WHEN THE ANTILLES WENT DOWN
For more than three months the _Corsair_ had been escorting transports
and supply steamers to and fro, in an area of ocean where the hostile
submarines cruised incessantly. Not a ship in all these unwieldy
convoys had been torpedoed, and the few hard-driven yachts could feel,
without boasting, that they were doing their bit to keep the road open
to France. It was unreasonable to expect, however, that the record
could be kept wholly clear of disaster. The fortune of war was not as
kind as this.
The unhappy event occurred without warning on October 17th when the
transport _Antilles_, a fine, seven-thousand-ton steamer of the
Southern Pacific Company, was sent to the bottom with many of her
people. It was no fault of the escort, for there was never a sight of
a periscope nor any other indication that a submarine was near. The
_Corsair_ did what she could and did it well, saving survivors from the
sea with the readiness and courage that might have been expected.
The convoy had sailed from Saint-Nazaire two days earlier, waiting at
Quiberon for one of the ships to join. With the _Antilles_ were the
_Henderson_ and the _Willehad_. The escort comprised the _Corsair,
phrodite_, and the _Kanawha_, which replaced the _Wakiva_ after this
smaller yacht had returned to port because of leaky rivets in the main
boiler. With the circumstances as they were, no better protection could
have been given this small convoy of three transports. The Queenstown
destroyers were employed in guarding the laden ships inward bound,
meeting them far offshore, but the American Patrol Force in France
had to take them to sea again as best it could, with the yachts and
whatever aid the French Navy was able to offer.
The small flotilla of coal-burning destroyers which was sent to base on
Brest had not yet arrived and was _en route_ from the Azores. Captain
W. B. Fletcher, who commanded the Patrol Force at this time, and who
was superseded by Admiral Wilson a little later, received a certain
amount of adverse criticism because of the loss of the _Antilles_, but
the fact is evident that he had taken all the precautions within his
power to send this convoy safely through the danger zone.
[Illustration: ENGINEERING FORCE OF THE CORSAIR]
[Illustration: LIEUTENANT J. J. PATTERSON, ENGINEER OFFICER, AND HIS
HUSKY “BLACK GANG”]
The three transports and the three large yachts proceeded without
incident until the morning of the second day at sea, when a freshening
wind kicked up a boisterous sea and the _Kanawha_ found herself in
trouble. She was taking the water green over her bows and the decks
were flooded. To avoid being seriously battered, she was compelled
to reduce speed, and, to make matters worse, the weather was growing
rougher and a gale threatened. Unable to maintain the standard speed
of the convoy, which slowed down, for a little while, to nine knots
in order to let the _Kanawha_ attempt to regain position, her captain
signalled for permission to part company and return to port. This was
granted, as the heavy weather had made her of no service to the convoy.
Thereafter the formation was maintained in this wise:
Corsair O O Alcedo
O Henderson
Antilles O
W
| O Willehad
S—+—N
|
E
The third day out, October 17th, dawned clear with a moderate wind
from the southwest and a disturbed sea covered with whitecaps. The
ships were zigzagging, with all lookouts properly kept and gunners at
their stations. The _Antilles_ had her own battery which was manned by
a detachment of the Naval Armed Guard. Early in the morning, at 6.45,
she was steaming directly astern of the _Corsair_ during one of the
frequent changes of course. The light was still poor, and it was this
hour, before the sunrise had brightened the sea, which the submarines
had found most favorable for attack.
The _Antilles_ was seen to sheer out to starboard and the _Henderson_
hoisted a signal which could not be read from the bridge of the
_Corsair_, but the yacht swung about on the instant and sounded the
call to general quarters. There was no other indication that the
_Antilles_ had been hit and mortally wounded. Presently she was
settling by the stern. Then the bow rose in air, towered there, and
the ship plunged to the bottom five minutes after a torpedo had ripped
open her engine-room. Smoke and dust and dirty whirlpools marked the
spot where she had been, and the sea was littered with boats and bits
of wreckage and struggling men. On board the _Corsair_ was Commander F.
