PIRATE CONVERTED.

Auckland Star, Volume LXI, Issue 69, 22 March 1930, Page 3 (Supplement)

PIRATE CONVERTED.

PRAYED BEFORE EXECUTION. DRAMATIC CHASE. One of the most amazing chapters in the history of piracy on the high seas has been brought to its close by the carrying out of the death sentence on a notorious rum-runner, who fought a desperate standup battle with the coastguard officials before he was finally overpowered and captured. Known aa the "Gulf Pirate," James Horace Alderman, former fishing guide and "racketeer," died on the scaffold at the Coast Guard Base at Fort Lauderdale, United States, without confessing his crime. His last hours, however, were remarkable for his conversion to religion by his wife and family. No more dangerous buccaneer ever roamed the high seas than Alderman. For over seven years he had evaded the Coastal officials —rum-running at the Bahamas, smuggling, and risking capture almost every time his highly powered boat nosed its way out to sea. And then suddenly his career terminated in the swift drama that resulted in his capture. Alderman and his second in command, Robert E. Weech, were returning from the Bahamas with a cargo of liquor , when he ran foul of a coastguard patrol boat which rapidly overhauled him. The cutter drew alongside and the coastguard men came aboard. Alderman offered no opposition. But when the officer in charge, Sydney Sanderlin, turned to walk to the pilot house to wireless the news of his capture to the officials on shore the pirate promptly drew his revolver and shot him dead. Another coastguardsman named Lamby whipped out his automatic, presented it at Alderman's head, but the

cartridge missed fire. The next second he was lying on his back with a bullet in his chest and face. Taking Sanderlin's revolver, the pirate commanded the other guardsman on board and a man named Webster, a Secret Service official, to stick up their hands. He then ordered his henchman to unfasten the fuel pipes in the Government vessel with a view to forcing the two officials into it and setting it on fire. Throwing discretion to the winds, Webster made a mad rush and closed in with the pirate. He was stopped by a bullet which sent him toppling to earth in a dying condition. Other coast guardsmen swarme'd on the pirate with fists and gun butts, and he was overpowered and manacled. In gaol, awaiting the carrying out of the sentence, Alderman was a changed man. A few hours before his death he was singing hymns and praying in the company of his wife and children.