Little by little, however, the Allies discovered the answer to the
submarine menace. One of these was the convoy: fleets of merchant
vessels surrounded by fast destroyers made life a misery for the
submarine crews. In the early days vessels of all character fled from
the approach of the submarine. The destroyers of the convoys, however,
adopted a different method. They rushed at the periscopes in efforts to
ram the submarine, and as they raced over the spot where the submarine
had been at the rate of twenty-two knots or more an hour, they dropped
huge containers, dubbed "ash cans", containing depth charges of
trinitrotoluol.
Sea planes carrying bombs, small dirigible balloons known as "blimps,"
observation balloons moored on the decks of warships, steel nets, and
especially devised anti-submarine mines, were also factors in the
general work of submarine destruction.
In addition to all these, every ship, both cargo carrier and war vessel,
had its well-trained gun crew, and hundreds of thousands of keen-eyed
mariners daily and nightly swept the seas with binoculars watching for
anything that resembled a periscope.
As a consequence of this combination of destructive agencies the British
Admiralty was enabled to announce at the close of the war that more than
150 German submarines had been destroyed.
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