Aircraft and Submarines Part 17

compels the airmen to deliver their fire from so great a height as to make accurate aim impossible.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Photo Press Ill.u.s.trating Service.

_A German Scout Brought to Earth in France._]

But Kiel, Wilhelmshaven and Zeebrugge are likely to change all this.

The constant contemplation of those nests for the sanctuary of pestiferous submarines, effectively guarded against attack by either land or water, has stirred up the determination of the Allies to seek their destruction from above. Heavy bombing planes are being built in all the Allied workshops for this purpose, and furthermore to give effect to the British determination to take vengeance upon Germany, for her raids upon London. It is reported that the United States, by agreement with its Allies, is to specialize in building the light, swift scout planes, but in other shops the heavy triplane, the dreadnought of the air is expected to be the feature of 1918. With it will come an entirely novel strategic use of aircraft in war, and with it too, which is perhaps the more permanently important, will come the development of aircraft of the sort that will be readily adaptable to the purposes of peace when the war shall end.

THE SUBMARINE BOAT

CHAPTER XI

BEGINNINGS OF SUBMARINE INVENTION

In September, 1914 the British Fleet in the North Sea had settled down to the monotonous task of holding the coasts of Germany and the channels leading to them in a state of blockade. The work was dismal enough. The ships tossing from day to day on the always unquiet waters of the North Sea were crowded with Jackies all of whom prayed each day that the German would come from hiding and give battle. Not far from the Hook of Holland engaged in this monotonous work were three cruisers of about 12,000 tons, each carrying 755 men and officers. They were the _Cressy_, _Aboukir_, and _Hogue_--not vessels of the first rank but still important factors in the British blockade. They were well within the torpedo belt and it may be believed that unceasing vigilance was observed on every ship.

Nevertheless without warning the other two suddenly saw the _Aboukir_ overwhelmed by a flash of fire, a pillar of smoke and a great geyser of water that rose from the sea and fell heavily upon her deck. Instantly followed a thundering explosion as the magazines of the doomed ship went off. Within a very few minutes, too little time to use their guns against the enemy had they been able to see him, or to lower their boats, the _Aboukir_ sank leaving the crew floundering in the water.

In the distance lay the German submarine U-9--one of the earliest of her cla.s.s in service. From her conning tower Captain Weddigen had viewed the tragedy. Now seeing the two sister ships speeding to the rescue he quickly submerged. It may be noted that as a result of what followed, orders were given by the British Admiralty that in the event of the destruction of a ship by a submarine others in the same squadron should not come to the rescue of the victim, but scatter as widely as possible to avoid a like fate. In this instance the _Hogue_ and the _Cressy_ hurried to the spot whence the _Aboukir_ had vanished and began lowering their boats. Hardly had they begun the work of mercy when a torpedo from the now unseen foe struck the _Hogue_ and in twenty minutes she too had vanished. While she was sinking the _Cressy_, with all guns ready for action and her gunners scanning the sea in every direction for this deadly enemy, suddenly felt the shock of a torpedo and, her magazines having been set off, followed her sister ships to the ocean's bed.

In little more than half an hour thirty-six thousand tons of up-to-date British fighting machinery, and more than 1200 gallant blue jackets had been sent to the depths of the North Sea by a little boat of 450 tons carrying a crew of twenty-six men.

The world stood aghast. With the feeling of horror at the swift death of so many caused by so few, there was mingled a feeling of amazement at the scientific perfection of the submarine, its power, and its deadly work. Men said it was the end of dreadnoughts, battleships, and cruisers, but the history of the war has shown singularly few of these destroyed by submarines since the first novelty of the attack wore off. The world at the moment seemed to think that the submarine was an entirely new idea and invention.

But like almost everything else it was merely the ultimate reduction to practical use of an idea that had been germinating in the mind of man from the earliest days of history.

We need not trouble ourselves with the speculations of Alexander the Great, Aristotle, and Pliny concerning "underwater" activities.

