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Updated: July 3, 2025
Would they, had they not been captured early in the war, have changed and become like the vile, cowardly sharks that infest the seas in U-boats? The Great War is writing history on such a large scale that the old classic stories of heroism and devotion to duty will be forgotten by the next generation.
Our destroyers went over there at a time when the U-boats were sinking more tonnage in one month than Great Britain was building in four; and because of U-boat activities the loss of ships in the usual marine ways was far beyond normal. To the weary British our fellows brought a fresh vigor, a new aggressiveness.
It has been stated that the English Navy has planted mines in channels leading from Zeebrugge and other submarine bases; but it is necessary only to recall the exploits of the E-11 and the E-14 of the British Navy at the Dardanelles, to see that it would not be impossible for the Germans to pass in their U-boats through these mine-fields into the open sea.
Germany was desperate and willing to disregard all nations and all international obligations in an attempt to win the war with U-boats. Last Summer, during one of the crises over the sinking of a passenger liner without warning, Mr. Gerard asked the Chancellor for an audience with the Kaiser. Von Bethmann-Hollweg said he would see if it could be arranged. The Ambassador waited two weeks.
But everything had been done according to the approved etiquette for U-boats, and there was not even an official protest. Once more the Germans announced that they had wrecked the British naval supremacy, as in the battle of Jutland, after which glorious victory the German fleet appeared no more in the North Sea.
At this time at the gates to the North Sea, the English Channel, the Irish coast the U-boats were collecting frightful toll. In the Mediterranean they were running wild. Five ships from one convoy in one day three of them big P. & O. liners was one of their records in the Eastern Mediterranean.
Circling Great Britain are thousands of expert coast-watchers, whose duty not only is to watch for ships, wrecks, and smugglers, as in the days before the war, but also to be on guard for enemy submarines and suspicious craft. It is the oft-spoken opinion of many an inland inhabitant that certain sections of the coast would afford a base for U-boats.
We went to war; and it was with an immense confidence in what they would do that I heard of the sailing of our first group of destroyers for the business of convoying ships and hunting U-boats on the other side. Ships were up to date and officers and men knew their business; and there was something more than knowing their business.
Only half a dozen were in that first group, but other groups followed, and groups are still following. They have not driven the U-boats from under the seas, but they have made it possible for merchant ships to live in that part of the ocean they are covering.
I thought I heard a blast from a ship's whistle somewhere outside; but I was not sure. Then I heard a blast from our own ship's whistle. Wugh-wugh-wugh! I did not wait for any more. I did not finish sharpening the pencil. I did not wait to shut the desk drawer. I did not do anything but move. There were six blasts from the whistle, and six blasts meant U-boats.
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