Aircraft and Submarines Part 19

Two years later, in 1863, two other Frenchmen, Captain Bourgeois and M. Brun, built at Rochefort a submarine 146 feet long and 12 feet in diameter which they called the _Plongeur_. They fitted it with a compressed-air engine of eighty horse-power. Extensive trials were made with this boat but resulted only in the discovery that, though it was possible to sink or rise with a boat of this type without great difficulty, it was impossible to keep her at an even keel for any length of time.

During the next few years, undoubtedly as a result of the submarine activities during the Civil War, a number of projects were put forward in the United States, none of which, however, turned out successfully. One of them, for which a man by the name of Halstead was responsible, was a submarine built for the United States Navy in 1865. It was not tried out until 1872 and it was not even successful in living up to its wonderful name, _The Intelligent Whale_. Its first trial almost resulted in loss of life and was never repeated.

In spite of this, however, the boat was preserved and may still be seen at the Brooklyn Navy Yard.

In the meantime, an invention had been made by an Austrian artillery officer which before long was to exert a powerful influence on submarine development, though it was in no sense a submarine boat.

The manner in which the submarines had attacked their opponents during the Civil War suggested to him the need of improvements in this direction. As a result he conceived a small launch which was to carry the explosive without any navigators. Before he could carry his plans very far he died. A brother officer in the navy continued his work and finally interested the manager of an English engineering firm located at Fiume, Mr. Whitehead. The result of the collaboration of these two men was the Whitehead torpedo. A series of experiments led to the construction of what was first called a "Submarine Locomotive" torpedo, which not only contained a sufficient quant.i.ty of explosives to destroy large boats, but was also enabled by mechanical means to propel itself and keep on its course after having been fired. The Austrian Government was the first one to adopt this new weapon. Whitehead, however, refused to grant a monopoly to the Austrians and in 1870 he sold his manufacturing rights and secret processes to the British Government for a consideration of $45,000.

Before very long, special boats were built for the purpose of carrying and firing these torpedoes and gradually every great power developed a separate torpedo flotilla. Hand in hand with this development a large number of improvements were made on the original torpedo and some of these devices proved of great usefulness in the development of submarine boats.

The public interest in submarines grew rapidly at this time. Every man who was a boy in 1873, or who had the spirit of boyhood in him then,--or perhaps now,--will remember the extraordinary piece of literary and imaginative prophecy achieved by Jules Verne in his novel _Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea_. Little about the _Nautilus_ that held all readers entranced throughout his story is lacking in the submarines of to-day except indeed its extreme comfort, even luxury. With those qualities our submarine navigators have to dispense. But the electric light, as we know it, was unknown in Verne's time yet he installed it in the boat of his fancy. Our modern internal-combustion engines were barely dreamed of, yet they drove his boat. His fancy even enabled him to foresee one of the most amazing features of the Lake boat of to-day, namely the compressed air chamber which opened to the sea still holds the water back, and enables the submarine navigator clad in a diver's suit to step into the wall of water and prosecute his labors on the bed of the ocean. Jules Verne even foresaw the callous and inhuman character of the men who command the German submarines to-day. His Captain Nemo had taken a vow of hate against the world and relentlessly drove the prow of his steel boat into the hulls of crowded pa.s.senger ships, finding his greatest joy in sinking slowly beside them with the bright glare of his submarine electric lights turned full upon the hapless women and children over whose sufferings he gloated as they sank. The man who sank the _Lusitania_ could do no more.

More and more determined became the attempts to build submarine boats that could sink and rise easily, navigate safely and quickly, and sustain human beings under the surface of the water for a considerable length of time. Steam, compressed air, and electricity were called upon to do their share in accomplishing this desired result. Engineers in every part of the world began to interest themselves in the submarine problem and as a result submarine boats in numbers were either projected or built between 1875 and 1900.

