U-BOAT CRIMINALS

Dominion, Volume 12, Issue 91, 11 January 1919, Page 8

U-BOAT CRIMINALS

HOW NOTORIOUS COMMANDERS MET . THEIR FATE I SENT TO THE DEEP • '• ' I • ■ •* ' " *' The "Morning Post" recently described somo of the more notorious crimes and the ultimate fate of four of the hundred and fifty German submarines who have and fifty. German submarine commanders who have teen killed or' captured, by our r naval forces. , » V Kapitan-Leutnant Scliwieger, commander oi "U"-20 and later "U"-88, i was responsible for the torpedoing of' tlie tusitania. Ho entered the German Navy in 1903,. and'- was thirty-five' years "of age l at the time he committed his- great crime. Ho lost his life by being mined :in the North .Sea in November last. - The Lusitaoia. It appears that his attack upon the Lusitama was not of,'his own initiating; Lei was selected by -his superiors'as a suit-ablo-officer to carry out a plan devised and prepared-as a part of the deliberate policy of the German Admiralty—that is to say, of the German Government. According to the .evidence wliich-is avail■ablo his success appalled him rather than otherwise; the world's outcry of •horror was audible even in Berlin, and upon-his return there he showed himself little—possibly by order of his superiors. Even his reward was stealthily conferred; it took : the form of the Order of the House of Hohenzollern, the Kaiger's personal decoration. "U'VZO 1 finished obscurely, she stranded in a fog on the Danish -coast in November,- of 1916, and was/blown up by her own crew. ' A year later, Schwiegar, now in command of "U"-88, was groping submerged through a" minefield, -in company, with another "U"-boat. The crew, of the second submarine .suddenly heard an _ explosion and felt the jar of it in their■ own vessel. They tried, with their special signalling devices, to get,into communicationwith' "U"-88, tut failed,, and ; ehe ; never' returned to her base.' r " ■ rhe Belgian /Prince Atrocity. ■ . The officer-vwho " sank ' the Belgian Prince, on July 31, 1917, collected her crew on the- deck of His submarine and then submerged, was Kapitan-leutnarit Paul Wagenfuhr, commanding He was a. little oldejv than Sc'invieger, having entered the service in 1900; the, quality of his work and his successes had been recognised l)y the' Order of the Red Eagle (Roter Adler) and. the Hohenzollorn Order with Swords, but a swift retnbimon was at' hand. . While returning from the very cruise during which he sank the Belgitii Prince- he Encountered a ship-which could fight back. A British destroyer saw him on the surface, headed for him at top speed, and hiean-.-wlule opened fire with evfery gun . that would bear. The submarine,was obviously hit at once, for she failed to submerge m time, and the destroyer succeeded- in ramming, ' 1

Commander Washed Overboard, It is claimed in Germany for KapitanLeutnant Rudolf Schneider,. of, "U"-87 that he sank His Majesty's' ship Formidable and destroyed altogether 130,000 tons of merchant shipping; the claims do not specify the number of defenceless lives that were destroyed with the tonnage. One of the, vessels sunk,-was the\steamship Arabic. Although at this time Germany'had nob arrogated to herself the right to sink all vessels at 'sight, tin© Arabic - was • torpedotyl and Bunk;withotit any warning. . There were 400 souls o'n hoard at the time, but thanks to. the admirable discipline which prevailed'only about one-tenth of this number .was , lost. • In October of last year Schneider was washed overboard from the deck of his p.raft and drowned, and upon her next craws the submarine met a . British patrol-boat in the Irish Sea and was destroyed. It wns Christ, mas Day; phe saw her enemy in time and submerged to escape, 'iVo .pntrolboat, one of those anti-submarine ships, l went to work' according tfl the i-ii]es of this noiv warfare, The' , great, ' depth charges were lw go over and nironnd' the spot whefe, "TJ"-87 had vanished; their terrific, explosions, transmitting themselves undiminished through incompressible : medium of the water, toro her delicate electric ineehantem to pieces and forced her to the surface, The Rima above were waiting, but there was little need for them, for the patrol-boat bore down on her at racing speed, rammed her amidships with a stem like an axe. head, and cut her in half. >Khn sank, gushing oil and air; no. survivors came to thesurface. , ■ < i Richly Dese/ved Doom* The officer who torpedoed the Sussex! in March of 1910 i)'as Qbecleiitnaut-sur-S'eo Herbert Pr.stkuchen, commanding He was younger than the others, mentioned above, having entered tho Navy only in 1908, hut ho had had time, in his brief service, to-earn for himself tho Iron Cross of the First Class and the Order of the House of ilolien. i zollern of the Third Class. He after. ' wards was given command ."of "IJ.C-GG; and was. lost to his country iir .Tunft of last year,, when a trawler sighted the i jumping wiros of a partially submerged submarine, which, was proceeding at four to fivo knots. The trawler immediately headed for the submarine, which disappeared below the siirfaco of tho water. A depth charge- was dropped and found its mark, for ft series of heavy explosions followed, one in particular cans'ing an upheaval three limp™ tho height of the others. In the meanwhile, other trawlers had joined in- tlie fray, and had dropped dentil charges'. Then there was a tfreat silence, not a sound was heard by the eager listeners on the trawlers, but a mass of oil on'the surface boro witness to the fact that the mil>- [ marino lin.d met the-doom that she rich- . ly deserved.'