Omaha daily bee. (Omaha [Neb.]) 187?-1922, 1917-02-27
Liner TACOMA
BY SUBsEA
0FF IRISH COAST
Cunard Passenger Ship, New
York to Liverpool, is Re-
ported Torpedoed With
out Warning.
SEVERAL PERSONS MISSING
Ten Americans Among Hundred
Passengers and Twenty
Members of Grew. I
DETAILS NOT AVAILABLE

New York, Feb. 26.-Thc Cunarc
line announced at 80 p. m. that il
had received confirmation from tn,
British admiralty of the destruction
of the Laconia and that its advices
stated there was only one casualty
thus far known. 1t was torpedoed
last night, the line announced. y
Twenty-six Americans, SIX of whom
were cabin passengers and twenty
members of the crew, were on board
the Laconia, from New York, Feb.
ruary Is, for Liverpool, with seventy.
five passengers and crew of 2l6
when the vessel was sunk by a Ger.
man submarine. One casualty, as
yet unidentified, was officially re-
ported by the Liverpool Office of the
line to officials here.
Names of Americans.
The names OF the American pas
sengers and their addresses as given
by the line here, and confirmed in
part by relatives in the United States,
are:
Floyd P. Gibbons of the Chicago
Tribune.
Mrs. F. Z. Harris, wife of Lieuten-
ant Colonel Frank +. Harris, United
Statets coast artillery corps, stationed
at Fort Dupont, near Philadelphia
Arthur T. Kirby, cambridge, N. Y.
Mrs. Mary E. Hoy, Chicago.
Miss Elizabeth Hoy, Chicago.
Rev. James Wareing, registered
from New York, but said to be from
Norfolk, Va.
The mAmericans among the crew
were signed here to take the places
of others whose terms of service had
expired or who had failed to appear
when the ship was ready to sail. The
men were recruited mostly from ship
ping offices and gave New York and
Brooklyn as their places of residence.
They were stokers, coal trimmers,
wipers and seamen.
News of Cargo.
Wihel details of the cargo of the
Laconia are withheld under recent
ruling of the customs officials, it was
learned at the Offices of the company
that the following items were among
the principal commodities carried:
One thousand bars of silver, 10000
bushels of wheat, 2,843 bales of cot
ton, 1,408 boxes of fresh fruit, 5000
tons of shell castings and other war
supplies and 5000 tons of provisions,
1t was positively stated by officials
of the line that there were no explo-
sives on board.
In addition to cargo and passen-
gers, the Laconia carried 5000 bags
of United Statets and Canadian mail,
1900 sacks of which had been trans
ferred from the American liner St.
Louis. The Laconia, sailing on the
same date. the Holland-A liner
Ryndam returned to port after being
turned back from her voyage to Rot
terdam by the submarine menca,e had
on board nine of the Ryndam's pas
sengers.
Had One Defense Gun.
The Laconia, when it left here, was
armed with one defense gun, mount
ed aft. The report that the ship was
torpedoed at night and without warn
ing indicates that there was no op-
portunity to use the defense gun,
according to officials of the line.
The Laconia is the second ship to
be sunk of the former Boston-Liver-
pool service of the Cunard line. A
sister ship, the Franconia, was sank
last October in the Mediterranean
while in the British government serv-
ice. Both vessels were taken over
by the British admiralty soon after
the war began, and the Laconia was
for a while used in the service of the
government as transport. 1t was
only recently restored to its owners
for commercial purposes, and the trip
on which it was sunk was its third
after coming back to the service for
which it was built. Several of the
officers in the stewards department
on the Laconia were on the Franconia
when she went down.
The registered gross tonnage Of
the Laconia was 1880 Its length
was 625 feet and it had a beam OF
seventy-two feet. Designed for high
class passenger service its fittings
were models OF modern marine archi-
lecture.
No steerage passengers were on
board the ship and those not Ameri-
can were mostly English or Cana
dian, many OF the latter being on
their way to England TO engage in
government service, or returning to
duty after leave, of absence at home.
A list of twenty Americans in the
crew of the Laconia on file in the
i