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Show HUN SUBS THY TO TflSPJfllTISN Efforts to Bottle Up Grand Fleet in Firth of Forth Described. LONDON, Oct: 4. (By the Associated Press.) German U-boats tried to bottle up the British grand fleet In the Firth of Forth during tne latter part of the war, says a London paper, which describes this as the most ambitious tactical operation opera-tion undertaken by enemy undersea craft. The scheme aimed at the blocking off of the entrance to the Forth by the sowing sow-ing of a big mine field. Three months of hard work were devoted to the task by a considerable fleet of submarines, the mines being laid in the shape of a half moon. But mine sweepers had discovered the plan, and as fast as the mines were planted they were cleared away. It is recalled that other similar attempts at-tempts to trap tiie fleet wore made in '1015 in the Moray Firth, when more than 400 mines were laid, and in l'jitj at the Orkneys. In round numbers, on these three occasions the Germans laid H00 mines at a cost of $1000 each. The King Edward was the only fighting ship that fell victim in these operations. Enormous numbers of mines were laid by the Germans off Harwich. It was found that these fields were spread regularly regu-larly at ten-day intervals, so British i sweepers occasionally left portions nf these waters unawept, so that when the next batch of submarines came along they ran afoul of their own mines. The task of clearing British waters of mines la nearly completed. 1 |