World War: Bulls and Beats

For its accidents as well as its accomplishments is the British Navy noted. On the same day last week that three British cruisers brilliantly defeated the Admiral Graf Spee (see above), two of the Navy's warships collided somewhere at sea and the destroyer Duchess went to the bottom with 129 men. The Admiralty refused to divulge either the place of the collision or the name of the other ship, but it could not conceal the fact that this was Britain's fourth largest naval disaster of the war.†

Coming on the heels of the Bremen's escape, this made two bulls to one beat for the week. Day after the Bremen's escape, the Admiralty announced that the submarine that let her get away had sunk a German submarine, had torpedoed and damaged a German cruiser. This evened the count. It is extremely difficult for one submarine to sink another. Maneuvering for position requires great technical skill, and it is almost impossible to attack if the submarine is submerged. If the range is under 250 yards, the torpedo is likely to miss, and at short range the explosion of a torpedo is dangerous to the attacker as well as to the attacked. During the four years of World War I, British submarines got only 19 U-boats.

Five days later the Admiralty reported that the submarine Ursula had sneaked into the mouth of the Elbe, past six German destroyers, and sunk a 6,000-ton cruiser. Since such a ship would normally carry 571 men, this feat almost made up for the loss of Royal Oak, certainly put Britain far ahead in the naval score for the week.

¶ Last week 19 Allied and neutral ships were sunk by mines, torpedoes and airplanes. Of the 19, 9 were British, 10 neutral.