Mountain Home Republican. [volume] (Mountain Home, Idaho) 1915-1946, 1917-11-10
BIindfoId Campaign of Submarine
Chasing Is RepIete With
Surprises.
TORPEDO FISH" IS FoOLER
Interesting Sdelight on Work of Navy
In Fighting u-Boat Peril--Many
an Encounter With a Table
Leg or a Swab Handle.

New York. Leaves from the diary
of the commander Of destroyer ant
sidelights on the thrills that come t.
the men aboard the vessels of the Unit
ed States navy in the war zone
were made public In n statement
issued by the navy publicity bureau OF
31S West Thirty-ninth street.
at is stimulating from the maze OF
convoy and submarine search work to
untangle vivid threads of adventure, y
the statement said. "For the first half
OF a certain month a few points stand
out for emphasis or Installation"
They are these:
Enemy operations have been large
~ in the southern part of our area.
Calm weather and the moon have ia
vored them. Merchant ships have as
sembled thickly at the rendezvous. and
the sight has been frequent of one
destroyer-often of the older type
with four or five great vessels on her
hands before others assigned have join
ed the escort.
"Many rescues of crews have been
successfully made.
In behind the net however, 1t Is
less easy to borrow the lookout's eyes,
set for the pin thrust of the distant
periscope through the blue frets of the
quiet treacherous ocean. Or to hear
In the dark small hours the throbbing
general quarters alarm, the blowers
mum In a racing crescendo and the
gun crews-like Tweedledums and
TWeedledees in their slate-hued life
preSeryers-~tear the covers from the
ammunition boxes. 1t Is q tension to
bear down at % knots upon the lean
tramp that makes no response to the
fiap-fap of your Searchlight blinker.
spelling out the challenger to distin-
guish whether the phosphorescent
streak that at night flashes across your
bow is made by Hun torpedo or the
animal shippers have named the tor
pedo fish blacktish or porpolse, Sur
vivors come mutelY up the side, often
Lascars and Cingalese, mutterlng Of
Allah and America lndistlngulshably.
Given cigarette 'mnkes they roll q
pill, calmly stick 1t behind the ear,
and as the surgeon uncorks his iodo-
form In the Mushroom for gashes made
by wreckage, some old gunner of the
reserve takes pneumonia from his
hours of aynOcura oud 10 49,. - -.
at n say, on stretcher, and with his
hours of life numbered.
Two Ships In the Thick Of II.
The Y and the z have been in the
thick of such Incidents. At IS
minutes past l o'clock on the morn
ing of the 18th, the X was steaming
singly at Is knots, with a quiet sea
and good visibility for that hour. The
captain was smoking cigar on the
bridge, wondering, he told me, whether
Mrs. G. would ever have the pleas
ure of putting roses on her old mans
tomb up the Hudson. A heavy explo-
sion, without flash, shook the dark.
ness about three miles over the port
bow. A whistle bleated three times
and the radio shack called up the tube
th2t the steamer Kioto was torpedoed
20 miles southwest by west of Fastnet
Light.
1.-THE Y switched on her general
altrm for battle, changed her course
to 22S degrees true and plunged thith-
er at full speed. In two minutes she
made out the staccato sparks of