ON THE SEA.

Taranaki Daily News, 29 July 1918, Page 5

ON THE SEA.

AMERICAN SUBMARINE HIT. IN .MISTAKE FOR A GERMAN. Received July 27, 5.5 p.m. Washington, July 2fi. The Washington Navy Depart incut has Announced thai ,i merchantman mistook an American submarine for a German oil' the American coast, and fired one shot, hitting the submarine near the conning tower, but the damage was slight.—Press Assoc. ARMED CRUISER SUNK. DESTROYER LOST. Received July 28, 5.5 p.m. London, July 2G. The Admiralty reports that the armed mercantile cruiser Marmora was torpedoed and sunk by a German submarine on the twenty-third, and that ten of the crew arc missing. A British torpedo boat destroyer ran ashore on a bank on the 2-ltli, and 13 of the crew are missing. FURTHER HUN BARBARITY. RAITS AND LIFEBOATS RAMMED. Received July 2S, 5.5 p.m. Madrid, July 27. A submarine sunk the Frencli cargo carrier Lydien sad rammed the rafts and boats within territorial waters. Thirty bodies of the murdered men were washed up.—Renter. BRITISH STEAMER ATTACKED. Received Julv 28, 5.5 p.m. New York, July 27. It is reported Hut a German submarine attacked a British steamer off the coast.—Press Association. HOW DECORATION WAS WON. AX ASTONISHING STORY. An American paper a month or two ago lifted the veil of mystery and told a romantic story of how the mystery V.C., torpedoed in the North Sea, swam around until he was lifted up on to the deck of a submarine, and how then he stood at the conning tower And with his waterproof pistol shot the captain and held the remainder of the crew at bay until the arrival of a British destroyer settled all the hopes of the Huns to escape. As wonderful as that story is—and if it were true it would be as strange as fiction—it is less thrilling and less wonderful than the story told recently by a captain of the mercantile marine, fresh from the scene of naval activity, a story which, lie says, is popularly accepted as the feats performed by the men whose grand work will not be chronicled until the war is over, if then. The gtaga of the drama was an old barque, and the cast was small—the captain, an officer or two, a small crew, and the captain's wife and child. They crui-:ed round aimlessly, inviting attack. Suddenly in the distance the surface of the water' was broken by the periscope of an enemy submarine, and in a few moments the U-boat was alongside, ami the captain of the sailing boat was ordered to stop and the crew to take to the boats. The drama then developed. The English captain pleaded with the German- "But," he said, "would you east my poor wife and child adrift in an open boat in this weather V The captain's wife—an exceedingly comely-looking woman—clasped her child to her breast and moved towards her husband. The U-boat captain insolently stared at her. "But my child will die," the captain pleaded"There is nothing for it." "Can't you take her on board with you?" the captain of the -baroque asked, hesitatingly, as if the idea pained himTho Uwboat captain consented. The crew thereupon lowered a boat, the captain's wife was carefully helped into it, the captain and crew followed, and the men rowed to the U-boat. Wito unusual care, the woman was helped by the captain to the deck of the submarine, and to the eonning-tower, then to the trapdoor, and she was even told to be careful of the step. THE CLIMAX. Then the climax of the drama occurred. The captain's wife, who was painfully nervous, stumbled. She shrieked, and the baby fell from her avms through '-ha hatch of the U-boat to the bottom cf the ladder. Simultaneously the woman showed remarkable athletic powers. Pushing the captain aside, she leapt overboard, and even as she cleared the deek of the boat, before the startled Hun could appreciate what had occurred, there was a terrific explosion, the bottom was blown out of the enemy's craft, and the boat sank rapidly. The captain's wife was rescued by her friends, who were breathlessly awaiting the explosion, and they were back in the barque a few minutes after the Üboat had disappeared. The captain's wife was the mystery V.C.—a handsome young man of 28, who made up into a feminine of so striking beauty that the head of the U-boat captain was turned. The baby was a most powerful bomb, lovingly and carefully clothed in a thick shawl. The party sailed the sea until nightfall—apparently an easy victim to the torpedoes of the enemy. Three more U-boats hailed them. Three times, the dialogue about the woman and the child was repeated, and three times the ruse succeeded. Three babies fell down three more hatchways, and three U-boats went, with all hands, to the bottom of the North Sea. The originating brain of this remarkable plan to defeat the cruellest foe any navy was called upon to face was a well-known London actor, brother of the mystery V.C. The V.C. has made a name for himself amongst a limited circle of friends as- an amateur actor, but this magnificent series of heroic actions, played in a great drama of death, transcended all his other efforts. ' No V.C. was ever more nobly earned. ,