You will remember, back there in the first chapter, we told you about Fulton’s submarine and how one man operated it, so naturally he was his own superior officer and able-bodied seaman both rolled into one.

Since those early days of underwater navigation wonderful advances have been made, not only in submarine construction, but in the crew that mans her as well, for not only are there many men in the crew of a submarine of to-day, but each man is highly trained for the work he has to do.

At the present time the personnel, which means the force of men employed as well as their fighting qualities taken as a whole, includes a list of no less than 48 officers and seamen, and each and every one of them is a picked man. The smaller submarines, of course, carry a smaller complement of men, for there is neither as much work to be done nor is there room to bunk them.

Conditions on Early Submarine Craft.—What with the great array of instruments, apparatus, and machines that must form the equipment of the submarine to make her an efficient fighting unit, there is but little space left in her for her crew, and this was especially so in the early days.

Owing to the fact that space was, and still is, at a premium, the crew of a submarine does not list a man who has not one or more important parts to play in the actual operation of the boat; for every addition to the crew means that much less comfort for each one, and interferes moreover, with the carrying out of orders in a rapid and effective manner.

When Crews Were Hard to Sign.—There were no conveniences provided on the first submarines for their crews; indeed, as we look back now on those pioneer attempts, it seems verily as if no thought at all was given to the health and safety of the men who manned them.

It was enough, albeit, to get a boat that could be submerged and which stood a fair chance of coming to the surface again; so of course there was not enough air, and the little there was was bad; the quarters, if there were any at all, were very small and close, and there was a deal of danger attending the most ordinary maneuvers.

Now, the able-bodied seaman knew all these things only too well, and, what was more, he had heard tall yarns spun around of the terrors of the new and strange craft, and these did not tend to strengthen his desires to hurry up and enlist in that arm of the naval service.

When the various governments began to take a real interest in the submarine and to keep up an active flotilla, they began to realize that unless the comfort and the safety of the men were looked after better than they had been in the past the submarine service would soon be shorthanded and badly crippled.

So as a sop for the bad conditions which the crew must stand, the men were offered a large bonus—that is, extra money besides the regular pay—and also extra privileges. In truth, the offers were so generous and alluring that it was not long before seafaring men began to rush to the call, and from that time to this there has never been the least trouble in getting crews for undersea fighting craft.

As the construction of the submarine moved on apace and it grew in size, and as new inventions and improvements were made to supply pure air and enough of it, all the discomforts vanished, until a berth on an undersea craft is as agreeable, nearly, as it is on a man-o’-war.

What the Base-Ship Is For.—While, of course, the chief object of a submarine is, as you can tell by its very name, to travel undersea when needs be, it is, as you have already learned, not fitted to run for more than forty-eight hours at a stretch when totally submerged, and as a matter of fact it spends most of its time afloat and in the awash condition.

From this you will see that living on a submarine is for the greater part of the time just about the same—though a little more confined—as it is aboard any other craft. Her actual cruising radius—that is the distance she can sail from her base of supplies—is seldom more than 2,500 miles; and she is limited to this mileage simply because of the lack of storage for the food and fuel she needs.

For this reason every submarine must have a supply base, and this usually is a ship which is supplied with the necessities of life and power. The base-ship, as it is called, is also a floating dock,[29] has a complete machine shop, and every other conceivable thing that she needs to take care of her flotilla of submarine children. A mother ship is shown in Fig. 60.

The base-ship follows after her submarines, not directly on their heels, but so that they will be within easy cruising distance of her. It may seem that 2,500 miles—nearly the span of the Atlantic—is a long distance, and it is for a submarine to make one continuous trip; but ten short runs of 250 miles each will use up her supplies and then she will have to return to her base for more.

In times of peace a submarine never strays far from her base-ship, indeed, she spends most of her time laying alongside of her except when at practice. At such times the submarine and the base-ships are considered[163]
[164] integral[30] parts of each other, and under these conditions most of the crew stay aboard the ship.

Thus it is that a submarine sailor’s life is nearly all spent above water, and it is not such an unhappy one at that.

How Men Are Trained for Submarine Duty.—The base-ship is also used as a training ship for rookies—that is green hands—and on it they are let into the secrets and mysteries of the working, sailing, and fighting machinery of the submarine.

The rookies are taken in hand by the officers and the more highly skilled sailors of the submarine and drilled in whatever they are to do until it becomes second nature to them, for a fluke of any kind might spell disaster for the whole crew and craft.

The Complement of a Submarine.—The word complement (notice that it is spelled with an e instead of an i) means not some pretty bit of flattery but the full number of men that is needed to man the boat.

