HUN PIRACY.

Taranaki Daily News, 14 May 1917, Page 6

HUN PIRACY.

SOME PITIAB.LE TALES. AND TERRIBLE HARDSHIPS. San Francisco, April 9. Pitiable tales of hardships borne through Hun piracy wer ; related when a number of refugees reached New York early in April, showing that 110 persons, including two men and one baby, were missing from two British steamships, the Trevose and tho Alnwick Castle, each torpedoed without warning by German submarines. There were no Americans aboard. Twenty-four survivors arrived in New York on the French steamship Venezia of the Fabre line, which rescued them at sea after they had been adrift four days andf our nights, during which five other men died from exposure. Besides these five, two of the crow of tho Trevos» were killed by an explosion. ' The Trevose, a freighter, five of whose creiv reached New York on the Venezic. was sunk on March 18, when twelve days out from Newcastle-on-Tyne, with coal for Alexandria. Egypt. George Grey, steward, of South Shields, one of the survivors, said the U-boat captain sent a torpedo into the Trevose at 10.30 a.m. The explosion did not sink the ship immediately, and the surviving twenty-five men took to the boats. About half an hour later, Grey said, the submarine showed itself and sent a crew to tho Trevose, which disposed cf the ship with a bomb. SINKS QUICKLY. "a their boats the crew drifted until night, when the Alnwick Castle appeared. They had been on this vessel only It hours when she was torpedoed hy an unseen U-boat. The Alnwick Castle was going from London to Capetown, and carried 100 head of blooded cattle for South Africa. Besides a crew of 100 she had five cabin and nine steerage pas. sengers. The Alnwick Castle was.2oo miles at sea when disaster came at 6.30 a.m'. The 139 persons aboard included the Trevose's crew of 25, and among the Alnwick's 'were one woman and her three months' old child. The other woman on board was a stewardess. "All of our six boats were launched," read a statement by Captain (Jhave, of the Alnwick Castle, "and the ship sank in twenty-five minutes. The submarine submerged, and then emerged again among the boats and watched tae vessel founder slowly by the head, and then went off after another steamship, which we cpuld see about four miles to the east.

GIANT FIRE-CRACKERS. "Shortly after we saw this steamer blown up, and later we sailed through the debris and wreckage, but saw nu sign'of her boats." The ship seemed to explode like a giant firecracker, other witnesses said, and must have been heavily laden with munitions. All that day the boats kept together, Captain Chave said, but during the night they became separated. In No. 1 boat with tho skipper were 17 of his own crevi, six of the passengers, and five of the Trevosc's crew. Their rations consisted of. less than one week's supply of biscuits, one can of condensed milk and two small breakers of water. Careful disbursements of these scanty supplies were made twice a day.

STEAMER SINKS A U BOAT. The arrivals of steamers from European ports frequently were signalised by the receipt of more cheering news and the sinking of German submarines was reported in several instances as the result of tho arming of merchant vessel?. The officers of a certain steamer arriving at St. Johns, New Brunswick, on April 4, announced that when ninety miles off Quecnstown, Ireland, that they were attacked by a German submarine. In a running fight tho British merchantman scored a direct hit, and the undersea boat went to the bottom with all hands. The steamer was slightly damaged by shell fire.

Armed American steamers continue to ply between New York and English ports without interruption, the Hun pirates apparently not caring to attempt to molest such vessels with formidable guns manned by expert American marksmen i.On one day no less thatf three large Miners arrived in English ports laden with enormous supplies of munitions and food, two of those were the American steamers Finland and St. Paul, and the third was the White Star liner Cerdic. All hopes of German submarines starving England seem to have vanished from the minds of tho German Governme-v. officials, who slowly are realising that tho policy of piracy is doomed.