Supermarine Spitfire

“ I heard Captain Hannockcall out; and an instant later the jolly-boat had left the schooner's side!
In vain I repeated my cry. If the master of the Spitfire heard me, he gave no heed, and as for the sailors, they were too busy doing their duty to give me a thought.
Deserted! Left to fight for life amidst the flames! Oh, how bitterly I realized the awful position in which I was placed!
The wind blew in such a manner that soon the jolly-boat was hidden from view by the smoke. Evidently all had left the schooner in safety but myself. ”

“ I found the forecastle of the Spitfire a dark and rather unwholesome place. The ventilation was bad, and the smell of tar and oakum was so strong that for a moment I had to turn away to catch my breath.
Luckily my bunk was close to the doorway, so I had the best light the place afforded. Close to me was a chest, and upon this I sat down to think.
It would be hard to express my feelings at this moment. Had I gone on board the Spitfire of my own will I would not have considered the matter as bad. True, I had no great fancy for a life on the ocean wave, such as most boys are supposed to cherish. ”

“ By this time the Spitfire was far ahead, and I had about concluded that I had seen the last of her I noticed that some of the sails were lowered, and finally that the schooner swung around and began to tack back.
It took some time for the old craft to come within hailing distance, and once or twice she stopped, as if those on board were about to give up the search.
But finally she tacked to my right, and I raised my voice to the top of its power. "Help! Help!" ”

“ The other shell hit her about 10 feet from the bows, and, with an erratic peculiarity that such missiles have after the first impact, was deflected downward, expending the full force of its explosive charge in the submarine's bow torpedo-room.
In a moment the luckless U-boat was done for. A huge column of smoke marked the spot where she had disappeared like a stone, while flying pieces of metal hurtled far and wide through the air. Several of the fragments clattered upon the Capella's deck as she swung round to avoid any possibility of fouling debris. Of the crew not a man was to be seen. ”

“ We have all seen raindrops splashing in a puddle, and this is precisely what happens, on a very much larger scale, when projectiles from modern guns strike the surface of the sea. Sometimes, owing to the extreme sensitiveness of many high explosives, shells will burst on impact with the water, which is churned white by the explosion, as under the triple screws of an Atlantic liner. The fire from the quick-firing guns on board the submarine was a menace to the individual lives of those on board the tramp ”

“ Also, the next Stratemeyer work in my list is Index:Last Cruise of the Spitfire.djvu, which I plan to start tomorrow. Es un exceso de calidad. Beeswaxcandle (talk) 05:09, 14 July 2013 (UTC) You are always welcome my friend. Besides, I find the Rover Boys series interesting. It is interesting, easy, relaxing reading, and the topics are numerous. The Ocean work is already fully proofread by you and I am almost done with the Dewey work (maybe tonight) The spitfire is a great USA plane but as for just design I have always liked the German Messerschmitt. ”

“ Accurate shooting even at a mile is expected of torpedo-men when the mark is a broadside, but hitting a "bow-on" object is a different matter.
Two more torpedoes zip past, and then over the seas comes bounding a destroyer, smoke bellying from her funnels. She is over the probable hiding-place of the submarine, and a great explosion and a high column of water tell those on the battleship that she has released a depth-bomb. Suddenly a signal flutters to the stay of the destroyer. The crew of the battleship cheer. ”

“ In the anti-submarine campaign the several forms of aircraft—airplane, seaplane, dirigible, and kite balloon—developed great offensive power. Nor did the fact that our fighters in the heavens made few direct attacks which were successful diminish the importance of their work. The records of the British Admiralty attribute the destruction of five submarines to the British air service; the French Admiralty gives the American forces credit for destroying one on the French coast. ”

“ The new high explosives have such power, taken in connection with the fact that water transmits the force of an explosion undiminished to a great distance, that many of them exploding at the surface will put out of action a submarine at a considerable depth. Furthermore bombs have been invented, which being fired, not merely dropped from an airplane, will go through the water with almost undiminished momentum and explode on striking the target, or after a period fixed by the assailant. ”