N. Freeman, as commander of the patrol division to which the _Corsair_
and _Alcedo_ were attached, and his report contained the following
description of the disaster:
No explosion was heard on the _Corsair_, nothing was seen of it,
nor was a submarine sighted. The _Henderson_ immediately turned to
starboard and made a smoke screen, the _Willehad_ turned to port and
from knowledge now at hand apparently passed very nearly over the
submarine that fired the torpedo. The _Alcedo_ turned back to the spot
where the _Antilles_ sank. The _Corsair_ steamed at nineteen knots
directly astern of the _Henderson_ and to the northeast, followed by
the _Alcedo_. These two escorting vessels continued in the vicinity of
the wreckage until 8.30 A.M. No sign of the submarine was seen.
During all this time the _Alcedo_ was picking up survivors while
the _Corsair_ continued circling around the boats and wreckage. The
_Corsair_ assisted in picking up the survivors in outlying boats and
patrolling the vicinity until 10.30 A.M. All survivors having been
rescued, and it being impossible to overhaul either the _Henderson_ or
the _Willehad_ before nightfall, we set course for Brest.
The total number of persons on board the _Antilles_ was 237. The
number rescued by the _Corsair_ was 50, by the _Alcedo_ 117—total
rescued, 167.
It is believed that every man on the _Antilles_ who got into the water
alive with life-belt on was rescued. Attention is invited to the
excellent work of the _Alcedo_ and _Corsair_ in picking up survivors
who were in the boats, on wreckage and life-rafts, floating over an
area of several square miles. The _Corsair_ picked up fifty persons
from outlying wreckage and lifeboats without lowering a boat. The sea
at this time was getting rough.
Officers from the _Antilles_ have informed me that there was a
fire on board the ship during the early morning, just before dawn,
and that nearly all hands had turned out. This may account for the
comparatively small loss of life, as the _Antilles_ sank in seven
minutes or less. It is not known whether the lights which had been
turned on at the time of the fire were visible from outboard, and
whether this has anything to do with the submarine attack. The
_Corsair_ reported no lights on the _Antilles_. The statements of the
survivors are that several of them had seen the torpedo just before it
struck the ship. It is worthy of mention that the conduct and bearing
of the Armed Guard were a credit to the service.
No visual signals of any kind were made by the _Corsair_ or _Alcedo_
after nightfall at any time, and only one PDL flash-light signal
was noted in the convoy. Only one radio signal was made and that at
low power to the _Henderson_ in thick weather, at night. Commanding
officers were all thoroughly indoctrinated before getting under way in
regard to the course, zigzagging, etc., and the escort vessels were
unusually alert and attentive.
The senior naval officer on board the _Antilles_ was Commander Daniel
T. Ghent whose report to the Navy Department contained many incidents
of interest in the story of the _Corsair_. Of the sixty-seven men who
perished with the ship, he stated that forty-five of them belonged
to the merchant crew, four were members of the armed guard, sixteen
were soldiers who had been sent home, one was an ambulance driver, and
one a colored stevedore. It was strange that the detonation of the
torpedo was unheard by the escort vessels and that there was no visible
disturbance, for on board the _Antilles_, according to Commander
Ghent, the explosion was terrific. The ship shivered from stern to
stem, listing immediately to port. One of the lookouts in the maintop,
although protected by a canvas screen about five feet high, was hurled
clear of this screen and killed when he struck the hatch below.
[Illustration: A BOAT-LOAD OF SURVIVORS FROM THE ANTILLES COMING
ALONGSIDE]
[Illustration: NAVAL OFFICERS RESCUED FROM THE ANTILLES, WITH GENERAL
McNAIR, U.S.A., IN THE CENTRE]
The explosion wrecked everything in the engine-room, including the ice
machine and dynamo, and almost instantly flooded the compartment. The
engine-room was filled with ammonia fumes and with the high-pressure
gasses from the torpedo, and it is believed that every one on duty
there was either instantly killed or disabled, excepting one
oiler. This man happened to be on the upper gratings at the time.