One of the most persistent workers in this period was a well-known Swedish inventor, Nordenfeldt, who had established for himself a reputation by inventing a gun which even to-day has lost nothing of its fame. In 1881 he became interested in the work which had been done by an English clergyman named Garret. The latter had built a submarine boat which he called the _Resurgam_ (I shall rise)--thus neatly combining a sacred promise with a profane purpose. In 1879 another boat was built by him driven by a steam engine. Nordenfeldt used the fundamental ideas upon which these two boats were based, added to them some improvements of his own as well as some devices which had been used by Bushnell, and finally launched in 1886 his first submarine boat. The government of Greece bought it after some successful trials. Not to be outdone, Greece's old rival, Turkey, immediately ordered two boats for her own navy. Both of these were much larger than the Greek boat and by 1887 they had reached Constantinople in sections where they were to be put together. Only one of them, however, was ever completed. Characteristic Turkish delay intervened. The most typical feature of this boat was the fact that it carried a torpedo tube for Whitehead torpedoes. On the surface of the water this boat proved very efficient, but as an underwater boat it was a dismal failure. More than in any other craft that had ever been built and accepted, the lack of stability was a cause of trouble in the _Nordenfeldt II._ As soon as any member of the crew moved from one part of the boat to another, she would dip in the direction in which he was moving, and everybody, who could not in time take hold of some part of the boat, came sliding and rolling in the same direction. When finally such a tangle was straightened out, only a few minutes elapsed before somebody else, moving a few steps, would bring about the same deplorable state of affairs. The _Nordenfeldt II._ acted more like a bucking bronco than a self-respecting submarine boat and as a result it became impossible to find a crew willing to risk their lives in manning her. Before very long she had rusted and rotted to pieces.

In spite of this lack of success, Nordenfeldt built a fourth boat which displayed almost as many unfortunate features as her predecessors and soon was discarded and forgotten.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Photo by Bain News Service.

_An Anti-Aircraft Outpost._]

In the latter part of the nineteenth century the French Government, which for so many years had shown a strong and continuous interest in the submarine problem, was particularly active. Three different types of boats built in this period under the auspices and with the a.s.sistance of the French Government deserve particular attention.

The first of these was the _Gymnote_, planned originally by a well-known French engineer, Dupuy de Lome, whose alert mind also planned an airship and made him a figure in the history of our Panama Ca.n.a.l. He died, however, before his project could be executed. M. Gustave Zede, a marine engineer and his friend, continued his work after modifying some of his plans. The French Minister of Marine of this period, Admiral Aube who had long been strongly interested in submarines, immediately accepted M. Zede's design and ordered the boat to be built. As the earliest of successful submarines she merits description:

[Ill.u.s.tration: U. & U.

_A Coast Defense Anti-Aircraft Gun._]

The _Gymnote_ was built of steel in the shape of a cigar. She was 59 feet long, 5 feet 9 inches beam, and 6 feet in diameter, just deep enough to allow a man to stand upright in the interior. The motive power was originally an electro-motor of 55 horse-power, driven from 564 acc.u.mulators. It was of extraordinary lightness, weighing only 4410 pounds, and drove the screw at the rate of two thousand revolutions a minute, giving a speed of six knots an hour, its radius of action at this speed being thirty-five miles.

Immersion was accomplished by the introduction of water into three reservoirs, placed one forward, one aft, and one centre. The water was expelled either by means of compressed air or by a rotary pump worked by an electro-motor. Two horizontal rudders steered the boat in the vertical plane and an ordinary rudder steered in the horizontal.

The _Gymnote_ had her first trial on September 4, 1888, and the Paris _Temps_ described the result in the following enthusiastic language:

She steered like a fish both as regards direction and depth; she mastered the desired depth with ease and exactness; at full power she attained the antic.i.p.ated speed of from nine to ten knots; the lighting was excellent, there was no difficulty about heating. It was a strange sight to see the vessel skimming along the top of the water, suddenly give a downward plunge with its snout, and disappear with a shark-like wriggle of its stern, only to come up again at a distance out and in an unlooked-for direction. A few small matters connected with the acc.u.mulators had to be seen to, but they did not take a month.

Following along the same lines as this boat another boat, considerably larger, was built. Before it was completed, M. Zede died and it was decided to name the new boat in his honour. The _Gustave Zede_ was launched at Toulon on June 1, 1893; she was 159 feet in length, beam 12 feet 4 inches, and had a total displacement of 266 tons. Her sh.e.l.l was of "Roma" bronze, a non-magnetic metal, and one that could not be attacked by sea water.

