Rock Island Argus. (Rock Island, Ill.) 1893-1920, 1906-07-28
DAILY STORY
STORY OF A SUBMARINE.
lOriginal.1


4 party OF japanese were sitting in
| tent on one of the burned blocks of
San Francisco after the recent earth
quake swapping yarns.
'Ishiro,' said one, tell us about the
battle of the Sea of Japan. 1 have
heard that your arm of the service
the submarines accomplished nothing,
20 you must have had fine chance q
see the fight
Him." grunted Ishiro Ishimura, thai
comes of orders for secrecy. How
ever, l don't mind telling you fellows
an experience of twelve of US that was
more terrible than any other in that
terrible fight. AT any rate it was
unique.
I'VE were ordered to torpedo the
Russian flagship. Well, you know the
secrecy of our government. 1t was
not desired that any success of our
submarines should be known. SO we
were all sworn to secrecy. AS soon
as we sighted the feet and located the
flagship we skinned the surface be-
behind and, concealed by one of our
own vessels till we got in position, then
filed the tanks, closed the coming
tower and settled down. y submarine
has 4 vertical and a horizontal rudder,
and as soon as we reached the proper
depth TO move forward under water
the horizontal rudder was turned to
keep her from going down farther.
At the same time the propeller was
started.
Perhaps if one of you landlubbers
had been aboard you wouldn't have
had sense enough to be frightened at
noticing that the boat didn't obey her
rudder. Instead of moving straight
ahead she kept going lower. There is
n tank in Il submarine to be used only
in an emergency. 1t holds five tons or
water and can be emptied in JiHy
Our lieutenant in command ordered
this tank emptied.
I'VE all expected to see our boat rise
like cork. She didn't do any such
thing. She started to rise, but soon
began sinking again. The screw
should have been stopped, for since our
nose was pointed down we only sank
the quicker. Down, down we went
till there was a shock, and we knew
she had struck bottom. 1t was at
least comforting to know that we
couldn't go any lower-that is, if there
IS any comfort in being at the bottom
of the sea without much hope of get
ting to the surface. The officers were
cool, but any one could see that they
expected almost certain death.
glanced at the depth register and was
Mortified to see that we were 10 feet
beneath the surface.
Three alternatives threatened us.
First, there were many tons of water
holding down the coming tower, our
only means of getting out; second, the
terrible pressure without was forcing
the water in through leaks that were
starting and threatened to drown us,
and. third. we would at last be suffo-
Gated by poisonous gases.
"And yet you say the men in the
submarines had nothing to do but look
at the fight All we could see of it
was through the periscope, but we
weren't looking at the fight. We were
making 4 fight for our lives.
1--WE must rise to the surface at once
or never. The lieutenant ordered the
rotary pump started to eXpel the wa
ter ballast from the tanks. What was
our horror to find that the pressure of
water from the outside was greater
than the force of the pump. But one
hope remained-the hand pump. On
this we must put a greater force than
on the mechanical pump. Would it
stand SO great strain!
There was not man put to work |
on that pump but expended more pow |
err than he had ever expended before or |
i In
ing that if the attempt was a failure |
there was nothing more to be done.
The pump proved strong enough for |
the work, and the men proved strong |
enough to expel the water against the |
enormous pressure from without.
1.-The happiest moment of my life !,
was feeling the boat leave the bottom. |
The question now was whether we |
could get out of the depths before a |
collapse. 1t was like the last mo-
ments of race when spasmodic eff
fort is needed to win. Under such an
effort we rose slowly till we reached
the surface. Then we gasped in re-
lief'
80 you failed to torpedo the flag
ship?"
Ishimura east look of scorn at the
speaker. Not so fast, If you please.
Our commander gave us ten minutes to
rest, while the sweat poured out of us
in streams Then we dived again."
"Dived again. exclaimed every one
at once.
Yes, the lieutenant had no fancy for
harakiri, which would have been nee-
essary for him had he failed to make
n second attempt. so we filed tanks,
and down we went This time she
obeyed her rudder, and we moved
along about ten feet below the sur
face. We could feel tremor at ev-
cry explosion of cannon. The lieuten-
ant watched the Russian through the