The War at Sea

T H E WA R AT S E A

part 11 - below the waves

E AC H M I NE

C ON TA I NED

3 0 0 POUND S

EXP LO S I VE

An example of a convoy

Eventually – a tried and tested solution

or British merchant sailors,these were truly terrifying times.For every four British

merchant ships that set out on a return international journey, only three would

return unharmed.

Britain was losing 12 ships a day, and couldn’t possibly replace 12 ships a day.The

country was down to three weeks’food supply – and Jellicoe couldn’t see a way round it.

The answer of course was the 18th century solution of convoying.But for a number

of reasons Jellicoe was set against convoying. One of the principal reasons was the

number of ships which would be needed to escort the convoys. Initial calculations

counted in all ships sailing in and out of British ports on any given

day.No

distinction

was made between those which were ocean-going,and thus needing an escort,and those

which were moving along the coast and less vulnerable.When eventually the convoy

system was adopted it was quickly apparent that there were tremendous advantages

in having a naval escort which could receive intelligence on the whereabouts of German

submarines and steer the convoy clear of them. In addition, if convoys were escorted,

U-boats were forced to attack from a greater range,so reducing their chances of success.

Even if they were successful,they would only hit one vessel in the convoy.

After the introduction of convoys, in May 1917, the number of cargo ships lost to

U-boats fell dramatically. Indeed the biggest casualty of the new convoy strategy was

the man who had opposed it:Admiral Jellicoe. Chosen by Churchill to command the

British Grand Fleet in the first days of August 1914, Jellicoe was effectively sacked on

Christmas Eve 1917.

U.S.Enters theWar

elations between the USA and Germany had been strained since the sinking of

RMS Lusitania in 1915. The outcry from America had forced Germany to end

its unrestricted warfare for a time. However, its reintroduction in 1917, along with

evidence that Germany had tried to incite Mexico to declare war on America, forced

it finally to commit to the war. Britain felt the benefit of additional naval power.

US destroyers played a key role in anti-submarine warfare and provided much needed

escorts for convoys.

Her dreadnoughts sailed to Scapa Flow, and in the seas east of Orkney American

naval engineers laid out plans for one of themost ambitious

and grandiose projects of the entire war. This was a truly

amazing scheme – a minefield, hundreds of miles long,

between Scotland and Norway. Planners at the US Naval

Academy estimated it might cost 200 million dollars – the

equivalent of ten billion pounds today.

The finished minefield ran from the east of Orkney, across the North Sea, to a

position just north of Stavanger in Norway, an approximate distance of 270 miles. It

comprised multiple overlapping layers. Under the surface, mines were sown at three

depths down to 240 feet, well below the maximum operating depth of a U-boat. Each

mine contained 300 pounds of explosive.The deeper mines had newly designed antennae

that would detonate on contact with a U-boat.

In total, over 70,000 mines were laid.The project was completed in the autumn of

1918,just as the German war effort was finally collapsing.