Evening Republican, Volume 21, Number 211, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 14 September 1918 — U-BOATS BALKED BY AIR FIGHTERS [ARTICLE]

U-BOATS BALKED BY AIR FIGHTERS

Airplanes Are of Great Assistance in Finding Enemy Submarines. NECESSARY ALLY OF NAVY Great Britain Sees Need of Holding Command of Air as Well as of Sea—Aircraft Either Attack or Summon Patrols. London. —The measure of the success of the antisubmarine campaign is the safe crossing of the Atlantic by a million American troops. - There is very properly a good deal of official reticence regarding the methods by which submarines are destroyed, but it is an open secret that the royal air force has contributed largely toward the defeat of the Üboat campaign. Just as airplanes have become an essential auxiliary to the army, so aircraft have become an indispensable ally of the navy, making it clear that ascendancy in the air in future will be as vital to Britain as her present ascendancy at sea. Airships of two main types, the smaller known as the submarine scout and the larger as the coast patrol type, and seaplanes, are tjie chief instruments for dealing with submarines from the air. The first business of all aircraft or submarine offensive Is to find the submarine.

See Submerged Boats. From a certain height in the air, submerged U-boats are visible to observers and their position is communicated to the nearest naval patrol. The work of aircraft Is by no means confined to detecting the U-boats. They have means of immediately attacking their prey without waiting for the arrival of the naval patrol. There is the obvious means of dropping bombs, fully effective when the submarine is caught on or just below the surface. Modern antisubmarine aircraft are almost equally at the air or on the water. Should the U-boat dive through the water, its pursuer can dive through the air and release depth charges, which have a considerable range of action, and are much feared by U-boat commanders. In claiming for the R. A. F. a large share in winning the safe landing of America’s first million the reservation must be made that the range of aircraft from their bases Is limited, but their bases are not necessarily on land, and seaplanes and submarine scouts have accommodation on shipboard and are carried to the area of their deepsea patrols.

Where They Are Thickest Again, it is naturally in home waters and especially in the North sea that submarines are thickest, outward

bound from Germany, so that aircraft patrols are effective from home bases over the sea zone most frequented by U-boats. * Coast patrol airships accompany convoys through home waters, “spotting” submarines, to be dealt with either by themselves or by destroyers; and if the U-boat menace is not yet mastered, it is steadily and unmistakably being brought under control. Safe landing of a million Americans in France is a big fact, the significance of which can hardly be missed even in Germany, where, according to neutral witnesses, scepticism has been rapidly growing lately concerning the possibilities of the U-boat campaign.