cheer.

My job being to tell what I saw and heard, I want to say here that
throughout the entire melee I never saw one periscope! And there were
thousands like me who never saw a periscope. But there were hundreds of
others--cool, sensible people--who are ready to make affidavits that
they did see periscopes.

Why did not more of us see any? Well, a submarine commander needs to
turn up his periscope for only four, five, six, or seven seconds to have
a look. If you do not happen to be gazing directly at the spot, you do
not see it or the white bone which it makes going through the water.

On my ship the ranking officer was a regular army colonel who had seen
active and dangerous service in the Philippines and elsewhere. He is
given rather to understatement than overstatement of facts--a cool,
level-headed observer. He saw a periscope. We had another officer who
had been in the service in the Spanish War, had got out and was now
back. He was probably the best lookout of all the army officers in the
ship--a solid, substantial man with a keen eye. He could see what
anybody else could see, but further than that you had to show him.
Several of us had already christened him "Show me." He reported two
periscopes. Now he had never seen a submarine operating in his life. I
asked him to describe the action of the periscope. He described it
perfectly as I had noticed it in trial trips of submarines off Cape Cod,
which is where the Electric Boat Company used to try theirs out before
turning them over to purchasers.

My own notion of it is that the U-boats have many of us bluffed. They
must be capable men who go in submarines; of good nerve, quick wit, and
the power to withstand long nervous strain. Such men in a submarine are
going to throw great scares into people of less capacity on surface
ships. Put such men somewhere else than in a submarine and they will
outwit men not so well equipped for the war game.

But these men, no men, can make the submarine do impossible things.
Before firing a torpedo the submarine must come near enough to the
surface to stick out her periscope, to have a look around to locate her
target. In sticking out the periscope, lookouts on ships are likely to
see it. On merchant ships they do not keep a lookout which combs the sea
thoroughly; they do not carry men enough for that. The strain of such a
lookout is great. Men cannot stand to it as to an ordinary watch; they
have to be relieved frequently; a