Souvenirs de Chasse aux Sous-marine Allentands. Par Fernand Darde. (Paris
: Perrin. 3 fr. 50 c.)—This is a well-written and highly interesting account of convoy and patrol work off the Breton coast and at the mouth of the Channel during the war. The author, a Capitaine de Corvette—ranking with a British naval Commander—was in command of the French destroyer
Faction,' lightly armed and with a maximum speed of thirty !;mots. He describes the elaborate organization of convoys and patrols which was evolved in the effort to repress the ' U '-boats. Every day through 1917 and 1918, for example, a convoy of laden colliers left Mount's Bay for Brest, taking the coal for France, Italy, and Algeria, while a convoy of empty colliers left Brest for England. The Fanion' did this duty fifty-one times. Despite all precautions, many vessels were torpedoed in these dangerous waters. M. Darde relates numerous instances to show how difficult it was to ward off the attacks of a daring submarine commander. The Allies only began to gain the upper hand when the various types of listening apparatus were im- proved. It then became possible, as he shows, for a destroyer or sloop to track down a submerged '11 '-boat by the sound of its motors, and destroy the pest without ever seeing it. The whole- sale destruction of U '-boats in the last year of the war led, as M. Darde reminds us, to a complete loss of moral in the enemy's submarine service.
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