We Dive at Dawn

Lt.-Comm. Kenneth Edwards

• Editorial: Eumenes Publishing
• Año: 2019
• ISBN:
  9781839741524
• Categoría: History
• Categoría: World War I

We Dive at Dawn, first published in 1941, is the authoritative and highly readable account of Royal Navy submarines during World War I (with a final chapter on submarine warfare in the early years of World War II). Written by Lt.-Commander Kenneth Edwards, the book covers a wide-range of topics: the development of the various British submarine classes, German U-boats, encounters with German and Turkish ships and aircraft, sabotage missions on land, anti-submarine techniques (nets, cables, depth-charges), accidents and rescues at sea (including gripping accounts of men escaping flooded submarines). In addition to the workings of the subs themselves, the actions of the men, so many of whom died during their service, are also well-portrayed. One cannot but help to have a great deal of respect for the submariners in, as the author puts it, "particularly hazardous service." Included are 4 maps and 16 pages of photographs.

CHAPTER I

IF you violate Nature, you must expect Nature to be your bitter enemy. A submarine makes a hole in the sea, and the sea abhors a vacuum with a hatred of great strength. The hand of the enemy may be terribly strong against the submarine, but those who serve in submarines must always reckon first, last, and all the time with their bitterest enemy—the sea.

“Those who go to sea are only four inches from death.” When the ancient Greek philosopher coined that fearful phrase he was thinking of the four-inch-thick hulls of the Greek galleys. What, one wonders, would he have thought of the half-inch steel hull of a submarine? True, steel is stronger than wood, but wood will float in any condition, and steel will not. It was this simple fact which caused the postponement of the building of iron ships for so many years—and yet during the Great War ships were built of reinforced concrete.

But the galleys of ancient Greece floated on the surface of the sea. The sea could only press upward in its jealous attempt to preserve its rightful level.

A submerged submarine displaces water in the heart of the sea, and the sea presses in on it from all sides. A submarine diving at 100 feet—a mere third of the depth to which modern submarines are tested—is subjected to a sea pressure of nearly 50 lb. to the square inch. And there are a great many square inches of surface on the hull of a submarine. Small wonder that many of the anti-submarine measures which have been devised seek to enlist the sea on their behalf against the submarine.

Even when it is not diving, a submarine must pay far more attention to the sea than any other type of vessel. Nearly every one of the characteristics of a submarine make it, in one way or another, vulnerable to the sea. The bridge is low—only about 18 feet above the water-line even when the vessel is at full buoyancy. In the deck of the bridge is the conning-tower hatch, which must be kept open if the engines are running. Below are a mass of electric machinery very vulnerable to sea-water and the great electric storage-batteries. If sea-water gets into these, the submarine will quickly be filled with deadly chlorine gas.

The low bridge not only makes it very wet and uncomfortable in bad weather, it also reduces visibility, and when the height of the waves is considerably more than the height of the bridge, there is an ever-present fear of collision. The hydroplanes, too, often rise out of the water in really bad weather. Then they come down again with a jar which shakes the whole submarine and flings men off their feet. Not infrequently they are broken off by the sea, notwithstanding the fact that they are held to the hull by a steel shaft 5 or 6 inches in diameter.

In August 1923 submarine L9 was being refitted in Hong Kong Dockyard when a typhoon swept the port. The submarine was empty—only Lieutenant Dickson was on the bridge when the vessel was swept away out of control by the typhoon. It seemed as if he must be drowned, for great waves were dashing over the low bridge. The harbor was in chaos. Two large Japanese steamers were torn from their moorings and borne down the harbor out of control. Junks and sampans were being tossed in all directions. The submarine, without crew or motive-power, was dashed into shallow water. There she sank, and Lieutenant Dickson was left clinging to the periscope standards, which showed at intervals above the waves. It did not seem possible that anybody could live in such a sea, but a British blue-jacket who had rushed on board the 18,600-ton Japanese steamer Gingo Maru was lowered from the bows, a life-line fast around his waist.

The bows of the Gingo Maru were only about 500 feet from the sunken submarine, but so high was the racing sea that it seemed impossible that any swimmer could reach it. The sailor fought his way through, however, and willing hands on the life-line dragged him and the lieutenant back from what appeared certain death.

It was in the autumn, in the height of the northeast monsoon, that a submarine left Kobe, in Japan, for Hong Kong. She had an old battery which was practically worn out, and was, in fact, on her way to Hong Kong for the installation of a new one. Her diesel engines were in good shape, but they were only capable of keeping the submarine going at a speed slightly less than that of the tremendous Pacific rollers which were running practically uninterrupted from the Arctic to the Equator.

