because that
nations ships have been blown up by
their own mines II will be remembered
that the Germans planted harbor mines
In the Franco-Prussian war forty years
ago, and scores Of their own men were
killed in removing the mines after the
war.
The mine sweeper's task is a risky one
because the contact mines are very
quick on the trigger" The slightest
contact Of vessel serves to set them
of. and sometimes even being dragged
from a vertical position. as when they
are caught by tie wire met" OF the
sweepers, win cause the mine to explode. |
But such an explosion as this Is not
often fatal While one Of these mines, |
exploded by contact with a ship. is pow
erful enough to destroy Dreadnought. |
the force Of the explosion does not carry
far through the water, and a mine ex-
pIoding at even short distance from q |
vessel does little or no harm.