2. “SHIP-DESTROYING ENGINES”
Although the Stella Rigel and her sister sweepers must be constantly vigilant for some new form of mining offensive, the modern submarine mine is not a new invention so much as the product of four centuries of human ingenuity. During that time the scientists have fought an unceasing conflict of wits as one has produced a destructive device and another has countered it.
It was one of Elizabeth’s admirals, Sir William Monson, who first realized that a vessel is more vulnerable below the water-line than above it, although there is no record that he ever carried out his plan for firing a canon from the hold of a barque which had been laid alongside an enemy ship. But at the siege of Antwerp in 1585 the Dutch destroyed 800 Spaniards by means of a contrivance they called an “explosion vessel” fitted with clockwork mechanism.
Charles I gave his Master of the Ordnance a warrant “for the making of divers water-mines, water-petards and boats to go under water,” and during the expedition for the relief of La Rochelle in 1628 the Duke of Buckingham, then Lord High Admiral, is said to have used these inventions, although without much success. In Cromwell’s time Prince Rupert tried to blow up Blake’s flagship, the Leopard, with an explosive machine concealed in an oil-barrel. Twenty years later he was still experimenting with “petards.”
“Whatsoever vessel lies by the side of any ship and has the said petard on board, has it in its power to blow up the other,” he assured Charles II.
In 1655 the Marquis of Worcester invented a “ship-destroying engine” which, like the Dutch device, was actuated by clockwork, but it required a diver to attach it to the ship which was to be attacked, and does not appear to have been used. Indeed, the problem which the early inventor failed to overcome was the elimination of the human agency necessary to operate the mine.
It was left to David Bushnell, the American, who has been called the “Father of the Submarine,” to evolve the idea of detonating mines by contact. Even Bushnell’s early attempts at mining were on the lines of his predecessors, and the object of his submarine, the Turtle, was to approach an enemy vessel under water so that the single operator, while submerged, could drive into the ship’s side a wooden screw to which was attached a mine containing 150 lbs. of explosive with a time-controlled mechanism. The Turtle was sunk after an abortive attempt to destroy the British 64-gun ship Eagle in the Hudson River during the American War of Independence, and Bushnell then invented what appears to have been the first contact mine: a keg with conical ends, filled with gunpowder, supported in the water by buoys, and fired by an ordinary gunlock and hammer.
His first attempt with one of these “trigger-mines” was in 1777 against the British frigate Cerberus while she lay at anchor in the Connecticut River, but the mine hit a schooner astern of the Cerberus, destroying her and killing three of her crew. After this Bushnell set a number of kegs afloat on the ebb tide in the Delaware River above the British shipping at Philadelphia. One of them blew up a boat with several men in it, thus giving the alarm which brought on the so-called Battle of the Kegs, when the British troops lined the ships and wharves, firing a wild fusilade at the invisible mines which, beyond causing panic, did little damage.
Twenty years later another American, Robert Fulton, better known as the designer and builder of the Clermont, the first practicable steamship, invented a mine which he called an “explosive carcass” and a “plunging-boat,” the Nautilus from which to fire it. This was the vessel which gave Jules Verne the idea for Captain Nemo’s submarine in Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea. Fulton interested Napoleon in his project and the French Government put at his disposal a schooner which he succeeded in blowing up.
His methods did not appeal to the chivalry of the French naval officers, however, and he betook himself to England, where he placed some of his other inventions before the Admiralty. One of these was an explosive magazine known as a “catamaran,” an oblong wooden vessel containing 40 barrels of powder. The withdrawal of a safety-pin caused a clockwork mechanism to revolve for ten minutes, then a gunlock hammer was released and hit a percussion cap, the flash causing the magazine to explode.
The possibilities of this device impressed the Admiralty and in 1804 Lord Keith used it against the French fleet off Boulogne. The catamarans were set adrift in pairs, but they were too close to the surface to be effective and the columns of water caused by the explosions made no impression on the stoutly-built French ships. The French protested indignantly against this method of attack.
In the following year, a few days before the Battle of Trafalgar, Fulton gave a demonstration of another explosive device for the benefit of Mr. Pitt who provided him with a strong Danish brig, the Dorothy, as a target ship. The brig was anchored off Walmer Castle, Pitt’s residence, and was attacked by a carcass containing 170 lbs. of powder. A naval officer who was present remarked cheerfully that if such a contraption were placed under his cabin while he was at dinner he would feel no concern for the consequences. A few moments later the explosion lifted the brig almost bodily out of the water and she broke in two.
“She did not appear to make more resistance than a bag of feathers,” wrote Fulton, “and went to pieces like a shattered eggshell.” Nothing came of the experiment, however, and Lord St. Vincent probably voiced the opinion of most naval officers when he declared that “Pitt was the greatest fool that ever existed to encourage a mode of war which they who commanded the sea did not want, and which if successful would deprive them of it.”
