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About The Sunday Oregonian. (Portland, Ore.) 1881-current | View Entire Issue (July 25, 1920)
THE SUNDAY . OREGONIAN, PORTLAND, JULY 23. 1920 itiHiiMtiiiruimiHUiininniiniHiiuKuiiniiiiiuiHiiiuiiiuKtuti By Admiral William Sowden Sims WHY THE U-BOATS LEFT THE TRANSPORTS ALONE i Mm jfiMi nn. -ii.' ' iN " - - I 1 I x i 111 ' 1 T Si. 4i II I Ik s ft. "V. tS.t.xtetxtf THE sinking of a great transport with 4000 or 5000 American boys on board, would have been a dre.-idful calamity and would have struck notror to the American peo ple,; it was something which the navy was determined to prevent, and which we did prevent. Considered as a etrict military question, however and that w;& the only consideration which . influenced the Germans it is hard to see how the loss of one trans port, or even the loss of several. would have materially affected the courpe of the War. In judging the purely military results of such a tragedy, we must remember that the allied armies were losing from 3000 to 5000 men a day; thus the sinking of an American transport once a week, would not have particularly af fected the course of the war. The destruction of merchant ship ping in large quantities, however, represented the ' one way in which the CJermans could win. There were at least a- hundred merchant ships to every one" of our troop ships; if a considerable number of the former could be sunk, Germany would have scored a decisive advantage. From the declaration of submarine war fare, the objective of the German admiralty had been for "tonnage! tonnage!"; by March. 1918, as already said, the chances of destroying suffi cient tonnage to win had become ex tremely elight; yet it stilf represented the one logical mission of the sub marine. The two alternatives, however, that of attacking mercantile convoys or troop convoys, hardly existed In fact. Let us suppose for a moment that the Germans had changed their pro gramme, bad taken their group oX operating submarines from the north ern trade routes and had stationed them to the south, in the track of the troop transports. What would the results have been? "Lane," though a convenient word for de scriptive purposes, is hardly an ac curate one; for this ocean passageway 8 really about 200 miles wide. Imagine eight or ten submarines, etretched across that expanse and hunting for troop ship. At this rate the Germans would have had about one submarine for every 20 miles. Instead of finding themselves sail ing amid a swarm of surface ships, as they were when they were sta tioned in the busy trade routes of the Irish sea or the English channel, the ( submarines would have found them selves drifting on a great waste of waters. Our troop convoys averaged not more than three a week even in the busiest period; in all probabil ity the submarines would therefore have hung around for a month with out even catching a glimpse of one The speediest vessels only were used for transporting troops. At the beginning ships which made less than 12 knots an hour were not deemed safe for such precious cargoes; when the need for troops became more and more pressing and when our trans port service had . demonstrated great skill in the work, a few slower ves sels were used; but the great majority of our troops transports were those which made 12 knots or more. Now one of the greatest protections which j a ship possesses against submarine attack Is unquestionably high speed Like all convoys, the troop ships be gan zigzagging as soon as they en tered the d..iger zone; and this in it self made It almost impossible for a submarine to get its bearings and take good aim. I believe that these circumstances in themselves the com parative scarcit - of troop transports, the width pf the "lane" In which they traveled, the high speed which they maintained and ;heir constant zig- zaggi-g would have defeated the great majority of attempts the Ger mans could have made to torpedo them. ' The Greatest Protection. Though I think that most of them would have reached their destinations unharmed without tny other protec tion, still this risk, small as it was. could not be taken; and we therefore gave them one other protection g eater than any of those which have yet mentioned the destroyer escort. A convoy of four or five large troop ships would be surrounded by as many as .en or a dozen destroyers. Very properly, since they were carry ing human cargoes, we gave them an escort' at least three times as large as that given to large mercantile con voys of 20 or more vessels; and this fact made them very uninviting baits for the most venturesome U-boat commanders. When the engineers built the Brooklyn bridge they introduced an element which they call the factor of '.safety. It was their usual procedure attended by a cruiser or battleship whose business It was to protect them against a German