He tried to escape through the engine-room door but found it jammed
and the knob blown off. Unable to force the door and finding that
he was being overcome by the gases and ammonia fumes, he managed to
escape through the engine-room skylight just as the ship was going
under. Within a few seconds after the explosion, the water was over
the crossheads of the main engines which were still turning over
slowly. Of the twenty-one men on duty in the engine and fire rooms,
only three escaped. Besides the oiler, two firemen crawled up through
a ventilator. The fact that the engines could not be stopped and the
headway checked, added to the difficulty of abandoning ship.
That only four boats out of ten succeeded in getting clear was due to
this and several other causes,—the short time the ship stayed afloat,
which was four and a half minutes by my watch, the rough sea, the
heavy list, and the destruction of boats by the explosion. When there
was no one left in sight on the decks, I went aft on the saloon deck
where several men were struggling in the water near No. 5 boat and
making no attempt to swim away from the side of the ship. I thought
that they might be induced to get clear before the suction carried
them down. By this time, however, the ship which was listed over at an
angle of forty-five degrees, started to upend and go down. This motion
threw me across the deck where I was washed overboard.
The behavior of the naval personnel was equal to the best traditions
of the service. The two forward gun’s crews, in command of Lieutenant
Tisdale, remained at their gun stations while the ship went down
and made no effort to leave their stations until ordered to save
themselves. Radio Electrician Ausburne went down with the ship while
at his station in the radio-room. When the ship was struck, Ausburne
and McMahon were asleep in adjacent bunks opposite the radio-room.
Ausburne, realizing the seriousness of the situation, told McMahon to
get his life-preserver on, saying, as he left to take his station at
the radio key, “Good-bye, Mac.” McMahon, later finding the radio-room
locked and seeing the ship was sinking, tried to get Ausburne out, but
failed.
The _Corsair_ and _Alcedo_ returned to the scene of the accident and
circled about for two hours when the _Alcedo_ began the rescue of the
survivors, the _Corsair_ continuing to look for the submarine. Too
much credit cannot be given to the officers and men of the _Corsair_
and _Alcedo_ for their rescue work and for their whole-heartedness and
generosity in succoring the needs of the survivors. The work of the
medical officers attached to these yachts was worthy of highest praise.
It is one of the many black marks against the sinister record of the
German submarine campaign that the naval vessels with a convoy in
such a catastrophe as this were compelled to delay the rescue of the
survivors—dazed, wounded, helpless men in the last struggle for life.
It was possible that the submarine might come up to gloat over the
murder it had wrought, or attempt to take prisoners, or even to ram
the lifeboats or turn a machine gun on the struggling wretches, as had
happened more than once. Therefore, in this instance the _Corsair_ and
_Alcedo_ steamed at full speed, dropping depth charges and manœuvring
to avoid torpedo attack while they scouted to drive away or destroy the
ambushed U-boat.
As soon as it seemed advisable, they closed in and undertook the work
of saving life, the _Corsair_ still circling the outer edge of the area
because of her superior speed. One of her crew described the scene in
this manner:
It should be noted that although the _Corsair_ spent most of her time
looking for the submarine, she picked up a large number of survivors
and without putting over a boat. One of these rescues was that of a
lad who was riding upon an ammunition box. When the _Corsair_ was
brought alongside him, he began to semaphore us to keep off, and then
he shouted to steer clear and go easy because he had a cargo of shells
and didn’t want to blow up our ship. When we hoisted him aboard, he
begged us to fetch his salvaged ammunition along, as he didn’t think
it ought to be wasted. I doubt if he had many shells in the box, but
he surely did show the right spirit, and the men agreed that he was
“one game little guy.”
Shortly before we picked up this fine young bantam, we took aboard a
loaded life-raft, under our starboard side. It was a delicate piece of
seamanship, with a troublesome sea running, and the commander let our
executive, Captain Porter, show what he could do with the yacht. The
men of the _Antilles_ owed a lot to the skill with which the _Corsair_
was handled that morning.
