liner. That was the record of one little group
of destroyers in one day; and it is detailed here because the writer
happened to be present when these things happened.

When our fellows first went over they had to learn a few things from the
British. We had first to get rid of some childish ideas about depth
charges. We brought over a toy size of 50 to 60 pounds. They showed us a
man's size one--300 pounds of T N T, a contraption looking so much like
a galvanized iron ash-barrel with flattened sides that they call them
"ash-cans."

These ash-cans do not have actually to hit the U-boat; to explode one
anywhere near is enough. When our fellows let go one of them, the ship
has to be going 25 knots to be safe. One of our destroyers was making 11
knots one night--the best she could do under the weather conditions--and
an ash-can was washed overboard by a heavy sea. Our destroyer's stern
came so near to being blown off that her crew thought sure she was gone;
she had to feel the rest of the way most carefully to port.

This U-boat hunting has been found so wearing on men's nerves that the
British Admiralty has a law that our destroyers must remain in port
after every cruise for periods that average about two-thirds of their
time at sea. Once our destroyers are back to port and tied up to
moorings, a U-boat might come up and sink a ship at the harbor entrance
and our fellows not allowed to up-steam and at 'em. It was only after a
hard experience against U-boats that they evolved this law to save men
from breaking down.

It is a dangerous, hard service on one of the roughest coasts in the
world--a coast where for seven months or so in the year wind and sea and
strong cross tides seem to be their daily diet; a service where for days
on a stretch it is nothing at all for destroyer crews not to be able to
take a meal sitting down, not even in chairs lashed to stanchions and
one arm free hooked around a stanchion; a service where officers live
jammed up in the eyes of the ship and never think at sea of taking off
their clothes, and where they sleep (when they do sleep) mostly by
snatches on chart-house or ward-room transoms.

And for watches: eight hours in every twenty-four, night and day
watching of their convoy, of their colleagues, of periscopes. (The
prospect of collision with their close-packed convoy and themselves is a
bad chance in itself.) On a destroyer convoying ships the officer of the
deck has to stand with one e