The Bismarck tribune. [volume] (Bismarck, N.D.) 1916-current, 1917-03-01
BY CAPTAIN or A PATROL.
(In an Interview With Mary
ROvlo O,Raillv


New York, March 1.-The war in
1917 will be war to the torpedo!
Mine laying submarines have swept
fighting ships from the seas.
The German fleet lies anchored be.
hind Helgoland. In that vast anchor
age surrounded by islands linked up
with gated breakwaters, north of Scot
land, Englands fighting fleet awaits
the order to battle.
Meanwhile, the command of the sea
is held by 5000 mines, or drifters, and
ten times 1900 fishermen, known as
the trawler patrol. .s w .: lrf
In the days when naval men fished
small submarines from sandbars the
Us r"got" the Hogue, Cressy and~Ab.
oukir. Then the. admiralty called in
the trawler men. Their job was
sweeping, for t'fhe North sea was
adrift-and still is--with death deal
ers. German, British French, Dutch
and Danish. -o1q 1ot.3t rnsill.bJ~.,
Then came Dthigger; isuhm arines-
and again the patrol scored Submer-
sible commanders have sounding bells
to record the throb of approaching
propellers. But there's no way to
learn the presence Of drifter. And
cut price trawlers, even the new ones
with glass keels, can 60 where de-
stroyers dare not follow If one sails
skyward what is $4,000 when war
casts $3O,O00,0O0 a day?
One dawn Daniel Green, master OF
the Mermaid, was lying alongside a
5,0OO.ton cruiser guarding a harbor
mouth, when he saw a sub poke its
periscope just above water. r.,
Dan went for her. The sub, being
desperate, launched a $4,000 torpedo.
With one turn of his wheel, Dan cut
in and stopped it amidships. The ex:
plOsion awoke the sleepers ashore and
brought the cruisers crew to the res.
cue. A destrOyer's gun finished the
U.boat.
"When it comes to half-ton torpe'
does," grOwled Dan, on board the
cruiser, better the Mermaid should
go than H. NJ. S. Cruiser"
Large Subs.
The small submarine built at HO.
boken, near Antwerp, and sent to Zee.
brugge by rail no longer troubles US.
Today we must fight large subs along
the coast, big subs on the high seas,
undersea cruisers 130 meters long.
Deutschlands with eight torpedo
tubes and 7OO0.horsep0wer, lombard
ment 4O0O-ton giants
with an 1S,O00.mile radius.
In December, 1916, Germany mad
200 large submersibles and German
shipyards we're turning out one
week. The admiralty keeps secret Its
bag of U-boats, but the total is un-
satisfactory, for their construction
greatly exceeds their destruction.
Submerslble Chaser.
Or did, until the Americans invent
ed the submarine chaser.
A chaser is 30-t0n sea wasp. ~
feet long with : draft of four and one
half feet. Cruising at Is knots, burn.
ing gasoline, the chaser. is SO small
and so light as to be immune from at
tack.
Every chaser carries forward q
three-inCh rapid fire gun which hurls
20 twelve-pound shells minute.
One evening my trawler stopped q
big submersible. The whole German
crew came aboard our boat, except
one-a young lieutenant. He stood
on deck, never looking at us-1ust
staring eastward toward Germany.
called him aboard our boat. but he
refused to leave his submarine. In
stead. he waved farewell to his Faith
erland and disappeared down the
hatchway.
Then. with a roar. the submarine
with the young lieutenant, sailed sky.
ward in splinters.
looked along deck. Every man,
British and German, stood at salute
For courage and clean fighting win
their due In the trawler patrol.
MRS. DAY ACUITTED.
UNITED Press
Jamestown, March Mrs. Lulu Day
has been acquitted. She is now IN q
Hospital. s s