NAVAL WARFARE

The submarine blockade was continued by the Germans during the six-months' period, February 1 to August 1, 1918, but with considerably smaller results. Figures, as in the past, were difficult to compile, and as the war progressed this difficulty increased. However, the British Admiralty officially announced that during the eleven months—March, 1917, to January, 1918, inclusive—a total of 1,239 British ships had been sunk by mines or torpedoes, an average of 112.6 ships per month and an average of 25.1 ships per week. Beginning with February, 1918, losses became very much smaller, partly on account of the greater number of submarines sunk or captured by the Allies, and partly on account of the ever-increasing efficiency of the submarine-chasing and convoy services.

In April, 1918, the British Admiralty discontinued its weekly report of merchant ships destroyed by mines or torpedoes, and substituted a monthly report in terms of tonnage. The following figures are taken from the official British reports and show the steadily decreasing success of submarine warfare:

On February 5, 1918, the British liner Tuscania (Captain J. L. Henderson), serving as a transport for American troops, was sunk by a submarine off the coast of Ireland. The Tuscania carried 2,177 U. S. soldiers of whom 117 were officers, 2 civilians, 2 naval ratings, and a crew of 16 officers and 181 men. She was a steel twin-screw steamer of 14,384 tons, built at Glasgow in 1914 for the Anchor Line and had a speed of 17-½ knots. 212 U. S. soldiers lost their lives. Though hit without any warning and during the night, the troops reached their boat stations without panic and in splendid order. Unfortunately some of the lifeboats capsized, a fact which was responsible for some of the losses. Others died later in hospitals from shock and exposure; while still others had fallen victims to the explosion caused by the two torpedoes. The survivors were landed in Ireland and Scotland, where those of the bodies which were recovered found a last resting place. British destroyers were instrumental in saving many lives and also immediately gave chase to the submarine which, it is believed, was sunk by depth bombs.

Spanish losses became very heavy. On February 9, 1918, the Sebastian was sunk in her way to New York; the Mar Caspio went to the bottom on February 23; the Neguri on February 26; the Sardinero on February 27; and a grain ship, chartered to the Swiss Government, on March 2, 1918.

On February 26, 1918, the British steamer Glenart Castle, serving as a hospital ship, was sunk in Bristol Channel. Fortunately she had no patients on board; she carried a crew of 120, 54 members of the R. A. M. C. and 8 female nurses, of whom 153 were reported as missing. This was the second attack on the boat, the first one having been made on March 1, 1918, in the channel. She was then full of wounded from France, all of whom were saved while the vessel itself was taken to harbor and repaired. The Glenart Castle was formerly known as the Galician and was previous to the war owned by the Union Castle Company. She was the seventh British hospital ship torpedoed at night and without warning.

During February, 1918, too, the British S. S. Minnetonka of 13,528 tons was sunk in the Mediterranean. Previous to the war she had been a well-known passenger liner of the Atlantic Transport Line, running between New York and London.

Another large steamer which became the prey of submarine warfare was the Celtic, torpedoed off the Irish coast on April 1, 1918. However, she succeeded in reaching port in safety.

Spanish ships were continued to be sunk and on April 11, 1918, it was announced that Germany had begun a submarine blockade of Spanish ports as a result of a commercial treaty signed between Spain and the United States.

On the same day Uruguay asked the German Government, through the Swiss minister at Berlin, whether Germany considered that a state of war existed between the two countries. The inquiry was the result of the capture by a submarine of a Uruguayan military commission bound for France.

One of the largest German submarines appeared, on April 10, 1918, in the port of Monrovia, the capital of Liberia, on the west coast of Africa, after having seized the day before the small armed Liberian vessel President Grant. The crew were taken prisoners and the boat sunk. Liberia, it will be remembered, had declared war against Germany on August 4, 1917. The German commander dispatched by the Liberian crew an ultimatum to the Liberian Government, in which he threatened that, failing the dismantling of the wireless stations and the closing of the French cable, the town of Monrovia would be bombarded. The stations were accordingly closed, as the capital was under the fire of the German guns, but later the U-boat commander insisted upon their being destroyed. This the Liberian Government refused to do, and the German submarine thereupon bombarded Monrovia for over an hour, destroyed the stations, and inflicted some casualties. Fortunately for the town a steamer appeared at that moment. The submarine gave chase and did not return again.

