A depth charge is a sort of mine that can be set to go off
at a certain depth, say thirty to sixty feet down, when it makes a
sea-quake that knocks the submarine out of gear and sinks it, even if
it does not actually hit it. Besides all these guards on the surface
there were nets and mines underneath. That is why the British army in
France never had its line of communication with England cut for one
single day all through the war.
Now and then the Germans tried a destroyer raid from their ports on the
Belgian coast, or even from their own coast; for they would sneak
through Dutch waters within the three-mile limit as well as through the
Danish or Norwegian. They played a game of tip-and-run, their gunners
firing at any surface craft they saw (for they knew no Germans could be
anywhere but underneath) and their captains streaking back home at the
first sign of the British Navy. On the night of the 20th of April,
1917, they were racing back, after sinking some small craft, when an
avenging flotilla of British destroyers began to overhaul them.
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