USA > Massachusetts > Essex County > Salem > Sketches about Salem people > Part 27
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BY REAR ADMIRAL R. R. BELKNAP, U. S. N.
is not without interest. A group of skyscraper builders. proposed that a number of Flatiron Building frames should be erected horizontally on shipbuilding ways, the. bottoms and part of the sides and ends filled in with cement, then launched, towed out into place in the North Sea, and sunk by blowing holes in the bottom. End to end, twelve to the sea mile, they would make an impass- able hurdle, which would be open and strong enough to endure heavy wave action. Some 500,000 tons of ship- ping to carry the material over, and the transportation, housing, subsistence, management, and labor involvement of 50,000 workmen, dismissed the proposal. That was one scheme the British had not considered, safe to say; they do not go in for skyscrapers as we do. But they had considered a barrier of mines, notwithstanding its un- heard-of magnitude.
The reasons for its being considered impracticable were several. In the first place, a field of that length would require 400,000 mines, containing about 60,000 tons of high explosive-a heavy demand to add to that for the army front. Supposing the explosive available, the me- chanical task of manufacturing all those mines would have been a large order, about the equivalent of making 200,000 Ford cars. But if that too had been solved, then would come the question to put the mines down, and, leaving out the risks and difficulties, the mine-laying force at disposal had a capacity of 20,000 a month, assum- ing no delays. Working at it continually, they would be engaged twenty months; and before six months were over the heavy wear and tear on the first laid parts would require patching there. So it would have been a never- ending, never more than half-completed undertaking. But even assuming that those three obstacles, insurmount- able in view of other demands, had nevertheless been set aside, the fact remained that the British did not have in 1917, nor until the spring of 1918, a type of mine that was satisfactory, one that could be relied on to go where. intended, stay there, and explode when touched by a ves- sel's hull. Altogether, there was more than sufficient ground for deciding that a mine barrage from Scotland
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RALPH C. BROWNE: AN APPRECIATION
across to Norway was impracticable for the British Navy to undertake.
A different but connected task was closing Dover Strait, about twenty-six miles wide. There is a strong current, five knots at times, make a very rough sea when the wind is contrary. The bottom is hard and smooth as a billiard table, to quote Admiral Jellicoe, and as the water is not very deep and wave motion extends down as far as sixty feet, ordinary anchored mines would not stay in place. Ground mines, lying on the bottom were the only kind to be considered; to be set off in some par- ticular way, such as by harmonic response to the vibra- tion of a small vessel's propellor-a device not always discriminating! Dover Strait was closed in 1918, how- ever by block ships moored at intervals, equipped with guns and searchlights, to support the active patrol vessels. But that did not help solve the closing of the wide-open North Sea. Up to July, 1918, enemy submarines passed in and out, to and from the open ocean where the trade routes were, without any harm or effective hindrance.
About the time we went into the war, the convoy sys- tem was adopted for all merchant vessels, and it proved very effective, greatly reducing the losses of shipping. Yet it did not eliminate the submarine menace by any means, nor did it alter the determination of the German Admiralty to build larger submarines, to wage the cam- paign farther out, where protection would be more diffi- cult to furnish and from where an injured vessel would have smaller prospects of getting into port. How to block the submarines in their bases was still a very live ques- tion.
Among the inventions submitted with that aim was one containing a device which, if applied to a mine, would multiply its value by three. Now at once that reduced the North Sea requirement from 400,000 to 133,000. At the same time, our Navy Department proposed that we furnish the mines needed, or a very large proportion of them, and that we also furnish the force to lay them in place.
The British Admiralty was not readily convinced.
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BY REAR ADMIRAL R. R. BELKNAP, U. S. N.