raider which might possibly have made its escape into the ocean; the work performed by these ocean escorts, practically all of which were American, was for the most un obstrusive and unspectacular, but It constitutes a particularly fine example of eficiency and scamanlike devotion. At Berehaven. Ireland, as described above, we had stationed three pow erful American dreadnaughts, mo mentarily prepared to rush to the scene In case c e of the great German battle cruisers succeeded In breaking into the open sea. Even the -most trivial precautions were taken by the transports. The soldiers and crews were permitted to throw anything over board which misht betray the course of a convoy; the cook's refuse was dropped at a particular time and in a way that would furnish no clew to a lurking submarine; even tin can. If thrown into the sea. was first pierced with holes to make sure that It would sink. Any one who struck a match at night in tne aange. .. committed a punishable offense. It is thus apparent why the Germans never "landed" a single one of our transports. The records show only three or four cases in which even attempts were made to do this- and those few efforts were feeble and in effectual. Of course .the boys all had exciting experiences with phan tom submarines; indeed I don't sup- . ., l. .irnrlA one Of OUT pose that mere . to estimate the greatest weight whlcn) their structure might be called upon to hear under any conceivable circum stances and then they made it strong enough to stand a number of times that weight. This additional strength is the "factor of rafety"; it is never called into use, of course, but the consciousness that it exists gives the public a sense of security which it could obtain in no other way. The'American navy adopted a simi lar policy in transporting these mil lions of American boys to. Europe. We also had a large margin of safety. We did not depend upon one precau tion to assure the lives or our sol diers; we heaped one precautionary measure on another. From the em barking of the troops at New York or at Hampton Koads to the disem barkation at Brest, St. Nazalre, La Pallice, Bordeaux, or at one of their other destinations, not the minutest safeguard was omitted. We neces sarily thus somewhat diminished the protection of some of the mercantile convoys and properly -so. This was done whenever the arrival of a troop convoy conflicted with the arrival of a merchant convoy. All across the ocean they were also mnrA than not entertained his menus anu tlves with accounts of torpedo streaks and schools ji U-boats. Submarines left Transport Alone. But the Qermans made no concerted campaign against our transports; fundamental conditions, already de scribed, rendered such an offensive hopeless; and the skill with which our transport service was organized and conducted likewise dissuaded them. I have always believed that the German admiralty ordered their U-boat captains to let ttie Ame-.can transports alone; or at least not to attack except under very favorable circumstances, and this belief Is mhur confirmed by a passage In i-.Ani.ral Ludendorffs memoirs. "From our previous experience with the sub marine war." General Ludendorff writes. "I expected strong forces of Americans to come, but the rapidity with which they actually did arrive proved surprising. General von Cra mon, the German military plenipoten tiary with the imperial and royal headquarters, often called me up and asked me to assist in the sinking ofj American troop ships; public opin ion Jn Austria-Hungary demanded it. Admiral von Holtzendorff could only reply that everything was being done to reduce enemy tonnage and to sink troop ships. It was not possible to direct the submaiine against the troop ships exclusively. They could approach 'the coast of Europe any where between the north of England and Gibraltar, a front of some four teen hundred nautical miles. It was Impossible effectively to close this area by means of submarines. One could have' concentrated thein only on certain routes; but whether the troop ships would choose the same time was the question. As soon as the ene my heard of submarines anywhere, he could always send the ships new or ders by wireless and unload at an other port. It was. therefore, not certain that by this method we should meet with a sufficient number of troop ships. The destruction of the enemy's freight tonnage would then have been undertaken only spasmodi cally, and would have been set back In an undesir.