HMS Superb

“ The enemy now opened from all their batteries, the Queen Charlotte and Leander being the only ships which had yet reached their stations. Preparations had been previously made in all, to avoid the necessity of exposing the men aloft when shortening sail. Following the flag-ship, the Superb anchored about two hundred and fifty yards astern of her, and the Minden at about her own length from the Superb. The Albion came to astern of the Minded, which passed her stream cable out of the larboard gun-room port to the Albion's bow, and brought the two ships together. ”

“ The Superb yesterday joined us, with the Thames. Captain Keats, having seen the enemy coming out of Cadiz, appeared with the signal of their being in sight, and they soon after came round Cabrita Point. Two are three-deckers, and three are seventy-fours, with three frigates. If it draws this force to the Mediterranean, some good may come from it. A squadron is hourly expected from Lord Keith, and probably some ships may soon join us from England. We shall have all the ships in readiness; and the junction of a few ships, would make us again superior to the enemy's force. ”

“ At the end of the chase, the distance between the leading ship, Superb, and the Donegal, the last of the squadron, is estimated in James’ Naval History at forty-five miles.
The squadron then made sail for Barbadoes in order to revictual, and, after coming in for a heavy gale, arrived there on January 12. On the 11th, news was received by a vessel from England, which had been spoken, that Denmark had joined the coalition against France. ”

“ Aloft, aloft with studding sails, and lash them on the yard,
For night and day the Trades are driving blind!"
So all day long and all day long behind the fleet we crept,
And how we fretted none but Nelson guessed;
But every night the Old Superb she sailed when others slept,
Till we ran the French to earth with all the rest!
Oh, 'twas Westward ho! for Trinidad and Eastward ho! for Spain,
And "Ship ahoy!" a hundred times a day;
Round the world if need be, and round the world again,
With a lame duck lagging all the way! ”

“ I learn, from the very few survivors of the ships that caught fire and blew up, who, in an open boat, reached the Superb at the time she was taking possession of the San Antonio, that, in the confusion of the action, the Hermenegildo, (a first-rate ship,) mistaking the Real Carlos for an enemy, ran on board of her, and shared her melancholy fate. Services of this nature cannot well be expected to be performed without some loss ”

“ Captain Wise allowed 10 minutes to elapse for the ships to anchor. The Granicus then filled, let fall her fore-sail, set top-gallant-sails, and, soon gaining fresh way, steered straight for a beacon that, phoenix-like, seemed to live in the hottest of the fire. With a display of intrepidity and of seamanship alike unsurpassed. Captain Wise anchored his frigate in a space scarcely exceeding her own length between the Queen Charlotte and Superb; a station of which a three decked line-of-battle ship might justly have been proud [1] . ”

“ He, as Captain Keats, commanded the Superb in Admiral Saumarcy’s action off Algeciras, dashed in between two Spanish three-deckers, and, giving each a broadside, passed clear in the smoke and engaged another ship of equal force, which he sank. Meanwhile the two Spaniards continued by mistake to fight each other in the smoke until they both blew up; thus by such conduct he destroyed three line-of-battle ships. All the great folks send their sons under his charge, and admirably kind and masterly he is with them. ”

“ OUTRAM, Sir BENJAMIN FONSECA (1774–1856) , naval surgeon, son of Captain William Outram, was born in Yorkshire in 1774 and educated as a surgeon at the United Borough hospitals in London. He was first employed in the naval medical service in 1794, and was promoted to the rank of surgeon in 1796. He served in the Harpy, La Nymphe, and Boadicea. He was surgeon in the Superb in her celebrated action off Cadiz, when Sir James Saumarez [q. v.] obtained a victory over the French and Spanish fleets on 12 July 1801. ”

“ It has, indeed, been asserted that the airplane and the submarine have relegated the battleship to the limbo of desuetude: but as to that the continued control of the seas by Great Britain with her immense battle-fleet, supplemented by our tremendous engines of war, certainly argues for no such theory. What the future may bring forth in the way of submarines, armored and of great size, no man may say. But at present the submarine, while tremendously effective, has not done away with the battleship as a mighty element in the theory of sea power. ”

“ Every minute the balance is weighing, casting her stern high in the air. The bulkheads are by now taking place of keel and bearing the huge weight of her on the water. At any moment she may go without a warning, to crash into the light hull of the destroyer and bear her down. For all the circling watch of her sister ship, the submarine—if still he lives—may get in a shot at the standing target. It is with a deep relief we signal the captain to bear off. Her decks are jammed to the limit. She can carry no more. Nemesis lists heavily under her burdened decks as she goes ahead and clears. ”

“ Vast sums had been spent to keep the British navy in a state of efficiency and numerical supremacy; money had been poured out like water to provide defence against hostile aircraft that might menace our shores; yet one submarine--not a new invention, but merely a great improvement on existing types--was playing a one-sided game not only with British shipping, but with the mercantile marine of the whole of the nautical world. And now even warships were being sent to the bottom without so much as a glimpse of the attacker. ”

“ With infinitely fewer and more difficult chances, the British submarine has actually surpassed the U-boat’s record, in successes obtained against enemy ships of war, and immensely surpassed it in the proportion of successes to opportunities.
The first war-ship to fall to the torpedo of a submarine was the Pathfinder, a light cruiser of about 5,000 tons, with a complement of 268 officers and men, of whom some half were saved. The boat which sank her was the U. 21, commanded by Lieutenant Hersing, who raised high hopes in Germany which he was not destined to fulfil. ”

“ Amidst the cheers of a crowd of Russian bluejackets and marines the British submarine cast off. Under the action of her petrol-driven engines she slipped away from the quay-side and felt her way cautiously down the narrow waterway. Then, taking station a cable-length astern of the now-moving destroyer, R19 began her long and hazardous voyage to Old England's shores.
Once clear of the Gulf of Finland mine-fields the Zabiyaka flung about and bade the submarine bon voyage. ”

