The Waterbury Democrat., 1939-11-06
By SAMUEL TAYLOR MOORE
 Written for NEA Service

Lying awash like a slumbering whale only 200 yards dead ahead, U--52 should have served as a clay pigeon for the for'ard gun-crew of the transport Ticonderoga that drizzly gray dawn of Sept. 30, 1918.
 It didn't, because the three-inch piece was covered with canvass jacket on account of the heavy rain through the night.
 Lieut.. Com. J. J. Madison on the bridge wasted no time in cursing the luck. ~-
 Ram it." he snapped to the quar- termaster. .,
 But at 10-knot speed 200 yards is a long distance. The German watch on the subs coming tower aroused to the threatening appari- ton bearing down through the fog. The U-boat leaped ahead. The IT. conderoga missed her target by a scant five yards.
 Before the fumbling gun-crew could strip the piece and throw in a shell, German seaman poured up through fore and aft deck matches to man their own pieces. The subs guns already were loaded.
 Crashl The first shell, an incen- idary, fired at point blank range, wrecked the bridge and wireless room of the Ticonderoga. Her skipper fell wounded. The helmsman, together with the wheel in his hands, dis integrated, destroying navigational control.
 A second shell from the U-boat wiped out the for'ard gun and its crew. A third shell wrecked the en- zine e-room, setting fire to the trans port amidship. Then the U-boat went under in a crash dive.
 BATTLE RESUMES
 AT LONG RANGE
 Twenty minutes passed before the submarine came back to the sur- face at maximum gun range, almost two miles of.
 Much had happened on the sur- face in the interval. Commander Madison, his wounds undressed or dered himself placed in a chair for'ard and topside to direct the battle at its resumption. .... Ensign Clifford T. Sanghove,, ur1- der his direction, was busy organiz- ing the fight against the flames amidship, while Ensign Gustav Ringleman and his crew manned the one remaining gun, a 6-nch piece aft.
 A long-range duel began at once Nowhere in naval history is. rscogded a braver fight against odds. Fol more than an hour the gun threw high explosives at the distance U- boat.
 The submarine answered with murderous shrapnel fire. perfectly timed to break overhead from bow to stern. Korvetten- -lieutnant Franz U-i52's commander, had been shak. en by the narrowness of his escape In his fury he gave full measure oi "Schrecklichkeit." For full houl the massacre continued, the heroic aft gun-crew still answering shel for shell.
 With each fresh detonation nner fell or leaped overheard in the agony of their wounds, screaming anc cursing defiance. At the end of an hour not 50 men of the 237 sailor! and soldiers on board remained alive.
 Then a U-boat shell smashed thu mounting of the aft gun, leaving thu muzzle pointed downward into thu sea. SURVIVORS tt..,.. .- ABANDON SHIP @,, e
 With the Ticonderoga defenseless cautiously the U-boat approached still firing.
 Every iife-boat save one had beer torn to pieces by the shrapnel The survivors lifted the now unconsciou commander into 1t, and damned te the gun-whales 1t pushed oil.
 The few remaining managed t launch a damaged life raft. A scan 50 men were divided between thu two. The U-boat fired upon th' I