Imperial Valley press., 1915-03-16
PAGE THREE
Wolff


pointed? What was the rang, of that
distant battery? Another Servian
shell fell near the monitor. The Ser
vians had the range on the Save. Their
guns were trained, to decimal point,
on the narrow river. But there was
nothing for the monitor to train its
guns on. 1t was like a blind man
dueling with a man who had perfect
eyes.
81 could only shoot at guess"
Wolff told me, "but they were shoot
ing by arithmetic. We blazed off into
the distance, but it was ], 900 to l that
we couldn't place a shell near their
battery" Nightfall saved the moni-
tor.
The next day orders came to Wolff
to return to Buda Pest by land and
take another boat, via Belgrade, into
the Save.
This time the odds were 1000 to
against him getting past Belgrade.
The river would be full of mines.
Wolff tried it again. The name
of the monitor was the Temesh. In the
night he neared Belgrade. Sentries
on the banks sent word ahead to the
Belgrade forts. More of the bridge
had been blown down, making a navy
barbed wire ENHANCEMENT on q giant
score
"We1l go ahead or downward" said
Wolff. Backward is a direction he
doesn't know.
"Or up," said the captain of the
monitor.
Ten minutes later, while the shells
from the fort were hitting the water
around them, the whole front end of
the monitor was raised out of the wa
ter by an explosion. 1t was a mine.
The monitor sank. Of 100 men, 80
were drowned. Wolff and the rest
got away in small boat Four DAYS
later Wolff came up to Belgrade
again, in another monitor. Twice be-
: fore the run past Belgrade had meant
death. 1t meant the same thing this
! time.
Three weeks later he took me into
boiler room of the monitor and
showed me where q Servian shell had
pierced the armor of the ship, had
entered the boiler room, cut through
steam pipe and then exploded, killing
IL men, whose torn bodies were boiled
. by escaping steam. But Wolff got the
boat into the Save.
Then came 62 days of blindfolded
!, fighting. Every day the monitors
were hit by Servian shells and every
day the monitors found themselves as
helpless as the day before in the mat
ter of finding the enemy's batteries.
Wolff fought ahead with his machine
guns against the Servians on shore.
More than once, at hairpin bends in
the Save, he found the Servians shoot
ing at him from both sides. His men
, dropped off into eternity, often at the
rate Of dozen day. New men
were brought across land from Buda
, Pest. At the end of the second month
J. only II men reamined of the 80 who
had started out with the flagship. The
monitors were battered like old tin
cans. Many of the portfolios had
been jammed closed by shots. Once
a shell struck turret from which
Wolff was directing his fire and the
great steel door was jammed close and
the mechanicians had to come and
drill it open before Wolff could be
released. At the end of 62 days the
Austrian navy department. tired of
sending men to Wolff only to have
them killed and realizing that the
Servian batteries had rendered the
monitors practically useless, Wolff
was ordered back to Buda Pest. Be-
sides, the Servians had retreated. Un-
der the guns of Belgrade he ran a
fourth time. Through the tangle of
twisted steel and through the maze
of mines he led his boats to safety in
the upper Danube. Other heroes of
Wolff's type may develop along the
Suez canal. Englishmen in armored
ships there are fighting Turks and
Germans on shore. Of all the des-
perate forms of battle in the great
war this mixture of land and water
fighting is perhaps the most danger
Gus, so far as the man on the water
is concerned. At first blush it will
look like a safe game for him. Hid
den in his floating steel fort, he has
only to sail between the narrow banks
of the canal into the very midst of
the enemy, whose rifle fire cannot
penetrate the boats armor, and turn
loose his machine guns with their 700
shots a minute.
Then suddenly an explosion on his
deck tells him that the enemy has
got the drop on him with its distant