THE SUNDAY . OREGONIAN, PORTLAND, JULY 23. 1920
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By Admiral William Sowden Sims
WHY THE U-BOATS LEFT THE TRANSPORTS ALONE
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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."