Todd war diary, 3 August 1914-29 February 1916 / Arthur Todd - Page 163
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[Page 163]
in Harbour and have a game of golf.
Here ships coming across from England always gave us the latest gossip and were welcome guests at our table. They told us the latest means of catching submarines of which some were obvious lies but others seemed feasible.
One favourite method of catching the Hun was to send an old tramp to sea with a line over the stern attached to a submarine and carrying a telephone wire. The submarine remained well submerged. A Hun U Boat would come up & tell signal the tramp to abandon ship.
The tramp called up our submarine on the end of the wire and she rose to the surface & torpedoed her enemy. The writer cannot swear to the truth of this ruse but at the worst it is a good lie.
After five days "rest" in Halifax in which the more fortunate got ashore once and the others not at all we put to sea and made New York again on the 14th September.
This time all was peace and after three days we were summoned North again by the Flag to make good some minor defects preparatory to returning to the West Indies.