U-BOAT ROBBED OF VICTIM.

Hokitika Guardian, 13 July 1920, Page 1

U-BOAT ROBBED OF VICTIM.

STIRRING BLUE-BOOK TALES. LONDON, April 1. The report on the “Fisheries in tlie Great War,” issued by the Board of Agriculture and Fisheries, with its human interest and thrilling encounters and adventures, differs totally from the staid documents which are usually published by that Department. It contains a strring chapter recounting the lighting deeds of our fishermen.

They iiacL to face brutal treatment by the German, yet they were bold and calm. When the steam trawler ExKing Stephen sighted the German squadron which bombarded Lowestoft on April 25, 191(5, her skipper released his pigeons with a warning to our Navy. When captured by a German destroyer, he was asked: “Where is your English Fleet? We arc looking for it.” His reply was terse and to the point: “I .expect they are looking for you now; ease down a bit, you will soon see them.” The Germans did not wait. RESCUE WORK.

Not less gallant was the deed of a girl, Ella Trout, a Devon fishergirl, who after her father’s death, supported her mother by fishing. On September 8, 1917, she was fishing for mackerel with her cousin, William Trout, 10, when she saw a steamer torpedoed and sinking rapidly. Without hesitation and with full knowledge of her danger, she and the boy pulled to the sinking steamer, a mile distant.

She rowed so fast that she was outstripped only by a motor-boat, and in the wreckage found and rescued a coloured seaman. She pulled him on board, wrapped him in a sail, and revived him.

After our trawlers were aimed the Germans found it best to leave them alone. In the third year of the war, before guns were given them, 156 trawlers were sunk by submarines; in the fourth year only 4; and in the months of the fifth year up to the armistice, none at all.