One of the merchant crew of the _Antilles_ had climbed upon the
upturned bow of a broken boat and was seated astride the stern. Every
wave was breaking over his head and he clung to his precarious perch
with his arms and legs, like a jockey wrapped around the neck of a
runaway horse. How he managed to stick there was a puzzle. He had
drifted several hundred yards clear of the rest of the wreckage but
our executive had an eye on him. “Skipper, I think we had better
circle around again,” said Captain Kittinger. The “skipper” (Porter)
replied that he would like to “go get that fellow first,” pointing to
the man on the piece of boat. “Go ahead, skipper,” was the answer, and
before the yacht swung off to fetch another circle we steered close
to this lonely castaway and tossed him the bight of a heaving-line.
He grabbed it with a death grip and we hauled him over the rail, but
he was almost unconscious from cold and exhaustion and we had to pry
his fingers open to make him let go the line. The doctor scored an
“assist” on this rescue.
These unfortunates had been flung into the sea in a moment, some of
them scrambling half-dressed from their bunks. They became chilled to
the bone, half-strangled in the breaking waves, worn out with trying to
cling to overturned boats, submerged live-rafts, doors and hatches and
benches, the flotsam spewed up by the stricken ship as she dived under.
Some of them swam from overloaded rafts to find help elsewhere, or
floundered without life-belts until gallant comrades lent them a hand.
It was a dreadful business, new to the _Corsair_ and _Alcedo_; but all
too familiar to the maritime annals of the war.
[Illustration: THE ANTILLES CROWDED WITH TROOPS ON HER LAST VOYAGE TO
FRANCE]
[Illustration: THE ALCEDO PICKS UP THE ANTILLES SURVIVORS]
It is not easy to quench a sailor’s sense of humor even in the presence
of death and disaster, and Ensign Schanze wrote, in a letter to his
mother:
The commander of a supply ship bound to New York promised me that he
would look Dad up if he could possibly do so, and tell you how I was
getting on. His ship was in our party on the morning the _Antilles_
was torpedoed, and maybe he got sore at us for letting a submarine
scare the wits out of him. Our yacht had to stop and fish a lot of
very wet citizens out of the ocean, and the last view I had of his
ship was in a great cloud of smoke, and he was crowding on full speed
to make his get-away. He was going like a scared rabbit. He never even
waved good-bye.
Another gentleman who promised to call on Dad was a naval officer in
charge of the gun crew of the _Antilles_. I yanked him out of the
ocean and helped make him at home on the _Corsair_ during the time
between the sinking of the ship and the return to our base.
The fifty survivors saved by the _Corsair_ found a warm-hearted
welcome. Nothing was too good for them. They were promptly thawed out
in the cabins and engine-room and tucked into bunks, while the crew,
as a committee of the whole, ransacked their bags and boxes for spare
clothing. They were ready and eager to give the shirts off their
backs, and some of them actually did so. Every man who needed it was
comfortably rigged in the togs of Uncle Sam’s Navy and told to go
ashore with the clothes. You may be sure that such treatment warmed the
cockles of the hearts of these forlorn derelicts from the _Antilles_
and that they cheered the _Corsair_ before they left her.
The yacht’s officers made room in their own quarters for the officers
picked up from the _Antilles_. These included Brigadier-General W.
S. McNair, of the United States Army; Lieutenant Commander Ghent,
Lieutenant J. D. Smith, and Lieutenant R. D. Tisdale, of the Navy;
Chief Officer A. G. Clancy, Third Officer R. M. Christensen, Assistant
Engineer L. L. Rue, and Purser W. C. Gilbert. They were most cordial in
their expressions of appreciation of the kindness and good-fellowship
which they had found in the yacht during the voyage back to Brest.
A dramatic bit of gossip went the rounds of the _Corsair_ after she
reached port. A steward of the _Antilles_ had been among those rescued
and he was heartily disliked aboard the yacht, the one exception in the
shipwrecked company. He was a Spaniard, by name and complexion, and he
displayed a curiosity which the _Corsair’s_ crew called “nosey.” He
was discovered poking about in all sorts of places. Attempting to take
a look at the radio-room, he was tersely told to beat it or have his
block knocked off. The Executive Officer chased him away from the after
quarters, where he appeared to be interested in the stateroom occupied
by General McNair. Thereafter the movements of this gimlet-eyed
passenger were vigilantly restricted.
