And here is the story of the daring enterprise, one of the most
extraordinary of naval exploits, told by Captain Lieutenant Otto
Weddigen, Commander of _U-9_. He was 32 years old at the time, and for
the five years preceding had been attached to the submarine flotilla.
He was married but twenty-four hours to his boyhood sweetheart, a Miss
Prete of Hamburg, before he set out on the adventure that offered more
than an even chance of making the bride a widow. Besides himself there
were twenty-five men in the _U-9_ and they were a picked crew.
Weddigen’s own story of the cruise, first published in the United
States by the New York _World_, was in part as follows:
“I set out from a North Sea port on one of the arms of the Kiel Canal
and set my course in a southwesterly direction. The name of the port I
cannot state officially, but it has been guessed at; nor am I permitted
to say definitely just when we started, but it was not many days before
the morning of Sept. 22, when I fell in with my quarry.
“When I started from home the fact was kept quiet and a heavy sea
helped to keep the secret, but when the action began the sun was bright
and the water smooth.
“I had sighted several ships during my passage, but they were not what
I was seeking. English torpedo boats came within, my reach, but I felt
there was bigger game further on, so on I went. I traveled on the
surface except when we sighted vessels, and then I submerged, not even
showing my periscope, except when it was necessary to take bearings. It
was ten minutes after 6 on the morning of Tuesday when I caught sight
of one of the big cruisers of the enemy.
“I was then eighteen sea miles northwest of the Hook of Holland. I had
then traveled considerably more than 200 miles from my base. My boat
was one of an old type, but she had been built on honor, and she was
behaving beautifully. I had been going ahead partly submerged, with
about five feet of my periscope showing. Almost immediately I caught
sight of the first cruiser and two others. I submerged completely and
laid my course so as to bring up in the center of the trio, which held
a sort of triangular formation. I could see their gray-black sides
riding high over the water.
“When I first sighted them they were near enough for torpedo work,
but I wanted to make my aim sure, so I went down and in on them. I
had taken the position of the three ships before submerging, and I
succeeded in getting another flash through my periscope before I began
action. I soon reached what I regarded as a good shooting point.”
[The officer was not permitted to give this distance, but it is
understood to have been considerably less than a mile, although the
German torpedoes had an effective range of four miles.]