THE KARLSRUHE.

Taranaki Daily News, 31 January 1917, Page 5

THE KARLSRUHE.

A NAVAL MYSTERY SOLVED AT. LAST, At last one of the greatest mysteries of the war, (ho fate of the German ccmmerccv raider Karlsruhe, has been' solved (says the Central News). The cruiser was blown up by an internal explosion on tlio evening of 4, 1914, a short distance off the north* 1 eastern coast of South America. MosJ of the crew perished, but the surviving officers and men, sailing in one of hex; • prizes, in slipping through the British network of warships and n ached a New York port on November 29 The New York Times publishes lengthy extracts from the diary of Cap- 1 .tain Aust, who was the adjutant of Captain Erich Koh'.er, the cruiser's con*wander, who went down with the ship, in whicli the disaster is fully described. • T'i this diary Captain Aust writes:— "The first officer had just risen tram the supper table and some of the officers were on the point -of leaving the hot afterpart of the ship for the coolir at* ' mospherc of the bridge, when a heavy ; shock, followed by a muffled crackingend grinding! shock the vessel. Tho electric lights wpnt out. The ship Immediately heeled over sharply on her port side. Right in front of our bow I saw the floating hull of a ship, which' sank in a few minutes. I thought it* must be a strang vessel with which we had been in oollission, As a matter ot fact, it was the forward part of onr. own ship. A terrific explosion had blown 11.M.5. Karlt.rutte into two pieuw, , The captain's bridge and the foremast must have been blown to atoms. No one had seen oven a piece of then. The forward half of tho ship weu£ fovrft vith the greater part of thq crew, in , few "minutes. Tho after part run»i)ir4 afloat for about twenty mittuttlt.,