The word came later from Saint-Nazaire that he had been arrested by
the French authorities and shot as a notorious spy. The inference was
that he had been endeavoring to slip away to the United States in the
_Antilles_ when fate returned him to the secret intelligence service
which had information against him, and he was trapped by the heels. His
last words as he faced the firing squad, so the _Corsair_ story ran,
were that the German submarines would get the _Finland_ on her next
trip home, just as they had intercepted and sunk the _Antilles_. This
was peculiarly interesting, because after coaling ship and taking on
stores, the _Corsair_ was ordered to escort a convoy which was expected
to sail from Saint-Nazaire on October 24th. The transports were the
_Buford_, _City of Savannah_, and the _Finland_.
The flotilla of coal-burning destroyers had arrived from the Azores
to reinforce the yachts of the Breton Patrol, and four of them were
assigned to this escort, the _Lamson_, _Flusser_, _Preston_, and
_Smith_. The yachts _Alcedo_ and _Wakiva_ were also detailed to join
the group, and no previous convoy outward bound had been so heavily
protected as this. The loss of the _Antilles_ had aroused excitement in
the United States because of the false report that the attack had been
made by a whole flock of submarines. This was one of those hair-raising
newspaper yarns of war-time which would have been important if true.
Steaming out to sea, the _Corsair_ led the imposing column, with a
destroyer on each bow of the _Finland_, the _Alcedo_ to starboard of
the _Buford_, the _Wakiva_ to port, and a destroyer hovering on each
quarter of the _City of Savannah_. There had been no intimation of
danger other than the fanciful rumor of the prediction made by the
suddenly deceased steward of the _Antilles_ and the routine warning
included in the Force orders, “Enemy submarines operating in war zone
as usual.”
At 9.25 A.M., one day out from port, the _Finland_ was struck by a
torpedo on the starboard side. Again there was no sign of a submarine.
This time, however, the _Corsair_ heard the explosion and saw a huge
column of water spout up against the ship. But the _Finland_ had no
intention of sinking and merely slowed down, then halted, blowing off
steam as though waiting for the other transports to catch up with
her. As seen from the _Corsair_, she rode on an even keel and it was
impossible to realize that a torpedo had torn a hole thirty-five feet
wide in her side, into which the sea was gushing like a cataract.
On board the _Finland_ were many of the survivors of the _Antilles_ and
they were in no mood for an encore. They set the pace for the crew of
the _Finland_ in the race to abandon ship and the big transport seemed
fairly to spill boats and men from every deck. They were dropping
overboard before she had wholly slackened way. It was an amazing
spectacle. At a distance the _Finland_ made one think of shaking apples
from a tree.
[Illustration: THE CORSAIR DROPS A MINE AND SHAKES UP FRITZ]
Several of us were standing by the engine-room hatch [wrote
Quartermaster Augustus Smith of the _Corsair_], watching the _Finland_
as she steamed along in that very slow convoy. We were discussing
her chances of getting through, and the story that the U-boats were
laying for her, when suddenly a white burst of water rose under
her bridge and climbed to the top of the foremast. It seemed to be
followed by a pillar of dark smoke. At the same time the _Corsair_ was
fairly lifted out of the sea by the force of the explosion. All hands
made a run for battle stations without waiting for the call.
The first boat from the _Finland_ was dangling from the davits,
half-filled with men, when somebody either cut or let go the forward
falls. The bow of this big whaleboat crashed down to the water,
dumping most of them out. A few managed to hang on and were struggling
desperately when the after falls carried away and the boat dropped
upon the heads of the men already in the sea. The next boat reached
the water only to be up-ended by the headway of the ship. Other boats
then waited for the ship to lose way and these got clear all right,
but we saw one or two more upset and smashed.
When Commander Freeman, then on the _Corsair_ as division commander,
realized that the _Finland_ was not sinking, he semaphored the message:
“Do you think you can make Saint-Nazaire?”
