Chapter 6

I read an account later of our encounter with the "Agustina" in a number of the _Matin_ of April 1, 1915. It was entitled "_Toujours l'U_" and spoke of our undesirable presence in French waters; a following number did us the honor to represent a large picture of our boat with the officers standing on the bridge, taken probably by a passenger on board the Spanish vessel. An arrow pointed to us with the inscription, "_Voila l'équipage de bandits_." The English usually refer to us as "the pirates," and in their rage describe our activities as those of the "German submarine pest." We are accustomed to these flattering allusions, and it amused me to preserve and frame our picture from the _Matin_.

In the next few days we stopped and searched several neutral steamers, and sank many English ones. The captains were occasionally stubborn and refused to obey our signals, so a few accidents occurred; in one case, for instance, a stray shot struck some passengers in a lifeboat, which collapsed; but as a rule passengers and crews were picked up by the many sailboats and fishing boats which circulate in the Irish Sea and in St. George's Channel, and it was we who generally summoned these fishermen to go to the rescue of their shipwrecked countrymen.

The method of capture was always the same, and now, our ammunition being nearly exhausted, we steered a homeward course, with the hope of securing a few more steamers on the way. We were again favored by good luck, for at the entrance of the English Channel we ran across a large steamer, coming from America and heading for a French port, heavily laden with all the fine things that the Americans at present so willingly export.

The chase began in the usual fashion as we followed closely in the enemy's wake. Although the captain made an effort to escape, yet he evidently felt certain from the beginning that he would be unable to do so, for he immediately swung out the lifeboats, ready to be lowered. We were economizing our ammunition and did not, according to our custom, fire a warning shot, but as we drew near the steamer we suddenly saw dark, round objects thrown overboard. The man at the helm beside me exclaimed: "They are throwing mines," but I was not of the same opinion. We proceeded quietly to examine these suspicious objects more closely, and we discovered they were simply bundles of clothes the sailors were trying to save. In pitching them into the lifeboats they had missed the mark and the bundles had fallen into the sea. A report had apparently spread through the English seaports that the men had but scant time to save their belongings when they were sighted by one of our submarines, and since that time their clothes were strapped together ready for a sudden emergency. The steamer stopped and the crew on this occasion took to the boats with a perfect discipline we were little accustomed to witness; the "Flaminian" was sent to the bottom of the sea with one of our last torpedoes.

The following morning, before bidding the west coast of England a temporary farewell, we made another good catch. We sighted a broad-bottomed, four-masted steamer, also coming from America, laden down, as we soon ascertained, with 5,000 tons of oats, and making its way to Havre. We started after it, and as usual it tried to escape, but a well-directed shot through the bridge and chart house brought it to a stop, and it signaled that the engines were being reversed. The boats were lowered, and on drawing near we perceived the captain with others on the bridge holding up their hands as a token of surrender. As soon as those on board had taken their places in the lifeboats they rowed towards us and showed the liveliest interest in the final torpedoing of their steamer. They looked upon it as a new kind of sport, and under the present conditions they could watch the performance in the most comfortable way. The sea was like a mirror, and reflected the smiling spring sunshine whose warming rays were most agreeably felt.

The English captain had scarcely been on board my submarine a moment when he begged that we might go together and verify the excellent aim of our first shot through the forward part of his ship, which he told me had nearly grazed his ear. I consented to go on his lifeboat and admire with him, to our mutual enjoyment, the irreproachable marksmanship of my gunner, although I did not accept a drink of whisky one of the English officers offered me.

On seeing the gaping hole in the forecastle, the captain and his men clapped their hands and cried out, "A very good shot!" The captain congratulated me for securing, as he asserted, the richest prize I had ever made, but I assured him we had sunk even more valuable cargoes than the present one. I decided, as the sea was calm and no ship was in sight, to spare our torpedoes and shells and to put an end to the steamer with little hand grenades. The Englishmen took a sportsmanlike interest in the proceedings, and one of the officers even volunteered to show me the most effective position for the explosive. I naturally did not gratify his wish to place it there himself, for I knew myself very accurately the most vulnerable spot in the ship. In a very few moments a big hole was torn in the side of the "Crown of Castille" and with a gurgling sound the waters rushed in. At the same time long, yellow threads of the finest oats floated far out on the sea and, glistening with a golden shimmer, gave proof long after the steamer had sunk of the precious cargo which had lain within its flanks. You poor French army horses, I fear your rations were cut short for a while!

