The provision of "flares" for illuminating minefields at night, and a system of submarine detection by the use of electrical apparatus were also matters which were taken up and pressed forward during 1917.
The first was the knowledge that the Germans themselves had laid minefields in some portions of the Bight, and it was necessary for our minelayers to give such suspected areas a wide berth.
We did not, of course, lay mines in either the Danish or Dutch territorial waters, and these waters consequently afforded an exit for German vessels as our minefields became most distant from German bases.
Secondly, it was obvious that we could not lay minefields in areas very near those which we ourselves had already mined, since we should run the risk of blowing up our own ships with our own mines.
The Entente when laying their minefields displayed the same ruthlessness towards free shipping and the lives of neutrals.
Supposing you are right and he is really responsible for the minefields you speak of, I should think the last thing he would do would be to bring the chart back to Dreymarsh.
Nearly every one of the most important towns on the east coast are protected by minefields of his design.
Nor did this exhaust the harbour's defences, since it was further protected not only by minefields but by natural shoals, always difficult to navigate, and infinitely more so in the absence of beacons.
Thus, definite minefields were laid by the enemy at Southwold, the mouth of the Tyne, and near Flamborough Head, and not only there but off the north of Ireland, where it was hoped to destroy or disorganize the Canadian transports.
Behind them, in the Straits, there plied industriously a great fleet of drifters and mine-sweepers, no longer under fire, and clearing a way through the minefields for the fleet that was to occupy the Sea of Marmora.
Lack of time, however, prevented the enemy from developing sufficiently large minefields to produce an important result.
The fortifications of these will probably consist of immense dry moats and extensive minefields which will constitute a direct protection against tank attacks.
The Allies and Associated Powers shall have the right to sweep up all minefields and obstructions, and the positions of these are to be indicated.
The Allies and the United States of America shall have the right to sweep up all minefields and destroy all obstructions laid by Germany outside German territorial waters, and the positions of these are to be indicated.
We joined the Battle Cruiser Squadron in the south and swept the ‘German Ocean’ right up to the minefields off the Elbe and Weser, and north to the opening of the Skaggerak.
It wasn’t in the Baltic; at that moment it was scuttling back to the minefields behind Heligoland.
There are two ways of getting in, you see--close along the shore in seven-ten fathom water, and over and under the minefieldsfarther out.
This was early in the war, when things had not settled down and the minefields in the Bight were few.
Then the minefields began to thicken, and the submarine patrol line was brought gradually back to the longitude of Borkum.
It is scarcely necessary to say that the route followed across the North Sea and through the enemy's minefields was ever being changed, so as to lessen the chance of attack.
There was no great decisive naval action, for the good reason that the High Sea Fleet would not fight it out with our Grand Fleet, but retired to the shelter of the German minefields whenever it was attacked.
No sooner had they prepared a new channel across the minefields than our alert submarines discovered it and blocked it with mines.
The laying of mines and the destruction of one another's minefields used to keep the Germans and ourselves well occupied, and the scraps that occurred between craft engaged in these operations were very frequent.
The mine-laying submarines of the Harwich Flotilla were especially busy on the eastern side of the North Sea, where our great minefields were.
It was a dangerous duty; enemyminefields had to be traversed, and the convoys were liable to be attacked by submarines, light craft, and seaplanes, for the Germans were ever on the lookout to intercept them.
On the further side of the minefields our light cruisers and destroyers patrolled in support.
Consequently, for a considerable time plenty of arduous, perilous work among the minefields fell to their lot.
But the great sea battle that might have been fought was not fought because the Germans so willed it, and retired behind the shelter of their minefields before Beatty could get at them.
The mine-sweeping on the enemyminefields was, of course, the principal function of the Harwich auxiliary base.
On one disastrous night in December 1917, three destroyers were lost while crossing the enemy's minefields with a convoy.
The above list will hopefully give you a few useful examples demonstrating the appropriate usage of "minefields" in a variety of sentences. We hope that you will now be able to make sentences using this word.
