Submarine telegraphy

“ Wireless telegraphy cannot, however, be used when the submarine is under water, for water absorbs the electric waves in exactly the same way that it absorbs light waves. But taken all in all, wireless is by far the most important of all the signaling systems yet invented, and it is the only one by which messages can be sent and received by either day or night, over long distances and in any kind of weather. ”

“ Walker also interested himself in submarine telegraphy, and on 13 Oct. 1848 sent the first submarine message from a ship two miles off Folkestone to London Bridge, the shore end of the cable being connected with a land line. In 1849 he assisted James Glaisher and George Biddell Airy, the astronomer royal, to introduce a system of time signals, which were transmitted from the royal observatory at Greenwich to various local centres by means of telegraph wires, an improvement of considerable benefit to commerce and navigation (Nature, xiv. 50, 110) . ”

“ Submarine Telegraphy.—For working long submarine cables the apparatus ordinarily employed on land lines cannot be used, as the retarding effect of the electrostatic capacity of the cable is so marked that signals fail to be recorded except at a very slow speed of working. The transmitted signals or electric impulses, which on a land line are sharply defined when received, become attenuated and prolonged in the case of a long cable, and are unable to actuate the comparatively heavy moving parts of which the land line instruments are formed. ”

“ We put the old and the new world into communication, so that the ‘press of India sent salaam to the press of America.’ Sir James Anderson also telegraphed to Cyrus W. Field, Esquire, the father of submarine telegraphy in my estimation,” (Hear, hear, from Robin) , “and he sent a reply, which began, ‘Your message of this evening received by me before five o’clock this afternoon.’ Mark that, Captain Rik, the message received before it was sent, so to speak!” ”

“ Progress in submarine telegraphy undoubtedly means a lessening in the price of service and a firmer control by the State, as an obvious corollary to the large help to the companies already given by the general taxpayer, quite as much as it means those scientific inventions and scientific discoveries which the coming years have in store for us. ”

“ It is also used on the French Atlantic Cable, and on the direct United States line. Sir W. Thomson, Mr. Varley, and Prof. Jenkin, combining their inventions together, have given the only system by which submarine telegraphy on long lines has been carried on up to the present time.
"Sir William Thomson is an enthusiastic yachtsman and a skillful navigator. His recently-published popular lecture on 'Navigation' proves this; and, with that bright genius which enriches all with which it comes in contact, his improvements in navigation are of very high importance. ”

“ Twenty-seven years ago the first submarine cable was laid across the Strait of Dover. This was a single copper wire covered in gutta-percha, which parted next day; and the first practicable submarine cable was laid in 1851, on the same route. Since then the progress of ocean telegraphy has been extraordinary ”

“ The difficulty of connecting lightships and isolated lighthouses to the mainland by submarine cables, owing to the destructive action of the tides and waves on rocky coasts on the shore ends, led many inventors to look for a way out of the difficulty by the adoption of some form of inductive or conductive telegraphy not necessitating a continuous cable. ”

“ Instantly a thousand hearts were tortured with fear, lest their loved ones had gone to the bottom of the sea, when the cable reported that the delay was due simply to an accident to her machinery, that would keep her back for a day or two, but that the good ship was safe with all on board. What arithmetic can compute the value of a single message that relieves so much anguish? Thus the submarine telegraph stretched out its long arms under the sea, [Pg 394] to lay a friendly hand on two peoples, and give assurance to both. ”

“ Especially some signal success was needed to awaken them to renewed efforts. Both officers and men felt that they were groping in the dark for the unseen foe. Occasionally they heard him send radio signals, but usually the bored operators failed to get bearings before the signals had ceased. No one had ever seen a submarine successfully tracked down by radio compass and by hydrophone, and therefore the prospect of this feat was not real to them. ”

“ Possibly also the solitary submarine felt lonely; at any rate, as soon as it reached the Channel or the North Sea, it started an almost uninterrupted flow of talk. The U-boats communicated principally with each other, [Pg 252] and also with the Admiralty at home, and in doing this they gave away their position to the assiduously listening Allies. The radio direction-finder, by which we can instantaneously locate the position from which a wireless message is sent, was the mechanism which furnished much of this information. ”

“ It may be well believed that the Directors have not decided upon a matter so all-important to success, without availing themselves of the most eminent talent and experience which could be commanded. The practical history of submarine telegraphs dates from the successful submersion of the cable between Dover and Calais in 1851, and advantage has been taken of whatever instruction this history could furnish or suggest. Of the submarine cables heretofore laid down, without enumerating others, the one between Dover and Calais weighs six tons to the mile ”

“ In June 1846, the Times announced, in reference to a statement made “some time ago that a submarine telegraph was to be laid down across the English Channel, by which an instantaneous communication could be made from coast to coast,” that the Lords Commissioners of the Admiralty, with a view of testing the practicability of this undertaking had now approved of the projector’s laying down a submarine telegraph across the harbour of Portsmouth, from the house of the admiral in the dockyard to the railway terminus at Gosport. ”

“ Wires, or stays, as they are called, fore and aft are used to brace and hold the periscope and signal stanchion firm against the force of the water which presses on them when the craft is submerged and under way. The tops of the signal stanchion and the periscope are also braced by a signal halyard, which is simply a wire, or cable, stretched taut between them.
On all modern submarines a wireless aerial is attached to a mast which can be folded down flat on the deck when the submarine is getting ready to make a dive. ”