I had made an interesting study of the manner in which the English crews of the present day were composed. Apart from the British officers there were but few experienced seamen on board. This was made evident by the awkward way the men usually handled the lifeboats. Even with the enormous increase of wages, sailors could not be found to risk their lives in the danger zone, and a lot of untrained fellows, negroes and Chinamen, revealed by their clumsy rowing that they had only recently been pressed into service.

Various other interesting incidents occurred on our return trip, which I shall not mention now, but having safely reached our newly conquered port of Ostend, we read to our amusement in a French paper that our U-boat had been sunk in the Channel by a fleet of six fishing steamers.

We were again warmly welcomed by our comrades from the Army and Navy, all anxious to hear the news we had to tell, and we had the special honor of a visit from H.R.H. the Crown Prince Rupprecht of Bavaria, who, after inspecting our boat, permitted me to give him a detailed account of our recent splendid cruise.

We had many other experiences during the quiet, warm, summer months, with their long, clear nights, which enabled us to achieve the further destruction of a large number of steamers. It was glorious to work in fine weather on our U-boat on the waters of the Atlantic Ocean, so peaceful at this season of the year, and so doing we indulged in much friendly intercourse with the various fishermen we met.

Fishing steamers have replaced the old sailboats to a great extent, and they represent an enormous fishing industry. Our larder was daily replenished with fresh fish, which was a greatly appreciated item on our monotonous bill of fare.

One windy evening in August, we captured a Belgian steamer bringing home coal from Cardiff; the crew having left the ship, the latter was rapidly sinking, when to our astonishment a man sprang on deck from below. He had evidently been forgotten and our shot going through the steamer had warned him of his danger. He hesitated to obey my repeated orders to jump overboard, until finally encased in two life belts he plunged into the water and began to swim; but the screw was still slowly revolving, and he was drawn deep down by the suction of the water. We had given him up as lost, when we were amazed to see him reappear on the other side of the ship. The screw, which had slowly pulled him down, had thrown him up again, and he swam towards us. A big wave having tossed him onto our low deck, we were glad to find he was unhurt, and we gave him the best of care. He was a Dutchman, and after a fortnight spent in our midst, he was so happy he no longer wished to leave us.

When it came to our sinking of the "Midland Queen" a similar incident occurred. A negro had been forgotten by his white fellow-countrymen, and on finding himself abandoned and alone he was so greatly scared that he did not dare to leave the sinking ship; we watched him, and beckoned to him to come to us; but he refused, and swore at us furiously. Presently the "Midland Queen" pitched violently forward, and stood nearly erect with her nose in the water; then with a shrill whistling sound she dived below the surface of the waves. The negro's black head vanished in the turmoil of the waters; then suddenly a loud detonation occurred; an explosion of compressed air within the ship threw up, sky-high, barrels and boards, and among them, to our unbelieving eyes, we saw the wriggling body of the negro. He was projected into the sea, and swam towards us, apparently none the worse after this strange and violent experience. We rescued him and handed him over to his mates, who had rowed back to his assistance.

On our return voyage through the North Sea we met a large sailboat, with the Swedish flag flying from the topmast. She lay completely becalmed, and signaled for us to draw near. We saw a large crowd gathered on her deck, and we approached cautiously, fearing some trap; when to our joyful surprise we found she had 150 German officers and sailors on board. They belonged to one of our auxiliary cruisers, the "Meteor." Her captain after many exploits had been pursued by several English cruisers, and to save his little vessel from being captured he had deliberately sent her to the bottom of the sea, and the Swedish sailboat had picked up the crew. Our shipwrecked comrades told us they were desperately hungry, but our own provisions were exhausted; so we took them in tow, for not a breath of wind stirred the sails.

By clear sunshine we merrily covered the short distance to our nearest port, and towards midday the sailing ship and ourselves let down our anchors once more off the German coast.

VIII

THE METHOD OF SINKING AND RAISING SHIPS

During the present naval warfare we have had the opportunity to watch the sinking of ships of every type and size; shortly after receiving their death wound the vessels usually disappear totally beneath the surface. It takes even big steamers only between four and ten minutes to sink, after being hit by a torpedo or shell beneath the water line, and yet occasionally a ship may float several hours before going down to the bottom of the sea.

