New Britain herald., 1917-03-02
FOUR YARROWDALE , PRISONERS FREED
Safe at Copenhagen After Months
 Of Seni-StarVation

| T~@~~(J~&A Of Seni-StarVation
 TELL OF COMMERCE RAIDS Crews and Passengers Taken or Mcr-
 chant Ships, Crouch in Hold While
 Vessel Is Attacking Neutral and
 Entente Ships.
 Copenhagen. March ?, via London, 9:15 2. m.-Four Americans from the steamer Yarrowdale. who have been prisoners in Germany for three months. arrived here today. They are h-r. John Davis. Columbus, Miss; Or vile McKim. Watertown, N. Y.; Dr. H. D. Snyder, Norfolk. Va; Richard zabriskie, Englewood, N. J.
 The four men were virtually desti- ute.
 The men reached here with only the clothes they stood in and. under the custom of the sea, will be supported by the British consul until it is pos sible to send them home. They owe their release before the remainder of the seventy-two Americans who were on the Yarrowdale to the fact that, as physicians or veterinarians, they ranked as officers and were confined in the officers camp at Karlsruhe. The horse-tenders and sailors, who com- posed the bulk of the American cap tives, are still held in quarantine at the prison camp for enlisted men at Dulken.
 Left to Own Resources.
 The four men left the camp at Karlsruhe on February 27, and trav- eled direct to Warnemunde under es- cort, where after being subjected to the usual frontier search, they were put aboard Danish ferry and left to shift for themselves. The Danish po- lice took charge of them upon their arrival in Denmark. provided them with quarters for the night in a hotel and gave them the first hearty meal they had enjoyed since landing m Germany in December. The next morning the Danish authorities pro- vided railroad transportation to Co., penhagen.
 Ancient sea practice makes seamen stranded in a foreign port the guests of the consul of the power under whose flag the lost ship sailed. United States Consul General Winsiow was compelled, th6fefore I6 the passless, apparelless and nloneylesss wanderers to his British colleagues. The British consul provided hotel ac- comm odations, pending an investiga- tion as to the mems identity. He pointed out that, as far as any identi- fcation was concerned, the four men might be German spies.
 Months of Hartlships.
 Few more dramatic tales have been brought forth by the war than the llis- tory of adventure, hardship and peril at sea, short rations on land and the new danger from the sky which was related by these four American pro- fessional men to the Associated Press correspondent. Snapped up by the German raider in mid-ocean, they cruised around for days while the commerce destroyer was gathering in further prizes. Then they made the voyage in the Yarrowdale to Swine under such conditions that they expected the ships seams to open and the vessel to sink beneath them at any moment.
 They lived for more than two in prison camps in Germany on meager prison fare provided by the German government. without food which mitigated the hardships of ex- fstence of other prisoners of war. They passed through four airship attacks on Karlsruhe, during which bombs in- ] tended for the railroad station rained on all sides of their camp. To cap the climax they were ignorant until the last whether they were prisoners of war or neutrals in detention, whether their government was doing anything to obtain their release. or whether the United States had not already entered the war. To add to their anxiety their fellow Americans of the Yarrowdale, at the time when they left them at the Neustrelitz camp to be transferred with other officers from the captured steamers, were in a state of complete destitution They were insufficiently clad, several hav- ing during the severe December cold. and all were weakening under the eff feet of these conditions, although they were substantially remedied when Gerard finally succeeded in locating them in the prison camp at Dulmen.
 On the Rim of Eternity.
 These four men, however, had escaped the ambassadors notice on account of having been transferred to the officers camp at Karlsruhe. Dr. Snyder, until recently a member of the health department of New York city, was captured aboard the British steamship Voltaire, the first vessel to be captured by the raider. while he was returning to America from