Evening Republican, Volume 21, Number 65, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 19 March 1917 — British Navy’s Mystery Fleet [ARTICLE]

British Navy’s Mystery Fleet

So Called Because It Steals Away Quickly and Brags of Little It Does. GUARDS CHANNEL PASSAGE Only Three Merchant Ships Have Been Lost Out of 21,000 Starting on .the Trip—Germans Find Channel Too Warm. By JOSEPH W. GRIGG. (Special Staff Correspondent of the New York World.) With the Dover Patrol.—This is the mystery fleet that moors in mystery port. It is the mystery fleet because it steals away quickly and brags of little that it does. Its mooring is the mystery port because here are concocted the plans and here are many of the mediums .with which the patrol has wrought its enviable record. - A rusty-looking drifter may hold the secret of a tale that can be told only after the war—“for strategic rea- ; who, if plying his fradp of fisher man,.could now be making SSOO in a day in these times of high prices. “That’s what my father made one day last week,” said a young fisherman. “But he can’t join us because lie’s too old.” These drifters run across things which have been hidden away in Davy Jones’ locker for a good, many,years; and they also discover things more modern, which perhaps accounts sojnewhat for the diminution in U-boat activities in the “Neck of the Bottle,” as the British channel is called.

Work Is Well Done. They are only one of the agents tor counteracting the work of the Germans. I have seen others in the mystery port. How well they have worked of recent months is shown by the fact that only three out of a total of 21,000 merchantmen that passed through the patrwl were destroyed. That means only one thing to the mind of the patrol —the-Germans are going elsewhere, having found the channel a bit too warm. ~ It has been my privilege to see the men who are doing this work, the ones at the top as well as those at the bottom. They are men of few words but, good humor. out in the harbor- lay formidable craft? ijermahs Of the Belgian coast know well, for many of her “souvenirs” have hurtled their way precipitately into their fortifications. 1 was told I might have a close inspection, and soonhad traversed theintervening stretch of water and(scampered up her gangway, to be received by an. officer who had not long since been trying conclusions with the German batteries. She might have been built on a concrete foundation, for the choppy harbor had no effect whatever upon her. I watched the ihaneuverIng of the big guns, which were said to make no noise inside the turrets, but pntejdp—that was a different matter. (Paragraph deleted here by the chief censor of the admiralty, who wrote in its place; “Sorry, but it had to go. D. B.”) Standing on the bridge of thia big

war vessel I could see circling far overhead three or four airplanes of the patrol. Snuggled well under the surface of the water a little to the left was something gray that resembled a whale come dp for a 'breath. It was a submarine. “Will sea war of the future be fought out— largely —by— submarines?” I had asked one of the fleet’s chief spokesmen. “There might be such form of warfare,” was his rejoinder; “one can never tell. In this war everything has .grown bigger—guns, destroyers, submarines. Perhaps,” he said with a smile, “there’ll be a gun in the next war which, if placed at the proper angle, might lob shells into America from Europe, or vice versa.” Down in a Submarine. In company with her commander I was soon to visit the undersea boat which I had seen from the deck of her giantlike patrol brother. Once inside, I was hopelessly confounded by a mass of brass and bronze pipes, so immaculately clean they could have well done the work of mirrors. She, tod, had had a recent cruise and lay _ready,-tLg_UiU patJ-qls must.he,..for—any---emergency.——— —- • :■ ——j '■" “Down “and at ’E mottoT” carved in a shining brass plate in a conspicuous place. Her commander was acquainted with Captain Koenig’s exploits in the Deutschland. Officers of the fleet consider it only an advertising undertaking, and a very expensive one, and in Itself a conspicuous example of the unprofitable use of! the submarine as a merchant ship. “We could go to America, too, but there is no reason why we should make such a trip; it isn’t necessary.” There l was only a gentle movement to the submarine. I was taken through her from one end to the other and came out, after a final last look through the" periscope, with a recollection^of coils of pipe interlaced in an arabesque design <ii unfathomable intricacy. “We can be ready to leave in eight minutes,” said her proud commander.