The Daily Ardmoreite. [volume] (Ardmore, Okla.) 1893-current, 1915-10-13

come Oul are lHe SedpldltS anu luc
destroyers. The Dreadnoughts remain
in harbor, except for occasional
planes and the destroyers are always
on the move. They work together in
hunting Fritz as British officers and
men universally refer to submarines.
A submarine is visible to an aviator
when it is cruising below the surface.
1t never travels deeper than thirty
or forty feet and leaves character
istic ripple and air-bubbles and
streaks of oil. When a plane has To-
Gated a submarine it signals the
hunters where to GO But before tney
arrive a squall may have hidden the
track. A submarine may be known
to be in a certain region and be lost
and seen and lost and seen again.
Submarine hunting is tireless game
OF hide-and-seek. Naval ingenuity has
invented no end of methods of loca-
llOll anu VI hNoAl W Nipls IN l''l AAiNAN
has proved some to be effectual and
some useless. Suictest kept of naval
secrets, these.
Very thin the skin of a submarine,
and very fragile and complicated its
machinery. 1t does not take much
of a shock to put it out Of order or
large cargo of explosives to dent
that skin beyond repair.
The difficulty is to know when
you get them," an officer explained;
"ior it is the nature of the submarine
to sink whether vitally injured or
not. 1t may have gone to the bottom
to stay in fifty fathoms of water, or
it may have submerged under
choppy sea and made its escape. We
have been hunting them for a year,
now, and no doubt we are getting the
better of them. We have not only
learned how to keep them off from
our great ships, but how to destroy
| them"
If oil and bubbles come up for
long time in one place, or If they
come up with rush, that is consld'
cred fairly good evidence OF success.
There is no escape for the crew. Thev
cannot make the submarine rise or
get out OF it. 1t becomes a steel cas-
ket in a watery grave. No nautical
mind is required to realize that by
casting about on the bottom with a
grapnel you will learn if an object
with the bulk and size of a submar-
mel is there; and the death" of sub
marines is established in this way.
"The admiralty will not accept any
guesswork about it," said an officer.
I'VE may have put an explosive right
into one or rammed it in a way that
must have broken its back; but that
is not proof enough. The record goes
down on the chart as supposed de-
stroyed'"
With Admiral Crawford the cores
pondent of the Associated Press went
to see the submarine defenses Of a
harbor. Cruisers and destroyers ard
auxiliaries were going and coming,
but the narrow openings through
which they passed We're closed in
stantly they were by. There was more
than one obstruction. If a submarine
got past the first or the second, it
was in a pocket. Several have been
caught in this way.
Take care. There is a tide here
the coxswain of the admiral's barge
was warned. I'VE don't want to get
caught in trap meant for Fritz. y
At one naval base the correspond
ent saw a number of destroyers ".
ing moored to a quay as close to-
gether as fish in a basket. They had
just come in from a tour at sea.
Here today and gone tomorrow,
said an officer. What time they
had last winter, And they are in for
another winter of it, You know how
cold the North sea is-no, YOU cannot
unless you have been out in tor
pedo boat dancing the tango in the
teeth of that bitter wind, with the
spray whipping up to the top of the
smokestacks. In the dead of night
they would come into this pitch-dark
harbor How they found their way
is past me- It's a trick of those
young fellows who command
II a destroyer gets on the track
of a submarine it has thirty knots
against the submarines six or eight. |
There is no difficulty in keeping up. |
The fast turbine destroyers seemed |
to slip over the water as if their
bottoms were oiled. Only a few of
the crew are exposed when showers
of freezing spray sweep the decks,