-ble manner; and In that way the submarine war would have become diverted from its orig inal object. The submarine war with commerce was therefore continued with all vigor possible." German Chleta Disappointed. Apparently It became the policy of the German admiralty, as I have said, to concentrate their U-boats on mer chant shipping and leave the Ameri can troop ships practically alone at least those bound to Europe. Un fortunately, however, at no time did we have enough destroyers to pro vide escorts for all of these trans ports as fast as they were unloaded and ready to return to America, but as time In the "turn around" was the all-important consideration In gettingl the troops over, they were sent back through the submarine zone under the escort of armed yachts, and occasion ally not escorted at all. Under these conditions the transports could be at tacked with much less risk, as was shown by the fact that five were tor pedoed, though of these happily only three were sunk. The position of the German naval chiefs, fts Is shown by the quotation from General Ludendorffs book, was an extremely unhappy one. They had blatantly promised ths German people that their subma rines would prevent the transporta tion of American troops to Europe. At first they had ridiculed the Idea that undisciplined, unmilitary Amer ica couid ever organize an army; after we adopted conscription and began to train our young men by the millions, they just as vehemently pro claimed that this army could never be landed in Europe. In this opinion the German military chieftains were not alone. No such army movement had ever before been attempted. The discouraging fore cast made by a brilliant British naval authority in July, 1917, reflected the ideas of too many military people on both sides of the ocean. "I am dis tressed," he said, "at the fact that it appears to me to be impossible t provide enough shipping to bring tha American army over in hundreds of thousands to France, and, after they are brought over, to supply the enor mous amount of shipping which will be required to keep them full up with munitions, food and equipment." It is thus not surprising that the German people accepted as gospel the promises of thetr admiralty; therefore their anger was unbounded when American troops began to arrive. The German newspapers began to ask th most embarrassing questions. What had become of their submarines? Had the German people not been promised that their U-'boats would sink any American troop ships that attempted to cross the ocean? As the shipments increased and as the effect of these vigorous, fresh young troops began to be manifest upon the west ern front, the outcries In Germany waxed even more fierce and abusive. Von Capclle and other German naval chiefs made rambling speeches in the reichstag. once more promising that the submarines would certainly win the war speeches that were followed by ever-increasing arrivals of Ameri can soldiers in France. The success of our transports led directly to the fall of Von Capelle as minister of marine; his successor, 'Ad miral von Mann, who was evidently driven to desperation by the popular outburst, decided to make one frantic attempt to attack our men. The new minister, of course, knew that he could accomplish no definite results; but the sinking of even one transport with several thousand troops on board would have had a tremendous effect upon German morale. When the great British liner Justicia was torpedoed the German admiralty officially an nounced that it was the Leviathan, filled with American soldiers, and the jubilation which followed in the Ger man press and the subsequent dejec tion when it was learned that this was a practically empty transport, sailing westward, showed that an ac tual achievement of this kind would raise '.heir drooping spirits. Admiral von Mann, therefore, took several submarines away from the trade routes and sent them into the transport zone. But they did not suc ceed even in attacking a single east bound troop ship. The only result accomplished vas the one which, from what 1 have already said, woulu have been expected: the removal of the submarines from the commercial wat ers caused a great fall in the sinking of merchant ships. In August. 1918. these sinkings amounted to 280.000 tons; in September and October, when this futile drive was made at Ameri can transports, the sinkings fell to' 190,000 and 110.000 tons. (Copyright. 1!20. by the World's Work. The copyright of these articles in Great Britain is strictly reserved by Pearson's Masazlne, London; without their permis sion no quotation may be made. Pub lished by special arrangement with the McClure Newspaper syndicate. Another article next Sunday.) TROPICAL ANGLERS RISK DEATH TO DUEL WITH DENIZENS OF SEAS ROCK CAVERNS "No Good Conger Except Dead Conger" Is Englishman's Opinion of Dangerous Eel Pike, Green Moroy of Bermuda and Mexican Gulf Barracouta Are Other Fish Peril Life of Sportsmen. BY EDWIN TARISSE. THE idea of fish constituting a danger to human life or limb would hardly occur to the angler who has never cast net or line in tropical waters. Yet even in the tem .perate seas and rivers there are at least two species of fish that possess the power to render themselves