Their own experience with mines had been none too happy. They sent over a young lieutenant of mine-laying experience to see this so promising new invention. He arrived in Newport for the tests in August. His attitude suggested an iceberg. But the inventor put his device. overboard, touch it, and the primer went off as intended. The trial board dropped the mine from a height of forty
feet, tried it lying down, and did all kinds of things to it; yet every time it worked and the primer went off. Our young Briton began to thaw, and soon he became as warm dowards the device as we were. After receiving his report, the British Admiralty were more receptive when Admiral Mayo, Commander-in-chief of our Fleet, definitely proposed undertaking a joint operation. It was accordingly agreed that the American and British Navies would co-operate in laying a minefield barrier across the North Sea, the ultimate location decided being from the Orkneys to a point on the Norway coast about. 150 miles above the Skagerrack. The British would alone close Dover Strait.
It may be remembered that the first naval casualties in 1914 were caused by mines laid off the mouth of the Thames by a German sea-resort steamer, which had been equipped as a mine layer. A British light cruiser de- stroyed her, and was herself destroyed by getting on the German mines. It was not long before it became neces- sary to employ 5,000 steam fishing trawlers as mine- sweepers, to keep the channels into harbors and along the coast clear of the mines that were being laid con- tinually along the British Isles. With an average of ten men to a trawler, 50,000 of the seafaring populations were tied up by the mine menace along the coast. Thus it was plain that mines would play an even larger part than in previous wars; and although our Administration attitude before 1916 was gradually not favorable to war preparedness, still a great deal could be done in the Fleet without special orders from Washington. Accordingly, in the latter part of 1914, the development of the mining weapon was taken up with decision.
Before going to Berlin as Naval Attache in 1907, I
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RALPH C. BROWNE: AN APPRECIATION
had been executive officer of a battleship, where the ten mines which all vessels of that type carried were regarded as a curse, their military value as a joke, There is a story about Father Gleason, chaplain of the Missouri, going out with Lieutenant Davis, Gunnery Officer, to see the annual minelaying Properly behaved mines are of a retiring disposition, disappearing as soon as put overboard and re- maining under water, out of sight. Ours behaved often like some children, however. On this occasion, number one mine went over and promptly came up again, bob- bing about serenely on the surface like a buoy. Number two did the same, also number three, and so on to number nine. But the last one went down and stayed down. Said the chaplain, "Oh, Davis, what a pity! otherwise you would have had a perfect score."
Not long after my arrival in Germany, I was invited and went to visit a plant near Cologne where the high explosive TNT and submarine mines were manufactured. They had a pleasant way there of showing you everything in the forenoon, letting you see and read and ask about anything that might interest you. Then there would be a wonderful lunch in a grotto, with everything in the world to eat and drink. After that, anything you could remember you were welcome to. However, I did remem- ber enough to convince me that the mine seen there was far better than any we had. Next year I was shown a new and improved mode !; and in June 1910, at Kiel, I saw the trial at nine o'clock of a further improved model. It was shown an hour later to Admiral von Tir- pitz, who was to pass upon its acceptability for the Ger- man Navy. Thus I learned at first hand that at least three years had been necessary to develop to the satisfac- tion of the German Navy a mine that at the outset had seemed to me, by comparison with ours, wonderfully efficient.
Soon after war began in 1914, I was again in Germany as an observer. They were very open to us then, and by good chance I picked up some information that later proved valuable. Little did I think at the time that its application would fall in part to me; but that soon fol-
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BY REAR ADMIRAL R. R. BELKNAP, U. S. N.
lowed. Late in 1914, I was placed in command of the twenty-five year old cruiser San Francisco, which had been converted two years before into our Navy's first mine- layer.
Basing on Pensacola, on the northern Gulf coast of Florida, we began the development of the rapid handling of mines in large numbers, embarking them in a mine-layer from boats, from another vessel alongside, or directly from a wharf, and laying them and picking them up in the open sea, in fairly bad, as well as in good, weather. It soon proved that the best results were obtained by putting the work in the hands of the men themselves, thus forcing every man to realize his responsibility for the faithful per- formance of his part in every detail. Officers were always standing by, keenly observant, ready to intervene to pre- vent accident and able to note the need or opportunity for improvement; but for the most part they kept hands off and remained silent. In that way the crew and ship worked up a high state of efficiency. In July, 1915, the first fleet unit for the mine weapon was formed, the "Min- ing and Mine-Sweeping Division," consisting of three mine-layers and four large mine-sweepers, the division be- ing placed under my command. In the course of a year and a half we developed our methods and abilities enough to be able to say, when the North Sea Barrage came up for consideration, that our own experience showed it was practicable.
