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Updated: May 25, 2025
Ever since entering the U-boat zone we had been on the lookout for periscopes, and children that we were, bemoaning the unkind fate that was to see us safely into France on the morrow without a glimpse of the dread marauders.
'There now, he continued, as the vessel came back to an even keel. 'She's floating just submerged. I reckon her periscopes is just out o' the water. 'Could we have a look? asked Ken eagerly. 'Ay, I dare say. You wait a minute and I'll see. He was back in a minute, and beckoned them to come. There were two periscopes. It was the forward one they were called to.
'Any'ow, replied an English corporal who had been handing round half a dozen grenades, 'we ain't anyways short o' bombs. 'Ave a few to be goin' on with, and he and his party let fly. They listened with satisfaction to the bursts, and through their trench periscopes watched the smoke and dust clouds billowing from the trench opposite.
Borne by comrades pick-a-back we saw the wounded carried along that passage too narrow for a litter. A splash of blood, a white bandage, a limp form! For the second permissible periscopes are tempting targets I looked through one over the top of the parapet. Another film! A big British lyddite shell went crashing into the German parapet.
One other important feature without which submarines would have found it impossible to score such accomplishments is the periscope. In the beginning periscopes were rather crude appliances. They were very weak and sprung leaks frequently. Moisture, formed by condensation, made them practically useless. In certain positions the image of the object picked up by the periscope became inverted.
They overran every road, every street, every inch of open country; their wagons choked the main thoroughfare, they were already establishing themselves in the redoubt below, in the trench, running in and out of dugouts and all over scarp, counter-scarp, parades and parapet, ant-like in energy, busy with machine gun, trench mortar, installing telephones, searchlights, periscopes, machine guns.
A German birdman, circling above on patrol duty, had observed the wake of the periscopes and had touched off a night flare. Like a giant pyrotechnic display the red globules floated in the air. No sooner had the light appeared than there came the boom of a big gun on shore and a huge shell screeched seaward over the Monitor. Instantly the coast defense guns of the Germans crashed into action.
Executive Officer Cleary, alone in the conning tower, had suddenly been apprised of the approach of the vessel by a message from the wireless room. The Dewey was floating in twenty feet of water with only her periscopes, protruding above the surface. Hardly had he gazed into the glass before he made out dimly the outlines of the approaching vessel. At once the crew was sounded to quarters.
As her periscopes cleft the crest of the waves again and she emerged into the arena of activity McClure caught sight of a destroyer off the starboard bow not more than five hundred feet away. A searchlight on the forward deck of the German vessel swept the water in front of the Monitor with a long white finger of light that fell in a moment upon the eyes of the American submarine.
Ragging banter and jest and worse than jest and grim defiance are exchanged between the trenches when they are within such easy hearing distance of each other; but always from a safe position behind the parapet which the adversaries squint across through their periscopes. At the gibe business the German is, perhaps, better than the Briton.
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