Submarine Warfare of To-day Part 2

CHAPTER II

THE NEW NAVY--TRAINING AN ANTI-SUBMARINE FORCE

HAVING described the _raison d'etre_ of the new navy, and how it became a fleet in being, with its own admirals, captains, staffs, bases and all the paraphernalia of war, I can pa.s.s on to a more intimate description of the training of the officers and men, preparatory to their being drafted to the scattered units of this great anti-submarine force.

Lying in the s.p.a.cious docks at Southampton was the old 4000-ton cruiser _Hermione_, which had been brought round from her natural base in Portsmouth dockyard to act as the depot ship and training establishment for a large section of this new force. Not all the officers and men of the auxiliary fleet were, however, destined to pa.s.s across its decks.

This vessel was reserved for the Royal Naval Volunteer Reserve, from which a very considerable proportion of the entire personnel of the new fleet was drawn. Nor was H.M.S. _Hermione_ the first depot ship of the war-time R.N.V.R. at Southampton, for the Admiralty yacht _Resource II._ had been used for the first few drafts, but was unfortunately burned to the water's edge. There were also other vessels and establishments at Portsmouth, Devonport and Chatham. These were, however, mainly for the reception and brief training of the more experienced Merchant Service officers, entered in the Royal Naval Reserve for the duration of the war, and for the surgeons and accountants.

The men of the new force were mostly trained in the naval barracks and depot ships situated at the big naval centres, such as Portsmouth and Chatham. After a few weeks all these establishments were drafting, in a constant stream, the trained human element to the vessels awaiting full complements at the different war bases, or being constructed in the hundreds of shipyards of the Empire.

About H.M.S. _Hermione_, which has been selected as being representative of the training depots of a large section of the auxiliary service, little need be said, beyond the fact that she was commanded, first, by a distinguished officer from the Dardanelles, and subsequently by an equally capable officer, who, by the irony of fate, had in pre-war times been a member of the British Naval Mission to the Turkish navy--both of them men whose experience and unfailing tact contributed largely to the success of the thousands of embryo officers trained under their command.

The ship herself was a rambling old cruiser, but very little of the actual training was carried out on board. s.p.a.cious buildings on the quayside provided the training grounds for gunnery, drill, signalling, engineering and all the complicated curricula, of which more anon.

Lying in the still waters of the dock, alongside the comparatively big grey cruiser, were the trim little hulls of a numerous flotilla of 20-knot motor launches, newly arrived from Canada, with wicked-looking 13-pounder high-angle guns, stumpy torpedo-boat masts and brand-new White Ensigns and bra.s.s-bound decks. These were the advance guard of a fleet of over 500 similar craft, to the command of which many of the officers being trained would, after a period of practical experience at sea, eventually succeed.

There were besides numerous other mosquito craft, which throbbed in and out of the dock from that vast sheltered arm of the sea called _Southampton Water_ on mysterious errands, soon to be solved by new recruits in the chilly winds of winter nights and early mornings.

This, then, was the mother ship and her children. When once the aft gangway leading up from the dockside to the clean-scrubbed decks had been crossed, and the sentry's challenge answered, the embryo officer left civilian life behind and commenced his training for the stern work of war.

It may not be out of place to give here a closer description of the training of the officers and men of the new navy, drawn from personal experience. To do this without the irritating egoism of the personal narrative it will be necessary, as often in future pages, to adopt the convenient "third person."

The night was fine, but a keen March wind blew from off the sea. The dock lights were reflected in the still waters of the harbour. Tall cranes stood out black and clearly defined against the cold night sky.

The shadows were deep around the warehouses, stores and other buildings of the busy dockside.

Lying in the south-western basin was the big grey hull of the cruiser, newly painted, and looking very formidable, with its tall masts and fighting-tops towering into the blue void, and its ma.s.sive bow rising high above the dock wall.

Coming from the darkness on board were the tinkling notes of a banjo and the subdued hum of voices. Then the loud call of the quartermaster and the ringing of eight bells.

A group of newly appointed officers picked their way carefully among the tangled mooring ropes on the quayside and as they approached the warship were duly challenged by the sentries. Two of them had only just arrived from distant New Zealand. They were all "for training," and on mounting the quarterdeck gangway were politely requested by the smiling quartermaster to report at the ship's office.

