The Admiralty in last Saturday's papers published brief and businesslike
notes, of eight recent encounters with enemy sub- marines, four of which were certainly sunk, while four more were probably destroyed by bombs exploding under water. In one ease, a British submarine torpedoed en enemy after some skilful manoeuvring for position. In another case, a seaplane caught an enemy submarine as it was about to attack a merchant ship and dropped three bombs on the spot where it submerged, causing "a large upheaval." In a third case, a merchant ship, attaoked by two submarines, sank one by gunfire and drove the other off. In yet another case, one of our auxiliary naval forces," after being torpedoed, damaged the submarine by gunfire till the crew offered to surrender, and then sank it as it craftily tried to escape in the mist. An unofficial report from Bergen says that two enemy submarine, caught in the act of shelling a neutral sailing ship off the Shetlands, were sunk by British warships and that six prisoners were taken from them. The Admiralty return for last week shows that eight large merchantmen were sunk by mine or submarine. It is the lowest figure yet recorded, but we do not know the total tonnage of these ships. On the other hand, the smaller vessels, under 1,600 tons, suffered severely. Eleven were sunk last week, and fourteen the week before.
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