Page:Jack Heaton, Wireless Operator (Collins, 1919).djvu/199

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On a Submarine Chaser
173

the Deutschland and the other was the U-53, and both had a cruising radius of about 5,000 miles, that is, they could travel that distance without having to take on food or fuel.

No one here ever thought that a submarine could make a trip across the ocean but the Deutschland did it. She left Bremen, Germany, and submerged while in the river, then she slipped out into the seaway under the British fleet that had the German warships bottled up, made the passage of the North Sea on and under the water, thence through the English Channel going this dangerous route entirely under water and across the Atlantic Ocean during which she submerged only when she saw some of the Allies’ warships.

Then one fine morning, 16 days later, she came to the surface in Chesapeake Bay and docked at Baltimore. There she unloaded a cargo of dye-stuffs and synthetic gems and took on a cargo of rubber, and, what was of more importance, secret papers which Count von Bernsdorf, Germany’s ambassador to the United States, could not trust to go any other way. On sailing she made her way to the mouth of the bay, submerged to escape the British ships