Their active minds gave consideration to the problem, but mainly as to the employment of divers. Not until the first part of the sixteenth century do we find any very specific reference to actual underwater boats. That appears in a book of travels by Olaus Magnus, Archbishop of Upsala in Sweden. Notwithstanding the gentleman's reverend quality, one must question somewhat the veracity of the chapter which he heads:

"Of the Leather Ships Made of Hides Used by the Pyrats of Greenland."

He professed to have seen two of these "ships," more probably boats, hanging in a cathedral church in Greenland. With these singular vessels, according to his veracious reports the people of that country could navigate under water and attack stranger ships from beneath. "For the Inhabitants of that Countrey are wont to get small profits by the spoils of others," he wrote, "by these and the like treacherous Arts, who by their thieving wit, and by boring a hole privately in the sides of the ships beneath (as I said) have let in the water and presently caused them to sink."

Leaving the tale of the Archbishop where we think it must belong in the realm of fiction, we may note that it was not until the beginning of the seventeenth century that the first submarine boat was actually built and navigated. A Hollander, Cornelius Drebel, or Van Drebel, born in 1572, in the town of Alkmaar, had come to London during the reign of James I., who became his patron and friend. Drebel seems to have been a serious student of science and in many ways far ahead of his times. Moreover, he had the talent of getting next to royalty. In 1620 he first conceived the idea of building a submarine. Fairly detailed descriptions of his boats--he built three from 1620-1624--and of their actual use, have been handed down to us by men whose accuracy and truthfulness cannot be doubted. The Honorable Robert Boyle, a scientist of unquestioned seriousness, tells in his _New Experiments, Physico-Mechanical touching the Spring of the Air and its Effects_ about Drebel's work in the quaint language of his time:

But yet on occasion of this opinion of Paracelsus, perhaps it will not be impertinent if, before I proceed, I acquaint your Lordship with a conceit of that deservedly famous mechanician and Chymist, Cornelius Drebel, who, among other strange things that he perform'd, is affirm'd, by more than a few credible persons, to have contrived for the late learned King James, a vessel to go under water; of which, trial was made in the Thames, with admired success, the vessel carrying twelve rowers, besides pa.s.sengers; one which is yet alive, and related it to an excellent Mathematician that informed me of it. Now that for which I mention this story is, that having had the curiosity and opportunity to make particular inquiries among the relations of Drebel, and especially of an ingenious physician that married his daughter, concerning the grounds upon which he conceived it feasible to make men unaccustomed to continue so long under water without suffocation, or (as the lately mentioned person that went in the vessel affirms) without inconvenience; I was answered, that Drebel conceived, that it is not the whole body of the air, but a certain quintessence (as Chymists speak) or spirituous part of it, that makes it fit for respiration; which being spent, the remaining grosser body, or carcase, if I may so call it, of the air, is unable to cherish the vital flame residing in the heart; so that, for aught I could gather, besides the mechanical contrivances of his vessel, he had a chymical liquor, which he accounted the chief secret of his submarine navigation. For when, from time to time, he conceived that the finer and purer part of the air was consumed, or over-clogged by the respiration and steam of those that went in his ship, he would by unstopping a vessel full of this liquor, speedily restore to the troubled air such a proportion of vital parts, as would make it again, for a good while, fit for respiration whether by dissipating, or precipitating the grosser exhalations, or by some other intelligible way, I must not now stay to examine, contenting myself to add, that having had the opportunity to do some service to those of his relations that were most intimate with him, and having made it my business to learn what this strange liquor might be, they constantly affirmed that Drebel would never disclose the liquor unto any, nor so much as tell the nature whereof he had made it, to above one person, who himself a.s.sured me what it was.

This most curious narrative suggests that in some way Drebel, who died in London in 1634, had discovered the art of compressing oxygen and conceived the idea of making it serviceable for freshening the air in a boat, or other place, contaminated by the respiration of a number of men for a long time. Indeed the reference made to the substance by which Drebel purified the atmosphere in his submarine as "a liquor" suggests that he may possibly have hit upon the secret of liquid air which late in the nineteenth century caused such a stir in the United States. Of his possession of some such secret there can be no doubt whatsoever, for Samuel Pepys refers in his famous diary to a lawsuit, brought in the King's Courts by the heirs of Drebel, to secure the secret for their own use. What was the outcome of the suit or the subsequent history of Drebel's invention history does not record.

