Evening star., 1943-04-14
BY GEORGE w. TURNER.

NEW YORK, April 14.-The rest
less Atlantic still holds the answer
to one Of the greatest mysteries of
the sea in modern times-the dis
appearance of the Naval collier
Cyclops, with 293 persons on board.
which was announced by the Navy
Is years ago today.
The passing Of a quarter century
has thrown absolutely no light-only
theories-on the unexplained disas-
ter.
Since time immemorial, ships oc-
casionally have disappeared in "old
oceans gray and melancholy waste" :"
but maritime history seldom has re-
corded such a strange tale as that Of
the sturdy 8-year-old Cyclops, one of
the largest fuel vessels af1oat at that
time.
The 542-foot collier, bound from
Brazil to the United States, had been
missing since March 4, 1918, when
she touched in the West Indies. She
carried a cargo of 10000 tons of
manganese ore.
She was commanded by an ex-
perienced officer, Capt. G. w. Worley
of Norfolk, Va. She had powerful
radio, but no wireless signals ever
were heard from her. No wreckage
was found. No survivors ever landed
anywhere. No bodies ever were
located.
No Storms in Area.
There were no storms in the area
the Cyclops traversed. The sea lanes
in the vicinity were fairly active
but no other craft ever sighted her.
The Navy and merchant ships sys-
tematically combed her course for
weeks, searched the shores of various
islands in the West Indies.
America was then in the last war
and there were popular beliefs at
the time she might have fallen prey
to a German U-boat or had been
sunk by a floating mine or perhaps
a lone raider. But the German
admiralty, then and years later, dis
claimed any knowledge of the
Cyclops
In the weeks after the Navy had
abandoned hope and notified the
next of kin, there were occasional
hickers of hope but they proved to
be the inevitable cruel hoaxes-
bottles containing supposed mes
sages," washed ashore at Baltimore,
Atlantic City, the North Carolina
coast and elsewhere. i Careful in
vestigation showed all to be fakes.
Rumors Prove False.
There were rumors-later proved
false-that the Cyclops had been
captured by a German raider and
towed to the Kiel Canal: that
saboteurs had placed a time bomb
! in her cargo, and others too fantastic
to be mentioned.
In the absence of any tangible
clue, probably the most generally
accepted theory today is that the
ship suddenly capsized-so quickly
that all below decks perished in
few terrible moments.
One Of the most interesting
theories was advanced by 1t Comdr.
Mahlon S. Tisdale. U. S. NJ, in an
article entitled Did the Cyclops
Turn Turtle?" published in the
official proceedings of the United
States Naval Institute in January,
| 1920.
This officer had been stationed on
a similar collier, the U. S. S. Nep-
tune, and in the autumn OF 1916
had made Today trip on the Cy-
clops during war games off the
East Coast.
Vessel Hard to Keep Trim.
His article related that the Nep-
tune, during the first few months
after going into commission. had
experienced considerable trouble in
keeping on an even keel, even when
alongside the dock. The Neptune's
bottom was fiat and there were dou-
BILE bottoms all the way across.
Il have seen the Neptune" he
wrote, flop 10 degrees for no ap-
parent reason"
If" he asked, Gin so Topping,
something suddenly occurred to &C
centuate the Cyclops' list, such as
the flooding Of the topside tanks,
is 1t not perfectly plausible to as
sumo that this accentuation might
have increased to such a degree as
to cause the ship to turn turtle?"
In relating his experiences on the
| Cyclops, he said that during unusu-
| ally heavy weather he was thrown
from "the bicycle track" onto the
main deck by lurch of the ship.
MY attention was at once
caught" he continued, "by the fact
that the plate near tank manhole
was unsecured. I slid the plate into
| position as best I could =
thinking all the time how fortu-
nate I was that I had served on
the Neptune and there had learned
the value of keeping the tank tops
tight.
Plates Always Left Off.
"On starting forward again was
astonished to find that the next
plate was also cast off. Upon look
ing further, all plates were seen
| to be adrift. I reported it to
the captain (Wormley); he laughed
and said the plates were always left
| Oan A1uu unuA NJ nA0