Evening star., 1942-02-27
BY LEO BRANHAM,
Associated Press War Correspondent.

REYKJAVIK, Iceland Delayed.
The crew of the U. S. S. Alexander
Hamilton conducted themselves like
steady Navy veterans during the ex-
citing moments after the Coast
Guard cutter was torpedoed some
where of the coast of Iceland, the
vessels officers said.
Most Of the crew was composed of
recently enlisted men making their
first trip to sea, but the officers said,
no panic or confusion followed the
terrific blast am1dship.
The men, the officers said in warm
praise of them. remained calm, and
there was perfect discipline at all
times. They ran Immediately to
battle stations after the torpedo
struck. One of the first things they
did was to set the mechanism of the
Hamilton's supply Of depth bombs
on safe" so they would not explode
If the Hamilton sank and thus i'm
peril men in hfeboats in the vicinity.
The Officers, all of whom suffered
only shock and exposure, told the
story of the attack by an unseen
submarine from their beds in an
Army hospital somewhere in Ice
land. They were:
1t. r. w. WEIGH OF Mount Kisco,
N. Y, and 1t. Allen Smith of New
Smyrna Beach, Fla, and Ensigns
Sidney K. Broussard of Cottonport,
La; James B. Denny of Norfolk, Va;
r. A. KRISTEN of New York City. and
Lawrence Bradley Of Los Angeles.
No One Saw Sub.
No one saw the submarine or tor
pedo, these men said, and there was
no warning of the shattering blast
which occurred beneath the engine
room and caused fiery live steam
from broken pipes to squirt up
throughout the midsection OF the
vessel.
Most Of the injuries suffered by
the crew resulted from steam and
boiling water. On bed after bed in
the hospital today. I saw men lying
motionless with their faces, arms
and feet a mass Of raw, ugly burns.
Ensign Broussard, who was acting
as officer of the deck at the time,
said the explosion occurred on the
starboard side of the ship at lis
p m, shortly after the Hamilton had
cast off from Navy supply ship
she had been towing. The supply
vessel had been disabled by engine
trouble.
Ensign Broussard, who was on the
port side, said: "All of the men ran
to their battle stations and manned
our guns. We fired two shots from
one gun to attract attention and
sent up flares into the air"
The Hamilton listed badly to star
board, then sank deeper into the
sea. 1t remained afloat, however,
for many hours. AS the wrecked
cutter was being towed into port,
she suddenly turned turtle.
A few gunshots from other ships
sent her to the bottom. Although
no one saw a sub nearby, the off,
GERS I interviewed were certain the
Hamilton had been struck by q tor
pedo. Had it been a mine the vessel
hit, they explained, the blast would
have occurred outside-not inside
the ship.
101 Taken of BY Destroyer.
There were Is men in the engine
room. The officers said they did
not know how many, if any, of these
men escaped. The blast destroyed
or carried away three Of the Ham
ilton's seven nfeboats, so the un-
injured men remained on the ship
some as long as an hour-while the
injured were removed in the boats.
One hundred and one men were
taken off by an American destroyer,
which pulled alongside the crippled
Hamilton. This destroyer was one
of two only a few miles away.
THE group I was with was IN a
ifeboat only half hour before we
were picked up by an Icelandic fish,
ing trawler," 1t. WEIGH related.
Right after we left the cutter we
picked up II men, two of them in
jured badly, out of the water. And
boy, was that water cold. These
men had been dumped into the sea
when their nfeboat capSized in the