The Benson signal., 1917-10-27
BlindfoId Campaign of Submarine
Chasing Is RepIete With
Surprises.
TORPEDO FISH" IS FOOLER
Interesting SideIight on Work Of Navy
in Fighting U-Boat Peril-Many
an Encounter With Table
Leo or a SWab Handle.

New York. Leaves from the diary
Of the commander of destroyer and
sidelights on the thrills that come to
the men aboard the vessels Of the Unit
ed States navy in the war zone
were made public in statement
issued by the navy publicity bureautof
318 West Thirty-ninth street.
"It is stimulating from the maze of
convoy and submarine search work to
untangle vivid threads of adventure"
the statement said. "For the first half
of certain month few points stand
out for emphasis or INSTALLATION"
They are these:
ENEMY operations have been large
ly 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, it 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
hum in racing crescendo, and the
gun crews-like Tweedledums and
Tweedledees in their slate-hued life
preServers-tear the covers from the
ammunition boxes. 1t is a tension to
bear down at 25 knots upon the lean
tramp that makes no response to the
f1ap-flap of your searchlight blinker,
spelling out the challenge; 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 blackfish or porpoise. Sur
vivors come mutely up the side, often
Lascars and Cingalese, muttering of
Allah and America indistinguishably.
Given cigarette makes they roll
pill calmly stick it behind the ear,
and as the surgeon uncorks his iOdO-
form in the washroom for gashes made
by wreckage, some old gunner of the
reserve takes pneumonia from his
hours of exposure, and is put ashore
at X say, on stretcher, and with his
hours of life numbered.
Two Ships in the Thick of 1t.
The Y and the z have been in the
thick of such Incidents. At 18
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 q 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
that the steamer Kioto was torpedoed
20 miles southwest by west of Fastnet
Light.
''The X switched on her general
alarm for battle, changed her course
to 228 degrees true and plunged thith-
er at full speed. In two minutes she
made out the staccato sparks of
blinker, repeating over and over. TOR
pedoes !-Torpedoes In five, she
changed her course 10 degrees faster
east, and at half-past one the flush
decks of single stacker of about
1000 tons loomed over the cocoa mat
ting and thrust men about gun.
"She was now nearing the freight
er, bow on, bit to port. Suddenly
out of the darkness to the right a livid
beam rushed straight and simmer
ing at her under the sea. We put over
full right rudder. The torpedo passed
close aboard across his bows, to the
left, just ahead of the Kioto, and as
the luminous wake receded like muf-
fled searchlight it seemed to break
spent upon the near horizon. ANY
how said the captain afterward, it
was worth crossing the ocean to see
uuu 1col (IldL IuStduI. II uuuo CnOS0
roses seem lot nearer.
"The destroyer began to circle the
Kioto at high speeds, with alternate
right and left rudder. Her blinker
stammered on, that she had been hit in
the port quarter abaft the engine room.
Then the lights ceased. Ten minutes
after two loaded lifeboats emerged out
of the starboard darkness. They held
80 men, including the second officer
and a tall engineer, wounded in the
leg. Soon after two o'clock all were
safe aboard the X. She continued to
circle the steamer, which was slowly
sinking by the stern. Alarm of the dis
aster had been flashed to adjacent pa
trolls. The Y nosed into sight and
stood by, likewise III. M. S. -, who
signaled that she had taken aboard 16
more survivors and the Kioto's i'm
petuous captain--he that returned to
tho wreck At % minutoS mast 2