CHAPTER II

THE SUBMARINE CAMPAIGN IN THE EARLY PART OF 1917

The struggle against the depredations of the enemy submarines during the year 1917 was two-fold; offensive in the direction of anti-submarine measures (this was partly the business of the Anti-Submarine Division of the Naval Staff and partly that of the Operations Division); defensive in the direction of protective measures for trade, whether carried in our own ships or in ships belonging to our Allies or to neutrals, this being the business of the Trade and Mercantile Movements Divisions.

Prior to the formation of the Mercantile Movements Division the whole direction of trade was in the hands of the Trade Division of the Staff.

The difficulty with which we were constantly faced in the early part of 1917, when the effective means of fighting the submarine were very largely confined to the employment of surface vessels, was that of providing a sufficient number of such vessels for offensive operations without incurring too heavy risks for our trade by the withdrawal of vessels engaged in what might be termed defensive work.  There was always great doubt whether any particular offensive operation undertaken by small craft would produce any result, particularly as the numbers necessary for success were not available, whilst there was the practical certainty that withdrawal of defensive vessels would increase our losses; the situation was so serious in the spring of 1917 that we could not carry out experiments involving grave risk of considerably increased losses.

On the other hand, the sinking of one enemy submarine meant the possible saving of a considerable number of merchant ships.  It was difficult to draw the line between the two classes of operations.

The desire of the Anti-Submarine Division to obtain destroyers for offensive use in hunting flotillas in the North Sea and English Channel led to continual requests being made to me to provide vessels for the purpose.  I was, of course, anxious to institute offensive operations, but in the early days of 1917 we could not rely much on depth-charge attack, owing to our small stock of these charges, and my experience in the Grand Fleet had convinced me that for success in the alternative of hunting submarines for a period which would exhaust their batteries and so force them to come to the surface, a large number of destroyers was required, unless the destroyers were provided with some apparatus which would, by sound or otherwise, locate the submarine.  This will be realized when the fact is recalled that a German submarine could remain submerged at slow speed for a period which would enable her to travel a distance of some 80 miles.  As this distance could be covered in any direction in open waters such as the North Sea, it is obvious that only a very numerous force of destroyers steaming