The motive power was furnished by two independent electro-motors of 360 horse-power each and fed by acc.u.mulators. In order to endow the boat with a wide radius of action a storage battery was provided.

The successive crews of the _Gustave Zede_ suffered much from the poisonous fumes of the acc.u.mulators, and during the earlier trials all the men on board were ill.

In the bows was a torpedo tube, and an arrangement was used whereby the water that entered the tube after the discharge of the torpedo was forced out by compressed air. Three Whitehead torpedoes were carried. In spite of the fact that a horizontal rudder placed at the stern had not proved serviceable on the _Gymnote_, such a rudder was fitted in the _Gustave Zede_. With this rudder she usually plunged at an angle of about 5, but on several occasions she behaved in a very erratic fashion, seesawing up and down, and once when the Committee of Experts were on board, she proved so capricious, going down at an angle of 30-35, often throwing the poor gentlemen on to the floor, that it was decided to fix a system of six rudders, three on each side.

Four water tanks were carried, one at each end and two in the middle, and the water was expelled by four pumps worked by a little electro-motor; these pumps also furnished the air necessary for the crew and for the discharge of the torpedoes. For underwater vision, an optical tube and a periscope had been provided.

On July 5, 1899, still another submarine boat was launched for the French Navy. She was called the _Morse_. She was 118 feet long, 9 feet beam, displaced 146 tons, and was likewise made of "Roma"

bronze. The motive power was electricity and in many other respects she was very similar to the _Gustave Zede_, embodying, however, a number of improvements. M. Calmette, who accompanied the French Minister of War on the trial trip of the _Morse_, described his experience in the Paris _Figaro_ as follows:

General Andre, Dr. Vincent, a naval doctor, and I entered the submarine boat _Morse_ through the narrow opening in the upper surface of the boat. Our excursion was to begin immediately; in two hours we came to the surface of the water again three miles to the north to rejoin the _Narval_. Turning to the crew, every man of which was at his post, the commandant gave his orders, dwelling with emphasis on each word. A sailor repeated his orders one by one, and all was silent. The _Morse_ had already started on its mysterious voyage, but was skimming along the surface until outside the port in order to avoid the numerous craft in the a.r.s.enal. To say that at this moment, which I had so keenly antic.i.p.ated, I did not have the tremor which comes from contact with the unknown would be beside the truth. On the other hand, calm and imperturbable, but keenly curious as to this novel form of navigation, General Andre had already taken his place near the commandant on a folding seat. There were no chairs in this long tube in which we were imprisoned. Everything was arranged for the crew alone, with an eye to serious action. Moreover, the Minister of War was too tall to stand upright beneath the iron ceiling, and in any case it would be impossible to walk about.

The only free s.p.a.ce was a narrow pa.s.sage, sixty centimetres broad, less than two metres high, and thirty metres long, divided into three equal sections. In the first, in the forefront of the tube, reposed the torpedoes, with the machine for launching them, which at a distance of from 500 to 600 metres were bound to sink, with the present secret processes, the largest of ironclads. In the second section were the electric acc.u.mulators which gave the light and power. In the third, near the screw, was the electric motor which transformed into movement the current of the acc.u.mulators. Under all this, beneath the floor, from end to end, were immense water ballasts, which were capable of being emptied or filled in a few seconds by electric machines, in order to carry the vessel up or down. Finally, in the centre of the tube, dominating these three sections, which the electric light inundated, and which no part.i.tion divided, the navigating lieutenant stood on the lookout giving his orders.

There was but one thing which could destroy in a second all the sources of authority, initiative, and responsibility in this officer. That was the failure of the acc.u.mulators. Were the electricity to fail everything would come to a stop. Darkness would overtake the boat and imprison it for ever in the water. To avoid any such disaster there have been arranged, it is true, outside the tube and low down, a series of lead blades which were capable of being removed from within to lighten the vessel. But admitting that the plunger would return to the surface, the boat would float hither and thither, and at all events lose all its properties as a submarine vessel. To avoid any such disaster a combination of motors have been in course of construction for some months, so that the acc.u.mulators might be loaded afresh on the spot, in case of their being used up.

