Predator and prey: The origin of antisubmarine warfare

Abstract

The month America entered The War [That Did Not] End All Wars, in April 1917, Germany’s relentless U-boat predators hunted their prey throughout the Mediterranean and Atlantic, sending 400 ships to the bottom. During those 30 days, hundreds more were damaged and put out of commission. Soon after his arrival in England, Admiral Sims, Commander of U.S. Naval Forces in Europe, sent a warning to the Secretary of the Navy that with the “appalling destruction” by U-boats, the “unconditional surrender of the British Empire would inevitably take places….” After a three year stalemate along the Western Front, Germany was becoming dependent on the Unterseeboot, declaring: “[T]here is no possibility of bringing the war to a satisfactory end without ruthless U-boat warfare.” Briefly reaching back to 1776 when David Bushnell’s submersible vessel Turtle attempted to sink a British man-of-war, this presentation will focus on the emergence of submarine and antisubmarine technologies at the beginning of the 20th century. The U-boat solution would come from a cadre of scientists and engineers at the Naval Experimental Station in New London, CT, adapting the hydrophone to exploit a submarine’s vulnerability: they were extremely noisy. The predator now became the prey.