For years before the War a Submarine Defence Committee of officers was working to find the best antidote to the submarine menace, and experiments were carried out by the Committee with our own boats. The result of this was that, on the War coming, both the submarine officers and those of our Navy whose task it was to deal with the U-boat had considerable experience to begin on.
The British Submarine Flotillas, as shown in the preceding list, comprised in 1914 far more small boats than sea-going ones. This was altered later as the strategy of the War crystallised, but when the War began it had never been expected that the enemy Fleet would remain so inactive. The Navy's view had naturally been that the German had not built such a fine Fleet if he wasn't going to use it, and so the majority of our boats, instead of being designed for "Over There" work, were designed for "half-way over." And very good boats the C boats were, too. If the expected War of Movement had taken place, with a North Sea dotted with racing cruisers, and ships of both sides looking for a fight, every boat in our service would have been in the thick of the trouble. As it was, the course of events very soon showed that the ring round the Heligoland Bight--the blockading patrol--was to be the chief station of our submarines in Home waters.
Both belligerents began to design and build at once. The German went straight ahead on the one type, which, with variations, has served him throughout the War--viz., the commerce-destroying medium-sized patrol boat. To this type he later added the mine-laying submarine, and towards the end of the War he evolved the large, commerce-destroying cruiser boat.
Now, both before and during the War, we held a lead over our enemy in the matter of submarine design. That statement is confirmed by the data given by the U-boats arriving at Harwich as I write. Some time ago the British Navy prepared an antidote to a design of submarine which it was thought the enemy must, by logical reasoning, soon produce as being the obvious thing for him to think of. Our antidote has not yet had a chance to be used, as it was only recently that the German designers got to that stage in their reasoning.