“ The rush of water grew in volume until, as the men of the destroyers watched with all the ardor of fishermen landing trout, the U-boat came to the surface like a dead whale.
But the Americans were cautious. While stricken the undersea craft might show fight. So with guns and torpedo-tubes trained upon the submarine, they waited. But there was no fight in that boat. The depth charges had done their work thoroughly. While the visible portion of the hull appeared to have been uninjured, it was perfectly clear that the vessel was not under perfect control. ”

“ If the naval position is improving to-day, as it is, it is due to the fact that the British and American fleets are working in closest accord, supported by an immense body of skilled workers on both sides of the Atlantic, who are turning out destroyers and other crafts for dealing with the submarines as well as mines and bombs. The Germans can have a battle whenever they want it. The strength of the Grand Fleet has been well maintained. Some of the finest battleships of the United States Navy are now associated with it. ”

“ But it was on the torpedo that we counted to wear down the British margin of strength in capital ships to a point where the High Sea Fleet [267] would have a fair chance of success in opposing it. We expected that our submarines would take a large and steady toll of any warships you endeavoured to blockade us with, and that they would even make the risk of patrol greater than you would think it worth while to take. Although we made an encouraging beginning by sinking three cruisers, we were doomed to heavy disappointment over the U-boat as a destroyer of warships. ”

“ It was towards the end of 1914 that the German Admiralty conceived the idea of blockading the British Isles by means of a submarine fleet. There were, as we have already seen, great difficulties in the way. For the pursuit and capture of commerce, a submarine is not nearly so well fitted as an ordinary cruiser; is not, in fact, well fitted at all. To hold up and examine a ship on the surface is too dangerous a venture for a frail boat with a very small crew; to put a prize crew on board, and send the captured vessel into port, is generally impossible. ”

“ The value of a cargo ship is realized when it is known that under existing war conditions each ship cost to operate $100 every hour. Good, bad, and indifferent ships, old or new, fast or slow, were transformed into serviceable craft. The personnel of the Naval Overseas Transportation Service at the time of the armistice included 5,000 officers and 45,000 enlisted men.
The world has been so deeply occupied with figures and facts relating to the havoc by the [Pg 302] German submarine that little thought has been centred upon the work of the Allied submersibles. ”

“ Superstructure.—Most of the early military submarines built for the French, Spanish, United States, and English governments were circular in cross-section and of cigar-or spindle-shaped form in their longitudinal profile view. It is difficult, in vessels of this form, to secure sufficient stability to make them seaworthy. They are apt to roll like a barrel when light, due to a diminishing water plane, and when under way the water is forced up over their bows, making a large "bow wave" which absorbs power and causes such vessels to dive at times when least expected. ”

“ The eyes of the Leutnant and his six men followed the direction indicated by the British skipper's outstretched hand.
At that instant the sea-plane was visible above the towering sides of the British vessel.
U75 was still forging slowly ahead. In a trice Kapitan Schwalbe decided how to act. Ordering the men on deck to their diving stations, he dropped agilely into the conning-tower and gave the word for the helm to be ported.
Thus, while the quick-firers were being housed, the submarine had drawn close under the oil-tank's quarter. ”

“ The mine-laying submarines of the Harwich Flotilla were especially busy on the eastern side of the North Sea, where our great minefields were. Captains of submarines describe this portion of the sea as an ideal one for submarine work; for the depth of the water is generally of from twenty to thirty fathoms, at which depth a submarine can lie comfortably at the bottom without being subjected to an excessive pressure. ”

“ In addition to doing signally effective work in hunting down the submarine, and in protecting ocean commerce, our war-ships have relieved England and France of the necessity of looking out for raiders and submarines in South Atlantic waters: we have sent to the Grand Fleet, among other craft, a squadron of dreadnoughts and superdreadnoughts whose aggregate gun-power will tell whenever the German sea-fighters decide to risk battle in the North Sea ”

“ Thus E34, while returning from a mine-laying expedition, made a clever attack on an enemy submarine. The two ships were on the surface, coming towards each other. The British submarine was the first to sight the other. She dived and fired a torpedo, which struck the German in the conning-tower. A violent explosion followed, and afterwards there was nothing to be seen on the water save two objects, one of which proved to be the German captain, who was saved, and the other to be one of the crew, who sank.
It is the practice of the submarine to deliver its attack when below the surface. ”

“ Above the turmoil of inanimate objects on board—for amongst the crew strict silence and discipline were maintained—could be heard the rapid threshing of the destroyer's propellers as the long, lean craft passed almost directly above the diving submarine. Had the destroyer made use of depth charges, nothing could have saved R19 from swift destruction. Why she did not was a mystery to every man of the submarine's complement. ”

“ The British Navy suffered several heavy losses during the early stages of the war. Off the Isle of May in the Firth of Forth the Pathfinder was cruising about when an enemy submarine came along, a torpedo was launched, and the cruiser was struck and sank with great loss of life. The men who were afterwards picked up had then been in the water for more than an hour. About a week later, however, the British submarine E9 gave blow for blow by sinking a German cruiser about six miles from Heligoland.
When the Pathfinder was struck the order was given, “Every man for himself.” ”

“ In addition, it was always possible that a lurking U-boat might be within striking distance, for the old theory that "dog will not eat dog", i.e. one submarine is unable to attack another, had long since exploded. Overhead, too, a hostile seaplane, soaring at an immense height, might swoop down and attempt to destroy the craft by means of powerful bombs; and the danger, although remote in this part of the North Sea, could not be lost sight of.
Nevertheless R19 still ran awash. ”