The complement of a submarine is not very different from that of a torpedo boat or other small naval craft. There is, first of all, the commander, or commanding officer, who is in charge of and is responsible for the crew and his boat.

His word is law and he is as able a navigator and tactician—as an expert in directing a submarine, with skill and shrewdness is called—as it is possible to get. His brain is the master brain of the mighty craft, for it is he who plans what his crew must do, and when they must do it to the end that the enemy ship shall be sunk.

Then there are the officers under him—lieutenants (pronounced lef-ten´-ants, with the accent on the second syllable, by stage folks in naval plays)—and these correspond to the first and second mates, etc., of a sailing ship.

These officers are also thoroughly competent navigators, and should anything happen to their superior officer, any one of them could take command of the submarine and give a good account of himself.

The rest of the crew is made up of engineers and oilers, torpedo-men and gunners, wireless and signalmen, cooks and able-bodied seamen. The engineers not only must know how to run the engines to get the most power with the least fuel, but they must be machinists of the highest class in order to make repairs of every kind should the boat be damaged by shell fire.

The torpedo-crew, as the men who have charge of the torpedoes are called, take care of these mighty missiles from the time they are lowered into the hull from the base-ship to the moment they are shot from the tubes on their courses to sink the enemy ships.

This crew also takes care of the trimming tanks, which must, as we have explained before, be filled with water to offset the effect of lightening the submarine by the sudden discharge of the torpedoes. The gunners, of course, look after the guns and are expert gun pointers. All of the new submarines are equipped with wireless and this is worked by two or more experienced wireless men who are on constant duty while the boat is afloat and who operate the conductivity telegraph system when the craft is running submerged.

The submarine is kept in constant touch with the mother ship, as the base-ship is sometimes called, and as the latter has a much more powerful sending apparatus it can, in turn, communicate with the land either directly or by relaying the message by another ship.

The wireless operators also keep busy listening for the first faint signals sent out by enemy ships which may come within range of their instruments, and though they will not be able to read the messages if they are sent in cipher code[31] they can at least know of the proximity of the ship.

Breaking in Raw Recruits.—When there is peace on earth and good will toward men the submarine never gets very far away from its base-ship, about its only excursions being for drill and practice, which is made up of maneuvering the submarine and torpedo practice.

To maneuver the craft means to make adroit moves and changes of position, that is, the boat is put from the afloat into the awash, submerged, and totally submerged conditions by and for the benefit of both the new men and old hands.

The submarine’s place at sea—that is, her longitude and latitude—is found solely by log distances and compass courses while the boat is running submerged, and her course is corrected for drift and leeway; navigating the submarine by these means is called dead reckoning.

Torpedo practice consists of firing torpedoes with dummy heads, that is, heads which do not contain a charge of explosive, at floating targets which the submarine or a lighter tows out to sea and anchors fast. Whether the torpedoes hit or miss they come to the surface after having been shot and are picked up again and returned to the submarine.

By constant practice the men of the torpedo-crew become highly skilled in hitting the target with the cigar-shaped projectile, and they are not allowed to get rusty for want of constant practice.

To add to the knowledge which actual practice gives the raw recruits, as well as the more experienced men, the officers lecture to them on every subject that has to do with the design, construction, and operation of every working part of the submarine.

In this way the crew is trained to do their several individual duties with clock-like precision and is fit and ready at a moment’s notice to handle the craft for all she is worth when war comes.

The Conditions in War Time.—When the dove of peace has had its tail-feathers plucked out by the god of war and the enemy nations are arrayed in battle formation against each other, then the submarine and her crew are welded into a destroying unit of the most treacherous and dangerous kind that the sea has ever known.

The conditions on board a submarine are quite different in war time from those when the nations are at peace. In the first place, when submarine chasers and aircraft are scouting the seas in search of underwater boats it is not only dangerous but often impossible for a submarine to keep in touch with the base-ship by wireless.

We say dangerous because wireless messages flashed forth and back would betray its presence to an enemy ship, and we say impossible in virtue of the fact that the craft often has to run under water for as long a time as she can stay down.

When cruising on the surface the sharpest lookout must be kept every moment of the time for an enemy ship, which may be torpedoed if it is a merchant vessel, or the submarine must dive and get away from it, if it should be a chaser or other kind of armed and armored boat that is looking to sink her.

Under these strenuous conditions the crew is keyed up to the highest pitch and the severest discipline is maintained on board. Torpedoing, diving, submerging, and all the other drills that have been learned under the easy routine of make-believe war now become stern realities upon which the very safety of the submarine depends and hence the lives of the crew.