Page:Victory at Sea - William Sowden Sims and Burton J. Hendrick.djvu/343

Rh With this view I do not personally agree but believe that with a little experience merchant vessels could safely and sufficiently well steam in open formations.

21. The best protection against the submarine menace for all classes of ships, merchant as well as Naval, is SPEED and ZIGZAGGING, not more than fifteen minutes on a course. Upon this point no one disagrees, but on the contrary there is absolutely unanimity of opinion.

22. In the absence of adequate patrol craft, particularly destroyers, and until the enemy submarine moral is broken, there is but one sure method of meeting the submarine issue upon which there is also complete unanimity increased number of merchant bottoms, preferably small.

" More Ships ! More Ships ! More Ships ! " is heard on every hand.

23. It is also significant that until very recently the Admiralty have been unable completely to convince some members of the Cabinet that the submarine issue is the deciding factor in the War. The civilian mind, here as at home, is loath to believe in unseen dangers, particularly until the pinch is felt in real physical ways.

24. The Prime Minister only two days ago expressed to me the opinion that it ought to be possible to find physical means of absolutely sealing up all escape for submarines from their own ports. The fact that all such methods (nets, mines, obstructions, etc.) inherently involve the added necessity of continuous protection and maintenance by our own Naval forces is seldom understood and appreciated. I finally convinced the Prime Minister of the fallacy of such propositions by describing the situations into which we would be led : namely, that in order to maintain our obstructions we would have to match the forces the enemy brought against them, until finally the majority if not all of our forces would be forced into dangerous areas where they would be subject to continual torpedo and other attack, in fact in a position most favourable to the enemy.

25. Entirely outside of the fact that the enemy does, and always can, force exits, and thereby nullify the close blockade, the weather is a serious added difficulty. The heaviest anchors obtainable ; have been used for nets, mines, and obstructions, only to have the arduous work of weeks swept away in a few hours of heavy weather. Moorings will not hold. They chafe through. In this respect we could be of great assistance, i.e. in supply of moorings and buoys.

26. The Channel is not now, and never has been, completely sealed against submarine egress, let alone the vaster areas of escape to the north. Submarines have gone under mine-fields,