The _Morse_, after skimming along the surface of the water until outside the port, was now about to sink. The commandant's place was no longer in the helmet or kiosque whence he could direct the route along the surface of the sea. His place was henceforth in the very centre of the tube, in the midst of all sort of electric manipulators, his eyes continually fixed on a mysterious optical apparatus, the periscope. The other extremity of this instrument floated on the surface of the water, and whatever the depth of the plunge it gave him a perfectly faithful and clear representation, as in a camera, of everything occurring on the water.

The most interesting moment of all now came. I hastened to the little opening to get the impression of total immersion. The lieutenant by the marine chart verified the depths. The casks of water were filled and our supply of air was thereby renewed from their stores of surplus air. In our tiny observatory, where General Andre stationed himself above me, a most unexpected spectacle presented itself as the boat was immersed.

The plunge was so gentle that in the perfect silence of the waters one did not perceive the process of descent, and there was only an instrument capable of indicating, by a needle, the depth to which the _Morse_ was penetrating. The vessel was advancing while at the same time it descended, but there was no sensation of either advance or roll. As to respiration, it was as perfect as in any room. M. de Lanessan, who since entering office has ordered eight more submarine vessels, had concerned himself with the question as a medical man also, and, thanks to the labours of a commission formed by him, the difficulties of respiration were entirely solved. The crew were able to remain under water sixteen hours without the slightest strain. Our excursion on this occasion lasted scarcely two hours. Towards noon, by means of the mysterious periscope, which, always invisible, floated on the surface and brought to the vessel below a reflection of all that pa.s.sed up above, the captain showed us the _Narval_, which had just emerged with its two flags near the old battery _Impregnable_. From the depths in which we were sailing we watched its slightest manoeuvres until the admiral's flag, waving on the top of a fort, reminded us that it was time to return.

[Ill.u.s.tration: _The Submarine's Perfect Work._

_Painting by John E. Whiting._]

CHAPTER XIII

JOHN P. HOLLAND AND SIMON LAKE

The Naval Committee of the House of Representatives of the United States in the early part of 1900 held a meeting for the purpose of hearing expert testimony upon the subject of submarines. Up to then the United States authorities had shown, as compared with the ruling powers of other navies, only a limited amount of interest in the submarine question. Increased appropriations for the construction of submarine boats which were then beginning to become more frequent in other countries acted, however, as a stimulus at this time.

The committee meeting took place a few days after some of the members of the committee, together with a number of United States navy officers, had attended an exhibition of a new submarine boat, the _Holland No. 9_.

The late Admiral Dewey gave the following opinion about this submarine to the committee, an opinion which since then has become rather famous:

Gentlemen: I saw the operation of the boat down off Mount Vernon the other day. Several members of this committee were there. I think we were very much impressed with its performance. My aid, Lieutenant Caldwell, was on board. The boat did everything that the owners proposed to do. I said then, and I have said it since, that if they had two of those things at Manila, I could never have held it with the squadron I had. The moral effect--to my mind, it is infinitely superior to mines or torpedoes or anything of the kind. With two of those in Galveston all the navies of the world could not blockade the place.

Admiral Dewey's approval of the _Holland No. 9_ undoubtedly exerted a considerable influence on the Naval Committee and as a result of its recommendations the United States Government finally purchased the boat on April 11, 1900, for $150,000. This amount was about $86,000 less than the cost of building to the manufacturers, the Holland Torpedo Boat Company. The latter, however, could well afford to take this loss because this first sale resulted a few months afterwards--on August 25th--in an order for six additional submarines. The British Government also contracted in the fall of the same year for five Hollands. The navy of almost every power interested in submarines soon followed the lead of the British Admiralty. Submarines of the Holland type were either ordered outright, or else arrangements were concluded permitting the use of the basic patents held by the Holland Company. It will be noted that the United States Government having discovered that it had a good thing benevolently shared it with the governments that might be expected to use it against us.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Copyright by Munn & Co., Inc.

