The Bamberg herald. [volume] (Bamberg, S.C.) 1891-1972, 1916-11-02
valves are singing in all keys.

| stand with tightly squeezed lips,
gaze through the coming tower and
ook out over the raging sea all about
us, feverishly looking for the first
sign of going deeper.
But | still see our deck; again and
again wave rakes us upwards.
We have not another moment to
lose.
Dive DEEPER is my next COM
mand, and Both engines extreme
rower ahead"
The whole boat trembles and
shakes under the increased engine
pressure and makes couple of real
jumps; it literally staggers in the
wild sea-will it not go down soon?
With a sudden jerk the Deutschland
darts down below the wave-tide, and
now, bending her bow lower and low
er, she rapidly descends into the
depths.
we have 1fTlSCOs
We have not yet realized our new
situation. There is crash; We are
hurled to the floor, and everything
that is not compact or nailed down is
thrown into a wild pele-mele.
Recovering from the shock, we
find ourselves in the most eXtraordi-
nary positions; We look at one an
other, and for moment there is sui
len silence. Then the first officer,
Krapohl, says quite dryly: well, so
we have arrived
That broke up the abominable
tension.
We all had become quite pale.
And tried to find ourselves.
What had happened?
Why this unnatural bending Of the
boat? And why did the engines
above us rage so terrifically that the
whole vessel roared?
But before any of us could really
regain his perspective, our little
Klees, the chief engineer, had dart
ed up from his crouching position
and with the quickness of lightning
had jerked the engine telegraph
around to halt.
Suddenly there was deep silence.
Slowly we gathered our limbs and
our minds together and began to pom
der what had happened.
Stood on Head.
The boat had bent forward in an
angle of thirty-six degrees and stood
on it's head, as it were; its bow was
on the seas bottom and its aft was
violently swinging back and forth.
The manometer showed depth of
about fifteen meters.
I quickly realized our situation; it
was nothing less than comfortable.
According to the map, the depth
here was thirty-one meters; with the
steep position of the long boat the
stern was bound to rise consider
able distance out of the water, and
thus could offer a lovely target for
hostile destroyers. AS long as the
engines worked there was this added
danger. When a ''volley of waves
passed over us, the screws presum-
ably whipped partly into the air and
increased our attractiveness by wild
spouts and foam whirls.
This Chief Engineer Klees had i'm
mediately realized, owing to the rag
ing jerks of the motors, and with his
presence of mind he had averted the
greatest danger at least.
Nevertheless, we had designated
our position by peculiar buoy, and
we expected momentarily to hear the
crashing blow of shell in the stern,
which was still lowering overhead.
But everywhere remained quiet.
The screw could no longer betray us;
also, it probably was still too dark
up there and the destroyer perhaps
had enough of it's own troubles in
the wild sea.
1t will be easily understood that
we, nevertheless, tried to extricate
ourselves from this ''bloedsinnig'
position. AS the boat had remained
entirely intact and had stood the ter
rifle blow without any damage, all
further operations proceeded strictly
according to programme. The aft
tanks, which had not been entirely
emptied of air, were flooded and thus
we gradually got the boat back into
more reasonable position.
But this does not mean that the
Deutschland promptly returned to
her horizontal bearings; indeed, she
had poked her nose too deep into the
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