Throughout the next 150 years a large number of inventors and near-inventors occupied themselves with the problem of the submarine. Some of these men went no further than to draw plans and to write out descriptions of what appeared to them to be feasible submarine boats. Others took one step further, by taking out patents, but only very few of the submarine engineers of this period had either the means or the courage to test their inventions in the only practicable way, by building an experimental boat and using it.

In spite of this apparent lack of faith on the part of the men who worked on the submarine problem, it would not be fair to condemn them as fakirs. Experimental workers, in those times, had to face many difficulties which were removed in later times. The study of science and the examination of the forces of nature were not only not as popular as they became later, but frequently were looked upon as blasphemous, savouring of sorcery, or as a sign of an unbalanced mind.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Kadel & Herbert.

_A Gas Attack Photographed from an Airplane._]

England and France supplied most of the men who occupied themselves with the submarine problem between 1610 and 1760. Of the Englishmen, the following left records of one kind or another concerning their labours in this direction. Richard Norwood, in 1632, was granted a patent for a contrivance which was apparently little more than a diving apparatus. In 1648, Bishop Wilkins published a book, _Mathematical Magick_, which was full of rather grotesque projects and which contained one chapter on the possibility "of framing an ark for submarine navigation." In 1691, patents were granted on engines connected with submarine navigation to John Holland--curious forerunner of a name destined to be famous two hundred years later--and on a submarine boat to Sir Stephen Evance.

In Prance, two priests, Fathers Mersenne and Fournier, published in 1634 a small book called _Questions Theologiques, Physiques, Morales et Mathematiques_, which contained a detailed description of a submarine boat. They suggested that the hull of submarines ought to be of metal and not of wood, and that their shape ought to be as nearly fishlike as possible. Nearly three hundred years have hardly altered these opinions. Ancient French records also tell us that six years later, in 1640, the King of France had granted a patent to Jean Barrie, permitting him during the next twelve years to fish at the bottom of the sea with his boat. Unluckily Barrie's fish stories have expired with his permit. In 1654, a French engineer, De Son, is said to have built at Rotterdam a submarine boat. Little is known concerning this vessel except that it was reported to have been seventy-two feet long, twelve feet high, and eight feet broad, and to have been propelled by a paddlewheel instead of oars.

Borelli, about whom very little seems to be known, is credited with having invented in 1680 a submarine boat, whose descent and ascent were regulated by a series of leather bottles placed in the hull of the boat with their mouths open to the surrounding water. The English magazine, _Graphic_, published a picture which is considered the oldest known ill.u.s.tration of any submarine boat. This picture matches in all details the description of Borelli's boat, but it is credited to a man called Symons.

Twenty-seven years later, in 1774, another Englishman, J. Day, built a small submarine boat, and after fairly extensive experiments, descended in his boat in Plymouth harbour. This descent is of special interest because we have a more detailed record of it than of any previous submarine exploit, and because Day is the first submarine inventor who lost his life in the attempt to prove the feasibility of his invention. The _Annual Register_ of 1774 gives a narration in detail of Day's experiments and death and inasmuch as this is the first ungarbled report of a submarine descent, it may be quoted at length.

_Authentic account of a late unfortunate transaction, with respect to a diving machine at Plymouth._

Mr. Day (the sole projector of the scheme, and, as matters have turned out, the unhappy sacrifice to his own ingenuity) employed his thoughts for some years past in planning a method of sinking a vessel under water, with a man in it, who should live therein for a certain time, and then by his own means only, bring himself up to the surface. After much study he conceived that his plan could be reduced into practice. He communicated his idea in the part of the country where he lived, and had the most sanguine hopes of success. He went so far as to try his project in the Broads near Yarmouth. He fitted a Norwich market-boat for his purpose, sunk himself thirty feet under water, where he continued during the s.p.a.ce of twenty-four hours, and executed his design to his own entire satisfaction. Elated with this success, he then wanted to avail himself of his invention. He conversed with his friends, convinced them that he had brought his undertaking to a certainty; but how to reap the advantage of it was the difficulty that remained. The person in whom he confided suggested to him, that, if he acquainted the sporting Gentlemen with the discovery, and the certainty of the performance, considerable betts would take place, as soon as the project would be mentioned in company.

