vicinity of the wave-swept boat, which soon stranded on the beach one
mile north of the station. They could render no help to the crew of the
Silva by means of boats or gear, and could only stand by to pull the
men from the surf as they were washed from her decks. One by one the
fishermen’s crew were pulled from the surf until the entire sixteen
were safely brought out of the surf that tore across the doomed craft’s
deck.
Soon the fury of the sea tore the vessel to pieces, carrying away
her deckhouses and all movable things from her deck. Soon the masts
fell with a crash into the sea, and sails, rigging and spars mixed in
a jumble of wreckage, and then was scattered along the sands of the
beach. The boat was carrying a fair catch of fish, all of which was
mixed with the wreckage and scattered in the sea.
Soon the men from the village came to the beach and gathered up such
material as had not already been swept far down the coast, and a few
days later only a protruding bit of broken spar or a bit of rope
dangling from some buried anchor marked the spot where the Elsia
stranded.
This again was another fortunate escape of the crew from the deck of a
wrecked vessel; only a little difference in the conditions might have
sent sixteen men to untimely deaths.
A TERRIBLE DISASTER
For several years the Pacific Mail Steamship Company has been operating
a fleet of several large ocean liners, each bearing the name of a
President of the United States. These ships had been making around the
world trips, and in 1927 one of these ships, the Presidente Wilson, was
under charter to the Cosulich Line, an Italian company.
In the autumn of 1927, the Presidente Wilson was returning from an all
around the world trip, with a large passenger list and tons of freight
from Europe and the Far East, to Boston. She had left Seattle quite a
number of days before, passed through the Panama Canal, touched at New
York and on to Boston, which would end the trip.
The weather held good until she had reached the vicinity of Nantucket
Shoals, where she ran into a dense fog, making it necessary to slow
down and pick her way through the fog that enveloped her and covered
all the coast.
She left New York on the morning of October 28th, and on the morning
of the 29th, at four o’clock in the morning, she had reached a point
four miles directly east of Highland Light. Out of the thick mist not
a hundred yards away, directly in the ship’s path, loomed the masts
and faint outlines of a fishing schooner, which later proved to be the
Avalon, a vessel of about a hundred tons, with home port at Gloucester,
bound on a fishing trip to the banks. She had left Boston the afternoon
before and was jogging along under short sail waiting for the fog to
lift. She was under such small amount of sail that she could not have
moved had she made the attempt.
The oncoming great ship, towering many feet above her, had no chance to
swing clear of the fishing craft and amid the clanging of bells, the
blast of steam whistles, and the shouts and screams of those both on
the big ship and on the fishing boat, they came together with a crash.
The momentum of the huge craft carried her right on over the Avalon and
sent her, broken and wrecked, to the bottom of the sea, carrying with
her nearly all of her crew, who were imprisoned in her cabin. From the
time of the crash until she had disappeared beneath the sea, there had
been no time for the crew to escape.
The Avalon had a crew of sixteen men and only three of them escaped
with their lives, these three being the deck watch at the time. The
other thirteen were in their bunks and had no chance to get to the
surface before death overtook them.
Boats from the ship were promptly put over and with those of other
vessels which happened to be nearby cruised about the waters for
several hours, but no other man of the fishing boat crew was recovered.
An hour after the disaster, the fog which had been responsible for this
tragedy cleared all away, the sun shone brightly and the blue waters of
the sea rolled smoothly on. The big liner steamed away on her course
and thirteen unfortunate sailors lay dead on the bottom of the sea.
Those who go down to the sea in ships do not know what may be in store
for them.
[Illustration]
TERRIBLE SUBMARINE DISASTER
A certain section of the waters in and around Provincetown Harbor
have for several years been used as the testing ground for new or
reconditioned submarines of the U. S. Navy.
Early in December of 1927, the submarine S-4 was at this testing
ground, standardizing her engines following some changes which had
been completed at the Charlestown Navy Yard. Her complement of forty
officers and men were on board, and two civilian visitors.
In the early afternoon of December 17th this submarine went under to
test some part of her machinery and a little workout, and steamed
submerged out of the harbor; when about half a mile south of the Wood
End Lighthouse, and directly in the channel for vessels leaving or
entering the harbor, started to come to the surface. Just at this
moment, coming in from a patrol cruise along the coast, came the Coast
Guard cutter Paulding, steaming for an anchorage in the harbor at a
sixteen miles an hour speed, and crashed with great force into the
side of the submarine, just breaking the surface water. The sharp iron
stem of the Paulding tore a great ragged hole in the side of the S-4,
just forward of the conning tower, and passed completely over her. The
torrent of water which poured through this hole sent the under-sea boat
to the bottom of the sea in five minutes, with her crew of forty-two
imprisoned in her iron hull, with walls that barred their escape from
certain death. Caught like rats in a trap without the possibility or
hope of escape, they were sealed up in their coffin more than one
hundred feet beneath the sea.
When this disaster became known, and it was within five minutes of
the crash, radio and wireless messages sent it to every section of
the country. It sent a thrill of horror to every point the news had
reached; the awful tidings were broadcast to the whole country and even
to points in Europe.