Many difficulties were discussed at Washington before the decision to proceed. No mines had ever been laid in water deeper than 300 feet, yet it was proposed to cross a deep of 900 feet, along the coast of Norway. But there was no reason why mines could not be laid in such deep water, and we did it later, according to plan. Then the fog and darkness would betray us onto our own minefields previously laid; but though we had not worked out the answer to that, we knew we could find one. It was pointed ou tthat any such minelaying operations as pro- posed would be raided; but others said, very well, that will bring out the German Fleet again ; the minelayers will be the bait and will have a front seat at the second battle of
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RALPH C. BROWNE: AN APPRECIATION
Jutland. One admiral, noted for boldness and tenacity, characterized the proposition as an utterly foolish attempt, And even after the decision to undertake it, one of the admirals said, "I believe after all that the barrage will never be laid." The decision was taken, however, and on October 29, 1917, the Secretary, fresh from Cabinet meeting, gave the word to proceed.
The value of the new device that enabled such a decision to be taken may be better understood by considering the mine itself and its working. Most mines used are an- chored. The type that is cast adrift does not enter into this account. Anchored mines sometimes break adrift, but then a safety device renders them harmless, provided the device works. Our mines were 30-inch spheres of about 3-16-inch thick galvanized steel. Each contained 300 pounds of TNT. The mine anchors were in the form of a box, so formed in order to retard sinking. Anchor and mine together weighed 1400 pounds. A reel inside the box held the anchor cable of steel wire rope. Outside a sort of earring, called a plummet, was attached by a wire cord to the latch on the anchor cable-reel inside. The plummet cord was wound on a small reel inside the plum- met itself and it ran up over to a trip-hoop, which held the mine firmly in its seat on the anchor. Four small wheels, flanged like car wheels, facilitated moving of mines along a ship's decks, on tracks. The track rails looked like a pair of brackets [ ]. The wheels run between the two flanges of the rails, holding the mines securely on the tracks, no matter how heavily the ship may roll.
At the ship's stern the tracks led to a launching port or door, where the mine track dipped sharply downward. When pushed overboard, the mine will turn in the air and dive head first, then come up to the surface, showing a few inches of the mine, still hooked to the anchor. The box-like bulk of the anchor gave it some buoyancy, until water had leaked in to offset that. A little fifth wheel on the anchor held the plummet fast as long as this wheel was on the track; but as soon as the mine turned upright in its dive, the plummet dropped clear, reeling out its cord.
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BY REAR ADMIRAL R. R. BELKNAP, U. S. N.
The plummet would come to the end of its cord with a jerk, which tripped the hook, releasing the anchor from the mine, and lifting the latch, allowing the mine anchor cable to unreel. The anchor would begin to sink, the mine remaining partly afloat, the plummet leading the way to the bottom. The plummet would strike bottom first its cord would immediately slacken and allow the latch to lock the anchor cable reel, so that no more line could play out. The anchor continuing to sink, would draw the mine under water. As the anchor line stopped paying out the moment the plummet struck bottom, the mine was drawn beneath the surface a distance equal to the plummet cord, regard- less of irregularities of the bottom. No matter how many humps and hollows the bottom might have, all mines having plummet cords of equal length would come to rest at equal depth below the surface.
In 1917 the British Navy and ours were using a mine invented by an Italian. It was not satisfactory for several reasons, an important one being that it was far from sure fire. The new device added an antenna to the mine. From the mine itself, which alone was as dangerous as best of any type, an antenna of wire rope was unrolled and held up by a small copper float, ten feet or more below the surface. The antenna was seventy feet long, and if it were touched anywhere, the mine would explode. The antenna made the mine dangerous over three times the space men- aced by the ordinary mine. That was one great advantage. Another was that the new mine was very delicate in its firing device; the difficulty was to keep it from going off too soon. The old mine was comparatively hard and un- certain to set off. Enemy vessels will not be so accom- modating as to tease a mine into action. Thus, the ad- vantages of the new antenna mine-triple reach and ex- treme sensitiveness-were enormous.