In order to get from the deck to this abode of paymasters and writers, except by the tabooed "captain's hatchway," there had to be negotiated a long pa.s.sage leading past the wardroom and the gunroom. In normal times at such an hour this pa.s.sage would probably have been almost deserted, with the exception of a sentry, but the training was being speeded up to meet the demands of war, and with nearly 200 officers, many of whom fortunately lived ash.o.r.e, constantly moving to and fro, it became either a semi-dark, congested thoroughfare, in which everyone was curtly apologising for knocking against someone else, or else it contained the steady pressure of a gunroom overflow meeting, with a tobacco-scented atmosphere peculiarly its own.

When the formality of reporting arrival had been completed, the embryo officers were taken in tow by the "Officer of the Day," whose duty it was to introduce them to the gunroom and make them familiar in a general way with the routine of the ship. The officer who performed this ceremony on the night in question has since held a highly responsible post at the Admiralty--such is the fortune of war.

The first shock came when the work for the following day was explained.

It commenced with physical drill on the quayside at 7 A.M. and ended with instruction in signalling at 6 P.M.!

The early morning was bitterly cold but fine. Physical "jerks" was not a dress parade; in fact, some of the early risers on the surrounding transports and ocean mail boats must have wondered what particular form of mania the crowd of running, leaping and arm-swinging men, in all stages of undress on the quayside, really suffered from.

Breakfast and Divisions were the next items on the programme, and the new-comers looked forward to the day's work with the keen interest of freshness.

_Morning Divisions_ and _Evening Quarters_ are events of some importance in the daily routine of his Majesty's ships. They are parades of the entire ship's company, with the exception of those on important duty, marking the beginning and end of the day's work. The crew, or men under training, are mustered in "Watches," under their respective officers, and stand to attention at the bugle call. The senior officer taking divisions then enters, a roll is called and the names of those absent reported. The chaplain stands between the lines of men; the order "Off caps!" is given and prayers commence. When these are finished certain orders of the day are read out to the a.s.sembled ship's company and the parade is over.

At evening quarters, on certain days in the week, the names were read out of the officers and men detailed for special duties or for draft to a zone of war.

When morning divisions were over the day's work began. The embryo officers were attached to the seamanship cla.s.s, consisting of about twenty men of all ages. Oilskins were donned, for the sky was overcast and the wind keen. They climbed down the steel sides of the cruiser on to the small deck of a tender, which was to convey them out on to the broad but sheltered waters where much of the preliminary practical training was to take place during the following weeks.

The instructor, an officer attached for the purpose, then divided his cla.s.s into two "watches," one being directed to work out the proposed course of the ship on the charts in the cabin and to give the necessary orders to the other watch on deck, who were to carry them into effect as the ship steamed along, with the aid of s.e.xtant, compa.s.s, wheel, engine-room telegraph, lead and log-line. As all possessed some knowledge of the sea, and had experience in navigating, this work did not prove as difficult as it undoubtedly would to anyone entirely devoid of nautical knowledge.

Those in the cabin with the charts worked out the compa.s.s courses from one point to another, making the necessary allowances for tide, deviation, etc. Others of the same watch received reports from the "bridge" and made the correct entries in the log-book. All elementary work, but which needed practice to make perfect, and on the accuracy of which men's lives would depend in the very near future.

The watch on deck was engaged in the more practical work of coastal navigation and could see the effect of any mistake made theoretically by their companions below. At midday the watches were reversed. Those working at the charts and courses came on deck and the seamen of the morning became the navigating officers of the afternoon.

On this particular day the second or port watch had the worst of it. A squally wind and rain had set in, making the work on deck thoroughly wet and uncomfortable. An hour or so later the small ship was rolling and pitching and everyone was drenched. The lead was kept going by hands numb with cold--a foretaste of the long and bitter days and nights to be afterwards spent in wintry seas.

The training cruises were continued for many days and were interspersed with lectures on the elements of good seamanship, the more advanced theory and practice of navigation being left for a later course at the Royal Naval College, Greenwich.