Every available means of possible rescue were hurried to the scene. A
dozen deep sea divers were rushed by train and auto from New London.
Provincetown was the nearest point of approach to the location of the
disaster. Big ships and tugs carrying chains and appliances were rushed
forward by every available means, hoping to accomplish something
towards raising the sunken boat before all her officers and men had
perished by drowning or suffocation.
There was hope that at least some of the men might have been able to
close the watertight compartments before they were overcome by the
inrushing current.
Many kinds of appliances were hurried to the locality by fast ships;
many tugs and steamers gathered over the place where the S-4 lay at the
bottom of the sea off Long Point. Over the sunken boat white-capped
waves were breaking, forced over the surging waters of the bay by a
thirty-mile northwest gale.
As soon as the divers reached the locality a man was sent down and
succeeded in placing a chain over the bow of the submarine; they had
hoped to raise the bow enough to tip the bow towards the surface, but
failed to offer any help.
Again a man was sent down with a hammer, and instructed to pound along
the iron sides of the sunken boat; if he got any response from the
inside it would indicate that there was life there.
The diver when a short distance forward of the locality of the conning
tower and the great hole which had been torn open by the Paulding when
she overwhelmed the under-sea boat, heard a responsive tapping from
the inside. Then the diver tapped out in the telegraph code, “Are
you alive.” The answer quickly came back, “Yes, six of us are alive
here.” Again the diver tapped, “Everything possible is being done to
help you.” Again from the inside, “The air is very bad in here, please
hurry.” This was Sunday afternoon, twenty-four hours after the disaster.
When it was found that six men were still alive renewed and strenuous
efforts were made to reach the men. All day Sunday and all Sunday night
a hundred men with such appliances as it was possible to get, labored
to bring the bow of the boat to the surface.
Late in the afternoon of Sunday a diver went down and in response
to his tapping found that the six men were still alive, but they
signalled, “We are still alive but growing weaker. We cannot stand it
much longer. Please hurry.”
The diver’s tapping along all other parts of the ship obtained no other
response.
The other men on the boat had been imprisoned either in the engine room
or the after compartments and were all probably drowned when the ship
went to the bottom.
Monday morning brought no change or any hope of relief. The northwest
gale had become bitterly cold, and it was more and more certain that
not a man on the boat was alive, as these men had been entombed more
than forty-eight hours, so the probability or even possibility of any
man being alive down there a hundred feet under the sea was remote
indeed.
What still further added to the horror of the situation, the increasing
cold and freezing winds drove the rescuers from their work, because it
was impossible to send divers down. By this time the imprisoned men had
been so long in their iron coffin, it was not possible that human life
could endure for that time or withstand the terrible conditions.
Sunday night two monstrous pontoons were brought to the scene, hoping
by their use the bow of the boat might be brought to the surface. These
pontoons were brought from New London by four powerful tugs, through
the Cape Cod Canal, but this was unavoidably slow on account of the
unwieldy shape of the tow and there was no hope that these pontoons
could reach the spot until it was too late.
Eight skilled divers were already on the scene. Diver Thomas Eadie
went over the side earlier in the day and it was he who was able to
communicate with the entombed men by means of the hammer tapping
signals.
The last signals tapped from the inside of the ship were, “How long
will you be now, hurry.”
Late Sunday P. M. diver Michaels heard from the dying men, “We cannot
live beyond six o’clock.”
In some way this diver’s life line became entangled in a part of the
ragged hole in the hull, and though he struggled frantically to clear
himself, after he had been down more than half an hour it became
evident that something was wrong. Then diver Eadie, with a hack saw,
went down and found Michaels badly tangled in projecting bits of broken
iron of the hull, and it required another half hour for Eadie to saw
off the piece of iron that held Michaels. He had been held there more
than two and a half hours and another half hour would have resulted in
his death. He was hurried to a hospital in Boston and was ill for some
time.
Up to this time every effort to raise the boat or rescue any one of her
crew had utterly failed and some of the boats and gear departed for
other duties.
The attempts to rescue these imprisoned men encountered awfully adverse
conditions.
This disaster happened on Sunday, on that afternoon, and on Monday,
the next day, had there been adequate saving appliances at hand it is
believed some of the men might have been saved, but it required so
much time to get them on the ground that all attempts were futile.
Another case where men have gone down in the deep sea in a vessel that
was the meanest type of craft ever conceived by man.
Forty good men sent to untimely graves because someone failed to
observe proper care.
“Theirs not to reason why,
Theirs but to do or die,
Somebody blundered.”
What a miscarriage of justice this building of this type of vessel is.
If these vessels are built for fighting purposes, it is an uncivilized
method of warfare and every nation on the earth should be barred from
building another submarine. Already we have sent the battleships to the
scrapheap. By all means send the submarine to join them.
In regard to the wretched lack of proper appliances for handling
such a terrible disaster, we see one more tragedy. Men familiar with
submarines, their building and handling, declare that it was a case
of criminal carelessness on the part of the Government and the Navy
Department in particular.
Secretary Wilbur, of the United States Navy, visited the locality of
the disaster and ordered that the work of salvaging the submarine and
bringing out the bodies must proceed until every one is brought to
shore.
