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Updated: June 2, 2025
Not only may a retarded submersion spoil our plan of attack, but we are exposed to being rammed by a rapidly advancing steamer; our haste must be all the greater if the conditions of visibility are impaired, as is often the case on the high seas, for it takes time for the U-boat to submerge completely, and during this process it is helplessly exposed to the fire of long distance guns.
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.
Nothing else! No! I am wrong, there were two other things: a U-boat, representing the might of Germany, and a whaler with perhaps twenty men in it, representing the plight of England!
And again, the rise in prices all round has, since the commencement of the U-boat war, continued at a more rapid rate, so that the decline in the import quantity from one month to another may fairly be estimated at 25 per cent. The figures for imports and exports, then, confirm my supposition as to the decrease of tonnage in the traffic with British ports.
Half a mile or so dead ahead a tiny tongue of flame spat viciously in the murk. A projectile shrieked overhead, and dropped into the sea astern. Another followed and fell short. The U-boat was shelling the Assyrian.
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.
But they broke out of the fog bank the next morning to see dead ahead two boats, each pulled by four pair of oars, wearily approaching the course of the coastwise steamships. "I smell a U-boat about!" declared Ensign MacMasters, when he had directed the steamer's course to be changed to run down to the row-boats. He was right.
Above all, we had proved that a German U-boat, after a long and difficult voyage, could reach the enemy's coast; and after penetrating their line of defense was able to send one of their ships to the bottom of the sea with one well-aimed torpedo shot. The age of the submarine had truly begun. Other victories followed in prompt succession.
The Monitor played a very important part in the engagement and had the satisfaction of sinking one of the enemy ships by gunfire, coming up at close range right beside the U-boat and engaging her in an old-fashioned hand-to-hand conflict.
With this latter water unaffected the transports would have been sent via Italy, France and Dover to England, and the northern U-boat campaign would have been paralysed. But in order to carry on submarine war in the Adriatic we should have to give the Germans access to our bases, such as Pola, Cattaro and Trieste, and by so doing we were de facto partaking in the submarine campaign ourselves.
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