Iditarod pioneer., 1916-12-30

engineer had darted up from his crouch ing position and with the quickness of light ming had jerked the engine telegraph around to "Haltw
 Suddenly there was deep silence.
 Slowly we gathered our limbs and our minds together and began to ponder ! What had happened?
 The boat had bent forward in an angle of 36 degrees and stood on it's head, as it were, it's bow eat on the seas bottom and its aft was violently swinging back and forth the manometer showed a depth of about fifteen meters.
 I quickly realized our situation; it was nothing less than uncomfortable
 According to the map the depth here was thirty-one meters. With the steep position rise a considerable distance out of the water, and thus could offer lovely target for hos tile destroyers.
 As long as the engine worked there was this added danger: When 'valley of waves" passed over us the screws pre3um- ably whipped partly into the air snd in creased our attractiveness by wild spout5 and foam whiris.
 This Chief Engineer Klaes had mmedi- ately realized, owing to the ragged jerks of the motors and, with his presence of mind, he had averted the greatest danger, at least. Nevertheless we had designated our posi- ton by a peculiar buoy; and we expected momentsrily to hear the crashing blow of shell in the stern, which was still lowering overhead.
 But everything remained quiet The screws could no longer betray us; slso it probably was still too dark up there and the destroyer perhaps had enough of it's own troubles in the wild sea
 It wi be easily understood that we never theless tried to extrlcate ourselves from this "bloedsinning' position. As the beat had remained entirely intact and had stood the terrific blow without any damage all further operations proceeded strictly accord ing to program 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 D2utsch land promptly returned to her horizontal bearings; indeed, she had poked her nose too deep into the dirt to make this possible III hurry But now we were at lecst fully submerged, and had chance to 8 calmly to work
 The furthernost ballast tanks were re- lieved of part of their water and subse- quently we unanswered around with the "trim-tanks" until the prov got loose from the ground Thereupon we began to swim up" but were promptly compelled to trim back" in order to counteract the immediate tendency toward swinging on the part of the vessels aft, which had become too heavy After g while equilibrium Of weight had been re-est ablshed and the Deutschland was once more firmly in my hands,
 Now there was time to consider what 1t was that could have caused the sudden 'bucking" of our usually wel:-behav aved boat. There must have been combination of all sorts of causes. Aside from the fact that only in the most extraordinary and rare cases is it possible for big boat to sub merge against a high sea, 1t Is conceivable l that in the haste which was forced upon Us by the destroyer the tanks were not com pletely emptied of air, But, above all tbere was the aggravating factor of the sudden dynamic effect of the depth rudder, which, | together with the expressing force ot an extraordinarily heavy seq, too quickly forced the fateful decline upon the boat
 Ours was the position of diriglble bal loon which shortly before landing takes too steep a downward course and subsequently, is smashed to earth and crushed with re doubled force by sudden fall breeze"
 In our case the wonderful material of our steel pressure body withstood the tremen- dous blow without further harm.
 Only the bottom of the North sea, degree X northern latitude, and degree Y eastern longitude, may have sustained small dam age.
 Another thing in the whole incident seems to be worthy of mention:
 When I now look back upon 1t and recall just what were my thoughts when we dashed full speed at a 36degree decline into the depths of the North sea, must say:
 My first though was for the cargo-is the cargo safely stored? Can it lose it's equilibrium?
 Curious as 1t might sound in retrospect that is what 1 instinctiveiy thought of A big steamer captain doesn't easily get rid ot his second nature even on a U-boat.