The most important American losses in April, 1918, were the S. S. Lake Moor, manned by naval reserves and sunk in European waters on April 11, 1918, with a loss of 5 officers and 39 men; the Florence H., wrecked by an internal explosion while at anchor in a French port, with a loss of 29.

Neutral shipping continued to be a heavy loser. The Norwegian Government, for instance, announced that from the beginning of the war to the end of April, 1918, Norway's losses had reached the total of 755 vessels, aggregating 1,115,519 tons, and accompanied by the loss of 1,006 seamen, while 700 more out of additional 53 ships were missing. On the other hand it was announced that during April, 1918, 12 German submarines had been captured or sunk in European waters by American and British destroyers.

On May 3, 1918, the Old Dominion liner Tyler was sunk off the coast of France with a loss of 11 men, including 5 naval gunners.

Another British S. S. serving as transport for U. S. troops, the Moldavia, was torpedoed and sunk on May 23, 1918, 56 U. S. soldiers being reported as "unaccounted for." Two British transports, the Ansonia and Leasowe Castle, were sunk on May 26, 1918, with losses of 40 and 101 lives respectively.

While returning to the United States the U. S. transport President Lincoln, formerly a Hamburg-American liner, was sunk in the naval war zone on May 31, 1918, with a loss of 4 officers and 23 men.

In the meantime some German submarines put in their appearance off the coast of the U. S. They began their operations on May 25, 1918, and maintained them with varying success and at varying distances from the coast until well into August, 1918. As a result the following boats were sunk up to June 20, 1918:

• Jacob H. Haskell, schooner, 1,362 tons.
• Isabel B. Wiley, schooner, 611 tons.
• Hattie Dunn, schooner, 365 tons.
• Edward H. Cole, schooner, 1,791 tons, subsequently raised and saved.
• Herbert L. Pratt, tank steamer, 7,200 tons.
• Carolina, passenger steamer, 5,093 tons.
• Winneconne, freighter, 1,869 tons.
• Hauppauge, auxiliary schooner, 1,500 tons.
• Edna, schooner, 325 tons, subsequently towed in.
• Texel, steamship, 3,210 tons.
• Samuel M. Hathaway, schooner, 1,038 tons.
• Samuel C. Mengel, schooner, 700 tons, unconfirmed.
• Edward Baird, schooner, 279 tons.
• Eidsvold, Norwegian steamship, 1,570 tons.
• Harpathean, British steamship, 4,588 tons.
• Vinland, Norwegian steamship, 1,143 tons.
• Desauss, schooner, 500 tons.
• Pinar del Rio, steamship, 2,504 tons.
• Vindeggen, Norwegian steamship, 2,632 tons.
• Henrik Lund, Norwegian steamship, 4,322 tons.

The American schooner Stanley L. Seaman, sunk on August 5, 1918, when 110 miles east of Cape Hatteras. Nine American fishing schooners sunk on August 3, 1918, off George's Bank, 60 miles from Nantucket Island.

The Norwegian freighter Sommerstad, 3,875 gross tons, torpedoed and sunk 25 miles southeast by east of Fire Island on August 12, 1918.

The British steamship Penistone, 4,139 gross tons, torpedoed on August 11, 1918, about 100 miles east of Nantucket.

The Swedish steamship Sydland, 3,031 gross tons, bombed and sunk on August 8, 1918, about 100 miles southeast of Nantucket.

The American oil tanker Frederick R. Kellogg, 7,127 gross tonnage, torpedoed 10 miles off Barnegat, N. J., sank in 4 minutes; 7 men killed by the explosion.

The five-masted American schooner Dorothy Barrett, 2,088 gross tonnage, sunk with a cargo of coal 20 miles from Cape May, N. J., August 14, 1918.

It was announced in the U. S. Senate that 28 submarines had been sunk by the American Navy between January 1 and June 15, 1918.

Norway continued to be a severe loser. Twenty of her ships were sunk in May, 1918, causing a loss of 31 lives, and 14 more in July, 1918, with a loss of 55 sailors.

On June 27, 1918, another hospital ship was sunk when the Canadian S. S. Llandovery Castle went down off the British coast. Two hundred and thirty-four persons were reported missing.

Another former Hamburg-American liner, the Cincinnati, renamed the Covington, and serving as a U. S. transport, was sunk while returning to the U. S. Six of her crew lost their lives.

