The Washington herald., 1916-10-23

chief engineer. had darted up from his
crouching position and with the Quickness
of lightning had terked the engine tele-
graph around to halt"
Suddenly there was a 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 thirty-six degrees and stood on its
head, as 1t were, its bow sat on the
seas bottom. and its aft was violently
swinging back and forth; the manometer
showed a depth of about fifteen meters.
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 considerable 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 presumably
whipped partly into the air. and increased
our attractiveness by wild sprouts and
foam Whirls.
Expect Shell to Hit.
This Chief Engineer KIees had immedI-
ately realized owing to the raging jerks
he had averted the greatest danger
Nevertheless. We had designated our
position by peculiar buoy, and we ex-
pected momentarily to hear the crashing
blow Of a shell in the stern which was
still lowering overhead.
But everything remained quiet The
screws could no longer betray US; also, it
probably was still too dark up there, and
the destroyer perhaps had enough OF its
own troubles in the wild sea.
1t will be easily understood that we
nevertheless tried to extricate ourselves
from the "bloedsinnig' position. As the
boat had remained entirely intact and had
stood the terrific blow without any dam
age. all further operations proceeded
strictly according to program. The aft
tanks, which had not been entirely
emptied Of air were flooded and thus we
gradually got the boat back into a 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 in the dirt to make this
possible in a hurry. But now we were at
least fully submerged and had chance
to go calmly to work.
Get Prov Loose.
The furthermost 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 COM
PEELED to trim back in order to coun-
teract the immediate tendency toward
swinging on the part of the vessels aft
which had become too nigh. After a while
the equilibrium Of weight had been re-
established and the Deutschland was once
more firmly in my hands
Now there was time TO consider what
could have caused the sudden ''buckIing'
of our usually so well behaved boat
all sorts Of causes. Aside from the fact
that only in the most extraordinary and
TGre cases is it possible for big boat 20
submerve against high sea, II is con-
ceivable that in the haste which was
| forced upon US by the destroyer, the
tanks were not completely emptied Of
air. But above all thcte was the aggra-
waiting factor Of the sudden dynamic eff
feet OF the depth rudder which, together
with the depressing force Of an extra
ordinarily heavy sea too quickly forced
the fateful decline upon the boat
Only Bottom of Sea Hurt.
Ours was the position Of a dirigible bal
loon which shortly before landing takes
too steep a downward course, and sub
seQuently Is smashed to earth and crush
ed with redoubled force by a sudden
fall breeze"
In our case the wonderful material of
our steel pressure body" withstood the
! tremendous blow without further harm.
Only the bottom Of the North Sea, de-
gree Y. o latitude and degree eastern
longitude, may have sustained small
damage.
! When I now look back upon it and
recall just what were my thoughts when
we dashed full speed al S6-degree decline
into the depths OF the North Sea, I must
say Ny first thought was the cargo;
Is the cargo safely stored? Can it lose
its equilibrium?
Curious as it might sound in retrospect
that is what l !nstinctively thought Of
"A big steamer captain" doesn't easily
get rid Of his second nature even on a
C-bOat,