Fulton retired discomfited to the United States. He had proved the possibilities of submarine mines, but they were not used effectively until war broke out between Germany and Denmark in 1848, when Professor Himmly, unaware of either Bushnell’s or Fulton’s work, invented a mine which could be detonated by electric contact from the shore. These mines, the first to be laid as weapons of defence, were used to protect Kiel against the Danish fleet. The Russians also laid mines to protect the ports of Sebastopol and Kronstadt during the Crimean War.
In the American Civil War the Confederates tried to equalize their inferiority in ships by minelaying, and although not a single vessel on either side was sunk by gunfire, nearly thirty were destroyed by contact mines. Some were made of beer-kegs with chemical fuses; others were truncated tin cones with gunpowder in the lower end and on the top an iron cap which was displaced on contact and pulled a friction tube, thus detonating the charge.
[Figure 1 caption] “NO MORE RESISTANCE THAN A BAG OF FEATHERS.” So wrote Robert Fulton after William Pitt had let him explode a form of mine he had invented under the anchored brig Dorothy, This experiment was in 1805, a few days before Trafalgar.
The most elaborate minefield of the war was a triple line laid before the fort of Mobile which Admiral Farragut attacked in 1864. The monitor Tecumseh, leading the fleet, struck a mine and sank by the head, taking with her the captain and a large number of her company. More mines were reported ahead and the Admiral was faced with the alternative of ignominious retreat or taking his fleet through the danger zone. Undaunted he chose to advance and gave the order for full speed. Seldom has courageous decision been better justified by result. Although the mines could heard bumping against the sides of the ships and grazing along their bottoms, not one exploded and the fleet went through unscathed.
[Figure 2 caption] INFANCY OF THE MINE. Water-spouts from Russian mines astound the crew of the British warship Merlin, damaged in a minefield off Sveaborg during the Crimean War.
[Figure 3 caption] THE FIRST SWEEPERS. A Japanese minefield is swept with grappling hooks from the stern of a Russian tug during the Russo-Japanese War, 1904. The cruiser Novik stands by. Both Russian and Japanese heavy warships were sunk by mines during the war.
When the Confederates first began to lay mines the Federals professed to be as indignant as the French had been, but before hostilities were over they too had adopted this method of warfare. Immobile contact mines were also used by Paraguay in 1868 during the war against Brazil, and sank the Brazilian ironclad Rio Janeiro. During the Franco-Prussian War the Germans prevented the French from attacking their principal ports by defending them with contact and electrically-controlled mines.
The mine continued to be regarded as a weapon of defence until the Russo-Turkish War, when in May, 1877, a small party under a Russian lieutenant swam across the Lower Danube towing an electro-controlled mine, which they placed under the bottom of the Turkish monitor Dar-Matoin. When the mine was fired the ship was blown to pieces and not a man on board was saved.
This was an isolated incident, however, and although the Russians are said to have been the first to sweep for mines—by towing weighted hawsers between a pair of tugs—when war broke out with Japan they confined themselves to protecting Port Arthur by an extensive minefield, on which their own armed minelayer, the Yenisei, was sunk.
Five years previously, however, an Italian officer had invented a mine designed to be laid outside enemy ports for purposes of blockade, and demonstrated in naval manoeuvres that fleets could be forced over mined areas. It may be that the imitative minds of the Japanese adopted this idea, for they laid a line of mines outside the Port Arthur field. A decoy squadron then lured the Russian admiral out of the harbour, with the result that the flagship Petropavolosk struck two coupled mines and sank within three minutes. This was the first ship to be destroyed by a minefield laid in anything but defence, and other casualties followed. The Russians retaliated by laying mines in the open sea and sank two Japanese battleships in a single day.
The mine thus became recognized as a weapon of aggression, and the Germans were not slow to mark the lessons of the war. They carried out elaborate experiments, made preparations for manufacture, and drew up plans for widespread minelaying in the event of a naval war.
The British Admiralty was slower to act, not realizing the potency of the mine in the hands of an unscrupulous enemy and relying on the Hague Convention which stipulated that mines might be laid only in the territorial waters of an opponent. It was supposed that naval patrols would be able to deal with any surface minelayers which approached the coast, and no one appears to have suspected that minefields could be laid by submarines.
Nevertheless, Admiral Lord Charles Beresford foresaw the need of providing shipping with adequate protection against mine-warfare, and after a visit he paid to the East Coast ports in 1907 when Commander-in-Chief of the Home Fleet, he recommended the use of Grimsby trawlers for minesweeping. He argued that in time of war many vessels of the fishing fleet would be inactive and therefore available for war service. Fishermen were more skilled than naval ratings in the handling of wires and trawls, and the employment of trawlers would free the small naval craft for other duties.
The Admiralty hired two trawlers with their fishing crews, and sent them to Portland for minesweeping experiments. These trials were successful, and shortly afterwards the Trawler Section of the Royal Naval Reserve was formed. Arrangements were made for 100 trawlers to be mobilized on the outbreak of war and for the immediate enrolment of 1,000 officers and ratings. The rank of Skipper, R.N.R., appeared in the Navy List for the first time.
There was no lack of volunteers for the new Service. It was to be some years before they were needed, but Lord Charles Beresford’s foresight was justified when the time came.
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