“ For nearly an hour the mystery ship "played" the submarine by pretending to make frantic efforts to escape, but all the time allowing the under-water craft to draw closer and closer.
The "Q" boat was under a heavy fire from the submarine, one shell wounding eleven out of the crew of sixty, another carrying away the mast and a portion of the funnel, but no sign of a gun was yet displayed on board the surface ship. This withholding of fire until the last moment, when the range has become short and the effect certain, is one of the great nerve tests imposed on the crews of all mystery ships. ”

“ If the cruising aeroplane can detect and reveal the submarine to the battleship, the submarine will be robbed of half its terrors, and if the aeroplane can drop an explosive sufficiently near to the submarine it is not improbable that the career of the latter will be terminated instantly. The same fate may await the submarine as the result of the aeroplane signalling its whereabouts, for recent experiments have shown that it is possible for a warship to sink a submarine by gun-fire, even when the latter is several feet under the surface, the victim in this case being the ill-fated A1. ”

“ The anti-aircraft guns were getting into action at last, and the strafe no longer promised to be a one-sided business.
Soon the "air was stiff" with flying shrapnel, while shells of a hitherto unknown type added to the flying-boats' peril. These missiles, on bursting, liberated long tentacles of the lightness of silk that floated in strings of fire in the air.
A burst of shrapnel, seemingly close under the "Avenger's" nose, caused the flying-boat to pitch and roll like a tramp in ballast in a heavy seaway. ”

“ It takes a good deal to shake the nerves of British naval officer or seaman, but those on board the ships of the Spithead Squadron would have been something more than human if they could have viewed the appalling happenings of the last few terrible minutes with their accustomed coolness. They were ready to fight anything on the face of the waters or under them, but an enemy in the air who could rain down shells, a couple of which were sufficient to destroy the most powerful forts in the world, and who could not be hit back, was another matter. ”

“ For this fine piece of work Lieutenant-Commander Tippet received the D.S.O., and Acting-Lieutenant Butlin the D.S.C. Nine of the crew were also decorated or mentioned.
Here the destroyers were screening a line of war-ships, who formed in themselves a fast and powerful force. The convoying of slow and unarmed or lightly armed ships is a very different business, but it is done every day by our destroyers with amazing efficiency and success. A good example is the case of the Racoon, who destroyed an enemy submarine in the Mediterranean while on escort duty. ”

“ The anti-aircraft gun of each destroyer was silent, although the respective gunlayers were itching to let rip at the reapproaching aerial squadron.
Suddenly a star-shell fired from the leading flying-boat threw the two destroyers into a pool of light. All attempt at concealment was, for the present, futile. Engine-room telegraph gongs clanged. The long, lean boats darted forward, heeling to the action of their helms put hard over. The "antis" spat viciously, the crash of the exploding shells punctuating the roar of the aerial propellers. ”

“ Many disabled ships, with their antigravitation apparatus broken, sank lower and lower, until they, with their helpless crew and magazine of explosives, fell crashing down into the atmosphere of Neptune, and blew up with an explosion that desolated the ground for a mile around. Dismounted guns, pieces of metal wrenched off battleships, and wandering projectiles fell down on to the planet like thunderbolts, crashing through the trees and houses as if they had been made of paper. ”

“ The sky was not yet alive with the whir of seaplanes, and the air remained undisturbed by the shattering roar of guns and shells. It was that brief space of time in which even Nature seems to hold her breath and make ready for the coming storm. The only movement other than the continued circling of destroyers was towards the shallow water close inshore, where powerful tugs were towing large barges—flat-bottomed craft carrying gigantic tripods made of railway metals. ”

“ The submarine and the aeroplane are at present the only weapons against which there is no true means of defence, and yet one is being used as an antidote for the other without, however, any very striking success so far. The seaplane may be able to distinguish the dark patch in the sea caused by the hull of the submarine in clear water, but she cannot destroy it, neither can she signal the exact locality to an accompanying destroyer flotilla, owing to the speed with which seaplane and submarine pass over and under each other ”

