The Indianapolis times. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1922-1965, 1928-03-20
WRENCH USED
TO TAP SUBS
I SIGNALS FOUND
Paint Is Worn Off Hull by
Brave Officer Sending
Code Messages.
DISCOVER NO MESSAGES
AII of Crew of Forty Lived
Shortly After Crash;
Deaths Peaceful.
III United Press

III United Press
BOSTON, March 20.-The instru-
ment with which Lieutenant Gra-
ham Newell Fitch tapped out mes
sages from the torpedo chamber in
the submarine Sd, was found by
investigators today.
1t was a torpedo socket wrench,
not a hammer.
Secretary of the Navy Curtis d.
Wilbur was expected to arrive here
AT 2 p. m. from Pittsburgh to inspect
the S-4. It was not known whether
ne was coming by airplane or train.
Two members Of the board Of in
spection and three technical adj
visers,> seeking to determine the
status Of the S-4 at the time of the
crash with the cost guard destroyer
Paulding, completed their examina-
5ion Of the torpedo room where six
men were entombed alive three days
They failed to find any written
messages of farewell. Secretary Will
bur, who has been at Fitchburg,
Mass, will visit the Navy yard at
- ~ lAls w AOkllEA Will ilICIIlUELD Va
the board about their findings.
The socket wrench with which
Fitch pounded his code messages
was worn on one end. The handle
was bent apparently from the force
OF the hammerings on the steel
plates of the hull,
Couldn't Stay at Posts
The theory that the submarine
could have been saved after the
crash if the men had stayed at their
posts in the control room was re-
futed in the findings of the in
VestigatorS.
Had the men stayed at their posts
even minute, they would have
died Of the deadly chlorine gas
which was released when the water
poured through the cash into the
battery room, adjacent to the con-
troll room, the board said
The Sd, in dry dock here after
three months on the ocean floor off
Provincetown, had yielded the final
eight bodies not recovered by
divers, and provided the full story Of
what happened on Dec. II, when the
S-4 was rammed By the cutter
Paulding.
The preliminary investigation fur
nished much information OIL the
tragic death of the forty men.
They died a peaceful death. Most
of them apparently slipped into un-
consciousness from partial aspny1da-
ton Still hoping to be saved, and
died without awakening.
All Forty Lived After Crash.
All forty were alive for a con-
siderable period after the sinking of
the Sd
The six in the torpedo room lived
the longest. 1t was they who, head
cd by Lieut.. Graham N. Fitch, cou-
rageously hung on for three days
and maintained communication
with those who tried to rescue them
by signal-tapping on the hull.
They died sleeping in their hunks.
Only Lieutenant Fitch stayed ON his
feet, maintaining his morale as an
officer in the pitch darkness 100 feet
under water, taking care Of his men,
ordering them to lie quiet to con-
serve the air, and keeping up his
tapping on the hull with the
wrench,
The spot where he had worn the
paint off the hull by his rappings
remained as silent testimony to his
valor
A small tWo-celled flashlight, with
an ordinary pocket watch attached
to the end, was found. Occasional
alse of the flashlight must have
supplied the only glimmer of light
the entombed six had after the sub
marine was struck.
Oxygen in One Tank
Oxygen still remained in one Of
the tanks, showing clearly that
y Fitch had been saving it as last
resort and that the end mast have
come to him unaware, SO that he
never had the chance to use it.
The hole cut in the submarine by
=, the Paulding was surprisingly small
about one foot by three. 1t was
partly plugged by the bow of the
Paulding, which was wrenched off.
Capt. E. L. King, in charge OF
salvage operations, said the hole
was not sufficient to sink the vessel.
Tt was believed that when the
collision came the apparatus of the
S-4 was set for a "crash dive" and
she sank down of her own accord,
due to the flooding of her ballast
tanks.
The men we're driven from the
control room by chlorine gas from
the batteries or noxious fumes from
burning electrical insulation. The
thirty-four men aft and amidship
sealed themselves in the two ait
compartments. where they died.
One fact showed the sinking OF
the vessel to be bit Of ill-fate. A
difference of one foot in the posi-
tions of the Paulding and the S-4
might have prevented the forty ma
yalcasualties.
IF the S-4 had been foot lower
in the water" Lieut.. A. C. Wilson
reported. cor had the S-4 made just
twenty degrees more in its turn, the
collision would have been avoided.