The officer of the watch on the bridge had to maintain a sharp look-out on the sea astern of him. The fact that the submarine’s speed was rather less than that of the waves meant that the vessel gradually got “out of step,” and then there was real danger of being badly “pooped.”

Poops disappeared from warships many years ago, and certainly no submarine has ever sported one. But the term survives, and being “pooped” means that a wave traveling somewhat faster than the ship will build itself up from the stern and slowly but inexorably swamp the vessel completely. In this instance intermittent “pooping” had been the order of the last twenty-four hours. Down below in the control-room an enormous canvas bag had been laced up round the conning-tower hatch. This extended from the hatch to the control-room deck, and the ladder was inside it. From its bottom a canvas pipe led away to a bilge on which a pump was kept running. The approach to and from the bridge was through a flap in this canvas bag, which caught the quantities of water coming down the conning-tower, preventing it from splashing on to the switch-boards or finding its way into the batteries.

Apart from the discomfort inevitable in a submarine in heavy weather, particularly when the temperature is high and the state of the sea makes ventilation impossible, all was well.

The submarine was still over 800 miles from Hong Kong when the electric storage-battery began to give out. In order that there should be “juice” for lights and for cooking—to say nothing of the steering motor and the various small motors upon which the diesel engines relied absolutely for their continued operation—it was becoming essential to charge. That meant slowing down, and to slow down meant to increase the danger of being badly “pooped” by the tremendous following sea.

There seemed to be only one thing for it: to turn head to sea and charge on the opposite course, and resume the voyage to Hong Kong as soon as the battery was fully charged. But turning in that sea presented a problem. The submarine had a four-inch gun on a level with her bridge. If, as she turned, a big sea caught her bridge and gun-tower, it would throw her on to her beam ends, so that acid might spill out of the battery. The only safe way of turning was to dive and turn round under water, coming to the surface again head to sea.

As the next move was being discussed, the officer of the watch saw a wave far bigger than any of the others bearing down on them from astern. It enveloped the stern and came climbing inexorably up the superstructure until the water was close to his feet, while astern the water rose high above him. He leapt to the engine-room telegraphs and swung them over to “stop.” Then he slammed the hatch at his feet and held on for life. On came the sea, enveloping the whole bridge.

His lungs were well-nigh bursting when the water cleared from over his head. He took a deep breath and looked astern. Another giant wave was almost on top of him. It seemed to be coming faster, because the submarine had lost way. Again he was completely submerged for more than a minute, to come up choking as the sea passed on.

Three of these enormous waves swept right over the submarine in quick succession. Fortunate it was that the engines were stopped and the hatch shut, for any of them might have swamped the submarine and carried her down into depths where the sea pressure would have crushed her hull like an egg-shell.

It was not until after arrival at Hong Kong, with a battery so exhausted that the few lights which remained burned redly dim, that explanation was found for the succession of tremendous waves which had so nearly swamped the vessel. There had been an earthquake under the Pacific Ocean.

In 1928 six old submarines left Hong Kong for England, where they were to be scrapped. They were vessels which had seen long and arduous service, and were not now considered fit to dive, so that the ten-thousand-mile passage was to be made by easy stages on the surface.

As things turned out, the stages were by no means easy, for the engines developed every malaise known to the most pessimistic of engineers.

It was by reason of one of these engine breakdowns that submarine L7 was floating helplessly towards the northern end of the Red Sea, devoid of motive power, on a blistering afternoon in May. She was taken in tow by the depot ship, H.M.S. Ambrose. Soon afterwards, when the forlorn procession had just entered the Gulf of Suez, a snorting head gale sprang up. The submarine rode up on a wave, only to be jerked off it by the towing hawser. The crews of both depot ship and submarine were left wondering how any hawser could continue to stand such a strain.

Unspoken prayers were mingled with the wonderment, for if the tow had parted, there would have been no hope for the submarine or her crew, since the seas were breaking white over the razor-edged reefs on each side of the Gulf. But the towing hawser stood up to the strain, although it was found on arrival at Suez that it was so badly “stranded” that the ends of wire strands were sticking out in all directions.

Less than a month later the sea again nearly got the better of L7. This time she was off the Burlings—those islands dreaded by all seamen, which lie off the coast of Portugal. It was blowing a full gale from the west. So high was the big Atlantic sea that being taken in tow was quite out of the question.

For thirty-six hours the submarine lay rolling almost like a lifeless log in the terrific seas, which repeatedly swept over the bridge. The motion made the work of the men in the engine-room a nightmare, but they worked on with demoniac energy. There was no need to tell them that their lives and those of all on board hung upon their ability to keep those broken-down engines going. Every moment the submarine was drifting nearer to the merciless cliffs which have claimed so many good ships. On the bridge the captain and first lieutenant looked at the cliffs and then at each other. They did not even speak, but each knew what was in the mind of the other—how to try to save as many lives as possible when the only boat was a crazy canvas collapsible affair impossible to get at in that weather.

