The Pensacola journal. (Pensacola, Fla.) 1898-1985, 1920-06-27

sweaty men to keep these mines NOV
ing and going over the stern at the
regularly appointed intervals. After
three or four hours had been spent IN 3
this way and the ships had started
back to their base, the decks would
sometimes be covered with the sleep /
ing figures of these exhausted men, 1t I
would be impossible to speak too ap-
nreciativeIy Of the spirit which they
displayed; an the whole summer there {
was not a single mishap OF any I'M I
portauce. The men all felt that they
were engaged in a task which hao
never been accomplished before, ana
their exhiliration increased with al +
most every mine that was laid Nails
in the coffin Of the Kaiser" the men
called these grim instruments OF
vengeance.
have described one of these thir- !
teen summer excursions. and the de-
scription given could be applied to all
the rest. One or twice the periscope
of a submarine was sighted-Wlthout
any disastrous results-but in the
main this business of mine laying was
uneventful Just what we accom-
/ plished the chart makes clear. In the
summer and fall months of 1918 the
American forces laid 56,571 mines and
the British 1896. The operation was
to have been a continuous one; mad
the war gone on for two years we
should probably have laid several hun
dred thousand Admiral Strauss forces
kept at the thing steadily up to the
time of the armistice; they had be-
come SO expert and the barrage was
! producing such excellent results that
we had plans nearly completed for
building another at the straits OF
Otranto, which would have completely
closed the Adriatic Sea. Besides this
undertaking the American mine layer
Baltimore laid minefield IN the
North Irish Channel, the narrow
waters which separate Scotland and
Ireland: two German submarines
which soon afterward attempted this
pa usage. were blown TO pieces, and
after this, the minefield was given
wide berth.
4 Just what the North Sea barrage
!, accomplished in sthe actual destruction
!. of submarines will never be definite
lIy known. We have information that
four submarines certainly were de-
/ stroyed. and in all probability six ana
: possibly eight; yet these results meas
ure only small part of the German
losses In the majority of cases the
, Germans had little or no evidence or
) sunken submarines. The destroyers,
J subchasers, and other patrol boats
, were usually able to obtain some evil
) dences of injury, they could often
| see their quarry, or the disturbances
: which it made on the surface; they
a could pursue and attack it, and the
resultant oil patches, wreckages and
German prisoners--and sometimes the
Z recovered submarine itself or its loca-
g ton on the bottom-would tell the
: story either of injury or destruction.
S But the disconcerting thing about the
s North Sea Barrage, from the view
/. point of the Germans, was that II
e could do its work so secretly that no
!: one, friend or enemy. would necessari-
w know a thing about it. A German
n submarine simply left its home port;
i, attempting to cross the barrage, per-
e hans at night, it would strike one OF
: these mines, or its antenna; an ex-
q plosion would crumple 1T up IKE Sc
d much paper; with its crew 1t woulo
! sink to the bottom; and not soul
! nerhaps not even the crew itself
d would ever know what had happened
d to 1t. 1t would in truth be case o.
d sinking without a trace'-though al
S. entirely legitimate one under the rule:
d of warfare. The German records dis
;. closed anywhere from forty to fit,
u submarines sunk which did not ap
= near in the records of the Allies; hov
- these were destroyed not soul. Knows
y nor ever will know. They simply LET
50 their German ports and were neve
> heard of again. That many OF then
fell victims to mines, and some o
them, to the mines of our barrage.,
an entirely justifiable Assumption
That probably even larger numbe
y of U-boats were injured is also true
le A German submarine captain, afte
la the surrender at Scapa Flow. said tina
10 he personally knew of three subma
= rines, including his own. which ha
e been so badly injured at the baTag
. that they had to limp back to thei
=, German ports.
LII The results other than the sinkin
a. of submarines were exceedingly i'm
- portant in bringing the war to an enc
70 1t was the failure of the submarin
ne campaign which defeated the Germa
" hopes and forced their surrender; an
in this defeat the barrage was an i'm
=. portant element. That submarine
au frequently crossed it is true; ther
ne was no expectation when the enter
nc prise started. that it would absolutel
'is shut the U-boats in the North Sea
III but its influence in breaking down tn
u German morale must have been grea
2 To understand this just place yourse
ca for moment in the position OF assuf
ne marine crew. The width of this bal
II rage ranged from Is to So miles;
took from one to three hours for sui
n marine to cross the area on the SUI
ne face and from two to six hours undo
the surface. Not every square foot,
est is true had been mined; there wei
as certain gaps caused by the spontan'
set Gus explosions to which / have n
ais ferred: but nobody knew where.ahe'
ter openings were, or where sing
lte mine was located. The officers ar
ne crews knew only that, at any momel
IT. an explosion might send them to etc
las nifty. A strain of this sort is serio'
ng enough if il lasts only a few MINUTES