“ The Z99 was low roofed, damp, with an intricate system of rods, controls, engines, tanks, stop-cocks, compasses, gauges—more things than it seemed the human mind, to say nothing of wireless, could possibly attend to at once.
"The policy of secrecy which governments keep in regard to submarines," remarked the captain, running his eye over everything at once, it seemed, "has led them to be looked upon as something mysterious. But whatever you may think of telautomatics, there is really no mystery about an ordinary submarine." ”

“ The hydrophone resembles a delicate telephone. It is so constructed that when the instrument is lowered over the side of a ship into the sea any noise, such as the movement of a submarine's propellers, can be heard on deck by an operator listening at an ordinary telephone receiver connected to the submerged microphone by an electrified wire. ”

“ This was particularly so in the case of submarine detection, when it was possible for a seaplane or a balloon to report its findings at once to submarine-chasers and destroyers, and to guide them in pursuit of submarines.
The improved audion holds out a wonderful future for radiotelephony. For receiving, at least, no elaborate aërial will be needed, and with a small loop of wire, an audion or two,199 and simple tuning-apparatus any one can hear the radio gossip of the whole world. ”

“ At first it seemed that battle-ship and merchantman could find no way to locate the approach of an enemy submarine. But it was found that by means of the receiving apparatus of the submarine telephone an approaching submarine could be heard and located. While the sounds of the submarine's machinery are not audible above the water, the delicate microphone located beneath the water can detect them. Hearing a submarine approaching beneath the surface, the merchantman may avoid her and the destroyers and patrol-boats may take means to effect her capture. ”

“ Locke, Esq. (read before the Royal Dublin Society, January 28th, 1857) , Maury said: “The real question for future protectors of lines of submarine telegraph is not how deep, or how boisterous, or how wide the sea is, but what are the electrical limits to the length of submarine lines.” ”

“ Tom told him; “so I know it was safely delivered. Like as not he’s taking his own time to answer, because sailings are not frequent in these days of submarine horrors. They never advertise what day the boat is expected to leave, always informing would-be passengers to be aboard at a certain time, although the vessel may remain in the harbor for another day or two. All that is done to prevent spies from sending by wireless information connected with the sailing to the other side, and which in turn would be communicated to the waiting U-boats.” ”

“ Tense as were the nerves of all, those off duty slept during the night, for a submarine crew must learn the art of sleeping when the chance offers. The captains scarcely slept at all, but, as each new watch went on duty, exhorted the radio operators and hydrophone listeners, going to their posts in the hull, to listen as never before. ”

“ Germany has been so successfully cut off from contact with the civilization she assaulted that these communications have the air of being messages from Mars. There are times when the radio operator picks up frantic cries sent by one U-boat to another; I have before me as I write a record of such a call. It began at 2.14 A.M., shortly after a certain submarine was depth-bombed by an American destroyer. First to be received was OLN's clear, insistent call for RXK and ZZN, probably the two nearest members of the U-boat fleet. ”

“ The difference in signals when the radio waves are coming from the ocean bed and those received when there is some big object on the bed like a ship will indicate the location of the object. Up to now it has been a matter of great difficulty to get the exact position of a sunken ship. A submarine would help some, but that can only be used where the water is comparatively shallow, for if the submarine went down too far it would be crushed by the increasing density of the water. ”

“ Countries far apart, and isolated by oceans, have, by means of deep-sea cables, been brought into intimate relation, and made sharers of one another’s intelligence, enterprise, and civilizing instincts. What the overland telegraph has done toward bringing local states and communities into contact, the submarine cable has done for the remote nations.
In form, an ocean cable differs much from the simple wire which constitutes the conductor of an overland or even underground telegraph. ”

“ No overhead gear to be carried away in action or in a gale; our wireless messages are received by an electrical current passing through water. The apparatus is merely an extension of the submarine signalling system. We are in touch with our agents at Swanage in England, Plougastel in Brittany, Cape Cod in the U.S.A., and ere long with Sydney, N.S.W., and Antofagasta in Chili. ”

“ They vary greatly from ship to ship, even of the same class; and, in the later stages of the war, submarines had been constructed which, when cruising submerged at certain slow speeds, emitted practically no noise at all. In many ways the detection of submarines in the sea is more difficult than that of aircraft in air. Normally, listening in air takes place at stations which are fixed; in submarine listening the stations were most frequently ships, which for tactical reasons connected with their safety, had to be constantly on the move. ”

“ Water, being a better conductor of sound than air, conveys the stroke of the bell distinctly.
In foggy weather, the captain of the steamer, when approaching land, and in vicinities of submarine bells, can go into the pilot house and on placing the phone to his ear can hear these signals from five to fifteen miles off. If the bell should be right ahead, it will be heard distinctly in both receivers, but if on one side, it will be heard in only one receiver. To bring the signal ahead, the vessel has to swing around to bring the sound in both receivers. ”

“ Efficient lookout systems on shipboard, with men assigned to different sectors so as to cover the entire horizon, made it possible frequently to detect a periscope or torpedo wake in time to change course, bring guns to bear, and escape destruction. According to a British Admiralty estimate, in case a submarine were sighted the chances of escape were seven to three, but otherwise only one to four. ”

“ I consider it very important that the government should have the most reliable telegraph communication with its principal forts on the Atlantic coast.
“If there is any information that I possess that would be of service to you in carrying out the wishes of the government in regard to telegraph matters it will afford me pleasure to give it.
“I presume you are aware that there are very few persons in this country who have had any experience in the manufacture, working, or laying of submarine cables of any great importance. ”