The answer came right back from the _Finland’s_ skipper:
“_Why not New York?_”
The _Corsair_ cracked on speed to search for the submarine, instructing
the _Wakiva_ and _Alcedo_ to aid the _Finland’s_ people who were adrift
in boats or upon rafts. Three destroyers proceeded on the voyage with
the two other transports while the fourth destroyer remained to
operate with the _Corsair_. Investigation had disclosed the fact that
the _Finland_ was able to move under her own steam and the task in
hand was to put the crew back on board and escort her into Brest for
repairs. Meanwhile the _Corsair_, in quest of the enemy, was letting a
real barrage of depth charges slide over her stern, and her wake was
one thundering geyser after another. Eleven of these bombs jarred her
rivets when they went off, and if a man had any loose teeth in his head
he was liable to lose them entirely. Alas, no _débris_, such as dead
German sailors, rose to the surface.
The report of the senior naval officer of the _Finland_, Captain
Stephen V. Graham, is a lucid narrative and it is worth while to let
him tell the tale:
Due to the congested condition at the port of debarkation, which
was often serious in the early days of our transport service, the
_Finland_ had been unable to accompany the group of fast troop
transports to which she belonged and which had proceeded on the return
voyage about two weeks earlier. On this occasion she was in company
with two freight transports of the armed-guard category which were
not able to make more than eleven knots, but the three vessels had
an escort of four destroyers and three converted yachts, which was
uncommonly large at that time when the demand exceeded the supply.
It was frequently necessary for the _Finland_ to slow down to such a
speed as would enable an enemy submarine to take a favorable position
for attack.
By daylight of October 28th the convoy had reached a position near the
line extending from the island of Ushant to Cape Finisterre, which
experience had shown to be a particularly dangerous area. From that
time on, the senior naval officer of the _Finland_ remained on the
bridge constantly and all the lookouts were exercising the utmost
vigilance.
The weather was cloudy and a moderate sea running, and I was engaged
in searching the water on both sides with powerful binoculars. I had
just finished gazing at the starboard side when the naval signal
quartermaster on watch called out, “Commander! Torpedo!” I turned and
saw a torpedo about fifty or a hundred yards distant making a surface
run directly toward the ship. The whirring of the torpedo’s propellers
could be heard when they broke the surface of the water. To avoid it
was impossible. The effect of the explosion was considerable but not
as great as had been anticipated. No one on the bridge was injured.
I directed a radio operator to send out an S.O.S. call but it was
found that the aerial had been carried away by the force of the
explosion. The first report that reached the bridge was that the
forward fire-room was flooded. At this time it did not appear probable
that the ship would sink but in a short time she began to list to
starboard and seemed to be settling. I ordered the lowering of the
remaining boats which were hanging on their falls at the level of the
promenade deck. These boats were scarcely in the water when the ship
began to right herself, and the acting master, Chief Officer John
Jensen, who had gone below to investigate the extent of the damage,
returned to the bridge and reported to me that the destruction was
confined to No. 4 hold, the bulkheads of which were intact.
In the meantime I observed Third Assistant Engineer George Mikkelson
who had been on watch in the engine-room when the torpedo struck the
ship, moving about the main deck with a wooden mallet in his hand and
endeavoring to drive the frightened firemen back to their stations.
He came to the bridge and reported to me that the boilers and engines
were not damaged and that the ship could be got under way again in a
short time if the men could be induced to go to work.
The damaged compartment, just forward of the fire-rooms, was used as a
reserve coal bunker. At that time it contained about six hundred tons
of coal. After the ship had been placed in dry-dock, upon her return
to France, it was found that most of this coal had run out through the
immense hole made in the side by the explosion of the torpedo.
When I received the master’s report that the damage was confined to
this one compartment, I hailed the boats which were close to the
ship and directed them to come alongside and also sent a signal to
the escorting yachts to turn back the _Finland’s_ boats which were
approaching them and tell them to return to the ship. These yachts,
the _Alcedo_ and _Wakiva_, had come close to the _Finland_ and lowered
boats to rescue people who had been cast into the water by the
dropping of two of the _Finland’s_ boats.
The converted yacht _Corsair_ and one of the destroyers were circling
at high speed around the _Finland_ and dropping depth charges in order
to prevent the enemy submarine from delivering a second attack on the
crippled _Finland_.
