GALLANT NAVAL OFFICER.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XXXIX, Issue 1674, 13 February 1917, Page 1

GALLANT NAVAL OFFICER.

HERO OE THE SEA

RESCUES FROM BURNING Oil. SHIP

A correspondent of the Times, who signs himself “An Englishman,” sends the following tale of herosim in connection with the sinking of the oil ship Conch: —At eleven o’clock on the night of Thursday, December 7th, the steamship Conch, carrying 8,000 tons of benzine, was torpedoed and set on (ire by a German submarine. At 3 a.m. or thereabouts a huge conflagration, lurching through the water at a speed of some eight knots, was observed by one His Majesty’s destroyers. She at once proceeded full speed in the direction of the blaze. A large steamer was discovered burning fore and aft, and to the horror of everyone there were some 30 men aboard, huddled together and seemingly doomed. Three steamers, all larger and tougher than the destroyer, were steaming along about a quarter of a mile away from this terrifying spectacle. They had been there for hours powerless to help. IV hat could be done? How could they help? The blazing Conch had been left with engines running, and she was under no control. A nasty sea was getting up,and she was from end to end a, mass of (lames. More horrible still, her cargo of benzine was every moment welling out from her sides, causing lakes of lire all round her. Can you blame the stoutest, hearts for keeping well away clear, as these three steamers did? SPLENDID SEAMANSHIP. I want the country to know the following tale of glorious heroism. The captain of the destroyer saw it was sheer madness to attempt to go alongside her. She was still lurching at eight knots all over the place. Three times, by magnificent seamanship, he placed his vessel across the bows of the doomed steamer, throwing overboard his rafts, his lifebelts and buoys, and finally his boats, and shouted to the crew to jump for their lives. Many did so, to be saved by the destroyer's boats. After two hours’ magnificent seamanship there were still nine men left on board. The flames were now but a few. feet off them, and the ship was going fast, but still tumbling along like some fearful living thing. But the captain of the destroyer found that there was no single life-saving apparatus left aboard his ship. The three other steamers waited, watching. ALL SAVED. I would have given years of my life, and so would any man, to have seen the slight, boyish figure of the destroyer’s captain on his bridge, smiling a trifle sadly—he had a wife and a baby boy two days old at home —as he ordered boats, davits, and all overhanging gear to be turned in. Surely he was never going to put his ship alongside the burning Conch? That was at 6.24 a.m. After 48 minutes of the most nerve-racking, terrible, and magnificent seamanship and judgment that had ever been seen, that British destroyer was placed gently and superbly alongside the Conch, and every single man of those doomed creatures was taken off. Two or three sharp orders, and the British man-of-war was clear. Ten minutes later the Conch had disappeared. I have told the story but feebly and badly. Not a word has been said, not a sign of recognition. Let us at least see that justice is done. Which was the destroyer, and who was the gallant and splendid man who, standing alone there on his bridge, smiled on that December morning?