Vol. XXXVII, No. 2 WASHINGTON 



February, 1920 



TIE 



MATDOMAL 

 iAPMDG 

 AGAZE 



COPYRIGHT. I 920. E 



: SOCIETY. WASHINGTON, D. 



THE REMOVAL OF THE NORTH SEA 

 MINE BARRAGE 



By Lieutenant-Commander Noel Davis, U. S, Navy 



Photographs from the U. S. Navy Department 



For an account of the extraordinary feat of the U. S. Navy in planting 

 56,611 mines in the North Sea, the reader is referred to "The North Sea Mine 

 Barrage," printed in The Geographic, February, ipip. The removal of the 

 mines was perhaps an even more remarkable achievement, and was under the direct 

 command of Rear-Admiral Joseph Strauss, who also had command of the expe- 

 dition that laid the mines. — The Editor. 



WHEN time and study have en- 

 abled an accurate history of the 

 World War to be written, it is 

 not at all unlikely we shall read that the 

 North Sea Mine Barrage was primarily 

 responsible for the collapse of Germany. 

 The inconceivably great task of closing 

 the exits of the North Sea had been ac- 

 complished ; an impregnable wall of mines 

 stretching from Scotland to Norway, a 

 distance of 240 miles, had become a re- 

 ality, and that deadly weapon, the sub- 

 marine, which had daily brought us 

 nearer to inevitable defeat, regardless of 

 the gallant efforts on the battlefields of 

 France, at last was bottled up within the 

 North Sea, no longer free to carry on its 

 depredations. 



The construction of the barrage was a 

 magnificent achievement, typically Amer- 

 ican, demanding the concentrated efforts 

 of many of our largest manufacturing 

 establishments to produce the countless 

 complicated parts which make a mine ; 

 the building of huge assembly plants in 

 Scotland ; a special fleet of mine-layers ; 

 and then, in the face of the enemy, the 



laying of these thousands upon thousands 

 of delicately adjusted spheres, one at a 

 time, each in its predetermined position 

 in the North Sea. 



The hitherto intrepid submarines were 

 conquered, because they would not risk a 

 passage across the barrage. Several tried 

 and were destroyed ; others, critically 

 damaged, managed to reach port and told 

 of this new danger which confronted 

 them. And here it was that the barrage 

 became most fruitful. 



As long as the submarines had an even 

 chance in battle, they were willing to con- 

 tinue. Now the realization was forced 

 upon them that they faced an intangible 

 foe, an ever-present foe, always waiting 

 and ready to explode upon the slightest 

 contact. Realization grew into fear, the 

 fear to mutiny ; new crews could not be 

 mustered, and so the U-boat menace was 

 ended. 



when Germany's oney chance oe 

 victory eaded 



With the collapse of the submarine 

 campaign, Germany's only chance of vie- 



