Salt Lake Telegram | 1918-12-18 | Page 11 | U-Boat Surrender to British is Described

ll-BOAT SURRENDER 10 BRITISH IS DESCRIBED i A drnL-altyDistributfs Hnn.j j or Among All Men of ! Sub Flotilla. ! I " I (Correspondence of Assoc is ted Press.) j HARWICH. Kngland, Nov. 1.-The! business of artuutly accepting the f5er-" I man submarine in surrender was per-1 formed by officers and men of the -1 Ittitish submarine force who for more; than four years had maintained a te- dious but relentless vigil of waters of! 'the Iiritish isles. An admiral in a I 'light rruiaer commanded the fleet to j which the T-boats surrendered, but it j was a submarine officer who first stepped aboard each submarine, curtly went through with the brief formalities, formali-ties, and it was a crew of men who had fought the l-boats by underwater methods that manned it and took it to i pori. I These men had uncomplainingly j stuck to a job that was recognised by j the admiralty as one of the most unattractive un-attractive in the navy, but it was i ended by participation in an event j unique lu naval historv and a fitting (ending fur service performed. 20 U-BOATS SUNK, t Although British submarines always j were on the lookout for I -boats, their 1 success in Hi war ws not measured J by the number they destroyed. Never -I theieas. it was coincident that twenty 1'-boats should have been sunk by British submerslbles during the war 'and It was the same numlier first surrendered sur-rendered to the British submarine i crews on the day the taking over of : the r'icrman fleet was inaugurated off this port. As far as possible the admiralty dis-i dis-i tributed the honor of taking over the ('-boats among all the men of the submarine flotilla. Fourteen men were placed on each surrendered boat, and a a they surrendered in hatches of twenty, a total of 20 officers and men were allowed to participate each day. Kvery man looked forward to ft eagerly; eager-ly; all of them wanted to be sekrted for the first day's work, but when they hoarded the beaten craft they maintained main-tained excellent discipline and orders against any demonstration were so carefully obeyed that it was almost with an air of disinterest that they went about their duties. ONE BOAT NEW. So much had been said of the intricacies intri-cacies of the Oerman submarine that there were many misgivings among the British officers of their ability to navi- j sate them soon after they had received ' them. They wrs soon reassured, however, as nothing so far different from other submarines was found. Among the first twenty brought In wss : the r-135. which is 276 feet lung, wast completed three months a?o and had i never been to sea until she crossed tne I British channel to be surrenfh-red. Her j t'lK attracted Commodore H. H. Hall, who .has been at the head of the Hrlt-ih Hrlt-ih submarine force since the beginning of hostilitier.. He waa taken to the vessel soon after she was p.uced in her berth In the River istour and inspected her with the young British lieutenant who had taken her over and brought her Into port with the aJd of the Otroian en- glneers. Commodore Hall, about to ! leave, smlltnirly asked the . lleuunsnt when he would be ready o "shove off. : But the young man took the question j seriously and promptly replied: I can take her to sea In a eouple of: huajrs. She la frightfully dirty, but thej engines are In good shape and my men ca n operate) them i