Posted on 11/22/2009 6:02:06 AM PST by Homer_J_Simpson
Winston S. Churchill, The Gathering Storm
Yup. Or maybe the mine struck her, seeing as how she was "lying in the Firth of Forth." I notice the article is short on details of the incident. Most of it is from Jane's and a review of history.
I believe that the Brits did a very throrough job of determinine the magnetic threshold that would set off the German magnetic mines. The De-Gaussing techniques reportedly worked pretty well. They also developed some sweeping techniques designed to trigger these mines at a safe distance.
http://www.onwar.com/chrono/1939/nov39/f22nov39.htm
German magnetic mine discovered
Wednesday, November 22, 1939 www.onwar.com
In Britain... Towards evening, one of the first batches of German magnetic mines to be dropped by parachute, by a low-flying He111, lands on the mud flats at Shoeburyness, near the Thames Estuary and British authorities are immediately informed. Meanwhile, a national savings scheme is launched under the slogan “Lend to Defend the Right to be Free.”
In London... Navicerts, warrants first issued in 1915 to neutral ships carrying cargos not harmful to the Allies, are reintroduced.
In Paris... The French government announces reprisals, similar to those announced by the British government, concerning the German use of mines.
In Bucharest... The Romanian cabinet resigns.
See account of damage to HMS Belfast at page 160.
A magnetic mine does not have to contact its target to detonate. The proximity of a large mass of metal will set it off. The idea is for it to detonate as the ship passes over it and the explosive bubble will damage the ship’s bottom.
The Belfast mining was one of the best examples of the device working as planned. It put the ship out of commission for years.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Degaussing
Degaussing ship’s hulls
The term was first used by (then) Cmdr. Charles F. Goodeve, RCNVR, during World War II while trying to counter the German magnetic mines that were playing havoc with the British fleet. The mines detected the increase in magnetic field when the steel in a ship concentrated the Earth’s magnetic field over it. Goodeve developed a number of systems to induce a small “N-pole up” field into the ship to offset this effect, meaning that the net field was the same as background. Since the Germans used the gauss as the unit of the strength of the magnetic field in their mines’ triggers (this was not yet a standard measure), Goodeve referred to the various processes to counter the mines as degaussing. The term became a common word.
interesting to read about the “rules of war” being broken as justification. i recall roosevelt also decried japanese bombing of civilian city targets at the start of the war, as barbaric and contrary to “the rules”..
by the end of the war, the only rule in effect was win. all sides pretty much threw out the rulebook.
Anyone interetested in learning more about the case of the two British agents held by the Germans (pp. 6&7) can find some background on the Nov. 5 thread, reply #5. It continues Nov. 9, reply #9. The lead articles of November 10 and 11 are about the crisis generated by the snatching of the pair.
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