Evening Republican, Volume 21, Number 11, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 22 January 1918 — TO CURB “U” BOATS [ARTICLE]

TO CURB “U” BOATS

*Sea Jitneys” Suggested for Attack on German Bases. Canadian Naval Airplane Fighter, ' Home to Recover From Shrapnel Wounds Expresses an Opinion. - * ; Theorizing about war conditions has grown quite as tiresome, no doubt, to the people who read newspapers as it has to most of the people who write jfor them. Yet, now and then, you meet a man who' theorizes from the iacts.of experience and knowledge and who poihts something out that gives cfood for thought Such a case, it seemed to several of us, when a quiet kittle chap, son of a Canadian millionaire, told us his view of the war in Its present stage, a New York. correspondent of the Cincinnati Times-Star writes. His brother was killed at the Marne and he himself is home to recover from shrapnel wounds received when he was flying a naval airplane some thousands of feet above a town on the Belgian coast “The outstanding fact, just now,” he said, “is that the German U-boats are doing pretty nearly as much as they were expected to do and that we have no effective defense against them. The Germans are almost justified in believing that they are on the way toward starving England into submission. If we don’t find a new and successful way to combat the U-boatS the (situation in England will soon be very critical. Of course, I fancy a way will be found. But It must be something entirely new in warfare. For my part, Il am convinced that success can be (obtained only by the apparently desE erate undertaking of assaults by sea pon the U-boat bases. I say ‘apparntly desperate.’ By any known or tried method such assaults would be (simply useless and suicidal. “The German harbors are mined, t (netted from end to end and fortified (with tremendous shore batteries of heavy and aircraft guns. How can the (bases be attacked? Well, of course, tthat will be settled by some one else (than I, but I have heard a theoretical (plan of attack proposed by one of our naval men which made a great impresision on me. He said we must build thousands of small submarines —something like the ‘sea jitneys’ which manufacturers have talked about—and go Into the German harbors with swarms of them, at the risk of losing ninetynine out of every hundred boats and crews. Barrage fire and bombing have been the new and successful things in land fighting., “This officer’s proposal is for something like an undersea duplication of this plan of attack. Most of the little boats would be lost, no doubt, but most of them would succeed in doing material damage with one or two torpedoes. Nets would be blown away, mines exploded, guard and such other disorganization of the harbor detenses accomplished as to give the big {ships a chance to complete the work. (Yes, it’s true that a man would hardly (need to worry about his return trip if he went in on one of these little boats. It would be work for volunteers. But the volunteers would be plentiful enough. That I am sure of. “ “If suefi attacks promised to win fthe fight against the U-boats, men would be willing to go. It would be (enough for them to know that they were striking the sea murderers at (their home, and that some of them might possibly get back.”