The watchman and southron. [volume] (Sumter, S.C.) 1881-1930, 1918-06-26

ed there $40 a. m., Friday - Made
liberty there and like the city we'll.
We left $40 u. m. Sunday
-, with AZ ships, the largest convoy
ever left America for France. OBJ
we ran into a heavy fog which lasted
"a hours. Whistles kept continuous
blowing to keep from ramming other
ships On - we got into a storm
that lasted about IA hours. Saturday
a. m. eight destroyers came over the
horizon to convoy us in. A little la
ter on in the day more came up.
Early i'm the morning, We began pass
ing boxes, crates and crates of Or
anges, so we suspicioned there must
have been a ship sunk somewhere,
sometime recently l had midnight
watch so / turned in. l heard a ship
behind us blowing. 1t was distress
signal. / jumped into my shoes and
manned my station. She had sighted
submarine. Ship off our starboard
quarter began firing at the subma-
rine. Six or seven men who had
glasses could see the periscOpe, but
could not see it with my naked eye.
Guess that ship fired about seven
shots and then the - began firing
at the wake of the submarine Just as
she submerged. They could hardly
see ii at all for the after gun. Didn't
get but three shots at it. After the
submarine submerges il you hit near
you can put it out of commission.
Seemed as if all the destroyers were
way to the port and starbOard side,
but just as soon as they heard guns
firing or left their position making
full speed towards whore the subma-
rine was sighted and started dropping
depth bombs. There was a destroyer
way In front of us. when she heard the
whistles blowing, and the guns firing
you ought to have seen her come
across our bow. She was making be-
tween 30 and 32 knots 1t looked like
she was flying on the water. She
was the first one to reach the place
where the submarine was sighted.
then she began dropping depth bombs.
don't know exactly how far they
nl n ci MI nh, ~, .
quite distance. We had lots Of T. y.
T. dynamite and powder. If we had
got tOrpedoed every ship in convoy
would have been disabled. 1t wouldn't
have been any chance for us. because
it would have taken an aeroplane to
find us we'd have been blown so high
The submarine fired couple of tor
pedoes at the other ship that was iir
ing but missed the ship quite dis
tance. When a depth bomb explodes
it sends the water away up in the
shape of an umbrella. The ship that
sighted the submarine first didn't ha ye
II gun on her. But next ship to her
had the guns. At p. m. the subma-
rine attacked convoy again off port
side, but wasn't near us. The first at
tack was starboard. and then port
Destroyers began firing at the subma-
rine with guns and she submerged
and then they began dropping more
depth bombs. They think they got it.
At p. m, an hour later, convoy divid-
ed. half of them going to England
the other half to France. We took
the France convoy. Submarine re-
ported off staboard quarter again ut
get to fire at it on account of ship In
the way. At 10 p. NJ we saw light
houses off the coast of France, tbs n
we knew we were about safe from
submarines. We anchored outside of
nets about midnight and next morn
Ing we pulled into and anchored
1885 a. m. -. There we heard
tiit submarines attacked the convoy
that went to England, also, and that
a destroyer rammed the submarine
and made the crew prisoners. Think
that we were pretty lucky. Left -
France $40 a. m.--for - in con =
voy. Anchored - bay 6 p. m. Tues
day just out from -. Got un-
derway early Wednesday a. m. An
chOred Wednesday p. m. mouth
OF ---river. Left there $50 a. m.
quite a distance up the -- riv-
or at point they CALI to get or
was not room for us. so we had 10
wait q COmnlc of daNS before we could