Page 246 - NAVAL SCIENCE 3 TEXTBOOK

252 ~AVAL SKILLS

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~ Japanese Defensive Minelields
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TAIWAN

Mine laying in Japanese waters was extensive during World War II. This map shows positions of both U.S. and Japanese minefields in the
Shimonoseki Straits and the Sea of Japan.

Union attempt to close the last major Southern port, won a major International law, howevel; imposes tew other restrictions on mine
naval victory, and prolonged the war. Thus was dramatized the 'warfare, [vioored or bottom mines need not be made to deactivate
problem of mine deterioration, a baffler that modern science has automatically after a prescribed time.
not yet entirely solved. These developments called attention to mines and opened up
Ivlines were considered only a defensive weapon until the Russo~ new uses for them, but it was not until \VorId \Var I that offensive
Japanese \,Var of 1904-5. The Japanese sowed oftensive minefields use of mines 'was actively pursued,
across entrances to Russian harbors and then enticed the Russian The most extensive effort involving mines in \VorId \Var I
fleet out with a show of inferior forces; the mines sank six ships. was the great Allied North Sea mine barrage laid between north-
The Russians rnined defensively with even more success, sinking ern Scotland and the Norwegian coast. It was designed to keep
nine Japanese ships. After the war, several ships of other nations German U-boats confined in the North Sea and allow the Allies
were sunk by free-floating lnines that had broken loose from their to use Atlantic shipping routes in comparative safety, American
wartime moorings, giving rise to the 1907 Hague Convention con- minelayers planted some 57,000 of these mines, and the British
cerning floating mines, The convention sought to restrict the use planted over 13,000. They were the anchored contact type, spheri-
of floating mines unless they could self-deactivate after a time. cal and studded with "horns," There is no definitive information