The evening Caledonian. [volume] (St. Johnsbury, Vt.) 1918-1920, 1918-12-31
FOUR GERMAN
SUBMARINE
CAPTAINS
They Sunk Well-knOwn
+. Ships and All Met
Death Themselves in
the War
ALL DECORATED BY
THE EMPEROR
The Tragic Fate of the Com
manders that Obeyed
the Orders Of Their
Superiors

Superiors
Among those names which must
survive the war and remain forever
as a part OF it's history and charact-
er. four may be selected from that
list of $50 German submarine COM
manders killed or captured by our
naval forces which was recently made
public. To them, says the London
Daily Telegraph, is insured such an
Immortality as perhaps German
naval officer may desire. First IN
that category comes the man who
placed upon. submarine warfare its
crown of supreme achievement, who
fixed forever its character and repute
by the torpedoing Of the Lusitanla
He was Kapitan-Leutnant Schwleger,
commanding U-20, and later U-SS.
He had entered the navy in 1909, and
reached, therefore, the summit OF
his career, the greatest murder the
world has known, before ne was 90;
it was only in November last that q
mine in the North Sea put an end to
his memories and to his purposes.
It now appears that his supreme
deed was not of his own initiating;
he was selected by his superiors as
a suitable officer to carry out plan
devised and prepared as q part OF
the deliberate policy of the German
A Admiralty-that is to say, of the
German government. According to
the evidence which is available, his
success appalled, him rather than 9TH
lerwise; the worlds outcry of horror
was audible even in Berlin, and upon
his return there he showed himself
little-possibly by order of his su-
periors. Even his reward was steal
thiIy conferred; it took the form Of
| the Order OF the House of HoilenZol-
Ilern, the Kaiser's personal decoration.
U-20 finished obscurely; she strand
ed in a fog on the Danish coast in
| November, 1916, and was blown up
! by her own crew. A year later Sch
wieger, now in command of u
| 8S, was cropping submerged through
a mineheld in company with another
| U-boat. The crew OF the second
submarine suddenly heard an explo-
sion and felt the jar of it in their
own vessel. They tried with their
special signaling devices to get into
communications with U-88, but failed
and she never returned to her base.
The officer who sank the Belgian
Prince on July 81, 1917, collected
her crew OH the deck of his subma-
rine and then submerged was Kap-
itan- Leutnant Paul Wagenfuhr
commanding U-44. He was a little
older than Schwieger, having entered
| the service in 1900; the quality OF
his work and his successes had beer
recognized by the Order of the Rec
Eagle (Roter Adler) and the Hohen
zolle1n Order with Swords; but
. swift retriEution was at hand. While
returning from the very cruise during
which he sank the Belgian Prince HI
: encountered ship which could fgh
back. A British destroyer saw hin
on the surface, headed for him at to]
speed, and meanwhile opened fir
with every gun that would bear. TIL
: submarine was obviously hit at once
for she failed to submerge in time
and the destroyer succeeded in ram
: ming
II 1t is claimed in Germany for Kan
itan-Leutnant Rudolf Schneider, o
i U-S7, that he sank His Majesty's shi
4 formidable and destroyed altogethe
/ 10000 tons of merchant shipping
/ the claims do not specify the numbe
OF defenceless lives that were des
troyed with the tonnage. One of TIL
II vessels sunk was the steamship Ara
II bic. Although at this time German
| had not arrogated to herself the righ
II to sink all vessels at sight, the Ara
bic was torpedoed and sunk withou
i any warning. There were some 40
souls on board at the time, bu
II thanks to the admirable disciplin
4 which prevailed, only about one
tenth of this number was lost. /
II October of last year Schneider wa
washed overheard from the decks q
/ his craft and drowned, and upo
her next cruise the submarine met
II British patrol boat in the Irish Sc
II and was destroyed. 1t was Christina
II Day; she saw her enemy in time an
III submerged 20 escape. The patrt
HI boat, one of those anti-submarin
II ships, went to work according to th
II rules of this new warfare. The gres
III depth charges were let go over an
HI around the spot where U-87 had val
H ished; their terrific explosions, tran!
HI mitting themselves undiminishe
III through the incompressible mediul
II of the water, tore her delicate electr
II mechanism TO pieces and forced hi
! 4 It'll