How the manufacture of mines was parceled out, one part here, a few there, among five hundred contractors, and accomplished at one thousand a day, the device mean- while kept secret; how twenty-six cargo vessels made sixty trips from Hampton Roads to the west coast of Scotland, carrying mine parts to be assembled in complete units,
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RALPH C. BROWNE: AN APPRECIATION
mine and anchor, for the first time at the assembly bases at Inverness and Invergordon, on the northeast coast of Scotland; how the small Mine Force of the Atlantic Fleet was expanded five times, into Mine Squadron One, of ten minelayers, eight of them newly converted from the passenger and freight service, how they carried 5,400 at one time, 860 in each of the four largest; how these vessels were planned and equipped on our own experience, using standard American appliances: Otis elevators, York ice machines, "life-savers," not of pep-o-mint but of hard compressed salt, for soluble washers as safety time-locks- to mention only a few; how the "mining excursions," so- called because suggesting a happy return, were carried out, screened by destroyers against submarines and sup- ported against raids by a force of heavy ships; how the American crews uncomplainingly and cheerfully put up with extreme crowding in order to accommodate more mines ; how they gave up smoking below decks, to diminish the ever-present fire risk; how they fulfilled a strenuous program with well-sustained excellence of performance, without casualty ; how they kept admirable discipline and morale, in spite of limited diversion; and how the barrier grew steadily until an area of 6,000 square miles, 235 miles long by 25 wide became deadly with 10,000 tons of TNT, in 71,500 mines, of which four-fifths were of Amer- ican design, make, and laying; all this has been told con- nectedly elsewhere .*
It was the new device, which tripled a mine's reach and made it extremely sensitive, that set the whole operation in motion. And it was none too soon. Begun about November 1st, it was June before minelaying began.
Once begun, the minefield soon brought results. In July it damaged two enemy submarines. One was towed into port by a friend; the other has never been heard from. Ever widening and lengthening, the great mine- field continued to damage and destroy, every month. In the less than five months from beginning until the Armis- tice, six to eight submarines were sunk and as many more
* "The Yankeee Mining Squadron," by Captain Reginald R. Belknap; published by U. S. Naval Institute, Annapolis, Md.
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BY REAR ADMIRAL R. R. BELKNAP, U. S. N.
were damaged or turned back. And above the actual loss was the growing demoralization, due to more and more submarines not returning, attributable to this deadly bar- rier. Already proved beyond question to be a practicable accomplishment, such a barrier could be made more and more effective, even absolutely impassable. Late in October we were held back six hours by news in the Grand Fleet that the German Fleet was coming out; but mutinous spirit tied that fleet fast, brought about in no small part by this great minelaying operation. And the military effect was the greater for being accomplished in so short a period, sixteen submarines destroyed or disabled in four months.
These are the main points, told from the far, the oper- ating end. There is peculiar interest here in the whole affair, for it began in Massachusetts. Two Massachusetts men were in at the very beginning: one was the inventor ; the other was Rear Admiral Ralph Earle, then Chief of the Naval Bureau of Ordnance, now the President of Worcester Polytechnic Institute. I have described how long it took the Germans to develop an already good mine into one satisfactory for their navy-over three years. And the British Navy, after more than three years of actual war, did not have a reliable design to offer us. Yet, in October, 1917, Admiral Earle promised, in his official capacity as the responsible bureau chief, that the new mines would be forthcoming at the rate of one thousand a day as soon as they were wanted in the following spring, and when he made that official promise there was not even a complete sketch of the new mine design in existence. Such confident courage and nerve in technical administra- tion are not common. The success of the operation crowned his.
The other Massachusetts man, the inventor, was Ralph C. Browne of Salem.
HECKMAN BINDERY INC.
MAR 97 Bound -To-Pleas& N. MANCHESTER, INDIANA 46962
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