ex tremely unpleasant. There are several Instances on rec ord of bathers being attacked by pike in English waters. Not long ago a good-sized retriever which was swim ming In the Thames just above a boathouse at Richmond, was tackled by a pike, which bit one of the dog's hind legs so badly as to sever an ar tery. It was another Thames pike that attacked the naturalist and fish erman. Cholmondeley-Pennell. He had actually landed the fish when it sprang from the ground and fixed all Its sharp teeth into his leg just above the knee. The creature hung so fierce ly to its hold that a stick had to be used to pry its jaws apart. The other British fish that can truly be caled dangerous is the conger eel. ThJ experienced sea fisherman takes care to kill every large conger as soon as it is brought into the boat. The conger has not only extraordi nary jaw power it can crunch shv.l fish, shells and all but is so abom lnably active that the fisherman's opinion of it coincides with that held of the Indian by the plainsman in the old days "No good conger except a dead conger." Ugly and savage as the conger Is, t is a lamb compared with its rela tive, the green moray of the Bermu dan waters This great eel is of an unnaturally brilliant green and pos sesses an eye that is the very epit ome of intense and malignant feroc ity. It is voracious and savage beyond words. The negro boatmen have such a holy horror of it that they abso lutely refuse to allow a moray into the boat. An American fishing in a small boat off Bermuda hooked one of these fish, but as soon as his boatman saw the hideous head above the water he whipped cut his knife and made to cut the line. The American shouted to him to stop, but had to threaten to throw the man overboard before he would put up his knife. When the great eel was pulled over the side the Bermudan went absolutely ashy with fright. As for the moray, no sooner, was it in the boat .than it doubled upon itself and its jaws met with a clash in its own side, cutting out a chunk of flesh as neatly as a scoop would cut cheese. That was enough for the angler from the United States. He picked up a boathook and forked the uncanny creature overboard. A fish that has a thoroughly bad name in West Indian waters and all along the shores of the Mexican gulf is the barracouta. Certainly the bar- racouta is an unpleasant-looking cus tomer. He is long and narrow, shaped like a torpedo, blue and black above and bray below,, and he can swim at a most amazing rate. Where he lives he is known as the devilfish, a name common to all marine bad characters. The negroes have a perfect horror of the barracouta. which they say will attack bathers and inflict upon them a mutilation impossible to describe. Fish Kills Hoy. Another so-called devilfish that Is common on American coasts from 30 degrees north laitude to about the same degrees south of the line, is the giant ray. This fish looks very like a skate, but grows to an enormous size. It lies on the sea bottom, cov ering squars yards of coral sand, and If attacked may prove not only nasty, but. most dangerous. It Is said to use its. mouth like a shark, but its most unpleasant weapon is the toothed spear in its tail. Fishermen say it is able to drive this jagged lance through a man's thigh. Such a wound is extremely dangerous and almost Invariably proves fatal. In the south em part of the Gulf of Mexico spec! mens of the giant ray have been killed up to 18 feet across. Some years ago a most strange case of a fatal accident caused by a fish was reported to the British medical authorities by Dr. S. Osborne Brown of British Honduras. A boy went out to fish at the island called Cross Caye, when a fish known as the longguard rose from the water and struck him on the bare chest, causing a punc tured wound that proved fatal. Such an occurrence would seem almost in credible, but full details were given by Dr. Brown, whose veracity has never been questioned. This fish was about two feet three inches long and weighed one pound nine ounces. It had a shark snout three inches long. The longguard has the power of ris ing from the water and flying with great velocity for many yards. In the British museum may be seen the heavy oaken plank, once a part of the bottom of a stout vessel, which had been pierced by the,sword of a swordflsh. The weapon remains fast fixed in the timber. Along the At lantic coast of the United States swordfish are hunted both for their flesh, which is palatable, and also in order to protect the schools of blue fish and mackerel, which they ravage. Octopns Is Sea Monster. Of all sea monsters that which 'pos sesses the most powerful fascination for the general reader is undoubtedly the octopus. Some of the finest de scriptions ever penned in fiction have related to duels between man and this horrible denizen of the rock caverns of the sea bottom. Victor Hugo was the first great novelist to describe a duel of this kind, and he has been imi tated, with more or less success, a score of times. Ghastly and blood-curdling as these adventures read, fiction In this case falls far behind fact. In September, 1897. there were thrown up by the sea upon the Atlantic beach near St. Augustine. Fla., the remains of an octopus. These remains, which were only a part of the living animal, weighed no less than six tons, or. say twice the weight of an average full grown elephant. The living animal must have had arms 72 feet in length. Arm Is Nineteen Feet. Some of the largest of these true devilfish are fovnd around the rock shores of Newfoundland. In the mu seum at St. John's is a portion of an arm of one of these monsters that in October, 1873, attacked two fishermen off Great . Belle Island, in Conception bay. The men saw the creature at some distance, and taking it for wreckage, rowed up. When they caught sight of its huge, glassy eyes staring up at them them were almost paralyzed with fright, and before they could turn two ropelike arms fell across their boat and completely enveloped it. With the courage of despair, one fisherman grasped a hatchet and slashed furiously at the tentacles. He cut them through, and the creature, ejecting such a quantity of ink as to blacken the water for many yards around, sank back into the depths. The piece of the creature that was preserved measures 19 feet in length. and It is estimated that it was cut off at least six feet from the booy. VOICE FROM UNKNOWN MAKES FLESH OF SCIENTIST CREEP Professor, Long Student of Electrical Phenomena, Tells of Uncanny and Thrilling Experience One Night When Wild Storm Was Raging. The Basement Was Vacant. "You say," remarked a Brooklyn woman to a candidate for a job in her household, "that you were a month in your last place?" "Yes. mum," was the response, "a week with the lady on the top floor, a week with the lady on the third floor, a week on the second and a week, on the ground floor," A VOICE out of the night and the storm. The voice fell on ears that knew there could be no one to utter the call. It was a voice apart from all human relation ship. The hearer confesses that his flesh seemed to creep and thrill. And yet, it was the day of the ma terial present, and not the very time of ghost and ob::r.. The dace was East Lansing. Mich., and not the do main of witches. It is Professor Herman Vedder. of the engineering department of Michi gan Agricultural college, who relates the experience in Popular Science Monthly. Those who remember their Jules Verne will remember the thrill with which they read of the message that came over the telegraph line tir which it was supposed no one could have access except its makers. Pro fessor Vedder's experience was like that, only the chance of human agen cy seemed even more remote. The circumstance was related by the professor to a group that had re mained following a meeting of the Lansing Engineers' club at the col lege and was discussing some phases of a lecture that had just been de livered on advanced theories of elec trical science. The group had been chatting informally, and the conver sation led up to the experience told by Professor Vedder. Someone had just said that the physical seemed to taper off into the super-physical. The circumstance in question oc curred back in the days when wire less telegraphy was under the close observation of students,. and investi- my -A my gators, before antennae were strung from the housetops of experimentally inclined boys. Professor Vedder was a student of the new wonder. On the nifeht In quwlion Professor Vedder was sitting over his instru ments, in a crashing thunder storm. How wireless would act. with the heavens surcharged to the limit with electricity, was the matter under observation. I drew back nurrledly from apparatus." said the professor, flash of lightning ripped Into station, ana across one of my instru ments there blazed a flaming electric arc. Out of the flame came a human voice I heard part of a broken sen tence. It lasted for an instant. Then the blaze snapped out and the voice ceased. "It was some time afterward that the explanation was worked out. You perhaps know that an arc light responds to the resonant effect of the human voice. What is known as the "singing arc' is well known to physicists. That is, a telephone cir cuit is introduced into a current supplying an arc light, and out of the are word vibrations can be made to come. "Now, on the occasion of which I speak, a sudden flash of lightning had formed an arc across part of my apparatus. This circumstance befell just at the time the telephone wire leading from the home of one of the other professors had been blown by the storm across my wireless aerial. The voice was that of the professor's wife, who was attempting to tele phone the srocer."