The Sporting Kalendar was immediately looked into, and the name of Blake soon occurred; that gentleman was fixed upon as the person to whom Mr. Day ought to address himself. Accordingly, Mr.

Blake, in the month of November last, received the following letter:

"SIR,

"I found out an affair by which many thousands may be won; it is of a paradoxical nature, but can be performed with ease; therefore, sir, if you chuse to be informed of it, and give me one hundred pounds of every thousand you shall win by it, I will very readily wait upon you and inform you of it. I am myself but a poor mechanic and not able to make anything by it without your a.s.sistance.

"Your's, etc.

"J. DAY."

Mr. Blake had no conception of Mr. Day's design, nor was he sure that the letter was serious. To clear the matter up, he returned for answer, that, if Mr. Day would come to town, and explain himself, Mr. Blake would consider of the proposal. If he approved of it, Mr. Day should have the recompence he desired; if, on the other hand, the plan should be rejected, Mr. Blake would make him a present to defray the expences of his journey. In a short time after Mr. Day came to town; Mr. Blake saw him and desired to know what secret he was possessed of. The man replied, "that he could sink a ship 100 feet deep in the sea with himself in it, and remain therein for the s.p.a.ce of 24 hours, without communication with anything above; and at the expiration of the time, rise up again in the vessel." The proposal, in all its parts, was new to Mr. Blake. He took down the particulars, and, after considering the matter, desired some kind of proof of the practicability. The man added that if Mr. Blake would furnish him with the materials necessary, he would give him an occular demonstration. A model of the vessel, with which he was to perform the experiment, was then required, and in three or four weeks accomplished, so as to give a perfect idea of the principle upon which the scheme was to be executed, and, in time, a very plausible promise of success, not to Mr. Blake only, but many other gentlemen who were consulted upon the occasion. The consequence was, that Mr. Blake, agreeably to the man's desire, advanced money for the construction of a vessel fit for that purpose. Mr. Day, thus a.s.sisted, went to Plymouth with his model, and set a man in that place to work upon it. The pressure of the water at 100 feet deep was a circ.u.mstance of which Mr. Blake was advised, and touching that article he gave the strongest precautions to Mr. Day, telling him, at any expence, to fortify the chamber in which he was to subsist, against the weight of such a body of water. Mr. Day set off in great spirits for Plymouth, and seemed so confident, that Mr.

Blake made a bett that the project would succeed, reducing, however, the depth of water from 100 yards to 100 feet, and the time from 24 to 12 hours. By the terms of the wager, the experiment was to be made within three months from the date; but so much time was necessary for due preparation, that on the appointed day things were not in readiness and Mr. Blake lost the bett.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Photo by International Film Service.

_A French Nieuport Dropping a Bomb._]

In some short time afterwards the vessel was finished, and Mr.

Day still continued eager for the carrying of his plan into execution; he was uneasy at the idea of dropping the scheme and wished for an opportunity to convince Mr. Blake that he could perform what he had undertaken. He wrote from Plymouth that everything was in readiness and should be executed the moment Mr.

Blake arrived. Induced by this promise, Mr. Blake set out for Plymouth; upon his arrival a trial was made in Cat-water, where Mr. Day lay, during the flow of tide, six hours, and six more during the tide of ebb; confined all the time in the room appropriated for his use. A day for the final determination was fixed; the vessel was towed to the place agreed upon; Mr. Day provided himself with whatever he thought necessary; he went into the vessel, let the water into her and with great composure retired to the room constructed for him, and shut up the valve.

