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THE SUMMER OF 1923 AND THE TRAGIC NEWS 147

been brought together by Sir Robert Borden, the great
war premier of Canada. I had been discussing with Sir
Robert the feasibility of polar exploration by submarine,
urging also that a craft which can occasionally dive
under the ice is of importance to the maritime commercial
development of Canada and of every other country, some
or all of whose harbors or coasts are blocked by ice in
winter. Bower was with Balfour as submarine expert and
was said to have had more experience than any man in
the British Navy with the actual operation of submarines
under ice during the war, to the north of Europe. Between
what I knew of the nature and distribution of arctic ice
and what Commander Bower knew about the general
capabilities of the submarine and its particular adapt-
ability to ice-covered areas, we were able to arrive jointly
at the conclusion that a submarine voyage north from
England to the Bering Straits and the Pacific could and
would be made whenever the need arose.

Now that I found myself in England, I used the oppor-
tunity to visit Commander Bower aboard his ship, the
Cyclops, and he occasionally called on me when passing
through London. We talked about every detail of a
transarctic journey by submarine, how much it would
cost to build a vessel specially adapted to the task, how
difficult it would be to remodel the best of the modern
submarines, how feasible it might be to propose to the
Government that instead of scrapping some sound sub-
marine that was obsolete for war purposes, they should
remodel it, replace the torpedo tubes with fuel tanks,
and call for volunteers from the submarine service for the
first sea voyage north and south between England and
Japan. Since I have already dealt with the subject in

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