On the 4th day of January three bodies were recovered from the engine
room of the under-sea boat and in time the others in the after
compartments will be brought to the surface.
Representative Gifford came on from Washington to learn from personal
observation if everything possible had been done to save the men from
their coffin.
Among the crew of the S-4 when she went down was a seaman by the
name of Walter Bishop. He had previously been on a submarine when an
accident happened, and among his effects, left with relatives, was
found a poem of thirteen verses, in which he described the situation
and conditions on these ships in full detail. We have room for only the
first verse, which certainly hits the mark.
“IN THE CANKEROUS MIND OF THE DEVIL,
THERE FESTERED A FIENDISH SCHEME,
HE CALLED HIS COHORTS TOGETHER,
AND THEY DESIGNED THE SUBMARINE.”
The time having long passed when it was possible for any human being to
be alive, the only thing to do was to some day raise the boat to the
surface.
Submarines have figured in some of the most awful tragedies of modern
times. Only a partial record is available, but a recent statement of
the story discloses that no less than 295 human beings have gone to
death in submarines in the last decade.
In 1923 a Japanese boat carried down to death eighty-five persons. In
1925 the No. 51 with thirty-three men, and now the S-4 with forty.
[Illustration: THE MUTE REMAINS OF A TRAGEDY OF THE SEA]
STRANDING OF THE ROBERT E. LEE
On the afternoon of March 9th, 1928, a northeast wind pushed in from
the sea and by five P. M. it had developed into a howling gale with
blinding snow. Out from her home dock at India Wharf in Boston the big
passenger and freight boat _Robert E. Lee_ pulled out for her trip to
New York, via the Cape Cod Canal. The storm instead of diminishing grew
constantly worse, but she ploughed her way through the wildly rushing
sea, and though only two miles from the beach along the Manomet and
Sandwich shores not a glimpse could be had of the land through the snow
filled air, and navigation became a matter of dead reckoning and a hope
to pick up the lighthouse at the Cape Cod Bay entrance of the Canal.
When the ship had reached a point about two miles from the Canal
entrance she crashed with terrific force upon the rocks of a projecting
ledge and was there held fast on the “Mary Ann Rocks,” a short distance
south of the Manomet Coast Guard station. This found the _Robert Lee_
in a most dangerous position, where the great seas driving straight
across Cape Cod Bay swept the ship from stem to stern. The ship carried
150 passengers and a crew of 110.
S. O. S. calls were quickly sent out and Coast Guard and Naval boats
hurried to the scene.
The Coast Guard boats from Gurnet, Manomet, Sandwich and Provincetown
were promptly brought into service, but as the conditions of wind
and sea were so dangerous it was not deemed advisable to attempt the
transfer of the passengers from the stranded ship just then.
Towards morning the fury of the gale having subsided the work of taking
off the passengers began, and was successfully accomplished a few hours
later with no serious mishap to the passengers and the ship’s crew
remained on board. But the affair was not to escape without the tragedy
of the loss of human lives.
The Coast Guard boat of the Manomet Station in trying to make
connection with the stranded steamer, was caught under the bow by a
huge sea that swept fiercely around the counter of the _Lee_, turned
the boat completely over and sent her crew of eight men helplessly
into the sea, four of them clung desperately to the overturned boat,
the other four struck out in an attempt to reach the shore, but those
clinging to the boat and those fighting for the shore were finally
rescued. But those from the overturned boat were so thoroughly chilled
and exhausted that they were immediately hurried to Chelsea Hospital
where three of them died.
If there are people who think that the men who man the stations along
our storm swept coasts have a sinecure, would they like to have been in
the Manomet surf boat that day?
Many names of heroes are emblazoned upon the scroll of human endeavor
the world over but there are deeds equally as deserving of record that
pass unnoticed and unsung.
The recent disaster on the rocks at Manomet brought prominently before
us several instances of unselfish heroism, not on bloody fields of
battle, but in the freezing waters of the cruel sea.
Not detracting in the least from the brave efforts of the Coast
Guardsmen, three of whom gave up their lives in the struggle, or the
men and boy who pushed out in small and leaking boats to help, there
was one case of glorious heroism that stands out preeminently, and
whose name should stand high up on the roll of honor, and that is
Ernest Douglas, a man unskilled in the use of boats, but he stripped
from his clothing his money and watch, handed them to a friend, and as
he sprang into the surf boat to take the place of an absent member of
the Surf Boat crew, called back to his friend on shore, “If I do not
come back give them to my wife.”
We are glad to record that he did come back safely.
[Illustration]
[Illustration: (logo on back cover)]
Transcriber’s Notes
Punctuation, hyphenation, and spelling were made consistent when a
predominant preference was found in the original book; otherwise they
were not changed.
Dialect spellings were not changed.
Simple typographical errors were corrected; unbalanced quotation
marks were remedied when the change was obvious, and otherwise left
unbalanced.
Illustrations in this eBook have been positioned between paragraphs
and outside quotations. In versions of this eBook that support
hyperlinks, the page references in the List of Illustrations lead to
the corresponding illustrations.