Page:Jack Heaton, Wireless Operator (Collins, 1919).djvu/219

 CHAPTER X

ON’T think for a moment that Germany was the only country that had a fleet of submarines. The reason that her U-boats came to be so well known was because they had torpedoed the  and sunk helpless ships right and left no matter who was on them or what they carried.

England and France had fleets of submarines, too, but as their warships had blockaded Germany’s ports there was nothing to torpedo. And when we declared war on the Kaiser, Uncle Sam began to build submarines just as he did chasers, merchant ships and everything else. Except airplanes, did you say? There was no such fizzle made of building submarines as for a time was made of building airplanes in the beginning of the war. Within a short time after we got started our Navy Department was able to turn out a brand-new submarine every