From the _Scientific American._

_Types of American Aircraft._]

The _Holland No. 9_, as her very name indicates, was one of a long line of similar boats. As compared with other experimental submarine boats she was small. She was only fifty-three feet ten inches long, and ten feet seven inches deep. Although these proportions made her look rather thickset, they were the result of experimental work done by the builder during a period of twenty-five years. She was equipped both with a gasoline engine of fifty horse-power and an electric motor run by storage batteries. The latter was intended for use when the boat was submerged, the former when she was travelling on the surface of the water. She was capable of a maximum speed of seven knots an hour. Her cruising radius was 1500 miles and the combination of oil and electric motors proved so successful that from that time on every submarine built anywhere adopted this principle. Two horizontal rudders placed at the stern of the boat steered her downward whenever she wanted to dive and so accomplished a diver was this boat that a depth of twenty-eight feet could be reached by her in five seconds. Her conning tower was the only means of making observations. No periscopes had been provided because none of the instruments available at that time gave satisfaction. This meant that whenever she wished to aim at her target it was necessary for her to make a quick ascent to the surface. Her stability was one of her most satisfactory features. So carefully had her proportions been worked out that there was practically no pitching or rolling when the boat was submerged. Even the concussion caused by the discharge of a torpedo was hardly noticeable because arrangements had been made to take up the recoil caused by the firing and to maintain the balance of the boat by permitting a quant.i.ty of water equal to the weight of the discharged torpedo to enter special compartments at the very moment of the discharge.

The _Holland No. 9_ was built at Lewis Nixon's shipyards at Elizabethport, New Jersey, and was launched early in 1898, just previous to the outbreak of the Spanish-American War. Although numerous requests were made to the United States Government by her inventor and builder, John P. Holland, for permission to take her into Santiago harbour in an attempt to torpedo Cervera's fleet, the navy authorities at Washington refused this permission. Why?

Presumably through navy hostility to the submarine idea. When the _Monitor_ whipped the _Merrimac_ in 1862 the former ship belonged to her inventor, not to the United States Government. It would have been interesting had Holland at his own expense destroyed the Spanish ships.

John P. Holland at the time when he achieved his success was fifty-eight years old, Irish by birth and an early immigrant to the United States. He had been deeply interested for many years in mechanical problems and especially in those connected with navigation. The change from the old wooden battleships to the new ironclads and the rapidly increasing development of steam-engines acted as a strong stimulus to the young Irishman's experiments. It is claimed that his interest in submarine navigation was due primarily to his desire to find a weapon strong enough to destroy or at least dominate the British navy; for at that time Holland was strongly anti-British, because he, like many other educated Irishmen of that period, desired before everything else to free Ireland. His plans for doing this by supplying to the proposed Irish Republic a means for overcoming the British navy found little support and a great deal of ridicule on the part of his Irish friends. In spite of this he kept on with his work and in 1875 he built and launched his first submarine boat at Paterson. This boat was far from being very revolutionary. She was only sixteen feet long and two feet in diameter, shaped like a cigar but with both ends sharply pointed. In many respects except in appearance she was similar to Bushnell's _Turtle_. Room for only one operator was provided and the latter was to turn the propeller by means of pedals to be worked by his feet.

She accomplished little beyond giving an opportunity to her inventor and builder to gather experience in actual underwater navigation.

Two years later in 1877 the _Holland No. 2_ was built. In spite of the number of improvements represented by her she was not particularly successful. Her double hull, it is true, provided s.p.a.ce for carrying water ballast. But the leaks from this ballast tank continuously threatened to drown the navigator sitting inside of the second hull. A small oil engine of four horse-power was soon discarded on account of its inefficiency.

The experience gathered by Holland in building and navigating these two boats strengthened his determination to build a thoroughly successful submarine and increased his faith in his ability to do so. He opened negotiations with the Fenian Brotherhood. This was a secret society founded for the purpose of freeing Ireland from British rule and creating an Irish Republic. Holland finally succeeded in persuading his Fenian friends to order from him two submarine boats and to supply him with the necessary means to build them. Both of these boats were built. The lack of success of the first one was due primarily to the inefficiency of her engine. The second boat which was really the _Holland No. 4_ was built in 1881.