THE SKIPPER’S COAL SHOVEL.

Taihape Daily Times, 10 May 1918, Page 6

THE SKIPPER’S COAL SHOVEL.

EPISODE OP U-BOAT WAR. , When one’s vessel is in danger from enemy submarines anything will do as a weapon of defence, as Is shown by the story of a captain of a British trawler who used u coal shovel with good effect against a German U-boat. The trawler, according to the story told by one of the crew, was in the North Sea in a stiff breeze when the skipper saw a periscope crawl through the breaking surface of the sea about a hundred yards off. There was one gun aboard, and the trawler’s best speed was less than eight knots.

"For a while the fight was fierce. Then for half an hour no shots were fired, while the submarine manoeuvred for position. Our ship was vibrating with the speed. Our captain paced the bridge, keenly observant. When the U-boat finally got the posttion he wanted and renewed the shell fire, our gun crew decided to let him have it as hot as our gun would stand. After a few minutes we landed a shell squarely on the German’s back. It apparently disturbed him a good deal, for it stopped firing at once, then slackened speed, altered course, and submerged.” “It was a situation to dismay most men,” said the sailor. “Our skipper, however, has a fighting spirit. A touch of the wheel sent the trawler’s blunt hows pointing at the submar. ine’s whale back. The periscope was still well out of the water, but was beginning to slip down as the submarine dived.

The skipper bawled for a hammer, a crowbar, anything that would hurt. One of the crew thrust a coal shovel ito his hands, and he scrambled on to the bulwarks and leaned over, twq of the crew hanging on to his coat so that he wouldn’t fall overboard. Backwards and forwards he swung the heavy scoop at the fragile periscope, and the third blow reduced it to fragments. -

“The submarine commander, hearing the noise and wondering wTiat new and horrible device the -enemy had Invented, crept to his periscope to have a look, but all was black;-' He was bluind, and the trawler got away in safety.”