The Kansas City sun. (Kansas City, Mo.) 1908-1924, 1915-10-30
IS T|RELESs GAME
Hunting of Submarines Like
Playing Hide and Seek.
Most Of the Romance and Action of
Sea Warfare Is Now With
the Seaplanes and the
Destroyers.
BY FREDERICK PALMER.
international News Servicel

London.-Strangest looking of all
the ships with the grand feet is the
Atlantic liner which has been trans
formed into a mother-ship for the sea-
planes. There are platforms in place
of the promenades where passengers
used to lounge, bombs in place of
deck quoits, and the dining salons
have been fitted up as workshops.
Everything hat a seaplane needs in
the way of repairs a be supplied.
A crane that once had taken pas
sengers' trunks put of the hold lifted
a seaplane off a platform and deposit
ed it on the water, where it bounced on
the waves before the motor was start
ed and it skinned across the surface
for a hundred yards or more, rose, cir
cled around the fleet two or three
times and then disappeared out at sea.
Most of the omanc and the action
OF sea warfare while the British grand
fleet waits for the German fleet to
come out are with the seaplanes and
the ~destroyers. The dreadnaughts re-
main in harbor, except for occasional
cruises into the North sea; but the
planes and the destroyers are always
on the move. They work together in
hunting Fritz" as British officers
and men universally refer to submar-
ines.
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 a characteristic
ripple and air bubbles and streaks of
oil. When a plane has located a sub
marine it signals the hunters where
to go. But before they arrive a squall
may have hidden the track. A sub
marine may be known to be in a GER
tain region and be lost and seen and
then lost and seer again. Submarine
hunting is a tireless game of hide-and
seek. Naval ingenuity has invented
no end of methods of location and of
destruction. Experiment has proved
some to be effectual. and some useless.
Strictest kept OF naval secrets these.
Very thin is the skin of a submarine
and very fragile and complicated its
ludCIllnSIys II uOSS nut ldh6 muCu Oi
a shock to put it out of order or a
large cargo of explosives to dent that
skin beyond repair.
THE difficulty is to know when you
get them" an officer explained; "for
it is in the nature of the submarine to
sink, whether vitality injured or not.
1t may have gone to the bottom to
stay in fifty fathoms of water, or it
may have submerged under a choppy
sea and made safe 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 a
long time in one place or If they come
up with a rush. that is considered
fairly good evidence of success. There
is no escape for the crew. They can
not make the submarine rise or get
out of it. It becomes a steel casket, 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 submarine is there;
and the death" of submarines is es.
tablished in this way.
1.-THE admiralty will not accept any