After seamanship came gunnery. Each of the different types of heavy but finely made weapons had to be learned in detail--a feat of memory when it came to the watch-like mechanism of the Maxim. Guns were disabled and had to be put right. They missed fire and were made by the instructors--old naval gunners--to play every dastardly trick conceivable. The final test which had to be successfully pa.s.sed was the dismantling of each type of gun used in the auxiliary fleet and the rea.s.sembling of it.

With gunnery came also the marks and uses of the different kinds of ammunition, the systems of "spotting" and "range-finding." Every gun had its officer crew and the rapidity of fire was recorded. Each man in turn was chosen to give the necessary orders and to judge the ranges and deflections. In this way not only was the practical work learned by heart, but also the theory of naval gunnery, so far as it related to the smaller types of weapon.

The use of the depth charge, both mechanically and tactically, was expounded and practically demonstrated, together with that of the torpedo, the mine, mine laying and sweeping, and the peculiarities of various explosives. Rifle and revolver practice was encouraged, and morse and semaph.o.r.e signalling formed part of the daily routine.

The training was not entirely preparatory for work afloat. Squad and company drill, rifle and bayonet exercise, and manoeuvring in extended order formed a part of the comprehensive training. One day, not many weeks after their arrival, the officers whose fortunes have been followed found themselves shouting orders and directing by arm and whistle lines of dusty _camarades_ advancing over a common in the most approved military fashion.

The training was not all hard work. The gathering of so many men from all quarters of the world, with a wealth of experience and adventure behind them, was in itself a source of mutual interest--and incidentally an education in modern British Imperialism. Scarcely any part of the world went for long unrepresented in either the wardroom or gunroom of the old cruiser _Hermione_ in those days of war, and many were the yarns told of Alaska days, hunting in Africa, experiences in remote corners of North America, pearling in the Pacific and life on the Indian frontier, to say nothing of wild nights on the seven seas. Grey heads and round, boyish faces, the university and the frontier, with a camaraderie seldom equalled.

The period of training in the old cruiser was drawing to a close when each officer was appointed to "Boat Duty." There were five launches on duty at a time, and their crews had to be instantly ready day and night.

The most coveted were the two 21-knot boats, used almost exclusively for the conveyance of pilots to and from the hospital ships and transports.

Then came the patrol boat, a slow old tub with a comfortable cabin, and work out on Southampton Water at night. The three "duty boats" were for emergency use and were held at the disposal of the naval transport officer.

The duties on each boat varied and were in the nature of training. The pilot boat was required to lie alongside the cutter, out beyond the harbour, and to convey the pilots at high speed to and from the stream of shipping. It was a pleasant duty which entailed alternate nights in the generous, breezy company of the old sea-dogs of the cutter, with occasional races at half-a-mile a minute through the darkness and spray to the moving leviathans of the ocean.

The patrol ambled up and down the sheltered waterways during the day and night, examining the "permits" of fishermen and preventing the movement of small craft during the hours of darkness, when the long lines of troop-ships were leaving for France.

The work of the duty boats varied from day to day, but there was always the morning and evening mail to be collected from and delivered to the ships of the auxiliary fleet lying out in the fair-way.

When this spell of water-police work was over there came a few days'

practice in the handling of the fast sea-going patrol launches, or "M.L.'s," about which so much has since been written in the daily papers.

After the cramming received in the lecture-rooms, the arduous drill and the somewhat monotonous work on the slow-moving tenders, the runs seaward on these new and trim little vessels, the manoeuvring at nineteen knots, the breeze of pa.s.sage and the feeling of controlled power acted as an elixir on both mind and body. Then came firing practice in the open sea. The sharp crack of cordite, the tongues of livid flame, the scream of the sh.e.l.ls, the white splashes of the ricochet and the salt sea breezes.

Two days later the preliminary training was over and there loomed ahead a period of hard study at the Royal Naval College.

CHAPTER III

A NAVAL UNIVERSITY IN TIME OF WAR

BUILT by King Charles I. for the Stuart navy, and used for over two and a half centuries as the university of the Senior Service, the Royal Naval College, Greenwich, is a building with an historic past. It has housed, fed and taught many of England's most ill.u.s.trious sailors.