“ Gunfire can destroy submarines when they are on the surface, but you know it can accomplish nothing against them when they are submerged. This fact made it extremely difficult to sink them in the early days of the war. One day, when the Grand Fleet was cruising in the North Sea, a submarine fired a torpedo at one of the cruisers. The cruiser saw the periscope and the wake of the torpedo, and had little difficulty in so manœuvring as to avoid being struck. She then went full speed to the spot from which the submarine had fired its torpedo, in the hope of ramming it. ”

“ The German now started up his oil-engines and came on at full speed towards the Prince Charles. It had just gone seven o’clock and the submarine was 3 miles off. The collier had hoisted her colours and the enemy was about five points on the bow when a German shell came whizzing across. This fell 1,000 yards over. Lieutenant Wardlaw now stopped his engines, put his ship head on to the Atlantic swell, blew three blasts, and then ordered the crew to get the boats out, in order to simulate the movements of an ordinary merchant ship in the presence of an attacking submarine. ”

“ A giant cigar-shaped missile, whose nose is pointed with guncotton and filled with high explosives—and which the world knows as the torpedo—launches forth from the submarine, and speeding under the drive of a propeller at the stern steers its way into the side of the battleship or great steamship. The torpedo plunges into the bowels of the vessel. There is a tremendous explosion, and the water-tight compartments of the vessel are torn open; the boat fills, and the pride of the seas is no more. ”

“ More important still, the speed of the destroyer, the ease with which it turns, circles, and zigzags, makes it all but impossible for a torpedo to be aimed with much chance of hitting her. Moreover, the discharge of this missile is a far more complicated undertaking than is generally supposed. The submarine commander cannot take position anywhere and discharge his weapon more or less wildly, running his chances of hitting; he must get his boat in place, calculate range, course, and speed, and take careful aim. ”

“ These little engines of destruction were intended for fighting at close quarters, and can be described here in a few lines because of their guileless simplicity. They consisted of conical explosive bombs on the ends of broom handles! A strong man could whirl one of them round his head, like a two-handed sword or battle-axe, and, when the momentum was sufficient, hurl it over the water for about seventy-five feet. On nose-diving into the sea and hitting the hull of a submarine in the act of rising or plunging, the little bomb, containing about 7 lb. ”

“ It was rather the cumulative effect of Q-ships, destroyers, mines, auxiliary patrol craft, depth charges, hydrophones, convoys, and good staff work which broke the spirit of the German submarine menace, so that if the war had continued much longer U-boats would have been thwarted except within certain limits of the North Sea. Every weapon has its rise and fall in the sphere of usefulness; the shell is repelled by armour-plate, the Zeppelin is destroyed by the aircraft, and so on. So it was with the Q-ship. ”

“ As the shells splashed into the sea near the spot where the commotion had been observed, there were smudges of black smoke at several points on either side of the troopship. These were the funnels 64 of the destroyers belching out clouds of vapor that told of their approach under forced draught. And as the other guns on the transport awoke and began firing on the suspected submarine, up came racing the swift craft, the men on board eagerly looking for a target. ”

“ The submarine campaign found in the spotting seaplane its greatest deterrent, and it is old news now how even the deeply submerged submarines were easily picked out for destruction from a height and the news wirelessed from seaplane to destroyer, while in more than one place the seaplane itself finished the task by bomb dropping. ”

“ While his men were getting ready for this test Tom bent over the broken propeller, looking from that to the recoil checks, which had not come up to expectations. Then he shook his head in a worried and puzzled manner.
CHAPTER XVII AN OCEAN FLIGHT
Dropping bombs from an aeroplane, or a dirigible balloon, is a comparatively simple matter. Of course there are complications that may ensue, from the danger of carrying high explosives in the limited quarters of an airship, with its inflammable gasoline fuel, and ever-present electric spark, to the possible premature explosion of the bomb itself. ”