Aircraft and Submarines Part 30

This is how Captain Konig speaks of his escape.

We knew that the most dangerous moment of our entire voyage was now approaching. We once more marked our exact position, and then proceeded to make all the preparations necessary for our breaking through.

Then we dived and drove forward. All our senses were keyed to the utmost, our nerves taut to the breaking-point with that cold excitement which sends quivers through one's soul, the while outwardly one remains quite serene, governed by that clear and icy deliberation which is apt to possess a man who is fully conscious of the unknown perils toward which he goes....

We knew our path. We had already been informed that fishermen had been hired to spread their nets along certain stretches of the three-mile limit; nets in which we were supposed to entangle ourselves; nets into which devilish mines had very likely been woven....

Possibly these nets were merely attached to buoys which we were then supposed to drag along after us, thus betraying our position....

We were prepared for all emergencies, so that in case of extreme necessity we should be able to free ourselves of the nets. But all went well.

It was a dark night. Quietly and peacefully the lighthouses upon the two capes sent forth their light, the while a few miles further out death lay lowering for us in every imaginable form.

But while the English s.h.i.+ps were racing up and down, jerking their searchlights across the waters and searching again and again in every imaginable spot, they little surmised that, at times within the radius of their own shadows, a periscope pursued its silent way, and under this periscope the _U-Deutschland_.

That night at twelve o'clock, after hours of indescribable tension, I gave the command to rise.

We Had Broken Through!

Slowly the _Deutschland_ rose to the surface, the tanks were blown out and the Diesel engines flung into the gearing. At our highest speed we now went rus.h.i.+ng toward the free Atlantic.[6]

[Footnote 6: ]

The homeward voyage was completed without untoward incident and long before the month had ended, the first--and probably last--merchant submarine was again safe and snug in her home port.

The cargo-carrying submarine, however, is by no means the only type of underwater vessel engaged in peaceful pursuits which has been suggested so far. Mr. Simon Lake, the American submarine engineer and inventor, has frequently pointed out the commercial possibilities of the submarine.

In the early part of 1916 a series of articles from his pen appeared in _International Marine Engineering_. They contained a number of apparently feasible suggestions looking towards the commercial development of the submarine.

First of all he tells of experiments made with submarines for navigation under ice. The proper development of this idea, of course, would be of immense commercial value. Many harbours in various parts of the world are inaccessible during the winter months for vessels navigating on the surface. Navigation on many important inland lakes likewise has to be stopped during that period.

Submarines, built so that they can safely travel under the ice, would overcome these conditions and would make it possible to use most ice-bound ports throughout the entire year at least in Mr.

Lake's view.

Ever since Mr. Lake began inventing and building submarines he has been interested in the possibilities which submarines offer for the exploration of the sea-bottom and for the discovery of wrecks and recovery of their valuable cargoes. His first boat, the _Argonaut_, as we have heard, possessed a diving chamber for just such purposes.

He has continued his investigations and experiments along this line, and in these articles he shows ill.u.s.trations of submarine boats and devices adapted for such work. Properly financed and directed, the recovery of cargoes from wrecks undoubtedly would not only bring large financial returns to the backers of such a venture, but also do away with the immense waste which the total loss of sunken vessels and cargoes inflicts now on the world. Submarines in peace may yet recover for the use of man much of the wealth which submarines in war have sent to the bottom of the sea. Marine insurance, too, would be favourably affected by such an undertaking.

Still one other commercial submarine boat is advocated by Mr. Lake.

This is to be used for the location and collection of sh.e.l.lfish on a large scale. Of this vessel its inventor says:

The design of this submarine oyster-dredging vessel is such that the vessel goes down to the bottom direct, and the water is forced out of the centre raking compartment so that the oysters may be seen by the operator in the control compartment. With only a few inches of water over them, headway is then given to the submarine and the oysters are automatically raked up, washed, and delivered through pipes into the cargo-carrying chambers.

Centrifugal pumps are constantly delivering water from the cargo compartments, which induces a flow of water through the pipes leading from the "rake pans" with sufficient velocity to carry up the oysters and deposit them into the cargo holds. In this manner the bottom may be seen, and by "tracking" back and forth over the bottom the ground may be "cleaned up" at one operation.

This boat has a capacity of gathering oysters from good ground at the rate of five thousand bushels per hour. The use of the submarine will make the collection of oysters more nearly like the method of reaping a field of grain, where one "swathe"

systematically joins on to another, and the whole field is "cleaned up" at one operation.

Man's greediness for profit has already driven the salmon from the rivers of New England where once they swarmed. Mechanical devices for taking them by the hundreds of thousands threaten a like result in the now teeming rivers of Was.h.i.+ngton and British Columbia. Mr.

Lake's invention has the demerit of giving conscienceless profiteers the opportunity to obliterate the oyster from our national waters.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Permission of _Scientific American_.

_Sectional View of a British Submarine._]

It does not appear, however, that, except as an engine of war the submarine offers much prospect of future development or future usefulness. And as we of the United States entered this war, which now engages our energies and our thoughts, for the purpose of making it the last war the world shall ever know, speculation on the future of the submarine seems rather barren. That does not mean however that there will be a complete stoppage of submarine construction or submarine development. War is not going to be ended by complete international disarmament, any more than complete unpreparedness kept the United States out of the struggle. A reasonable armament for every nation, and the union of all nations against any one or two that threaten wantonly to break the peace is the most promising plan intelligent pacifism has yet suggested. In such an international system there will be room and plenty for submarines.

Indeed it is into just such a plan that they intelligently fit.

Though not wholly successful in their operations against capital s.h.i.+ps, they have demonstrated enough power to make nations hesitate henceforth before putting a score of millions into ponderous dreadnoughts which have to retire from submarine-infested waters as the British did in their very hour of triumph at Jutland. They have not nullified, but greatly reduced the value of overwhelming sea power such as the British have possessed. A navy greater than those of any two other nations has indeed kept the German s.h.i.+ps, naval and commercial, locked in port. But less than two hundred inexpensive submarines bid fair to sweep the seas of all merchant s.h.i.+ps--neutral as well as British unless by feverish building the nations can build s.h.i.+ps faster than submarines can sink them. Huge navies may henceforth be unknown.

The submarine has been the David of the war. It is a pity that its courage and efficiency have been exerted mainly in the wrong cause and that the missiles from its sling have felled the wrong Goliath.

Aircraft and submarine! It is still on the cards that when the definitive history of the war shall be written, its outcome may be ascribed to one or the other of these novel weapons--the creation of American inventive genius.