The ship went gradually down in 22 fathoms of water at 2 o'clock on Tuesday, June 28, in the afternoon, being to return at 2 the next morning. He had three buoys or messengers, which he could send to the surface at option, to announce his situation below; but, none appearing, Mr. Blake, who was near at hand in a barge, began to entertain some suspicion. He kept a strict lookout, and at the time appointed, neither the buoys nor the vessel coming up, he applied to the _Orpheus_ frigate, which lay just off the barge, for a.s.sistance. The captain with the most ready benevolence supplied them with everything in his power to seek for the ship. Mr. Blake, in this alarming situation was not content with the help of the _Orpheus_ only; he made immediate application to Lord Sandwich (who happened to be at Plymouth) for further relief. His Lordship with great humanity ordered a number of hands from the dock-yard, who went with the utmost alacrity and tried every effort to regain the ship, but unhappily without effect.

Thus ended this unfortunate affair. Mr. Blake had not experience enough to judge of all possible contingencies, and he had now only to lament the credulity with which he listened to a projector, fond of his own scheme but certainly not possessed of skill enough to guard against the variety of accidents to which he was liable. The poor man has unfortunately shortened his days; he was not however tempted or influenced by anybody; he confided in his own judgment, and put his life to the hazard upon his own mistaken notions.

Many and various have been the opinions on this strange, useless, and fatal experiment, though the more reasonable part of mankind seemed to give it up as wholly impracticable. It is well-known, that pent-up air, when overcharged with the vapours emitted out of animal bodies, becomes unfit for respiration; for which reason, those confined in the diving-bell, after continuing some time under water are obliged to come up, and take in fresh air, or by some such means recruit it. That any man should be able after having sunk a vessel to so great a depth, to make that vessel at pressure, so much more specifically lighter than water, as thereby to enable it to force its way to the surface, through the depressure of so great a weight, is a matter not hastily to be credited. Even cork, when sunk to a certain depth will, by the great weight of the fluid upon it, be prevented from rising.

The English of the _Annual Register_ leaves much to be desired in clarity. It makes reasonably clear, however, that the unfortunate Mr. Day's knowledge of submarine conditions was, by no means, equal to Mr. Blake's sporting spirit. Even to-day one hundred feet is an unusual depth of submersion for the largest submarines.

The credit for using a submarine boat for the first time in actual warfare belongs to a Yankee, David Bushnell. He was born in Saybrook, Connecticut, and graduated from Yale with the cla.s.s of 1775. While still in college he was interested in science and as far as his means and opportunities allowed, he devoted a great deal of his time and energy to experimental work. The problem which attracted his special attention was how to explode powder under water, and before very long he succeeded in solving this to his own satisfaction as well as to that of a number of prominent people amongst whom were the Governor of Connecticut and his Council.

Bushnell's experiments, of course, fell in the period during which the Revolutionary War was fought, and when he had completed his invention, there naturally presented itself to him a further problem. How could his device be used for the benefit of his country and against the British ships which were then threatening New York City? As a means to this end, Bushnell planned and built a submarine boat which on account of its shape is usually called the _Turtle_.

General Washington thought very highly of Bushnell, whom he called in a letter to Thomas Jefferson "a man of great mechanical powers, fertile in inventions and master of execution." In regard to Bushnell's submarine boat the same letter, written after its failure, says: "I thought and still think that it was an effort of genius, but that too many things were necessary to be combined to expect much against an enemy who are always on guard."

During the whole period of the building of the _Turtle_ Bushnell was in ill health. Otherwise he would have navigated it on its trial trip himself for he was a man of undoubted courage and wrapped up alike in the merits of his invention and in the possibility of utilizing it to free New York from the constant ignominy of the presence of British ships in its harbour. But his health made this out of the question. Accordingly he taught his brother the method of navigating the craft, but at the moment for action the brother too fell ill. It became necessary to hire an operator. This was by no means easy as volunteers to go below the water in a submarine boat of a type hitherto undreamed of, and to attach an explosive to the hull of a British man-of-war, the sentries upon which were presumably especially vigilant, being in a hostile harbour, was an adventure likely to attract only the most daring and reckless spirits. In a letter to Thomas Jefferson, other portions of which we shall have occasion to quote later, Bushnell refers to this difficulty in finding a suitable operator and tells briefly and with evident chagrin the story of the failure of the attempts made to utilize successfully his submarine: