The Pensacola journal. (Pensacola, Fla.) 1898-1985, 1920-06-13
THE VICTORY AT SEA
By

In the summer of 1917, Mr.. Ralph c.
Browne, an electrical engineer, OF Sal
EN-. Mass, offered a submarine gun for
the consideration of Commander S. p.
Fullerwinder, u. S. N, who was then
in charge of the mining section Of the
Bureau of Ordnance. As a submarine
gun this invention did not seem to Of
fer many chances of success, but Com
mander Fullerwinder realized that it
comprised firing device of excellent
promise. The Bureau Of Ordnance as
sisted by Mr.. Browne. spent the sum-
mer and fall experimenting with this
contrivance and perfecting it; the Eng
lish mining officers who had been sent
to America to cooperate with our navy
expressed great enthusiasm over it; and
some time about the beginning of Au
gust the Bureau of Ordnance came to
the, conclusion that it was demon
strated success. The details of Mr..
Brownies invention are too intricate for
description in this place, but its main.
point is comprehensive enough. It's
great advance was that it was not nee
essary for the submarine to strike the
mine in order to produce the desired
explosion. The mine could be located
at any depth and from it long IAN
tenna," a thin copper cable reached up
to within few feet of the surface,
where it was supported IN that position
by a small metal buoy. Any metallic
substance, such as the hull of a sub
marine, simply by striking this an
tenna at any point, would produce an
electric current, which, simultaneously
transmitted to the mine, would cause
this mine to explode. The great ad-
vantage of this device is at once appar-
ent. Only about one fourth the num-
Der required under the old conditions
would now be necessary. The mining
section estimated that 100000 mines
would form a barrier that would be ex-
tremely dangerous to submarines pass
ing over it or through it, whereas, I'M
der the old conditions, about 400, 900
would have been required. This i'm
plies more than mere saving in man
ufacturing resources; it meant that we
should need a proportionately smaller
number of mine laying ships, crews,
officers, bases and supplies-all those
things which are seldom considered by
the amateur in warfare. but which are
as essential to its prosecution as the
more spectacular details.
| wish to emphasize the fact that in
laying such a barrage, our object was
not to make an absolute barrier to the
passage Of submarines. To have done
this we should have needed such an
enormous number of mines that the
operation would have been impossible
Nor would such a dense barrier have
been necessary to success; a field that
could be depended upon to destroy one
fourth or one-fifth of the submarines
that attempted the passage would have
represented complete success.
Another circumstance which made
barrage a feasible enterprise was that,
by the first of the year 1918 it was
realized that the submarine had ceased
to be decisive factor in the war. IT
still remained serious embarrass-
ment, and every measure which could
possibly thwart it should be adopted. |
But the writings of German officers, !
which have been published since the |
war, make it apparent that they them |
selves realized early in 1918 that they
would have to place their hopes of VIC !
tory on something else besides the sub !
marine. The convoy system and the |
other methods of fighting under water |
craft which l have already described |
had caused a great decrease in sink |
lngs. In April 1917 the losses were
nearly 100000 tons; in November of |
the same year, the losses were less than |