THEN SCHWARTZKOPFF AND BLISS-LEAVITT
At the beginning of the war the torpedo factory at Friedrichsort had been the only place where our torpedoes were manufactured; but during the war the engineering works (formerly L. Schwartzkopff) in Berlin, which in earlier years had also manufactured torpedoes, was converted into a torpedo factory, as were other works as well.18
Admiral Scheer continued: “Under the direction of the Chief of the Torpedo Factories, Rear-Admiral Hering, the enormously increased demand for the manufacture of torpedoes was fully satisfied …”19 By 1917, German submarines were being sent to sea fully anticipating the use of their increased capacity to carry torpedoes (see next page). Prior to 1917, however, much of the destruction of commercial vessels was accomplished when the U-boat had surfaced and fired on the unarmed vessels with deck-mounted guns, leaving their expensive torpedoes for larger, high-value prey. Britain’s Admiral John Rushworth Jellicoe recognized that “before the days of the unrestricted submarine campaign, and although ships were frequently torpedoed, very large numbers were still being sunk by gun-fire.”20
Schwartzkopff torpedoes captured during the Spanish-American War and held at the Naval Torpedo Station, Newport, Rhode Island. (NHHC NH 84471) Inset: Detonator on one of the remaining examples of the Schwartzkopff torpedo. (Courtesy Naval Undersea Warfare Center; Richard Allen)
In the United States, torpedo development was centered at the Naval Torpedo Station in Newport, Rhode Island, beginning in 1869. In 1920, a pamphlet produced at the torpedo station outlined its five decade history.21 By the end of the nineteenth century, several hundred torpedoes of various designs had been purchased for testing in Narragansett Bay—the Hall, Lay, Howell, and the wire-guided Patrick torpedoes, for example—but the most popular was the Whitehead. During the Spanish American War, however, even the German Schwartzkopff torpedo was among the station’s inventory, where a “tube was mounted for experimental purposes, and twelve torpedoes were purchased and sent to the station.” After the war, the torpedo station received sixteen of these torpedoes recovered from Spanish ships. Many were so badly damaged, however, that “[the] shells of these torpedoes are still in use [in 1920] at the Station as light posts.” In 1900, the Navy’s first submarine, the USS Holland, arrived in Narragansett Bay, armed with three Whitehead Mark II torpedoes. During sea trials, the Holland demonstrated the ability to approach the battleship Kearsarge undetected.22
In 1904, the U.S. Navy contracted the E.W. Bliss Company to produce a torpedo similar to the Whitehead, based on designs by Frank M. Leavitt. A factory to accommodate an anticipated need for increased production was built at the station in 1907. The following are excerpts from the torpedo station pamphlet:
In September 1912 an order was received for ninety Mark VII Mod 2 Bliss-Leavitt Torpedoes…. By 1915 the effect of the European War, which threatened to involve the armament of the world, was being anticipated in America and the preparedness which was being talked about throughout the country was being actively practiced at the Torpedo Station…. Early in 1917 an open break with Germany was obvious and preparations were made at the Station to meet the emergency…. Station activities were further increased and the [civilian] working force enlarged to three thousand two hundred employees…. Navy personnel during the war numbered about thirteen hundred.23
Torpedoes, fired from surface ships as well as submarines during the Great War, were about to define the weaponry of twentieth-century naval warfare. A reminder is appropriate here: Soviet submarines dispatched to North American waters during the Cuban Missile Crisis in 1962 carried nuclear-tipped torpedoes.
ADMIRAL REINHARD SCHEER—PREDATOR
When the U-boat campaign was opened on February 1, 1917, there were 57 boats already in the North Sea. The officer commanding the Baltic district had eight assigned to him, the Naval Corps in Flanders had at its disposal 38, and the stations in the Mediterranean 31 boats of different types…. With this fleet of U-boats the Navy was well equipped to do justice to the task assigned to it, although England had used the whole of 1916 to develop her defense.24
Admiral Scheer, convinced of the predatory efficiency of Germany’s fleet of U-boats, became a proponent of a renewed dependency on submarine warfare early in 1917, in spite of the likely entry of the United States into the war (chapter 9). The two visits of Germany’s mercantile submarine Deutschland to American ports in 1916 (chapter 10) had provided credible evidence to Admiral Scheer that long-range operations were possible:
When they could no longer be used for trade purposes the commercial U-boats were taken over by the Navy and altered for use as warships. They were fitted with two guns of 15 cm. caliber and two torpedo tubes, and could carry about 30 torpedoes in accordance with the extended period during which they could be used on cruises …25
With significant firepower when on the surface or while submerged, the U-boat predators controlled the oceans. The images on pages 68 and 92 are examples of Germany’s cruiser submarines adopted after the successful trips of Deutschland. In response, drastic measures had to be put into place by the Admiralty—and quickly. Admiral Jellicoe devoted a chapter in his book The Grand Fleet, 1914-1916 to Britain’s early actions against German submarines.26
Referring to operations during 1915, Jellicoe expressed concern over the relative lack of success by the vessels Britain was using at the time, primarily destroyers. By that summer, several depth charge designs were being developed and carried by destroyers.
On July 1st the Hampshire reported that a torpedo had been fired at her in the Moray Firth. Twelve destroyers were sent to endeavour to locate and sink the submarine…. The boats exploded a large number of charges on the bottom in the hope of forcing any submarine to the surface.27
While there was no evidence that the above account resulted in the destruction of that U-boat, the prevailing strategy, besides ramming a surfaced submarine or dropping depth charges at its suspected location, was “to keep the submarine down long enough to cause her to exhaust her battery power, a period of some 48 hours.”28 There had also been accounts of British submarines finding and sinking a surfaced U-boat with a torpedo.29 Once submerged and free to maneuver at will, however, German submarines continued to be an elusive target.30
The solution was the hydrophone, though it would take more than two-and-a-half years, and America’s entry into the war, before this technology began to become a U-boat deterrent. Even by the end of 1916, according to Admiral Jellicoe, “[the] hydrophone had been in the experimental stage and under trial for a considerable period, but it had not so far developed into an effective instrument for locating submarines …”31 adding that … “all devices for use afloat suffered from the disadvantage that it was not possible to use them whilst the ship carrying them was moving … [the ship], when stopped, an easy target for the submarine’s torpedo.”32
Of all the weapons used in the anti-submarine war the two most important were the hydrophone and the depth charge. They were employed in conjunction with each other and comprised the surface warship’s principal means of offense against submarines operating beneath the surface.33
This assessment by Charles Domville-Fife, who commanded a British hydrophone flotilla during the Great War, underscored the significance of hydrophone detection, which would lead to a targeted location for the depth charges. Without the ability to provide a precise location of a submerged U-boat,
