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CHAPTER 2 THE FIRTH OF FORTH

In January, 1915, Commander Ryan assembled a working party, the personnel of which consisted of half a dozen able seamen, and himself, with the result that the first authorized hydrophone was laid from Granton harbor [Edinburgh], from a small open boat. From this small beginning did the hydrophone service grow.

—Lieutenant H. W. Wilson, Hush, 1920¹

To supplement the current active duty naval forces, and in particular the need for officers and enlisted to deal with the submarine problem, the Admiralty relied on recalling its reserve forces and the return to service of the many officers who had recently resigned or retired. One of these retirees was Commander C. P. Ryan. He would initiate the first British efforts to investigate the use of underwater listening devices and create operational systems to detect submerged submarines, as described in a 1920 memoir by a member of his staff, Lieutenant H. W. Wilson, Royal Navy Volunteer Reserves (RNVR).

Beginning as a young midshipman in the 1890s, much of Ryan’s career during the early years of the twentieth century occurred in the Mediterranean, where he had become recognized for his “inventive genius” while commander of the destroyer HMS Zealous. Ryan recognized the military advantages brought to the fleet by Marconi’s wireless telegraphy, and in 1903 had submitted suggestions for improvements to the system, for which he received a commendation from the Admiralty. Ryan continued to pursue his interests in wireless technology, yet his peace-time service was uneventful, including his time on patrol in his home waters as commanding officer of the armored cruiser HMS Euryalus. After realizing that further advancements would not be forthcoming, Ryan retired in June, 1911, and joined the Marconi Company. Three years later, Ryan’s technological know-how would serve him well.²

Returning to naval service in August, 1914, Commander Ryan’s first assignment was the naval base on the Scottish island of Inchkeith in the Firth of Forth. He brought with him his in-depth understanding of wireless telegraphy and a pragmatic and tenacious determination to apply that “inventive genius,” which the Admiralty had acknowledged only a decade earlier. It was soon understood, however, that the threat to British naval superiority would not come from German dreadnaughts, but from their rapidly increasing submarine fleet, and the Admiralty would look for solutions among the country’s (and their navy’s) many inventive geniuses.

Commander C. P. Ryan was promoted to Acting Captain, October 1, 1916, shown here on one of the vessels used to support his antisubmarine research in the Firth of Forth. (Wilson, 1920)

Commander Ryan was at his station when U-21 quietly entered the Firth of Forth on September 4, 1914, passing Inchkeith and venturing nearly as far as the Rosyth naval base. Having been spotted and fired on from shore batteries, U-21 made its escape from the Forth at night. The following day, the scout cruiser HMS Pathfinder was seen through U-21’s periscope southeast of the Isle of May, just beyond the entrance to the Forth; by four o’clock that afternoon, a single torpedo sent the British cruiser to the bottom. By the end of September, the loss of Pathfinder, Aboukir, Cressy, and Hogue would dispel any doubts about the efficacy of the U-boat. Asymmetric warfare in the twentieth century had arrived in the form of what war correspondent Lowell Thomas referred to as Raiders of the Deep (1928), which “came within an ace of bringing the combined forces of twenty nations to their knees with their new form of warfare—warfare under the sea.”³ To stop these raiders of the deep, an entirely new concept of antisubmarine warfare would be needed, and that would require another new technology—the hydrophone.

In 1914, a device that could convert sound energy, in particular a human voice, into electrical energy was relatively new; the microphone had been developed independently during the 1870s in England by David E. Hughes and in America by Emile Berliner and Thomas Edison. At the beginning of the war, any device that could be submerged and generate an electrical signal from underwater sounds was referred to as a hydrophone, consisting of one of a variety of microphone-like devices available at the time, held within a watertight housing. The term “hydrophone” became a generic term for these devices; their efficiencies as submarine detectors, however, varied considerably.

Some contemporary authors preferred to refer to these devices as “sound receivers,” as did Dr. Harvey C. Hayes (see also chapter 12), writing for the American Philosophical Society in 1920. He distinguished a difference between resonant and non-resonant receivers, important here because, as Hayes pointed out, the “Germans have made use of [resonant receivers] in the listening gear installed on U-boats as have the British in much of their earlier work.”⁴ The resonant receivers were very sensitive to sounds which were of the frequency at which the receiver vibrated most efficiently, but were not sensitive to sounds at other frequencies, making it difficult for a listener to distinguish a submarine from other underwater sounds. According to Hayes, the only advantage of a resonant receiver was that it could detect that specific sound at a much further range than a non-resonant receiver, “providing the submarine gives out sound of the same frequency to which the receiver is tuned …” Hayes then added: “An analysis of the sound emitted by a submarine shows a continuous sound spectrum throughout the range of the audible. No characteristic frequency is emitted.”⁵ Soon, microphone-based non-resonant receivers, including those Commander Ryan began using as he continued his work in the Firth of Forth, became the preferred device, improving as hydrophone development continued. Eventually, as more was learned about the sounds generated by a U-boat, electronic filtering was added “to allow all sounds above a certain definite frequency to pass but eliminate almost entirely the lower frequencies [not associated with a submarine].”⁶

