at high speed could cover the great area in which the submarine might come to the surface.  She would, naturally, select the dark hours for emergence, as being the period of very limited range of vision for those searching for her.  In confined waters such as those in the eastern portion of the English Channel the problem became simpler.  Requests for destroyers constantly came from every quarter, such as the Commanders-in-Chief at Portsmouth and Devonport, the Senior Naval Officer at Gibraltar, the Vice-Admiral, Dover, the Rear-Admiral Commanding East Coast, and the Admiral at Queenstown.  The vessels they wanted did not, however, exist.

Eventually, with great difficulty, a force of six destroyers was collected from various sources in the spring of 1917, and used in the Channel solely for hunting submarines; this number was really quite inadequate, and it was not long before they had to be taken for convoy work.

Evidence of the difficulty of successfully hunting submarines was often furnished by the experiences of our own vessels of this type, sometimes when hunted by the enemy, sometimes when hunted in error by our own craft.  Many of our submarines went through some decidedly unpleasant experiences at the hands of our own surface vessels and occasionally at the hands of vessels belonging to our Allies.  On several such occasions the submarine was frequently reported as having been sunk, whereas she had escaped.

As an example of a submarine that succeeded not only in evading destruction, but in getting at least even with the enemy, the case of one of our vessels of the “E” class, on patrol in the Heligoland Bight, may be cited.  This submarine ran into a heavy anti-submarine net, and was dragged, nose first, to the bottom.  After half an hour’s effort, during which bombs were exploding in her vicinity, the submarine was brought to the surface by her own crew by the discharge of a great deal of water from her forward ballast tanks.  It was found, however, that the net was still foul of her, and that a Zeppelin was overhead, evidently attracted by the disturbance in the water due to the discharge of air and water from the submarine.  She went to the bottom again, and after half an hour succeeded in getting clear of the net.  Meanwhile the Zeppelin had collected a force of trawlers and destroyers, and the submarine was hunted for fourteen hours by this force, assisted by the airship.  During this period she succeeded in sinking one of the German destroyers, and was eventually left unmolested.

For a correct appreciation of submarine warfare it is necessary to have a clear idea of the characteristics and qualities of the submarine herself, of the numbers possessed by the enemy, and of the rate at which they were being produced.  It is also necessary, in order to understand the difficulty of introducing the counter measures adopted by the Royal Navy, to know the length of time required to produce the vessels and the weapons which were employed or which it was intended to employ in the anti-submarine war.