The silver state. [volume] (Winnemucca, Nev.) 1909-1925, 1918-06-27

mans, the Petrograd correspondent
of the London Morning Post says:
Under all the circumstances it is
perhaps rather a marvel that the Ger
mans did not make a glorious cap
ture of nearly every submarine we
had in the Baltic. They captured
none. and they destroyed none. There
is not a German harbor in the Bal
tic chat our submarines have not en-
tered and charted for their own con-
~venience, creeping under mine fields
and through channels so shallow as
hardly to admit of this hazardous ma
neuver.
Eve never had more than nine
submarines in the Baltic, and we still
had seven when the end came. One
of our boats put down nine enemy
transports In a single day. Russia
knew and openly admitted last sum-
mer that it was the British subma-
rines which held P%etrograd intact.
''When Reval went it was obvious
that the end was near. The British
submarines, still seven in number and
all in fighting trim, had by this time
moved over to Finland, and ultimately
concentrated, with their stores and
workshops ashore, and a huge barge
for floating mechanics in the harbor
of Helsingfors.
Sunk to Check Foe.
with three or four warning par
ties jealously cycling the British ships
and stores and the Toovaristchi
(eomrades) airing their new gospel
to the British crews of the subma-
rines on every occasion, and with the
absence of law and order in Helsing-
fors. opportunities for every kind Of
trouble were plentiful, and extreme
tact and firmness were needed to
bring things to a successful issue. As
"a result, not a single ounce of any
kind of metal-British property,
some of it priceless nowadays here
will ever fall into human hands,
either those of the Huns or the White
Guards or the Finnish Red Guards,
or Russian Toovaristch. All seven
submarines. the repair-shop barge,
and every scrap of stores lies safely
in infinitely -disintegrated form at the
bottom of the Baltic.
In charge at Helsingfors was
) Lieut.. Commander Downie. The task
of destroying some f3,000,000 worth
of British Government property tC
save it from the Germans, who had
already landed at Hango. was his last
sad duty. Plans for the private sale
of enormously valuable stores of all
kinds-metals and composites, cleo
trio fittings, etc.-were Cancelled when
1T was discovered that arrangements
existed whereby all such matters Of
priceless value to the enemy were to
be handed over to the Germans wher-
ever found. 1t was decided to put
British property TO the bottom.
THAT fraction of the British navy
which was under Russian orders in
the Baltic consisted of submarines,
which | will call because these were
neither their letters nor their num-
bers) Alpha 2, 10, IL, 20, and p and
Beta 20, 80, 33, and SO. The Alpha
class was fairly large, carrying thir-
.ty-odd men. The Beta was an older
type, with about half that number.
Attacks German Armada.
"The biggest thing the Germans
have done in a naval way in this war
was the landing on the Islands of
Messed and Dago. Certainly the only
effective opposition they met at sea
came from British vessels, three in
number. of the four Beta boats one
was undergoing repairs at the time,
leaving three available-29, 80, and
33 These three went into the thick
of things and gave the a
very unwelcome surprise. Failing an
adequate Intelligence service, the
British submarines took sight for
themselves of the oncoming armada
of dreadnoughts, cruisers, destroyerS,
and transports, and plunged into their
midst. Everything was against our
submarines. but they all came out OF
it alive, and the enemy did not.
Captain Sealey, in Beta 30, was of
the true British type, the finished ar
ticle of the British ANY. Beta -
was commanded by Commander
Downie, whose record proves MIN
perfectly true to type; but it was his
first command.
1.-THE Germans, notwithstanding
convenient arrangements made for the
maximum of immunity, were mis-
trustful of the British boats, and the
armada moved inside a ring OF de-
strovers and other smaller craft.
Sealey, taking a comprehensive glance
nj their dispositions, Owed under live
of the destroyers nearest TO him, the
same tactics being initiated by Com
mander Downie and by Beta 80. They
came up inside the protective ring
TO be Immediately assailed from air
craft and ships with a rain OF mis-
siles-in particular with so-called
deep-sea bombs.
"Sealey conned his objeetiye-one
of the northumberland and nred
two torpedoes at a range probably