But L7’s luck held again. On Sunday morning the gale blew itself out and the weather suddenly moderated. Moreover, the engines began to make headway, and slowly the submarine clawed her way from the cliffs towards which she had been drifting.

It was sheer willpower which kept those broken-down engines running at all. Had they stopped altogether, as they threatened to do every other minute, nothing could have saved the submarine from that terrible lee-shore. In the engine-room hell was let loose. Any question of working in watches had long been given up. Every man worked incessantly, stripped to the waist, without rest, and with no food except an occasional biscuit and gulp of water. While on the bridge men were drenched and frozen, their comrades down in the engine-room were running with sweat, covered from head to foot in oil, often scalded and burnt by hot oil and hot metal. If ever men struggled against the sea it was those men in the engine-room of L7, and it was by sheer determination that they won through.

But men do not always win against the sea. In submarines the dice are often too heavily weighted against them. No man can tell how many of the submarine disasters which have occurred have been due solely to the sea. Two or three, however, stand out. The first of these was the loss of A8 on June 8, 1905.

Submarine A8 was operating off Plymouth breakwater in a training capacity. She had dived and come to the surface successfully, and was following astern of the depot ship at about ten knots speed, when she suddenly disappeared. Only four men were picked up, and fifteen lives were lost.

After an inquiry had been held, it was stated that “the boat undoubtedly foundered through getting a considerable inclination downwards when steaming at a speed of about ten knots.” Everybody knows that an inclined plane, when moved through water, will tend to “take charge” and follow its leading edge, and that a tremendous force can be exerted in this way. It is for this reason that submarine designers try to avoid large flat surfaces.

Submarine A8 was a very small boat—only 100 feet in length and with a displacement when submerged of only 180 tons. Moreover, she was not capable of high speed, being driven on the surface by a single twelve-cylinder Wolseley petrol engine. These facts seem to add mystery to her loss.

The other case which comes to mind of a submarine diving out of control was a tragedy of far greater magnitude.

On Thursday, January 20, 1921, submarine K5 was operating in the western approaches to the English Channel. Her duty was part of a large-scale exercise in which most of the units of the Atlantic Fleet were participating, K5 dived at 11.30 a.m., and came to the surface after having adjusted her trim. She was seen on the surface at 11.44 a.m. She dived again at once, and was never afterwards seen. Thus there disappeared one of the largest British submarines and her entire crew of six officers and fifty-one men.

It was not until 2 p.m. that K5 was missed. Then a search was instituted, and other submarines tried to call her up on the under-water sound-signaling apparatus. They could get no answer. At 5.42 p.m. a large patch of oil and some wreckage were discovered about one and a half miles from the position in which K5 had dived; which was about 120 miles southwest of the Scilly Islands. The wreckage was soon identified as belonging to the missing submarine.

K5 was one of the large and fast steam-turbine-driven submarines built during the Great War. These craft were designed to work with the Fleet. They never had an opportunity of proving their worth against the enemy fleet, and they got a bad name on account of the large number of accidents in which they were involved.

The “K” class submarines were the largest and fastest in the world. Their full surface speed of twenty-four knots is faster than the full speed of any submarine in the service today. They had a displacement on the surface of 1880 tons, which was increased to 2650 tons when they dived. They were 338 feet long—three and a half times the length of A8.

Armed with two guns and eight torpedo-tubes, the “K” class submarines were submersible destroyers. They were, however, of some 500 tons greater displacement than most modern ocean-going destroyers.

Most of the accidents in which the “K” class submarines were involved were attributed to the large openings in the hull necessitated by the ...

Índice

• Title page
• TABLE OF CONTENTS
• FOREWORD
• AUTHOR’S PREFACE
• BY WAY OF INTRODUCTION - “TAKE HER DOWN”
• CHAPTER I
• CHAPTER II
• CHAPTER III
• CHAPTER IV
• CHAPTER V
• CHAPTER VI
• CHAPTER VII
• CHAPTER VIII
• CHAPTER IX
• CHAPTER X
• CHAPTER XI
• CHAPTER XII
• CHAPTER XIII
• CHAPTER XIV
• CHAPTER XV
• CHAPTER XVI
• CHAPTER XVII
• CHAPTER XVIII
• CHAPTER XIX
• CHAPTER XX
• CHAPTER XXI
• CHAPTER XXII
• CHAPTER XXIII
• MAPS
• ILLUSTRATIONS