A TORPEDO COMING.

Taranaki Daily News, 26 February 1916, Page 12

A TORPEDO COMING.

THRILLING EXPERIENCE ON LINER. An Australian captain, writing to a friend in Melbourne, gives particulars of a thrilling experience on board a liner, The letter was written on December 31. on board R.M.S. lonic, in the Mediterranean, '"somewhere off Crete." The writer says he had a most wonderful escape from a submarine. "This ii a very fine ship." he writes, "12.000 tonnage, carrying 2000 people. Knowing there were submarines about, we were rather concerned. On leaving Malta, we carried one 4.7 gun, it is true, but that was not of much use, as the following facts will show. AH went well until a quarter to ten this morning, when several of us were on the port saloon deck . Suddenly we saw the periscope of a submarine about 400j'ds off. She immediately let fly a torpedo at lis. Simultaneously with that the alarm went—seven short blasts of the ship's whistle. Only a few of us knew it was the genuine thing this time. It was, what shall I say, fascinating, or was it bewildering, to' watch the blessed thing coming at us. On it came—and they come at forty knots—and we felt that whatever happened we ought to see it through. Whether or not it was coming through us literally wc couldn't say. •'Officers, men, stewards, etc.. were rushing about for their stations. Everyone on board, from the captain to the pantrv boy, had been with his lifebelt on since we left Malta. Nearer and nearer this rolling thing was coming, leaving a white trail in the water, and we felt the big shin altering her course. On it came. Still we watched it, ami [—then it passed astern, just where the log-lire takes the water. The whole thing only occupied a few seconds, but they were seconds in .which one lived. The submarine only fired one torpedo, but one was quite enough. She immediately disappeared just a s our 4.7 was trained on her. "The captain, who was on the bridge at the time, told us afterwards that lie and his watch spotted the submarine abreast of our midships jiut as she fired, He gave the order, 'Hard-a-starboard,' saw it carried out, and then shut his eyes. He thought the ship was an absolute 'goner.' There is little doubt that the captain's promptitude saved the ship."