Submarine Warfare of To-day How the Submarine Menace Was Met and Vanquished, with Descriptions of the Inventions and Devices Used, Fast Boats, Mystery Ships, Nets — Background and Themes

There was no compulsion during the Great War to join any unit of the British fleet. Therefore all were either in the regular service, reservists or volunteers. The need was made known not only throughout the British Isles, but also from Vancouver to Cape Town, Sydney and Wellington, and men in all walks of life, but with either the _Wander-Lust_ or true love of the wide open sea in their blood, rallied from all parts of the far-flung Empire to the call of the White Ensign.

In order to obtain some 6000 officers and nearly 200,000 trained or semi-trained men, new sources of supply had to be tapped. Already the great battle fleets, brought up to full war strength and with adequate reserves, had absorbed nearly all the Reserve officers who could be spared from the food and troop transports.[2]

First came the great sea-training establishment of the Empire--the Mercantile Marine and its retired officers and men--already heavily depleted. Then the yacht clubs from the Fraser to the Thames and Clyde. Thousands of professionals and amateurs came overseas to the training cruisers and the "naval university," Canada alone supplying several hundred officers.

Doctors came from the hospitals and from lucrative private practices. The engineering professions and trades supplied the technical staffs and skilled mechanics. The great banks and city offices yielded the accountants, and the fishing and pleasure-boating communities, not only of Great Britain, but also of the Dominions and Colonies, yielded the men in tens of thousands. In this way the personnel of the new navy was completed in a very few months.

Before passing on to describe, in the detail of personal acquaintance, the severe training of this naval force, a general knowledge of its heterogeneous character is necessary to enable the reader to understand this great assemblage of the sons of the Empire.

In the smoke-filled wardroom and gunroom of the training cruiser, H.M.S. _Hermione_ one windy March evening in 1916 there were some eighty officers of the auxiliary fleet, and of this number one hailed from distant Rhodesia, where he was the owner of thousands of acres of land and a goodly herd of cattle, but who, some time in the past, had rounded the Horn in a _wind-jammer_ and taken _sights_ in the "Roaring Forties." Another was a seascape painter of renown both in England and the United States. A third was a member of a Pacific coast yacht club. A fourth was the son of an Irish peer, the owner of a steam yacht. Then came a London journalist, a barrister, a solicitor and a New Zealand yachtsman, while sitting at the table was a famous traveller and a _pukka_ commander.

In the neighbouring gunroom, among the crowd of sub-lieutenants--all of the same great force, the Royal Naval Volunteer Reserve--was a grey-haired veteran from the Canadian Lakes, a youngster from the Clyde, the son of a shipowner from Australia and a bronzed mine manager from the Witwatersrand.

Among the engineers and mechanics the same diversity. Men from several of the great engineering establishments, a student from a North Country university, electrical engineers from the power stations and mechanics from the bench, with here and there one or two with sea-going experience.

In the forecastle and elsewhere about the old cruiser--now merely a training establishment--were sailors with years of experience in both sail and steam. Fishermen from the Hebrides and Newfoundland rubbing shoulders with yacht hands from the Solent and Clyde.

From this curiously mixed but excellent raw material a naval personnel, with its essential knowledge and discipline, had to be fashioned in record time by an incredibly small staff of commissioned and warrant officers of the permanent service, aided by the more experienced amateurs.

It must, however, not be thought from this that the amateur was converted into a professional seaman in the space of a week or two. Three months of specialised training enabled them to take their place in the new fleet, but with some it required a much longer period to enable them to feel that perfect self-confidence when _alone_ in the face of difficulties and dangers which is the true heritage of the sea.

To describe here the training of officers and men would be to repeat what will be more fully and personally described in succeeding chapters. It is sufficient to say that the aim was to bring them all to a predetermined standard of efficiency, which would enable the officers to command ships of specific types at sea and in action, and the men to form efficient engineers and deck hands for almost any ship in the Navy.

The medical branches naturally required no special training and the accountants merely a knowledge of naval systems of financial and general administration. These two branches had their own training establishments.