THE STORY OF THE DOGGER BANK OUTRAGE

Evening Star, Issue 12366, 2 December 1904, Page 3

THE STORY OF THE DOGGER BANK OUTRAGE

A GRAPHIC ACCOUNT. The facts, as related by fishermen who peached Hull, are absolutely astounding, t . fleet, which comprised about fifty vessels, was fishing about 200 nules east by north of Spurn Head, and about twenty-five miles from the tail end .Dogger Bank. All the vessels had them trawling gear down, and were consequently not steaming more than three or four miles an hour. So far as freedom of action was concerned, they were pracin the condition of being at anchor. A haul had been made not long before, and consequently all the deck cu 3 were engaged cleaning and boxing fish. The better to enable them to do this, all are fitted with powerful acetylene lamps, which flood the decks with light. This is important, in view of what afterwards transpired, as it shows that the had ample opportunity of ascertaining the character of the boats, even before they turned their own searchlights on. It was about one o’clock on the Saturday morning when the fishermen first caught sight pf the Russian sqnadron. So far as they could make out, it consisted _ of thirteen vessels, and was divided into two halves. Included in the first half was what was apparently the Admiral’s ship. This section steamed slowly through the fishing vessels, and then brought up about a mile to leeward. Soon afterwards they were followed by the secondhand more numerous half, who, evidently in response to a signal which the fishermen saw the Admiral’s ship make, commenced to circle round the steam trawlers. Having surrounded them, they commenced to use their powerful searchlights. The fishermen were deeply interested. They thought the warships were simply manoeuvring, and felt delighted to be the centre of their evolutions. Meanwhile, the searchlights lit the small trawlers up from stem to stem. It was a striking picture, the .huge shafts of brilliant light issuing from the blackness of the warships and impinging upon the dark hulls of the trawlers, the stems of which, by nature of their peculiar trim, stick up smart in the air. The fishermen ceased their work and laughed. All at once the Russian guns began to speak. Still the fishermen were indifferent. The possibility of being fired upon was the last thing to suggest itself to them. The Czar’s ships were bow on i« them, and. in some cases only a few ship’s lengths away. The faces of the Czar 1 s sailors could even be seen. Suddenly the galley funnel of the trawler Mmo was carried away by a shot. “ Good God,” shouted out Captain Whelpton, “that is not .blank; lie down, lads, and look after yourselves.” His crew did as they were ordered. To their horror, shots came thick and fast. The fishermen were . absolutely helpless, and could only imagine that-the Russians had taken leave of their senses. Their gear being down, they could not steam away. They, were the helpless targets of a powerful squadron’s quick-firing gnus. The Crane was unhappily within easy range. Her skipper. Captain George Henry Smith, and third hand, John Leggott, were seated cleaning fish when a shell exploded between them, and both were decapitated, their heads being carried completely away. The Crane had been struck once prior to this. The first shot went into the forecastle, and almost struck the skipper’s son, Joseph Alfred Smith, as he lay in his berth. The lad rushed on deck and waved a red fight. Even as he did so there came the shell which killed his father and the third hand, and also wounded the mate. The dead men made a shocking spectacle. Both bodies were headless. As the shell exploded, the skipper had a knife in one hand and a fish liver in the other. When dead, he clenched them tighter still, and so he was brought to Hull. Ail the nine men on the Crane were struck and wounded seriously, with the exception of yotmg Smith, whose escape was miraculous. He bears on his cheek a scar caused by a splinter from the shell which sped through his sleeping berth. The Crane was struck several times afterwards. One shot penetrated the engine room, destroyed the machinery, and injured the second engineer. The ship was pierced through her vitals, and she began to settle down. The captain of the trawler Gull saw that she was settling down, and canid alongside to render assistance.’ First the two headless bodies were removed, and then the injured crew followed. In less than five minutes of the last shell striking her the Crane had sunk. Altogether, the survivors estimate that , they were under the Russians’ fire for twenty minutes. Not long after the Crane had disappeared the warships ceased their inexplicable attack and then drew off, steaming south. The fall extent of the damage done is not known. The two trawlers which have reached Hull, the Mino and Moulmein, are both uadly damaged. One shot went clean through the Mino, and she was only kept afloat by plugging the boles with wood and canvas. When the vessels boarded the carrier Magpie on the morning after the attack the weatlier was foggy, and only about one-half of them sent their fish. The men who have reached Hull state that twenty-nine is the total number wounded on the mission ship, six of them being in a serious condition. Smith, the skipper, leaves a widow and eight children. Leggett, the third hand, was unmarried, ° FIRING ON HOSPITAL SHIP. SAVED FROM DESTRUCTION BY EXTINCTION OF LIGHTS. Mr Francis H. Wood, secretary of the Royal National Mission to Deep Sea Fishermen, received the following letter, under date October 22, from Mr John White, skipper of the society’s hospital steamer Alpha:— Dear sir,—l am sending you a report of one of the worst, or I might say the very worst, twenty minutes that ever I experienced in my life. On Friday night, at half-past eleven, we hauled and shot onr trawl in the usual way, when several men-of-war ships passed ns, going south-west very slowly—this was about a quarter to twelve. At twelve I sighted several-more, and as soon as we came close to them they put their searchlights on us and opened firs on us. At first ’ \ , e 7 were only firing blank shots, till I heard several shots pass aoso, to us, and then the firing became sharp from all their vessels, and the shots came whizzing past us close to the wheelhouse and just across the deck. Then I thought that things were rather serious, so I ordered all our fights to be put out, and put onr vessel’s head from them, so that the target would be smaller. Well thank God, not one shot hit us, but I was afraid that one struck our vessel . ’ ““kr the -water astern.; still, I dqn’t