It is clearly evident that the slow or rapid sinking of a ship depends on the distribution of its bulkheads and water-tight compartments. A man-of-war, built on the latest models, has a great many small water-tight compartments, for she is meant to be able to continue fighting even after several of these compartments have been destroyed; whereas, an ocean steamer is so constructed that she will remain afloat only a short time after a collision with another ship, or if she runs into an iceberg or a derelict, she can endure a certain intake of water, and lists at a moderate angle far more readily than a warship, whose guns are rendered nearly useless if the ship is heavily canting. A warship must be built so as to withstand, without sinking, the injury caused by a number of gun holes even beneath the water line, where the inner part of the ship must necessarily be subdivided into many parts. A warship is built at great cost, but so is an ocean steamer. The sunken "Lusitania" was worth 35,000,000 marks (nearly $9,000,000) and the mammoth steamers of the Hamburg-American Line, the "Imperator," the "Vaterland," were still more expensive to build.

The ordinary commercial steamer often has in her inner construction only athwartship bulkheads through the double bottom that run from one side to another and form large partitions; and in proportion to her height a steamer is again subdivided horizontally into several decks. But these are not usually water-tight, and the cross bulkheads already mentioned form the only water-tight divisions in the hold. In the big cargo spaces, these divisions practically do not exist, and the ship, throughout almost its whole interior, is open from keel to deck. This arrangement, of course, facilitates the rapid loading and unloading of the cargo; therefore, in this type of ship the engine rooms and boilers, surrounded and protected by coal bunkers, are the only really water-tight portions of the ship. Whoever has gazed down into the capacious hold of such a steamer will readily understand that if the water should pour into one of these spaces, at either end of the ship, the other end of the vessel would rise steadily upwards. In nearly every case, even the largest steamer, just before sinking, tilts abruptly its bow or stern straight up out of the sea, until the water rushing into the hold draws the vessel downwards, and with a mighty roar it plunges forever into the deep. We have repeatedly noticed at this moment that the air within the boat escapes with a shrill whistle from every possible aperture, and the sound resembles the shriek of a steam siren. This is a wonderful spectacle to behold!

The velocity with which a ship sinks depends on the size of the hold, and its distance from the ship's center of gravity, for the suction occurs more rapidly if the ship is struck at either end than if the blow is delivered amidships.

We are seldom concerned with ships having empty holds; those we pursue usually carry heavy cargoes, and therefore the water can only penetrate within, where space and air exist; whatever air is left around loosely packed bales and boxes must be driven out before the water can stream in; certain exceptional cargoes, like wool and cereals, absorb a given amount of water, but these can be discounted.

Accordingly the air must escape through existing holes, as the water pouring in drives the air into the hold; the pressure with which the water comes in is equal to the air pressure in the hold. It is quite conceivable that a cargo may be so closely packed that there will be no space left for air to escape, but this is hardly ever the case; frequently, however, the cross-sections of the air vents are so small that the air escapes only very slowly, and the water enters very slowly in the same ratio; under these conditions it would take a long time for a ship to sink. This undoubtedly is very desirable in peace time, but in time of war this is not at all agreeable to our purpose; first, if the foundering of the vessel is prolonged we are prevented from accomplishing other work, and secondly, warships may come to the assistance of a sinking steamer.

Whenever possible we found it expedient to break open with an axe big holes in the lockers in case the hatch could not be quickly enough removed; or, if circumstances did not permit of our doing this, we shot holes with our cannon into the upper part of the steamer, above the hold, so that the air might conveniently escape and the water rush in. We employed, with excellent results, this method in the sinking of many steamers which otherwise would have settled too slowly.

It happens sometimes that a ship may carry a cargo that floats and that is not porous, such as wood. It is impossible to sink a vessel with such a cargo by admitting water into the hold. Shots therefore must be fired at the engine and boiler rooms to force this kind of a steamer to sink. In general this is a safe rule to follow, for these are always the most vulnerable portions of every heavily laden vessel, and this mode of attack is nearly invariably successful.

A warship is usually equipped with cross or lateral bulkheads, in addition to the longitudinal bulkhead that runs from stem to stern through the middle of the ship, dividing it into halves, and other bulkheads separate these two longitudinal sections into further subdivisions. With the exception of the great fast passenger steamers, these divisions by means of longitudinal bulkheads seldom exist on vessels of commerce, although exceptions are to be found.

