THE SUBMARINE.

Taihape Daily Times, Issue 220, 19 March 1917, Page 2

THE SUBMARINE.

ON THE DEUTSCHLAND. SOME EXCITING MOMENTS. An American paper gives the following account, from Captain Koenig, of one of his adventures on the Deutschland (reported to be a captive to-day in an English harbour): About 2 a.m. I gave orders to rise. As the boat darted upward its movements became wilder and wilder, . which showed me that the storm w r as there, and with it Sad come a still higher sea. Occasionally we made regular leaps, but we calmly emptied 1 our tanks and got to the surface in quite an orderly manner. . I was just about to give orders to \ put on the oil engines—when—what & was that? ■ That dark stripe over there—wasn’t that a smoke flag? Donnerwetter! It’s a destroyer! With one leap I am back in the turret and have closed the towerhatch. Alarm —submerge quickly— fluten —depth rudder—go to twenty metres. The whole boat trembles and shakes under the increased pressure, and makes a couple of real jumps; it literally reels in the wild sea. Will it not go down pretty soon? With a sudden jerk fhe Deutschland darts below the surface, and now, bending her bow lower and lowP er, rapidly descends into the depths. | The light of the just dawning day $ disappears from the turret windows, I *the manometer shows in quick sue- | cession, two, three, six, ten metres. |r B'ut the bow drops lower and lower. a The boat had bent forward in an I angle of 36 degrees and stood on its EL head, as it were. Its bow rested on I • the sea’s bottom and its stern was | violently swinging back and forth, i The manometr showed a depth of I i about fifteen metres. If I quickly felaised our situation. It Wj: was something less than comfortable. U* We were revealing our position by R a peculiar buoy, and we expected moll- mentarily to hear the crashing blow |i|» of a shell in the stern. But every- || | thing remained quiet. The screws || could no longer betray us. Also it M probably was too dark up there, and |, the destroyer perhaps had enough of R; its own troubles in the wild sea.