DIVE FOR SEA CABLE

Dominion, Volume 9, Issue 2722, 17 March 1916, Page 9

DIVE FOR SEA CABLE

PLUCKY SEARCH FOR WISE OUT BY GERMANS. When in September, 1914, the German cruiser Numberg, ( flying the Flench deceived the cable officials and was able to land a party on Fanning Island, Pacific, the cables from Bamfield and Suva were cut 600 yards from_ the shore and dragged l out of position. The following account of the WKudent and the remarkable recovery of the cable was published recently in a Treasury document:— The German party arrested the board's superintendent, surrounded the station, and, having made prisoners of the staff, attacked the instruments with axes. The station cash, amounting to £690, was taken, together with stamps and cash to the value of £71. ' The Germans wrecked the engine-house, engines, refrigerator, and electric lin-ht plant with dynamite. After the Germans left, .the staff, iu spite of the absence of suitable appliances for handling apd repairing cables and of 'the improvised character of the (apparatus available, established temporary communication with Suva m fifteen* days. In 'effecting tho repair one of the operators, Mr. Hugh Groig, without the least previous experience in handling or repairing cables, adapted an'ordinary pickaxe to the puiposes of a grapnel and succeeded by this moans in partially raising the heavy shore end where it was cut. He also dived, and, working under the sea, scoured the end by ropes, thus enabling it to be raised above the sea level.

According to the Pacific Cable Board's manager in the Pacific, Mr. Groig "lifted the sea and' shore ends of the heaviest type of cable and managed by improvising rafts made with planks and ordinary barrels ,to buoy them and make a connection between the ends with ordinary covered wire. There was no possibility of bringing the ends,of the cable together, is they had been towed widely apart by the German vessel, and) no spare cable was available for filling the gap.".