The sinking of a steamer with a multitude of partitions is effected by its gradually listing more and more on the side in which the water is penetrating, until it capsizes completely and founders with the keel uppermost. A ship can also roll over on its side as it plunges downwards with stem or stern erect.

Theoretically a vessel might sink on a parallel keel, descending horizontally deeper and deeper into the sea; but it never occurs in reality. This hypothesis assumes that a ship has taken in at the bow exactly the same amount of water as at the stern, at exactly the same distance from the center of gravity; this, of course, is impossible; besides the holes through which the water is pouring in must also be at precisely the same level, or else the water pressure would be greater at one end than at the other, and the slightest alteration of level would occasion a greater intake of water and upset the equilibrium of the boat.

There is one other point I will touch upon; it has often been asserted, especially in romances of the ocean, that as a ship sinks the suction creates a tremendous whirlpool which engulfs all things in its vicinity. This statement is naturally very much exaggerated. People swimming about may be drawn down by the suction of the foundering ship, but in my opinion no lifeboat which is well manned is in danger of this whirlpool. Even old sailors, deluded by this superstition, have rowed away in haste from a sinking ship, when they might have stood by and saved many lives.

The question is now often being put, whether it will be possible to raise the vessels that have been sunk during the war. The raising of a ship depends above all upon whether the depth at which it lies is so great that it precludes the work of a diver.

I have already stated that the water pressure augments at the rate of one atmosphere (one kilogram to the square centimeter) to ten meters' increase of depth. If a diver working at ten meters' depth is under a pressure of one atmosphere, at fifty meters he will be under the tremendous pressure of five atmospheres. This is the greatest depth to which a diver can attain, and if by chance a diver has gone a few meters beyond fifty meters, no man to my knowledge has attained sixty meters. The work of divers at a depth of forty or fifty meters is even then not very effective, as they are unable to perform heavy tasks, nor can they remain more than half an hour at a time under such a pressure, and I am speaking now only of experts; therefore only light and easy work can be performed by most divers at a great depth and the appliance of ponderous chains for lifting purposes can only be accomplished under unusually favorable conditions. To raise any ship at a depth above thirty meters must be considered as a very efficient job, whereas if this is attempted at a depth below thirty meters it can be done only by salvage companies where neither unfavorable bottom obstacles nor currents intervene. A strong current renders a diver's work impossible, for it carries him off his feet.

On the high seas the currents change with the ebb and flood. At the precise moment of the turn of the tide the undercurrent is supposed to be nil, and the diver must take advantage of this moment to perform his task. Another difficulty arises from the sand being shifted by the currents, and settling on the prominent parts of a wreck; it often envelops them to such a degree that the ship becomes so deeply embedded in the sand that it is no longer salvable.

According to my estimation eighty per cent of our enemy's sunken ships lie from fifty to a hundred meters below the surface of the sea, so that all possibility of their being raised is excluded. The largest ships nowadays have a draft of less than ten meters, and as the vessels sunk lie at far greater depths they are no source of danger to shipping in time of peace. Of the remaining twenty per cent of sunken ships half of them are unreclaimable, either owing to their position, or owing to the high cost of salvage, or because it is not even known where they lie. The other half or last ten per cent have probably for the greater part been sunk in channels where the currents are so swift that they are covered with sand, and diving enterprises are out of the question. In time of war such work cannot be thought of; after the war the ships will long since have been completely buried by the sand.

Maybe off the east coast of England one or two ships may be raised, for they lie at a lesser depth and are exposed to slighter currents than on the south coast of England, but in that district only the smaller and more insignificant vessels have been sunk, and it would hardly pay to raise them, especially as they are so damaged by torpedoes and mines that they would probably fall apart on being raised to the surface.

Therefore hardly a single ship will be salvaged, and the sea will retain all those ships it has swallowed in the course of this war carried on by all the nations of the earth.

THE END

The Riverside Press CAMBRIDGE . MASSACHUSETTS U . S . A

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+-----------------------------------------------------------+ | Typographical errors corrected in text: | | | | Page 1: VAN FORSTNER replaced with VON FORSTNER | | | | Unusual words: | | | | Page 134: salvable (adj.) means that can be salvaged | | or saved | | | +-----------------------------------------------------------+

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ERRATUM

In Introduction, page xxi, line 6 from the bottom, for "1915" read "1916."

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