vies; to the
intrepidity and spirit animating the officers and crews of the naval and
aerial squadrons, to the intensification of the use of old methods and
to the employment of new ones.

We may lay to ourselves the unction that the reduced effectiveness of
the submarine coincided with the entrance of our naval forces into the
war. This is taking nothing from the French, British, and Italian
navies; as a matter of truth, it would be gross injustice to ignore the
fact that the large share of the great task has been handled through the
immense resources of the British. But the co-ordinated effort which
began with the arrival of our vessels on the other side, the utter
freedom with which Secretary Daniels placed our resources at the service
of the British was inspiring in its moral influences throughout the
Entente nations, while practically there may be no doubt that our craft
have played their fair share in the activities that have seen the steady
decline of deadliness on the part of the U-boat. We may now consider the
methods which our navy in collaboration with Allied sea power have
employed in this combat for the freedom of the seas.

CHAPTER VII

How the Submarine is being Fought--Destroyers the Great Menace--But
Nets, Too, Have Played Their Part--Many Other Devices--German Officers
Tell of Experience on a Submarine Caught in a Net--Chasers Play Their
Part--The Depth-Bomb--Trawler Tricks--A Camouflaged Schooner Which
Turned Out To Be a Tartar--Airplanes--German Submarine Men in Playful
Mood

When the submarines first began their attacks upon British war-ships and
merchant vessels the admiralty was faced by a state of affairs which had
been dealt with more or less in the abstract, the only practical lessons
at hand being those of the Russo-Japanese War, which conflict, as a
matter of fact, left rather an unbalanced showing so far as the undersea
boat and the surface craft were concerned; in other words, the
submersible had by all odds the advantage.

But England tackled the problem with bulldog energy, utilizing to that
end not only her immense destroyer fleet, but a myriad of high-speed
wooden boats, many of which were built in this country. They were called
submarine-chasers, and while the destroyer and the seaplane, as one of
the most effective weapons against the submarine, came to the fore, the
chaser is employed in large numbers by England, France, and the United
States.

The great usefulness of