MYSTERY V.C.

Hawera & Normanby Star, Volume LXXVII, Issue LXXVII, 5 August 1918, Page 2

MYSTERY V.C.

HOW DECORATION WAS WON

AN ASTONISHING STORY

An American paper a month or two ago lifted the veil of mystery and told a romantic story of how the mystery j V.C., torpedoed in the North Sea,! swam around until he was lifted up on to the deck of a submarine, and how then he stood at the conning tower and with his waterproof pistol shot th© oaptain and held the remainder of the crew at bay until the arrival of a British destroyer settled all the hopes of the Huns to escape. i ( As wonderful as that story is—and , if it wei-e time it would be as strange f as fiction—it is less thrilling and less 'wonderful than the story told recently 'by a captain- of the mercantile marine, fresh from the scene of naval activity, a story which, he says, is popularly accepted as the feats performed by the ' ( man whose grand work will not be chronicled unitil the war is over, if then. The stage of the drama was an old : barque, and the cast was small—the 1 captain, an 'officer or two, a small crew, I and the captain's wife and child. They cruised round aimlessly, inviting attack. Suddenly in the distance the surface .of the Mater was broken by the perij scope of an enemy submarine, and in a ( few moments the U-boat was alongside and the captain of the sailing boat was ordered to atop and the crew to take to tho boats. The drama then developed. The English captain pleaded with the j German. "But," he said, "would you cast my poor wife and child adrift in an .open boat in this, weather?" The captain's wife—an exceedingly : comely-looking woman—clasped her , child to her breast and moved towards iher husband. The U-boat, captain insolently stared at her. "But my child will die," the --aptain pleaded. ' /'There is nothing for it." ■"Can't-you take her on board v-ith you?" the'eaptain of the barque a?ked. hesitatingly, as if th e . idea pained him. j The crew thereupon lowered a boat, ( the captain's wife was carefully l.elped into it, the captain and the t rew followed, and the men rowed to the Üboat. With unusual*care the lonian t was helped by the captain to the deck of the submarine, and to the oonningtower, then to the trapdoor, and ?he was even told to be careful of the step. THE CLIMAX. 1 Then th<3 climax of the drama oc- i curred. The captain's wife who was ; painfully nervous, stumbled. ' She I shrieked, and the baby fell from her arms through the hatch of the U-boat ( to the bottom of the ladder. Simultaneously'the woman showed remark- | able athletic powers. Pushing the capjtain aside, she leapt overboard, and ' even as she cleared the deck of the jboat, before the startled-Hun could appreciate what had occurred, there was a terrific explosion, the bottom was blown out of the enemy's craft, and the boat sank rapidly. The captain's wife was rescued by her J friends, who were breathlessly awaiting the explosion, and they were back in the barque a few minutes after the Üboat had disappeared. * The captain's wife, was the mystery i V-C- —a handsome young man of 28, Avho"made up into a feminine of so striking beauty that the head of the U-boat captain was turned.' The baby was a most powerful bomb, lovingly and carefully clothed in a thick shawl. The party sailed the sea until nightfall—apparently an easy victim to the torpedoes of the enemy. Three more Üboats hailed them. „ times the dialogue about the woman and the child was repeated, and three times the ruse succeeded. Three babies fell down more hatchways, and three U-boats went, with all hands, to the bottom of the North Sea, The originating brain of this remarkable plan to defeat th e cruellest foe any. navy was called upon' to face was a. well-known London actor, brother of the mystery V.C. The V.C. has made a name for himself amongst a limited circle of friends as an amateur actor, but this magnificent series of heroic actions, played in a great drama of death, transcended all his other efforts. No V.C. was ever more nobly earned.