Evening star., 1920-04-04
The Victory at Sea 4 & Az&1zsl ssaa:

forward of it's port beam. There was
no mystery as to the cause of that
feathery disturbance. 1t was made BY
a peii1co.lc; it was moving with conY
siderable speed also. entirely ignoring
the subchasers and shaping its course
directly toward the advancing Brits
ish cruisers. Commander Bastedo foFs
got all about subchaser 129, which
apparently was after game of it's own,
and headed his own boat in the direc,
tion of this little column Of spray. In
a few seconds the periscope itself bee
came visible; Commander Basted0
opened fire at 1t with his port gun;
at the second shot column Of water
and air arose about six feet-a splen.
did geyser which informed the pur-
suer that the periscope had been shat
tered. BY this time the third chaser,
No. 1913, was rushing at full speed.
Tho submarine now saw that all
chance Of attacking the British ships had
gone, and turned to the south in an ef- =
fort to get away with a whole skin. But
the two subchasers, 215 and 1913. quickly
turned again and started for their prey;
soon both were dropping depth charges
and shooting their ''Y'' guns; and a
huge circle Of the sea was a mass of
explosions, whirling water, mighty
eruptions of foam, mist and debris-for
in the mass, steel plates and other
wreckage flew, from the depths into the
air. -
THAT got him.! cried the executive
officer from the deck of 215,' while the
crew lifted up it's voices in a shout that
,s,,s-
1t was not until this moment that
Commander Bastedo and his associates
remembered the 1923. which. when last
observed, was speeding through the
water on an independent course of her
own In the midst of the excitement
there came message from this boat:
Submarine sighted"'
Then a second afterward came another
message:
my engines are disabled"
In short time Bastedo had reached
the boat
Where is the submarine"
I'VE just sank it," was the answer.
No. 129 had dropped eight depth
charges. one directly over the Austrian
boat: in the water thrown up the Off
plates. and the masses of oil and bub-
bles that presently arose completed the
story Of the destruction. Meanwhile the
British cruisers had taken up their sta
tion at Durazzo and were finishing the
work that made this place useless ~
military headquarters.
Not man in the whole American
force was injured in brief time the
excitement was all over, and the great
ships, screened again by the wasps of
chasers, started back to Brindisi. The
impression made upon our allies was
we'll expressed in the congratulatory
message sent to me in London by Com
modore Kelly who commanded the
British cruisers in this action.
'Their conduct" ne said, was BE-
yond praise. They all returned safely
without casualties. They thoroughly
enjoyed themselves"
And from the Italians came this
message:
italian naval general staff expresses
highest appreciation Of useful and ef.
ficient work performed by United States
chasers in protecting major vessels dur.
ing action against Durazzo; also vivid
admiration of their brilliant and clever
operations which resulted in sinking two
enemy submarines"
- The war was now drawing to a close;
a day before the allied squadrons started
for Durazzo, Bulgaria surrendered:
about two weeks after the attack
Austria had given up the ghost The
subchasers were about this time just
getting into their stride; the cessation
of hostilities however. ended their
careers at the very moment when they
had become most useful.
The final spectacular appearance was
at Gibraltar. in the last four days Of
the war. The surrender of Austria had
left the German submarines stranded
in the Adriatic without base and
they started home by way of the Medi-
terrancan and Gibraltars A squadron
of eighteen chasers had just arrived at
the Azores. on the way to reinforce
the fotila mt Plymouth seven of these
were at once dispatched to Gibraltar
on the chance that they might bar
the passage Of these C-boats. They
reached this post at the storm season:
yet they went out in the hardos: g.,lcs
and had several exciting contacts wi.h
the fleeing Germans
t'nuyrivht 1NoO hy .he Norld'a Work