On July 14, 1918, the French transport Djemnah was sunk in the Mediterranean with a loss of 442 lives. The well-known former Cunard liner Carpathia, remembered especially for her services to the survivors of the ill-fated Titanic and the Volturno, was sent to the bottom off the west coast of Ireland on July 17, 1918. Three days later the White Star liner Justicia was sunk off the north Irish coast after a fight with a submarine lasting 24 hours. Losses, not resulting from naval actions, to the naval forces of the various belligerents, as far as they became known, were comparatively small. Germany, besides her losses of submarines, lost some destroyers and mine sweepers. Austria, in May, 1918, lost the battleship Wien. England lost some destroyers, torpedo boats, and mine sweepers. Seven British submarines, caught in Russian waters by the collapse of Russia, were sunk by their own crews off Helsingfors between April 3 and 8, 1918, upon the approach of German naval forces and transports. The Japanese battleship Kawachi, of 21,420 tons and 20 knots, blew up on July 12, 1918, while at anchor in Tokuyama Bay, and sank with a loss of over 500 officers and men. The U. S. armored cruiser San Diego was sunk off Fire Island, N. Y., on July 19, 1918, by a mine apparently having been laid by one of the German submarines then operating in American waters.

On February 24, 1918, the German Government announced that the auxiliary cruiser Wolf had returned to the Austrian harbor Pola, after a 15 months' cruise in the Atlantic, Pacific, and Indian Oceans. Claims as to the number and tonnage of ships sunk by the Wolf as made by the German authorities differed widely from the losses compiled by the British authorities, the former amounting to 35 ships of 210,000 tons, the latter to 17 ships of about 40,000 tons. One of the boats attacked by the raider, the Spanish S. S. Igatz Mendi, was captured, and, after a prize crew had been sent aboard, took over the passengers and crews of half a dozen ships which had been sunk. Attempting to return to a German port, she stranded on February 25, 1918, off the Danish coast. Passengers and members of the crews with civil status were sent to their various homes, while the German prize crew and some British military men were interned.

A number of minor naval engagements were fought between small units of the belligerents' naval forces.

A swift raid was made by a flotilla of large German torpedo-boat destroyers early in the morning of February 15, 1918, on British patrol forces in the Dover Straits. One trawler and 7 drifters, which were occupied in hunting a submarine, which had been sighted in the patrol, were sunk. After having sunk these vessels the German destroyers returned rapidly to the north before any of the Allied forces could engage them. A large number of the crews of the vessels sunk lost their lives.

A light Franco-British division, composed of three French destroyers and three British ships, joined battle in the North Sea early in the morning of March 21, 1918, with a detachment of German torpedo vessels of the "A" type, two of which were sunk. Shortly afterward, the same light division fought a second action with five big destroyers which had been bombarding Dunkirk. One German destroyer was sunk, and it is probable that two other enemy destroyers were lost.

From information received, it would appear that three flotillas had been ordered to bombard Dunkirk, La Panne, and Bray Dunes. One of the British ships was slightly damaged, and returned to port. On the French side there were neither killed nor wounded.

British boats, belonging to the Grand Fleet, made an excursion into the Kattegat, the strait between Sweden and Denmark, on April 15, 1918, sinking 10 German trawlers and returning without having suffered any casualties.

British light forces operating in the Helgoland Bight on April 20, 1918, obtained touch with German light forces, who retired behind mine fields. A few shots were exchanged at extreme range and one German destroyer was observed to have been hit.

Early in the morning of April 23, 1918, British naval forces made a successful attack against Ostend and Zeebrugge, both of them important German submarine bases. The raid was undertaken under the command of Vice Admiral Roger Keyes, commanding at Dover French destroyers cooperating with the British forces. There were six obsolete cruisers which took part in the attack—Brilliant, Sirius, Intrepid, Iphigenia, Thetis, and Vindictive. The first five were filled with concrete, and were to be sunk in the channels and entrances to the ports if that could possibly be managed. Vindictive, working with two auxiliary craft, ferryboats well known on the Mersey, Daffodil and Iris, carried storming and demolition parties to the head of the mole at Zeebrugge. Vindictive was specially fitted with brows for landing the storming parties and armed specially for the operation with batteries of Stokes mortars, flame throwers, &c. The men employed on the blockships and in the storming and demolition parties were bluejackets and Royal Marines, picked from a very large number of volunteers from the Grand Fleet.

