The Birmingham age-herald., 1915-10-31
Catching German U Boats

From the Louisville Courier-Journal.
 That the Germans have suffered heavy losses of submarines has been frequently stated, and the fact that submarines have never succeeded in sinking a transport ship travelling from England to France has often been commented on Accounts have been published of the stretching of great wire net across the English chan nel, which has given complete protection
 to the transports. Recently there was a report of second net of this sort at the west side of England. An article in the Providence Journal accounts for the pro- lection of the transports and also for the destruction of submarines at other points as being due not to a great wire net across the channel, but to the dropping of smaller nets, TO feet wide and extending to depth of 2 feet, in the paths of sub marines. At first wire nets with a mesh of nine feet and F feet were used but they were found impractical for the pur- pose, and now nets with a 15-foot mesh
 are used. A submarine running into one Of these nets turns turtle and sinks
 Ability to trap submarine in this way Is due to the narrow range of vision from the periscope-not greater than mile, except when smoke reveals a vessel at a greater distance. Oil burning torpedo boat destroyers with their greater range of vision, keep on the lookout for peri scopes. Two of the destroyers carry a net between them. The top of the net is attached to great blocks of wood. The
 moment a perlscope is sighted the de- stroyers slow down at distance of about
 a mile, and, after carefully noting the di- rection in which the periscope is travel ing, cut loose the net directly in the path of the submarine. It is declared that three times out of four when this kind of trap has been set the submarine has run directly into the netting, which, by the time the submarine reaches it, has sunk from eight to ten feet below the surface of the water At times the destroyers l have run for several miles ahead of sub- marines before dropping their nets in or der to make sure of the exact course of
 the enemy. Eight or ten submarines in cases where nets were dropped have es- caped destruction by changing their course, but this is regarded as merely ac-
 cidental for the British are said to be confident that the destroyers could moi 1 have been sighted.
 According to this article, 67 German sub marines have been sunk since last May, | 2S of them declared to have been of the latest construction. The net trap system has been improved in the last two months It is asserted that the full ca
  | ing submarines is three a month. But 1 even were Germany able to construct sub
 marines as fast as they are destroyed il l is declared that the gravest situation | that Germany faces in this regard is tho | destruction of the morale of the officers and crews of such vessels It is said thai the mysterious disappearance of dozens oi
 submarines and their crews has brought
 about a condition of panic among tho men in this branch of the service.
 l There has never been any lane of wire
 netting to protect transports the Provi-
 dence Journal article asserts. The Brit ! sh. however, have been concentrating 1 their attention on protecting several spe cial zones, and have not allowed them selves to be diverted from this work by
 submarine activity elsewhere. They hav' deplored the loss of life on merchant yes
 sells, but have been able to build sucf vessels faster than the Germans can de stroy them. The stories of the great wir'
 nets have had apparent support in thu | great orders for wire filled in Grea
 1 Britain and America. Already the
 amount of money that has been used fol 1 the galvanized nettings for destroying I submarines has been more than $1,000,OCO
 of which amount fully $2.000,o00 has beer
 | spent in the United States.