One day in the first week of March, 1918, a small Belgian fishing smack
was sighted by a German U-boat and was fired upon without the slightest
warning. Her masts and sails were shot away, and the skipper was
severely wounded. The smack carried a crew of only four men, three of
whom entered their small boat and endeavored to persuade the skipper to
come with them; but he was so badly injured that he refused to leave.
He, however, urged his men to save their own lives. Meanwhile the
submarine had come closer to its prey, and a German officer called to
the men in the small boat to convey a couple of German sailors on board
the smack, in order that they might sink her with bombs. The Germans
proceeded to board the smack, and then, finding the wounded skipper, one
of them drew his revolver and shot the helpless man dead through the
head. The dastardly act was committed in full view of the Belgian
fishermen, one of whom was the unfortunate skipper's son. Having placed
their bombs in position, the Germans returned to the submarine and cast
the remaining three Belgians adrift in their cockleshell of a boat
without food or water, and with no means of reaching land, from the
nearest point of which they were twenty miles distant. The unfortunate
men suffered severely from cold and hunger before they were picked up by
a British patrol boat.