There were light covering forces belonging to the Dover command, and Harwich forces, under Admiral Tyrwhitt, covered the operation in the north.

A force of monitors, together with a large number of motor launches, coastal motor boats, which, as is known, are small, fast craft, carrying a minimum crew of six, and other small craft took part in the operation.

It was a particularly intricate operation, which had to be worked strictly to time-table and involved very delicate navigation on a hostile coast without lights and largely under unknown navigational conditions, which have developed since the war, with the added danger of unknown mine fields. One of the essentials to success was a high development of the scientific use of smoke or fog—it is more fog than smoke—for which certain conditions of force and direction of wind were necessary, so as to protect the operation from batteries which could have flanked it.

The general plan of operation was as follows:—After an hour of intense bombardment of Zeebrugge by the monitors, Vindictive, with the auxiliaries Iris and Daffodil, were to run alongside the head of the mole, attacking with gunfire as they approached; storming parties and demolition parties were to be landed. Meantime three blockships, assisted by the coastal motor boats and launches, were to make for the entrance to the canal and to be run aground and blown up. Two old and valueless submarines were to run against the pile work connecting the masonry portion of the mole with the shore, and, being filled with explosives, were to be blown up, destroying the pile-work connection.

At Ostend the operation was simpler. Two of the blockships were to be run aground and blown up at the entrance to the port. The difficulties of this part of the undertaking were considerably increased by mist and rain, with corresponding low visibility and consequent absence of effective aerial cooperation.

At Zeebrugge, of the three blockships two attained their objective and were sunk and blown up in the entrance of the canal. The third one grounded in the passage in. One of the old submarines succeeded in obtaining its objective and was blown up to the destruction of the piling of the approach to the mole. Storming parties from Vindictive, Iris, and Daffodil attacked under extremely heavy fire, and fought with the greatest possible gallantry, maintaining their position alongside the mole for an hour, causing much damage to the enemy and inflicting considerable losses upon him. The objectives for the storming and demolition parties were (1) the German forces holding it, (2) the battery upon it, (3) the destroyer and submarine depots upon it, (4) the large seaplane base upon it. The three vessels, Vindictive, Iris, and Daffodil, after reembarking their landing parties, withdrew. This attack was primarily intended to engage the attention of the garrison on the mole, thereby allowing the blockships to enter the harbor.

At Ostend the wind prevented the effective use of the smoke screen and the two blockships had to be run ashore and blown up without attaining their objective. The British loss in vessels was small: one destroyer and two motor launches. But fire from German guns wrought heavy havoc in the ranks of the British seamen: nineteen officers and 170 men were killed; two officers and fourteen men were missing, and twenty-nine officers and 354 men were wounded.

On May 10, 1918, the Ostend operation was completed. The old cruiser Vindictive was sunk at the entrance to the harbor, after having been filled with concrete. The losses of the British forces engaged in this operation were small.

It was later reported that twenty-one German destroyers and a large number of submarines were penned in the Bruges Canal docks as a result of the naval operations against Zeebrugge. Engagements, without leading to any results, occurred on April 23, 1918, between five Austrian and two British destroyers.

Early in May, 1918, reports about a mutiny in the Austrian navy, which was said to have taken place some months before, seemed to be correct. The mutiny, it was claimed, began at Pola, but spread quickly to Cattaro. It was among arsenal workmen that the rising, according to the London "Times," began at Pola. They demanded the cessation of various disciplinary measures and punishments inflicted both in vessels and ashore. The movement soon spread to the ships in harbor; the crews left their posts and thronged the decks shouting, hurrahing, and acting as they pleased. The officers were powerless, but there seems to have been no fighting between them and the men. The naval authorities parleyed with the men for a week, and finally all the sailors' and workmen's demands were granted.

At Cattaro the mutiny took a more serious turn. Six cruisers and several destroyers hoisted the red flag. The German and Magyar elements in some of the ships held aloof, and there were encounters between them and the mutineers, the guns of one cruiser being turned on another and some mutineers being killed. However, the mutineers got the upper hand after three days and became masters of the port.

Negotiations were eventually opened on an equal footing between the admiral and the mutineers, and finally the latter consented to surrender their vessels on receiving written guarantees that no action would be taken against any man, and that a number of grievances would be settled. The Cattaro fleet then returned under the Austrian flag, after being eight days in open revolt.