risk of tiring the reader
before the first few chapters had been passed.

The names of places and ships have necessarily been changed to avoid
anything of a personal character, and all references to existing or dead
officers and men have been rigidly excluded as objectionable and
unnecessary in a book dealing entirely with events.

Many of the incidents described--written while the events stood out in
clear, mental perspective--could no doubt be duplicated and easily
surpassed by many whose fortunes took them into zones of sea war during
the historic years just past. If such is found to be the case, then the
object of this book has been accomplished, for it sets out to tell, not
of great epoch-making events, but of the organisation, men, ships,
weapons and ordinary incidents of life in what, for lack of a better
term, has been called the "New Navy"--a production of the World War.

It may be that an apology is due for placing yet another war book before
a war-weary public, but an effort has been made to make of the following
chapters _a record of British maritime achievement_, more than a
narrative of sea fighting, although to do this without introducing the
human element, the arduous nature of the work, the monotony, the danger
and, finally, the compensating moments of excitement would have been to
falsify the account and belittle the achievement.

There are many books available, full of exciting stories of sea and land
war, but no other, so far as the Author knows, which describes in detail
and in plain phraseology those important "little things"--liable to be
overlooked amid the whirl of war--which go to make an anti-submarine
personnel, fleet and base, together with an account of "how it was
done."

CONTENTS

CHAPTER PAGE
I. THE TASK OF THE ALLIED NAVIES 17

II. THE NEW NAVY--TRAINING AN ANTI-SUBMARINE FORCE 36

III. A NAVAL UNIVERSITY IN TIME OF WAR 47

IV. THE NEW FLEETS IN BEING 50

V. THE HYDROPHONE AND THE DEPTH CHARGE 70

VI. SOME CURIOUS WEAPONS OF ANTI-SUBMARINE WARFARE 85

VII. MYSTERY SHIPS 96

VIII. A TYPICAL WAR BASE 102

IX. THE CONVOY SYSTEM 116