[Illustration: THE FINLAND, JUST AFTER SHE WAS TORPEDOED]
[Illustration: DESTROYER PRESTON, WHICH WAS CAUGHT IN THE HURRICANE
AND ALSO FOUND REFUGE AT LISBON]
While the _Finland’s_ boats were in the water, a heavy squall came up
and rendered the return of the heavily laden boats very difficult.
They could come close only on the starboard side and getting the
people back on board was very slow work. Hoisting the boats was
not to be thought of, for every moment that this large ship remained
stopped was to risk grave danger of receiving a second torpedo. As
soon as the passengers were aboard, the boats were cast adrift.
The ship got under way to return to the port of Brest, 150 miles
distant. She was escorted by the _Corsair_ and one of the destroyers,
while another destroyer remained with the _Alcedo_ and _Wakiva_ to
afford them protection until they had picked up the rest of the
_Finland’s_ crew. During the return to port it became necessary to
send every one to the fire-room who could shovel coal. Deck-hands,
stewards, and even passengers, including some of the discharged
American ambulance drivers, responded with alacrity to this call and
within a short time after starting ahead the ship was making nearly
fifteen knots, which was about as good speed as she had made at any
time during her employment in the transport service. The bulkheads
of the damaged compartment held and there was no leakage through the
water-tight doors.
It is regrettable that eight men lost their lives. The coolness and
resourcefulness of the acting master and the engineer of the watch
deserve commendation. Cadet Officer David MacLaren was the youngest
officer on board—just eighteen years old. After I had ordered the
boats lowered, this lad, who was in charge of one of them, would have
been justified in leaving the ship which he believed to be sinking,
but he returned to the bridge and reported to me that his boat was
lowered and clear of the ship and asked if he could be of any service.
He stayed on the bridge, giving valuable assistance, and displaying
courage and readiness worthy of the best traditions of the sea.
One of the Navy youngsters was down in the living compartment
cleaning up when the ship was struck. Some one in a boat hanging at
the davits, seeing him hurry along the promenade deck, asked which
boat he belonged in.
“Number Four boat,” he replied.
“This is Number Four. Jump in,” urged the other, and the boy answered:
“Not on your life! I’ve got to go to my gun.”
Unfaltering, the stricken _Finland_ ploughed along at fifteen knots
with a great chasm in her side, while the anxious _Corsair_ and the
destroyer _Smith_ hovered close and felt unspeakable relief when the
Ushant Light was seen on the port bow in the early evening. Before
midnight the _Finland_ had passed through the Raz de Sein and was
safely anchored in Morgat Bay, beyond reach of submarines. Next morning
her escort led her into Brest Harbor and the _Finland_, _Smith_,
and _Corsair_, three weary ships, rested at the mooring buoys. The
_Corsair_ courteously signalled the _Finland_:
The officers and men of the _Corsair_ express their admiration of the
spirit shown by your officers and men in sticking by their ship and
bringing her safely into port.
The _Finland_ gratefully signalled back to the _Corsair_:
Thank you. I congratulate the spirit and efficiency of your command
and thank you for the personal assistance in a trying time.
Ships and men are much alike. Some are tenacious, hard to knock out,
standing punishment, and gallant in adversity. Others crumple under
defeat and surrender at one blow. The _Finland_ had a long record
of faithful and successful service as one of the favorite passenger
steamers of the Red Star Line between New York and Antwerp. She had the
reputation of having lived up to the expectations of her builders. They
had tried to make her a staunch ship that would hang together. When the
cruel test came, the bulkheads stood fast, the water-tight doors did
their duty, and the concussion failed to start the engines from the
bed-plates.
The _Finland_ was placed in dry-dock in France, but mechanics were
scarce and the work dragged. Thereupon the American Army was called
upon, and from the ranks came riveters, structural workers, machinists,
who turned to and repaired the ship in record time. The _Corsair_ had
been spared the unhappiness of seeing this fine ship lost while under
her protection. And of all the ships which went in and out while the
_Corsair_ was engaged in convoy duty, it was her good fortune to behold
only the _Antilles_ sunk by torpedo attack.