ABOARD A SUBMARINE

Submarines have been compared to all kinds of things, from a fish to a cigar. Life on them has been described in terms of the highest elation as well as of the deepest depression. Their operation and navigation, according to some claims, require a veritable combination of mechanical, electrical, and naval genius—not only on the part of the officers, but even on that of the simplest oiler—while others make it appear as if a submarine was at least as simple to handle as a small motor boat. The truth concerning all these matters lies somewhere between these various extremes.

It is quite true that except on the very latest "submerged cruisers" built by the Germans, the space for the men operating a submarine is painfully straitened. They must hold to their positions almost like a row of peas in a pod. From this results the gravest strain upon the nerves so that it has been found in Germany that after a cruise a period of rest of equal duration is needed to restore the men to their normal condition. Before assignment to submarine duty, too, a special course of training is requisite. Submarine crews are not created in a day.

What the interior of the new German submarines with a length of 280 feet, and a beam of 26 feet may be, no man of the Anglo-Saxon race may know or tell. The few who have descended into those mysterious depths will have no chance to tell of them until the war is over. Nor is it possible during wartimes to secure descriptions even of our own underwater boats. But the interior of the typical submarine may be imagined as in size and shape something like an unusually long street car. Along the sides, where seats would normally be, are packed wheels, cylinders, motors, pumps, machinery of all imaginable kinds and some of it utterly unimaginable to the lay observer. The whole interior is painted white and bathed in electric light. The casual visitor from "above seas" is dazed by the array of machinery and shrinks as he walks the narrow aisle lest he become entangled in it.

Running on the surface the submarine chamber is filled with a roar and clatter like a boiler shop in full operation. The Diesel engines are compact and powerful, but the racket they make more nearly corresponds to their power than to their size. On the surface too the boat rolls and pitches and the stranger passenger, unequipped with sea legs grabs for support as the subway rider reaches for a strap on the curves. But let the order come to submerge. The Diesels are stopped. The electric motors take up the task, spinning noiselessly in their jackets. In a moment or two all rolling ceases. One can hardly tell whether the ship is moving at all—it might for all its motion tells be resting quietly on the bottom. If you could disabuse your mind for a moment of the recollection that you were in a great steel cigar heavy laden with explosives, and deep under the surface of the sea you would find the experience no more exciting than a trip through the Pennsylvania tubes. But there is something uncanny about the silence.

Go forward to the conical compartment at the very bow. There you will find the torpedo chamber for the submarine, like the cigar to which it is so often compared, carries its fire at its front tip. The most common type of boat will have two or four torpedo tubes in this chamber. The more modern ones will have a second torpedo chamber astern with the same number of tubes and carry other torpedoes on deck which by an ingenious device can be launched from their outside cradles by mechanism within the boat. In the torpedo chamber are twice as many spare torpedoes as there are tubes, made fast along the sides. Here too the anchor winch stands with the cable attached to the anchor outside the boat and an automatic knife which cuts the cable should the anchor be fouled.

Immediately aft of the torpedo chamber, cut off by a water-tight partition, is the battery compartment. It gets its name because of the fact, that beneath the deck which is full of traps readily raised are the electric storage batteries of anywhere from 60 to 260 cells according to the size of the boat. This room is commonly used as the loafing place for the crew, being regarded as very spacious and empty. In it are nothing but the electric stove, the kitchen sink, the various lockers for food and all the housekeeping apparatus of the submarine. Mighty trim and compact they all are. The builder of twentieth century flats with his kitchenettes and his in-door beds might learn a good deal from a study of the smaller type of submarine. Next aft come the officers' staterooms, rather smaller than prison cells, each holding a bunk, a bureau, and a desk. Each holds also a good deal of moisture, for the greatest discomfort in submarine life comes from the fact that everything is dripping with the water resulting from the constant condensation of the air within.

The great compartment amidships given over to machinery is a place to test the nerves. The aisle down the centre is scarcely two feet wide and on each side are whirling wheels, engines, and electric motors. Only the photographs can give a clear idea of the crowded appearance of this compartment. It contains steering wheels, the gyroscopic compass, huge valves, dials showing depth of submergence, Kingston levers, motor controllers, all polished and shining, each doing its work and each easily thrown out of gear by an ignorant touch.

The author once spending the night on a United States man-of-war was shown by the captain to his own cabin, that officer occupying the admiral's cabin for the time. At the head of the bunk were two small electric push buttons absolutely identical in appearance and about two inches apart. "Push this button," said the captain genially, "if you want the Jap boy to bring you shaving water or anything else. But be sure to push the right one. If you push the other you will call the entire crew to quarters at whatever hour of night the bell may ring."

The possibility of mistaking the button rested heavily on the writer's nerves all night. A somewhat similar feeling comes over one who walks the narrow path down the centre of the machinery compartment of a submarine. He seems hedged about by mysterious apparatus a touch of which, or even an accidental jostle may release powerful and even murderous forces.

While the submarine is under way, submerged, the operator at every piece of individual machinery stands at its side ready for action. Here are the gunner's mates at the diving rudder. They watch steadily a big gauge on which a needle which shows how deep the boat is sinking. When the required depth is reached swift turns of two big brass wheels set the horizontal rudders that check the descent and keep the boat on an even keel. Other men stand at the levers of the Kingston valves which, when open, flood the ballast tanks with water and secure the submergence of the boat. Most of the underwater boats to-day sink rapidly on an even keel. The old method of depressing the nose of the boat so as to make a literal dive has been abandoned, partly because of the inconvenience it caused to the men within who suddenly found the floor on which they were standing tilted at a sharp angle, and partly because the diving position proved to be a dangerous one for the boat.

In the early days of the submarines the quarters for the men were almost intolerable. The sleeping accommodations were cramped and there was no place for the men off duty to lounge and relax from the strain of constant attention to duty. Man cannot keep his body in a certain fixed position even though it be not rigid, for many hours. This is shown as well at the base ball grounds at the end of the sixth inning when "all stretch" as it was in the old time underwater boats. The crews now have space in which to loaf and even the strain of long silent watches under water is relieved by the use of talking machines and musical instruments. The efficiency of the boat of course is only that of her crew, and since more care and more scientific thought has been given to the comfort of the men, to the purity of the air they breathe, and even to their amusements, the effect upon the work done by the craft has been apparent. Ten years ago hot meals were unthought of on a submarine; now the electric cooker provides for quite an elaborate bill of fare. But ten years ago the submarine was only expected to cruise for a few hours off the harbour's mouth carrying a crew of twenty men or less. Now it stays at sea sometimes for as long as three months. Its crews number often as many as fifty and the day is in sight when accommodations will have to be made for the housing of at least eighty men in such comparative comfort that they can stand a six months' voyage without loss of morale or decrease in physical vigour.

It is, of course, very rare that a civilian has the chance to be present on a submarine when the latter is making either a real or a feigned attack. Fred B. Pitney, a correspondent of the New York Tribune, was fortunate enough to have this experience, fortunate especially because it was all a game arranged for his special benefit by a French admiral. He writes of this interesting experience in the Tribune of Sunday, May 27, 1917, and at the same time gives a vivid description of a French submarine.

It appears that Mr. Pitney was on a small vessel put at his disposal by the French Ministry of Marine to view the defences of a French naval base. This boat was attacked by what seemed to be an enemy submarine, but later turned out to be a French one which was giving this special performance for Mr. Pitney's information. We read:

Life and work on a German submarine is known to us, of course, only from descriptions in German publications. One of these appeared, previous to our entry in the war, in various journals and was translated and republished by the New York Evening Post. It reads partly as follows: