APPALLING SEA HORRORS

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume LII, Issue 53, 2 March 1918, Page 5

APPALLING SEA HORRORS

GERMAN SUBMARINE METHODS. ■Much new light was thrown on' German submarine warfare in a lecture, recently delivered in Cleveland, 'Ohio,, By Mr Wesley Frost, formerly American Consul at Queenstown, now assigned to the Department of State. Mr Frcfefc was an eye-witness of many of thei events described in his address, say£Th6 Times. In the course of his ad drees, he said: —

Ten thousand men, women, and children have now been killed by German submarines. Every month sees losses equal to those of the horror, and. every day the death of 45 innocent civilians. At this moment the poor fellows from two or throe vessels are fighting for breath. The ocean south of Ireland ia the most crowded highway of commerce in the wwid, and on a. fine day I have seen merchant ships in all directions like a vast parade. As Consul at Queenstown for the three years ending last June L reported to our Government of the destruction by submarines of 81 different ships .carrying American citizens. I collected at first hand much of the evidence upon which America has entered the-'war, and placed this evidence on record, in legal form. The witnesses usually came to the con-. fjulate straight from the sea, with the cries of dead comrades still ringing in their ears; and their statements were checked up indivMually against one another, and against the. depositions of the surviving officer*} In the first place luke the cases in which there weve so called "warnings" by the submarine. Thin "warning" consists simply in boml ; ".vding the unfortunate victim without pause or pity. Men and women are mangled by shell fire after they hava surrendered, and are doing all in their power to comply with the submarine's desires. The Madura, a little Russian barque, cut down her mainsail upon the Miibmarine's first shot, to show submission ; but when her lifeboat was rescued 'fc was a perfect shamble. The captain, a huge blackbearded. Finn. «at in the stern sheets with his wife, and at their feettwo dead sailors lay weltering in blood, while another was just gasping out his life. The four other sailors were - all wretchedly wounded. These inoffensive working men were slaughtered ' while trying frantically to do anything the submarine wanted. ■ On a dismal February day I saw the dismembered fragments of the captain of th 4 Anglo- Californian carried ashore in a'' gunny-hay, v and the mutilated, corpses of eight of hie' men. Their crime consisted in'having tried to run away from destruction ! - In the Eavegtone case thei submarine deliberately turned its guri upon the lifeboats _ when they were well away from their sinking" ship, and shot down the captain and four men. And so in the Eowanmoie case, and others. : \ When the firing failed to produce murder, owing t-a distance or to roughness of the aea, the ■gubmarihee showed their cowardly spite *by committing other abominations. They a lifeboat of th« - Cjiirnhill, and placed its ,19 men on the submarine's deck._ : They then threw overboard from the' liffiboafc the food,, water, and sails. To point their hideous joke, thoy even filled'the water, cask with salt water. When tKey returned to the submarine they went below and submerged instantly, leaving our boys floundering in a stormy • sea, 150 miles from land, with no refuge but that gutted lifeboat; , , " This submergence trick has been' done repeatedly. Then there was the case in which the submarine officers amusfed themselves by taking snapshots to. send home to their sweethearts while twelve men were drowning, and in another an American merchant officer was', taken back on board And made to _ touch ; off the bombs which destroyed his own "vessel.' '' ■ ' ■.

But, to me; the dumbfounding, the stupefying thing about the submarines is that they attack passenger; ships ' and kill women and children. . The. big Cunarder Itaconia was torpedoed' on . a stormy February night at half-past .10. She listed to port, and 8 lifeboat scraped its way down, the . starboard side, and struck- the water leaking like a basket, but supported bv its With its 19 people it drifted, full, of water", away from the "other boats, plunging giddily up and down the ,12ft swells in the chilling drizzle of rain. Its occupants sat in icy. water up to tlieir waists; and, an elderly, Chicago ladv and' her daughter were forooiV'to stand up on account of their short stature. •Not' long after.midnight .a Manchester siness man succumbed. At half-past 1 the elder American American lady gave way and died. Her daughter's'reason seemed unseated by the situation, and ehe kept chafing the corpse's hands and addressing endearments to it, until «jt half-past 2 a merciful Heaven released in turn her overtaxed spSri.t' t6' join- her mother's. . As the night Wore on the fingers of death touched firet one and then another of these innocent people,, until, when the wan. dawn began to suffuse the winter sea, the survivors found themselves shipmates with eight, staring corpses! And" this was the one passenger case in which the U-boat.had the temerity, to hail the surviyors:' -Her-.com-' mander showed lively pleasure at his achievement, and made the victims - repeat the; ship's name and torinage threo times. ■ I