They were called
submarine-chasers, and while the destroyer and the seaplane, as one of
the most effective weapons against the submarine, came to the fore, the
chaser is employed in large numbers by England, France, and the United
States.
The great usefulness of the destroyer lay not only in patrolling the
seas in search of the U-boats, but of serving in convoys, protecting
passenger and freight vessels, and in rescuing crews of vessels that had
been sunk. There may be other methods of reducing Germany's sum total of
submarines which are equally--if not more--effective than the destroyer;
but, if so, we have not been made aware of that fact. Certain it is,
however, that aside from the destroyer, steel nets, fake fishing and
merchant sailing vessels, seaplanes and chasers have played their
important part in the fight, while such a minor expedient as blinding
the eye of the periscope by oil spread on the waters has not been
without avail.
The United States Navy appears to have figured chiefly through its
destroyer fleet. It has been stated that half the number of sailors who
were in the navy when we entered the war were sent to European waters.
The system of training them involves a number of training-bases in
Europe constantly filling up from American drafts. Each new destroyer
that steams to Europe from our shores in due course sends back some of
her men to form a nucleus for the crew of another new destroyer turning
up in American waters. Their places are taken by drafts from the
training-bases in Europe.
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