AT SEA.

Taihape Daily Times, Issue 220, 2 June 1917, Page 3

AT SEA.

DISABLED SUBMARINE'S RUSE,

GERMAN DESTROYERS TRAPPED

LURED ON TO MINEFIELD.

How a British submarine, disabled and forced to come to the surface in Prussian waters in the North Sea, captured an enemy mine-layer and sank six Prussian destroyers was told in graphic language the other day by an officer of a British vessel that arrived at an American port, says the "New York Herald." According to the narrative the officer commanding the submersible forced the mine-layer to tow him out to sea and then, repairs being completed, sowed the sea with mines, and in German code sent cut a call by wireless that brought six Prussian destroyers down on them. Four of the destroyers were sunk by the submarine, which then made her way home in safety. "We were cruising off the mouth of the Weser at night," the officer said, "when something went wrong wifsi our machinery and we came to a stop. We felt,sure that our time had come when we found that it was a broken connecting rod that had caused the damage. Before the motors could be stopped the broken rod had thrashed about and created damage that would take several hours to repair. SETTING THE TRAP.

i "We had passed close by to several Prussian vessels earlier in the overling, but had not touched them, for ours was a mission of observation. So we considered that we would fall in with one very soon. Sure enough, in an hour's time we caught sight of a dark shape coming down and which Vw-culd aparently run foul of us if she kept on. Through the night glasses •our;.'lieutenant made her out to be a trawler. At once he decided on a desperate expedient. He sent off the bo'sun and six men, all the available men he had, in our collapsible boat, "and as the trawler bore down on us •he hailed her in German, and reported himself as U 29, with machinery disabled and unable to communicate by wireless. The trawler, apparently unsuspicious, slowed down and came alongside, her wheelman handling her as easy as you would swing a stick. "It wasn't till' she was right on top of us that they smelled a rat. Someone shouted out an alarm as "her overhang grazed us. And as the cry went up our collapsible, which had pulled round, boarded her Trom the other side. The lieutenant and I went over the side and shot two of them before they rushed us, for our boat's crew had kept the remainder of the watch on deck busy. The lieutenant slammed shut the foc'sle -hatch, penning in the remainder of the crew, and then we took the other Huns from behind, and in a jiffy we had cleared them out. Once in possession of the deck it was easy to do for the engine-room force of three, and the boat was ours. We made sure there was no communication from the foc'sle except by the locked hatch. Then th e lieutenant passed a line to our own submarine, and with her engine-room crew working like mad the rest of us ,on the trawler got under way. It was almost dawn before the engineer on the submarine hailed us, and announced that he had cleared away the broken stuff and replaced the rods.

"The lieutenant then cast loose from our submarine, and the trawler made a wide semi-circle, dropping overside all the surface mines she had on board—twenty of the Tn. Then we sent a radio in German—the lieutenant had found the Huns' secret code-book in the wheel-house—calling for help and announcing that the trawler had fallen in with a flotilla of f&st British cruisers, evidently bent on a raiding expedition. With that w e wrecked the wireless, abandoned the trawler with her crew still locked in the foc'sle, and submerged behind our barrier of mines.

j DESTROYING THE DESTROYERS. j "We didn't have long to wait. The | dawn was just breaking when up from the east came four destroyers in column. We had .hardly sighted them when they saw the trawler and spread .put fan-wise. As they shot into the mine-field the leading destroyer went leaping out of the water with her bow torn off. The others sheered, and the second and third, thus running up the mine trail. Both struck, each one being fairly torn to pieces. The fourth destroyer, her eng'nes reversing' at top speed and hauling her back on her bauches, took a pot shot at the trawler for luck, realising that they had run. into a trap. As she was firing we crept slowly up and let her have a torpedo amidships. "The roar of the explosion had hardly died away when another detonation shook us, and we found that iwa more destroyers had come, up from the southward and had fallen a "out of the mines. The leading one whs untouched, but the second had struck another mine. As the remaining destroyer turned to rim we made

for her at an angle and got her. She went up with an appalling roar. "We had no chance to breathe, however for something dropped into the sea close by and exploded. Swinging our- periscope upward we found three Taubes circling above us. We turned and cut for home, with the trio hanging over us for more than half an hour, dropping bombs all around us. But, as luck would have it, they missed, and, after running with the fear of death in our hearts for more than an hour we got within our cruising area and t-he Taubes were driven away by a couple of our seaplanes. "The lieutenant got the Victoria Cross for his work, and we all got the Military Cross."