THE PLOT AGAINST THE RESCUE SHIPS
GERMAN SUBMARINES PREVENTED RESCUE OF LUSITANIA PASSENGERS -- STORY OF
ETONIAN’S CAPTAIN -- DODGED TWO SUBMARINES -- NARRAGANSETT DRIVEN OFF
-- TORPEDO FIRED AT NARRAGANSETT.
From the lips of Captain Turner, of the Lusitania, and from several of
the survivors the world has heard the story of the sudden appearance
among the débris and the dead of the sunken liner, of the German
submarine that had fired the torpedo which sent almost 1,200
non-combatants, hundreds of them helpless women and children, and among
them more than a hundred American citizens, to their deaths. But it
remained for the captain of the steamship Etonian, arriving at Boston on
May 18, to add the crowning touch to the tragedy.
Captain William F. Wood, of the Etonian, specifically charged that two
German submarines deliberately prevented him from going to the rescue of
the Lusitania’s passengers after he had received the liner’s wireless S.
O. S. call, and when he was but forty miles or so away, and might have
rendered great assistance to the hundreds of victims.
Captain Wood charged further that two other ships, both within the same
distance of the Lusitania when she sank, were warned off by submarines,
and that when the nearest one, the Narragansett, bound for New York,
persisted in the attempt to proceed to the rescue of the Lusitania’s
passengers, a submarine fired a torpedo at her, which missed the
Narragansett by only a few feet.
STORY OF ETONIAN’S CAPTAIN
The Etonian is a freight-carrying steamship, owned by the
Wilson-Furness-Leyland lines, and under charter to the Cunard Line. She
sailed from Liverpool on May 6. Captain Wood’s story, as he told it
without embellishment and in the most positive terms, was as follows:
“We had left Liverpool without unusual incident, and it was two o’clock
on the afternoon of Friday, May 7, that we received the S. O. S. call
from the Lusitania. Her wireless operator sent this message: ‘We are ten
miles south of Kinsale. Come at once.’
“I was then about forty-two miles from the position he gave me. Two
other steamships were ahead of me, going in the same direction. They
were the Narragansett and the City of Exeter. The Narragansett was
closer to the Lusitania, and she answered the S. O. S. call.
“At 5 P. M. I observed the City of Exeter across our bow and she
signaled, ‘Have you heard anything of the disaster?’
“At that very moment I saw the periscope of a submarine between the
Etonian and the City of Exeter. The submarine was about a quarter of a
mile directly ahead of us. She immediately dived as soon as she saw us
coming for her. I distinctly saw the splash in the water caused by her
submerging.
[Illustration: CHARGING THROUGH BARBED-WIRE ENTANGLEMENTS.
The King’s Regiment of the British Army suffered heavily while trying to
penetrate the enemy’s wire entanglement at Givenchy. Three lines of a
perfect thicket of barbed-wire lay between them and the enemy. Only one
brave officer even managed to penetrate the wire. (_Il. L. News
copr._)]
[Illustration: A LAND MINE EXPLODED UNDERNEATH A SECTION OF THE ENEMY’S
TRENCHES.
A method which has been known to blow forty men to pieces at once. By
sapping and mining the gallery was dug almost to the enemy’s trenches
underground and explosives placed, which were then fired by electric
wire. The explosion hurled a piece of railroad iron weighing twenty-five
pounds a distance of over a mile. (_Il. L. News copr._)]
DODGED TWO SUBMARINES
“I signaled to the engine room for every available inch of speed, and
there was a prompt response. Then we saw the submarine come up astern of
us with the periscope in line afterward. I now ordered full speed ahead,
and we left the submarine slowly behind. The periscope remained in sight
about twenty minutes. Our speed was perhaps two miles an hour better
than the submarine could do.
“No sooner had we lost sight of the submarine astern than I made out
another on the starboard bow. This one was directly ahead and on the
surface, not submerged. I starboarded hard away from him, he swinging as
we did. About eight minutes later he submerged. I continued at top speed
for four hours, and saw no more of the submarines. It was the ship’s
speed that saved her. That’s all.
“Both these submarines were long craft, and the second one had wireless
masts. There is no question in my mind that these two submarines were
acting in concert and were so placed as to torpedo any ship that might
attempt to go to the rescue of the passengers of the Lusitania.
“As a matter of fact, the Narragansett, as soon as she heard the S. O.
S. call, went to the assistance of the Lusitania. One of the submarines
discharged a torpedo at her and missed her by a few feet. The
Narragansett then warned us not to attempt to go to the rescue of the
Lusitania, and I got her wireless call while I was dodging the two
submarines. You can see that three ships would have gone to the
assistance of the Lusitania had it not been for the two submarines.
“These German craft were, it seems to me, deliberately stationed off Old
Head of Kinsale, at a point where all ships have got to pass, for the
express purpose of preventing any assistance being given to the
passengers of the Lusitania.”
NARRAGANSETT DRIVEN OFF
That the British tank steamer Narragansett, one of the vessels that
caught the distress signal of the Lusitania, was also driven off her
rescue course by a torpedo from a submarine when she arrived within
seven miles of the spot where the Lusitania went down, an hour and
three-quarters after she caught the wireless call for help, was alleged
by the officers of the tanker, which arrived at Bayonne, N. J., on the
same day that the Etonian reached Boston.
The story told by the officers of the Narragansett corroborated the
statements made by officers of the Etonian. They said that submarines
were apparently scouting the sea to drive back rescue vessels when the
Lusitania fell a victim to another undersea craft.
The Lusitania’s call for help was received by the Narragansett at two
o’clock on the afternoon of May 7, according to wireless operator Talbot
Smith, who said the message read: “Strong list. Come quick.”
When the Narragansett received the message she was thirty-five miles
southeast of the Lusitania, having sailed from Liverpool the preceding
afternoon at five o’clock for Bayonne. The message was delivered quickly
to Captain Charles Harwood, and he ordered the vessel to put on full
steam and increase her speed from eleven to fourteen knots. The
Narragansett changed her course and started in the direction of the
sinking ship.
TORPEDO FIRED AT NARRAGANSETT
Second Officer John Letts, who was on the bridge, said he sighted the
periscope of a submarine at 3.35 o’clock, and almost at the same instant
he saw a torpedo shooting through the water. The torpedo, according to
the second officer, was traveling at great speed.
It shot past the Narragansett, missing the stem by hardly thirty feet,
and disappeared. The periscope of the submarine went out of sight at the
same time, but the captain of the Narragansett decided not to take any
chance, changed the course of his vessel so that the stern pointed
directly toward the spot where the periscope was last sighted, and,
after steering straight ahead for some distance, followed a somewhat
zigzag course until he was out of the immediate submarine territories.
Captain Harwood abandoned all thought of the Lusitania’s call for help,
because he thought it was a decoy message sent out to trap the
Narragansett into the submarine’s path.
“My opinion,” said Second Officer Letts, “is that submarines were
scattered around that territory to prevent any vessel that received the
S. O. S. call of the Lusitania from going to her assistance.”
When attacked by the submarine the Narragansett had out her log,
according to Second Officer Letts, and the torpedo passed under the line
to which it was attached. The torpedo was fired from the submarine when
the undersea boat was within two hundred yards of the tanker.
The Narragansett when turned back had not sighted the wreck of the
Lusitania, and her officers, who were led to believe the S. O. S. was a
decoy, did not learn of the sinking of the Cunarder until the following
morning at two o’clock.
The Narragansett, under charter to the Standard Oil Company, is one of
the largest tank steamships afloat. She is 540 feet long, has a
sixty-foot beam, and 12,500 tons displacement.