following methods. She would
get close under the enemy coast under cover of the night and then
dive, to remain at the bottom until the morning. As soon as there was
light enough she would rise until her periscope was above the surface,
and ascertain her position by cross bearings of the shore taken
through her periscope. Then she would move to the different positions
at which she had to lay her mines, all the while using her periscope
for the taking of cross bearings. When she had completed her work she
would return home by night, travelling on the surface as before.

The patrolling submarines were bombed constantly by enemy Zeppelins
and seaplanes, but with little effect. To the submarine the mine was
by far the greatest danger, and no doubt the depth charge too
accounted for some of our casualties. But, as I have said, in nearly
all cases when a submarine is lost, no one knows what has happened.
She merely does not come back. The mine-laying of the Harwich
submarines was chiefly directed against the enemy submarines, the
mines being generally laid at about eight feet below the surface, so
as to catch these craft while travelling on the surface. They were
also laid at forty feet or more, so as to strike the submarines when
travelling under water.

The Harwich Flotilla certainly did its full share of the work that
made the North Sea too dangerous for the enemy pirates. Latterly the
German submarines, in their anxiety to reach waters where they could
carry out their operations in conditions of less danger, endeavoured
to escape from the North Sea as quickly as possible, travelling on the
surface. Many of these fell victims to our mines, and, if they dived,
to our depth charges. During the first months of 1918 the British Navy
definitely got the better of the submarine enemy, and so many German
submarines did not return to their base that panic seized the sailors
who manned the "U" boats. We hear strange tales now of submarine crews
that refused to join their ships, and of press-gangs that were sent
to sweep up what men they could find in the brothels and taverns of a
German seaport before the ship could put to sea.

One of the duties of the submarines of the Harwich Flotilla was to
watch for and attack the enemy submarines as they attempted to escape
from the North Sea by one or other of the two swept channels used by
them for this purpose, one channel being carried from Heligoland in a
northwesterly direction, the o