Baraboo weekly news. [volume] (Baraboo, Wis.) 1912-197?, 1917-03-15

1884
ried away, to be the plaything OF our
tides and currents and an object OF
idle curiosity to Samoa visitors for
months or years to come. Two hun
dred blue Jackets and their officers re-
main to do the work. The others have
been sent away--to some other ship,
~ J = uistorlcai 0oo
.torical Bloe
| The morning the Milwaukee went
aground I was dressing (about $50
| a. m.) when excited voices of women
outside told of the catastrophe. ]
J was skeptical, but hurried my dress
ing and set out in the fog for the
beach. Found the submarine sleep
ing peacefully In the sand and no ex-
citement anywhere in sight. Finally
found a group of sailors by a camp
fire and remarked TO an officer: "The
women in the village have runlor
out that the Milwaukee is aground
I suppose there Is nothing to it?" ex-
pecting that he would tell me with q
smile that our womenfolk were easily
excited and had taken for earnest
some jest of a passing sailor. But
no, he told me with almost official
brevity that she had indeed gone
aground at high tide three hours be-
+ fore, and that the last wireless they
had from her said she was "in the Sec
ond line Of breakers and pounding
hard;" that they had four surgeons
from Eureka in the tent back Of us,
had built signal fires all along the
shore and sent for the life-saving
crew; and that there was nothing
more they could do now but wait.
Rockets Sent Up
Just then through the night and
the fog we saw for an instant the
glimmer OF a rocket sent UP from the
ship (the first knowledge the watch
ers had of where she was) and all
went hurriedly about half mile down
the beach in that direction. The fog
broke little, and we could see her
out six or eight hundred feet in the
breakers, her great hull, four tunnels,
masts fore and aft, coming tower and
bridge, looking in the fog twice their
size, like some terrible ghost ship
rolling in the surf. Then the fog set
tied down again and they saw her no
more for several hours. But in the
meantime, having located the ship,
they could go on with Preparations
for rescue, rigging up mast on
shore, getting surf boats and life pre-
servers there and some hundred or
more sailors ready for work. When
the fog lifted later in the day they
fired line over her and a heavy line
was made fast to her coming tower
and to the mast on shore, and a
breeches buoy rugged up to run on this
line, with lighter lines to pull it in
and out, and by the middle Of the aft
ernoon they were bringing two men
at time ashore in this fashion. But
at best they could only have made ten
or twelve trips an hour, and with Oc-
casionaI delays 1t would have taken
all night and the next day and night
to get the four hundred and thirty or
forty men and officers off the ship.
So they set to work also with surf
boats, though not without much risk,
and when I got out there again about
5 in the afternoon three boats were
at work, bringing off seven or eight
men at time.
Took a Hand
The first boat l saw as I approached
put off from shore and got about half
way to the ship when a breaker struck
it, turned it sideways and drove it,
wave after wave breaking over it, ia
to the shore and way up on the beach.
But new crew replaced the drenched
and beaten men, the water was turned
out, and the little boat went again.
Just to 'take hand" though it was
not badly needed, fell in with a
bunch of our Office boys and pulled
my hour on the line that took the
breeches buoy back to the ship. The
last man was ashore by or $3.50. It
was good work and good luck, to get
four hundred and thirty men off that
ship without the loss of single life.
We have had wonderful weather,
clear of fog most of the time, and less
wind since the first of the year than
I have ever known for so long at this
season. / don't know what would
have happened If such a Storm as the
one wrote you of one Christmas, and
a & ~ro 0ffoY bayo duyiuU the xuinfor