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Updated: June 16, 2025
Two more torpedoes zip past, and then over the seas comes bounding a destroyer, smoke bellying from her funnels. She is over the probable hiding-place of the submarine, and a great explosion and a high column of water tell those on the battleship that she has released a depth-bomb. Suddenly a signal flutters to the stay of the destroyer. The crew of the battleship cheer.
The destroyer arriving over the spot where the undersea boat was last seen, has dropped a depth-bomb, which has exploded under the surface at a predetermined depth. The submarine commander grins. The bomb was too far away to do damage, although the craft has trembled under the shock. There comes another shock, this time not so palpable. Eventually all is quiet.
In less time than it takes to tell, the Fanning, with throttles suddenly opened, plunged into the waters where the periscope had last been seen. And at the proper moment the commander, standing tensely on the bridge, released a depth-bomb from its fixed place.
Equipped with this, she need not necessarily follow a surface wave all day; she simply drops the bomb down through this wave; at least she does under certain conditions. This depth-bomb, by the way, is a wonderful invention, and with its perfection began the great decrease in submarine losses. The bomb is cylindrical and has in the top a well in which is fitted a small propeller.
But whether emanating from the lucubrations of Mr. Edison's board, or wherever devised, we know that the American Navy has applied many inventions to the work of combating the under-sea pirate. A type of depth-bomb was developed and applied. This is one of the most efficient methods of beating the submarine that has yet been found.
How the Submarine is being Fought Destroyers the Great Menace But Nets, Too, Have Played Their Part Many Other Devices German Officers Tell of Experience on a Submarine Caught in a Net Chasers Play Their Part The Depth-Bomb Trawler Tricks A Camouflaged Schooner Which Turned Out To Be a Tartar Airplanes German Submarine Men in Playful Mood
Next day, however, came a despatch from the American flotilla base in British waters which set forth that the story of the attack as published in the United States was inaccurate. There was no submarine attack, said the report, and no submarine was seen. One destroyer did drop a depth-bomb, but this was merely by way of precaution.
That destroyer ran right along the line of bubbles like a hound following a trail, and when it came to the spot where the commander estimated the submarine must be lurking, he released a depth-bomb. A column of smoke and foam rose fifty feet in the air, and the destroyer herself rose half out of the water under the shock of the explosion.
So thereafter the chaser simply follows that surface wave until the submarine comes to the surface, as she must do sooner or later to get her bearings and look about for prey. When she does come up she goes down for good. The hunt of the chaser has been aided in the past year or so by the depth-bomb, which did not exist in the first two and a half years of war.
Thus viewing his prey, the aviator descends and drops a depth-bomb into the water. Our airmen have already won great commendation from the British Admiralty and aerial commanders. Whatever may have been the delays in airplane production in this country, the American Navy has not been at fault, and Secretary Daniels's young men went into British seaplanes when American planes were not at hand.
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