In spite of the loss of Pathfinder and other naval vessels in 1914, the Admiralty was slow to initiate a serious effort into the detection of a submerged U-boat. The early work by Ryan had not yet received official recognition. He initially relied on any hydrophones available in 1914, which were built similar to those produced by the Submarine Signal Company⁷ for ship to ship (or submarine) communications. Others were cobbled together by Ryan with whatever he could find, including microphones that he installed in housings of his own design. With at least some success that fall, the Admiralty finally recognized the potential of Ryan’s work, and in February, 1915, authorized him to begin formal experiments with his latest device.⁸ Ryan was encouraged to move forward with his ideas, but it was a slow process, while U-boats continued to strike mercantile targets with impunity

UK SCIENCE AND THE BOARD OF INVENTION AND RESEARCH

We have produced no counter stroke at all to the enemy’s submarine and no efficient protection against his improved torpedo … we have not produced any novelty at all except in the field of recruiting posters.⁹

It was June, 1915, when popular science fiction writer H. G. Wells echoed the nation’s concern with the new forms of warfare brought onto the battlefields of Europe and under the seas. The Times enabled Wells’ voice to be heard by individuals within the Government and the Admiralty. Throughout Britain, it had become painfully obvious that Germany had prepared for war, not just through its decades-long development of a strong military, but had engaged that country’s scientific minds in expanding her war-fighting technology. Wells understood the urgent need to match the technological superiority of the enemy. In a letter to The Times, published June 11 and titled “Mobilisation of Invention,” he called for the Government to organize the “scientifically and technically competent men for this highly specialized task.”¹⁰

Wells was not the only voice that appeared in The Times that June. British scientist Professor J. A. Fleming, referring in particular to the navy, emphasized to The Times readers that there “is no want of ability, but there is an entire absence of external directing power … [and that] … steps have been taken to inhibit scientific activity in directions which might assist the Navy,” lamenting the fact that he had not received “one word of request to serve any committee, co-operate in any experimental work, nor place expert knowledge at the disposal of the Crown.” Sir Phillip Magnus, an educator and Member of Parliament during the war, was insistent, proclaiming that “our scientific men are in no way inferior to those of Germany,” and recommended the creation of a committee of scientists who could provide a critical look at German weaponry, which the allies were facing.¹¹ Parliament would soon take the advice of the scientist and the science fiction writer.

At the beginning of 1915, when Germany declared the waters around Britain a war zone, U-boats expanded their predatory attacks on commercial shipping. Public outcries against this deadly aggression were heard loud and clear throughout the government. Submarine warfare dominated the suggestions submitted by well-intentioned citizens, who continued to flood the Admiralty with ideas throughout the war. But good intentions were not enough—technology would have to be based on science. The Admiralty staff, however, was preoccupied with strategic planning and day to day decision-making. There was simply no organization tasked to separate ideas with potential from a vast collection of well-meaning but fanciful inventions. Yet, by the spring of 1915, Parliament, as well as the Admiralty, was acutely aware that matching what Germany’s scientific minds had devised required an appropriate response … and quickly.

The solution came from Arthur James Balfour who was named First Lord of the Admiralty on May 25, 1915, a member of Prime Minister Asquith’s Cabinet, replacing Winston Churchill. On July 5, through Lord Balfour’s urging, two scientific boards were created, one attached directly to the War Office. The other would focus specifically on naval technology—the Board of Invention and Research (BIR). Oversight of the BIR was assigned to Balfour, who fully understood the Admiralty’s urgent need to enlist scientific minds from both industry and academia. His insistence that the Board be free of administrative control by the Admiralty enabled the civilian scientists the flexibility to operate independently.¹²

Although the BIR would exist outside of direct naval control, the Board’s chairmanship would be best served by a man with extensive naval experience. Balfour then offered former First Sea Lord, Admiral Sir John Fisher, that position. The now retired Fisher, who eagerly accepted the offer, would have to deal with skepticism within the Admiralty, whose members recalled the loss of one of their first submarines. While engaged in fleet maneuvers in 1904, the A-1 was accidentally rammed by a steamer and sank with all hands. It would take another six years before the Admiralty once again considered the potential use of submarines as significant elements in naval engagements; there was, at that time, no thought of submarines as a threat to commerce. In 1913, as Germany’s intentions were beginning to be felt throughout Europe, Fisher had cautioned the Admiralty that the U-boat would likely be used against commercial shipping, but the idea was dismissed as utterly repugnant by the then First Lord of the Admiralty, Sir Winston Churchill.¹³

Fisher was also known as a vocal proponent of modernization, and had alienated some of his peers who were deeply entrenched in centuries-old naval traditions … modernization was not always embraced. But the potential blockade of Britain by a “modernized” fleet of U-boats became a reality in February 1915 when Kaiser Wilhelm’s Chief of the Naval Staff, Admiral Hugo von Pohl, announced that the waters around Great Britain and Ireland, including the English Channel, were considered a war zone, and that as of February 18, mercantile shipping encountered in this area would be sunk, and without warning. Submarine warfare would now be directed primarily against commercial vessels, affecting Britain’s lifeline—just as Fisher had forewarned nearly a year prior to the war.¹⁴