think it could have done so, else vie should be making water. \I went on board one of the vessels that took the crew from the Crane, and I have seen both the men that were hit in the head, amcir heads are shattered all to pieces. Lou will hear from the skipper of the Joseph and Sarah Miles about the rest of the crew. There were four of the vessels that were hit with shot?—one sunk, and the other three have gone home, as they are badly damaged. This is all the news up to the present, as the weather has been thick; but lam afraid we shall hear more. One large shot that passed across our deck hit the next vessel to ns. I really believe the reason we were not hit was that I put out all lights and turned our vessels stem to thejj. I think it is the Baltic fleet, ae there were coal hulks with them. We have a lot to be thankful to God for for the safety of the Alpha and crow. I would sooner pass through many gales than have another twenty minutes like that. The shots were, striking the water close to us all the time, and passing close over our beads, so you can tell how I felt in the wheelhouse alone. IN THE HARVEST OF DEATH. A BOATSWAIN’S STORY OF THE OUTRAGE. By Francis Adams, boatswain of the steam cutter Swift. There are some forty odd trawlers in the Gamecock fleet. They steam from Hull, and they go to the Dogger Bank—sometimes to the north of it, sometimes to the south, but always thereabouts, for that is their ground. Every trawler carries a crew' of nine men. Once they reach there they stay for anything from a month to six weeks. Weather does not matter, unless it blows a real tearing snorter. You are not supposed to be seasick in a fishing fleet; it is not the Royal Navy. Well, staying out for a mouth at a time, the trawlers cannot take their own fish to market, so every day the catch is collected from them by a steam carrier, which takes the fish to Billingsgate. We were waiting to collect *the catches when the Russians opened fire. We started from London on Wednesday, but, being held up in the river by fog for the best part of a day, it was six o’clock on Friday afternoon before wo found the Gamecock fleet. We shot our trawl—we generally fill up time by doing a night’s fishing ourselves. The weather was what you would call moderate—rather hazy. At eleven o’clock we were called to “haul trawl.” When he came on deck there was a fleet of warships passing our starboard side—five ships of war and one that seemed to be a transport of a collier (funnel right aft). The first warship had her searchlight out, just swinging from starboard to port. They passed ns all right, not more than two vessels’ lengths away. I couldn’t tell you what they were. In our line of business we are not expected to understand classes of warships. At the masthead of one of them there was a flickering sort of butterfly signal, showing different colored fights. ‘ But of course we .could not read that. —The Surprise.— We hauled our trawl in, gob the fish aboard—a poor catch it was—and then we eliot the net again. We were just nicely getting it down, about twelve o’clock, when we sighted another lot of warships coming up on our starboard side. One warship played his searchlight right on ua, and then about four more came on us all at once, till we all thought we should either have to get blue spectaoles or be blinded. We thought we should be run down, so me and the rest of the crew held up fish to show what we were, and to show that we could not get out of the way. I held a big plaice up. My mate, Jim Tozer (deck hand), showed a haddock. We brought our ship before the wind, bringing the warships straight astern of ns. All of a sudden the ships of wax seemed to sheer on the port quarter, and then comenced firing—which we thought was only blank shot; . we thought it was manoeuvres. But we sooa found out our mistake by the water flying up around us. We saw it was real shot lu fact, some of the shots came that close to us we could feel the wbift of them going by our faces, and we could smell the powder. —Not Manoeuvres.— * Then we could see, plain us a pikestaff, that it was no manoeuvring, but the real article. The skipper was standing on the bridge, and he says: “That one’s pretty nigh enough, isn’t it?” as a shell whizzed passed him and plunged into the water. Another whistled past my cheeks, and dropped just over the bow, making a splash like a waterspout. The shots were coming foster. One dropped right at our stem, and we thought it time to be moving. “ That's enough for me.” said one of my mates, as a shot went whistling over his cap, and he ran like a rabbit for the fo’c’ele, holding up his bands, just as if he oould keep the shots off his head like that! I thought it was giving the shots a chance, but I hadn't tame to say so. I did the rabbit trick myself, and so did everybody else. I think the warships must have stopped to fire, because, although we were only crawl mg at three knots an hour, we crept away from them. At last the firing Stopped, and the warships steamed away. How long they were at it I cannot tell ‘l could not reckon time up just tlieu. I have been at sea thirty years or so, and I have had my share of dangers, but I was never so frightened in my life, and I think my mates will tell yon the same. Of course, we knew it must be the Russians. It could not have been anyone else, because we had read in the papers about them starting, and we oould tell by the direction they came. —Unprintable Words.— What we said about the Russians I know you would not print. Bub we all said we were sorry we had not a gun aboard- We would have fired it at them and taken the risks—the mean, dirty swabs! Fisherfolk are queer, I can tell you, and not to be played with when there is any fighting about. But I will tell you one thing we aU did say, and that was what rotten bad marksmen the Rusians were. We were a mark as big as a chuich, and they did not hit us once, although they were firing for twenty minutes or so. We all said it was no wonder the Japs were licking them. It s all rubbish to say the Russians thought we were torpedo craft. Our lamps were burning. We -were gutting fish, and they had their searchlights turned on ns. Besides, our commodore—Thomas Kerr, trawler Ruff—was sending up green, rockets all the time, and where is the sailor who does not know that that means a fishing fleet? They must have known! If they are not lunatics they are murderers. I can think of notliing else.