SNATCHED FROM DEATH.

Shannon News, 29 September 1925, Page 4

SNATCHED FROM DEATH.

AN EPISODE OF THE SAMOA HURRICANE OF 1889. Snatched from death in a stormlashed sea that claimed the lives of scores of his comrades, a young American naval cadet survived to visit Sydney aE commander of Battleship Division? of the United States fleet. Talking to a Sydney “Sun” representative on the eve of the departure of the fleet, Vice-Admiral H. A. Wiley recalled his terrible experience in the hurricane that swept Samoa in 1889. The evening of l-sth March was calm —the harbour as smooth as glass. Within 12 hours a furious cyclone was raging. Beforo daybreak the German ship Eber was swamped by the mountainous waves, and went to the bottom with 71 men. The Adler w-as lifted like a straw, and flung on Matafele reef, 25 of her crew perishing. The third German ship, tlie Olga, was beached later. The fate of the Eber and Adler determined Captain Kane, of the Calliope, to take a chance, and getting up steam, he made for the open sea, despite the risk of being blown on to the reefs. The sailors on the U.S.S. Trenton stood and cheered the

British ship as she beat hear way out against the hurricane. The American ships, the Trenton, Vandalia, and Nipsic, could not have followed her example had they wished. With anchors down and full steam ahead, they were not able to hold their own. The Nipsic was the first to go ashore on the afternoon of 17th March, and later the Vandalia grounded. Though only 60 yards from shore, it was impossible to get '}, lin e to her and the seas swept her decks with such fury that the crew nad to take to the rigging. One by one they wero washed ashore from their hold, or fell through fatigue; more than 100 perishing thus. Among the survivors from tlie Vandalia was H, A. Wiley—then a cadet, now a .weather-beaten Admiral. ‘‘l remember It all right,” he said “Both the Nipsic and the Trenton went aground and most of us transferred to the Trenton. Then I swam to the Nipsic with the idea of getting a lino ashore, but there was not a soul on board. It was a question of my own life then. The waves were breaking over my head, but once when I got it above water I spied a companion ladder that had been washed from one of the ships. I got to it and clung on but every now and

again it would be turned right over. How I got ashore I don’t quite know.” So the telling of the rest of the story is left to Mr. W. Blacklock, now a Sydney business man, who was American Vice-Consul in Samoa at the time of the hurricane. “There’s a river running out to - sea at that spot, and anything caught in the current is carried right out — bodies were picked up 20 milfes eway after th« hurricane. I thought I saw a head drifting towards the river mouth. I lost sight of it. A second later I saw it again, and shouted to the Samoan chief. A line of Samoans ran out on the sandpit at the river mouth, and formed a chain by holding hands. They were just in time to rdach the man before the current caught him. He was quite insensible when they brought him up on the beach.” Vivc-Admiral Wiley only learnt that day that Mr. Blacklock was still in Sydney. “Would you mind doing sometn:/g for me when you go ashore, he said to “The Sun’.’ representative. “Please go and tell Mr. Blacklock for me that it is the disappointment of my life that I didn’t see him. and if he can possibly find time to come aboard before we sail I’d be very, very pleased to meet him again.”