Prometh

Reduction of submarine armaments was carried one step further last week by accident, which has sunk 20 submarines since 1904 at a cost of more than 700 lives.

Frenchmen were proud last week that they had lost no submarine since 1928, whereas the British Navy had lost three. The French first-class submarine Promethee of 2,000 tons (estimated cost $2,000,000) was maneuvering on the surface of the English Channel near Cherbourg, with several French bluejackets standing on her deck. Suddenly the Promethee began to go down by the stern.. Since her hatches were open, water poured in and she sank like a stone, carrying 62 men to their death. Her commander, a Lieut, du Mesnil, stepped out of the conning tower to see what the trouble was, just in time to save his skin.

Precisely why did the Promethee sink? Before this could possibly be known rumors grew that some clumsy seaman had opened the diving valves by accident. Another rumor had Lieut, du Mesnil commit suicide after he was picked up with six lucky survivors by a fishing smack. Actually the Lieutenant announced himself at the disposal of the usual naval board of inquiry. "Before realizing what had happened," he told reporters, "I was swimming for my life."

Soon Italy's famed Artiglio II, champion treasure-hunting ship (TIME, July 4, et ante), was called into action. Her divers reported that the Promethee lies on an even keel in 230 ft. of water where the current is exceedingly swift. Twice the divers' telephone connection with the Artiglio was ripped apart by the rushing waters. They expressed a professional opinion that it will be impossible to raise the Promethee, said that they found her hatches open, conjectured that an explosion may have ripped open the Promethee's stern, thus causing her to sink stern first. "The public has a right," observed long-mustached French Naval Minister Georges Leygues, "to know the truth!"

Commander Edward Ellsberg, U. S. Naval Reserve, whose work in raising the S-4 and S-51 won him the Distinguished Service Medal (TIME, Sept. 9, 1929) said at Westfield, N. J.:

"Considering the circumstances--that is, a submarine operating on the surface, with her hatches open, and her commander, and others, on deck, and showing no intention of submerging--the most probable cause of sinking is an internal explosion. All submarines give off an odorless gas, hydrogen, when charging batteries, and this gas, when mixed even in small proportions with air, forms an extremely powerful explosive mixture, which might be ignited from a number of causes inside the boat. The resulting explosion might easily have so damaged the hull as to sink the submersible immediately. In our own Navy there have been two cases of such hydrogenic explosions wrecking boats and killing large numbers of men.

"Life aboard a submarine is spent continually facing death."

"Unanimous in Principle." While the crews of all the world's submarines faced death last week, the Geneva Disarmament Conference continued to fiddle with President Hoover's proposal to reduce all armaments by one-third (TIME, July 4). Continuing to stand together, Great Britain and Japan renewed their efforts to lay the proposal gently away in cotton wool. This diplomatic move is usually accomplished by signing an "agreement in principle" which is no agreement in fact. Busily last week British Foreign Secretary Sir John Simon worked at drafting a resolution to adjourn the Conference indefinitely on the basis of "agreement in principle" with the Hoover proposals.

Meanwhile in the House of Commons, acting Prime Minister Stanley Baldwin read a White Paper in which His Majesty's Government proposed not reduction of the number of armament units by one-third but instead reduction of their size by one-third. This proposal threw the disarmament question back five years to the Geneva Conference of 1927 when President Coolidge turned down a similar British proposal. The U.S. naval argument was then and is now that Britain's possession of far-flung naval bases in every part of the world permits her to use relatively small fighting ships with great effectiveness, whereas since the U. S. does not possess such bases its ships must be large enough to carry fuel sufficient to strike at longest range. The specific U. S. argument in Geneva against the British White Paper last week was that by proposing to change the size of fighting units it would force upon all the Great Powers expensive naval replacement building programs requiring many years.

"The British plans are intended to affect the next generation," said U. S. Delegate Senator Swanson. "President Hoover's plans are intended to give immediate relief."

Meanwhile Sir John Simon continued to draft the "agreement in principle" and chief U. S. Delegate Hugh S. Gibson took the cheerful line that "agreement in principle" is better than the alternative at Geneva, namely disagreement. Speaking by transatlantic telephone to Secretary of State Henry Lewis Stimson, Mr. Gibson reported that "the delegates at Geneva are working in close harmony." For U. S. political campaign purposes any flat rebuff to President Hoover would be unfortunate.

Turkey into League. Almost unnoticed amid the Geneva Conference negotiations the Assembly of the League of Nations met in Geneva last week, invited Turkey to join the League, applauded the Turkish Government's prompt acceptance.

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