TORPEDOED.

Taihape Daily Times, 16 January 1918, Page 3

TORPEDOED.

* A VIVID DESCRIPTION.

A graphic description of an encounter between American and British, torpedo boat destroyers and a submarine when the latter made an attack upon an American troopship headed for "some port in England.'' is contained in a letter written by George Sutton, who is now in the aviation corps, and is training at a concentration camp "somewhere in England." The letter follows:

"We steamed out of harbour on the evening of "September 6 on the s.s. . During the trip all of the

ships travelled with the lights out, excepting one in the rear and we also kept a distant formation. This was kept up until the last day out. At 5 o'clock that morning wc arose to see an American fleet of torpedo boat destroyers cutting through our formation. There were thirteen of them and they were manoeuvring to get alongside of their respective ships. "Soon after we met, our fleet was divided, ten ships heading in a northeasterly direction, while three of our fleet kept on. In our fleet were the and the ■• During the day our destroyers kept at our side, constantly on the alert. The next morning brought us off the Irish coast. "We were now entering the most dangerous part of the war zone™" instead of travelling at our side, our destroyer kept crossing at our tww wc intervals and we kept zig-zagging in fact wc were doing this for the last four days. The idea is to destroy tho aim of any possible unseen submarine, as it takes them four minutes, to manoucvre and aim, so we make a zig-zag every three minutes, During the day we passed several buoys~"marked with a red flag, denoting a submarine victim. We also passed many trawlers, mine-sweepers, ad submarine chasers, and even two dirigible airships flew over us. They were patrol machines. "The land was sigh fed off of the Welsh coast about 3 p.m. and towards 7 p.m. wc spotted rays of the lighthouse seventy or eighty miles from I neglected to state that we wore life preservers at all hours the last two days out. "Well, after supper, we all went on deck to see if we could l3nd before dark. On the port beam were the and the —• — about, a mile away, each with their destroyers on front. About seven p.m. I was leaning over the rail just under the bridge. Suddently, I heard a shot and a red rockeTwcnt up from the . Instantly another was heard from our destroyer. She turned her engines on full speed, fairly jumped out of the water and she turned around and sped towards the rear on th c port side about 300 yards out. he had spotted a submarine and fired.

"Our destroyer picked it up and came tearing at full speed towards the spot of danger, and let out columns of smoke from its four stacks. In the meantime the other destroyers came tearing at full speed-through the waves towards the spot and situated themselves on the opposite side. One was a British destroyer and as it came up it fired two shofs.

"Immediately afterwards our destroyer threw a coneTissioh bomb over the spot. Just before it went off a sharp metallic sound was heaid on our ship, followed by a vibration throughout "the vessel and five blasts were blown by the captain, denoting trouble and lifeboat call. For a few minutes everybody was running to their proper boats and lined up for further orders. In the meantime, the concussion bomb went off and causae oil and debris to float on the water above the spot" where the submarine was last seen. The concussion bomb can bo timed to explode at any depth and destroys anything in the vicinity by concussion. "What really happened was this: The submarine let a torpedo go for us just before the bomb went off, and since our captain changed his course at the first sign of danger, it hit us a glancing blow on the coal bunkers, and the explosion was muffled, and the inrush of water was stopped when it was only a foot high in the stokehold by the watertight compartment, since the bunkers are separated from" the rest of the ship by compartments. After a few , minutes we were dismissed and the ship proceeded at a speed of about six knots for where we arrived at about 2 o'clock next morning.