Lord Balfour was ready to put the BIR to work. A former First Sea Lord with a reputation of having a forceful personality had accepted the chairmanship. In his acceptance letter, Fisher replied that “German mines and submarines have walked ahead of us by leaps and bounds.”¹⁵ Fisher emphasized that among the most pressing issues were submarines and antisubmarine devices; Balfour was anxious to place the BIR in Fisher’s hands. On September 14, 1915, the primary goals Balfour envisioned for the BIR were provided to Fisher:

1. To concentrate expert scientific enquiry to certain scientific problems the solution of which is of urgent importance to the naval service;

2. To encourage research in a number of directions in which it is probable that results of value to the Navy might be obtained by organized scientific effort, and to consider schemes and suggestions put forward by inventors and other members of the general public.¹⁶

The BIR was organized into six sections: airships and general aeronautics; submarines and wireless telegraphy; naval construction; anti-aircraft equipment; ordnance and ammunition; armament of aircraft, bombs, and bomb sights. Committees and sub-committees were formed, and, it was hoped, Britain could match Germany’s technological advantages, which that country had benefitted through connections between their academic researchers and the military.¹⁷

Now with Admiral Sir John Fisher at the helm, a team of prestigious scientists were selected to serve on the board’s various committees, including Nobel Laureate Sir Ernest Rutherford. A colleague of Rutherford, physicist Henry Moseley, would have been an ideal candidate for membership, but had joined the Royal Engineers as a communications officer. Moseley was killed by a sniper on August 10 during the disastrous Gallipoli campaign. There was an obvious need to provide an avenue for Britain’s scientists to serve their country, not in the trenches, but in the laboratories. Another BIR member, Professor William H. Bragg, more than his colleagues, understood the urgency to work toward a rapid conclusion to this devastating war. His youngest son, Robert, also died in August at Gallipoli, while his other son was an officer serving in France.¹⁸

MEANWHILE, BACK AT THE FORTH

A noteworthy occurrence … was the removal of the entire establishment, or what remained of it, from Granton to Hawkcraig, and in December, 1915, the Service was first known as H.M. Experimental Station, Hawkcraig.¹⁹

As Lieutenant Wilson from Commander Ryan’s staff pointed out, the Admiralty took notice of the hydrophone work Ryan had accomplished, resulting in the establishment of an official experimental station. As early as February, 1915, the Admiralty had provided Ryan with the Tarlair, from a class of vessels known as “drifters,” to support his off shore experiments.²⁰ Commander Ryan, who had been working initially at Inchkeith, now had what he wanted—recognition of his hydrophone work by the Admiralty and a vessel to expand his ability to conduct realistic operations in the Forth. At the beginning of 1915, Ryan, headquartered in a small building on Edinburgh’s Granton Pier, had a staff of six Royal Navy Volunteer Reserve (RNVR) officers and twenty chief petty officers.²¹ There was a lot of activity in the Firth of Forth during the winter of 1915.

A commercial vessel known as a “drifter” was commissioned HMS Tarlair and provided to then Commander Ryan for his experimental work in the fall of 1914. (Wilson, 1920)

The Admiralty’s first priority was to use the hydrophone as a defensive technology, and Ryan was their primary hope. Beginning in February, Ryan had tested his concept of mounting a hydrophone on a tripod set on the sea bottom, connected by cable to shore. By March the first hydrophone station was operating at Oxcars, a small island in the Forth, just south of Hawkcraig Point. This station was soon replaced by two other experimental shore-based stations in the Forth: one on the island of Inchcolm, the other at Elieness along the north shore near the entrance to the Forth.²²

The Admiralty, of course, was delighted with Ryan’s rapid progress with this stationary submarine detection system, and the decision was made to expand his research, beyond what could be accomplished at Edinburgh’s Granton Pier. He must have been pleased when Hawkcraig Point was selected, as it provided access to an underwater environment much more appropriate for his submarine detection system development. Located along the northern coast of the Forth off the small fishing village of Aberdour, the water between Hawkcraig Point and Inchkeith Island allowed testing his ideas under conditions similar to where German ships and submarines might be operating.²³ In modern terms, Ryan could perform the technical evaluation (TECHEVAL) and operational evaluation (OPEVAL) of any system he might devise, and Ryan’s creativity led to many such systems.

The Admiralty authorized the construction of a small building at Hawkcraig, known as “the Number One hut,” which was completed by the summer of 1915, and by the end of the year, the Hawkcraig Admiralty Experimental Station was born (see page 41). Lieutenant H. W. Wilson (RNVR), who served on Ryan’s staff throughout the war, recalled this new facility:

As a direct consequence of the erection of this hut, from this time afterwards, most experimental work was carried on from the north side of the Forth, and as the star of Hawkcraig waxed, so that of Granton, as a hydrophone base, waned … It was [in Number One hut] that the Captain’s marvels might be viewed, [which] drew hosts of distinguished visitors to our base, whether British or foreign, and it was certainly possible to detect a mystified awe on the countenance of the illustrious stranger, as he issued from Number One …²⁴