DOGGER BANK OUTRAGE.

New Zealand Times, Volume LXXVII, Issue 5474, 31 December 1904, Page 13

DOGGER BANK OUTRAGE.

AMERICAN OPINION. PERILS or NAVAL MANOEUVRES. SOME EXPERIENCES OF THE SPANISH-.* MERICAN WAR.. A great deal has filtered through from time to time by cablegram about tho feeling in America regarding the Logger Bank outrage, and tho widespread indignation expressed there over the action of the Russian fleet; but a perusal of the leading American papers would load on© to tho conclusion that tlnolo Sam has not displayed any undue baste in bis desire to express an authoritative opinion. On the contrary. a number of tho leading papers have been at pains to resurrect old stories about the awfulnoss of the mistakes it is possible to commit in modem naval warfare. The “New York Herald” on October 20 said that whether or nob the tragedy in tho North Sea was due to a belief on tho part of the men of Russia’s Baltic fleet that thoy were being attacked by Japanese torpedo boats or merely to the “panic which shells a drifting spar,” certain it is that, there is a pronounced disposition among tho American navy men who went through the Spanish war to suspend judgment in this case. These know through their own experience how intense is the strain brought about by long vigils through black, weary nights, and how light becomes tho touch of finger on trigger as tho nerve racking watch extends, and how little it takes to bring about tho fire “which rakes a low hung star or sweeps a consort’s decks.” To relate a few of the many instances of the sort which cam© about when Sampson's unlighted ships patrolled tho Cuban coast and kept etorn vigil over its blockaded ports. There came about then a night when the grey fleet oil Santiago had “torpedo boats,” as they phrase it in tho navy. The enemy was known to be in the harbour, and he was known to have destroyers, those then untried and much dreaded engines of war. Picket launches had been stationed at either side of tho harbour entrance, and from dusk to dawn a battleship had been detailed to lie directly off the entrance, with her searchlights blazing up the channel and a supporting battleship at her side, the rest of the fleet distributed in a semicircle about the entrance. It was a black night, moonless and misty. For many days and nights tho ship had boon on this duty, and nerves wore on edge, none knowing hut on each velvet fold some destroyer might ride. It was at this tense crisis that the searchlight of the sentry battleship disclosed a glint of flashing metal just off the Morro.. A thousand pair of eyes wore on watch at the time, and in an instant a dozen other searchlights wore focussed on the point. A moment’s waiting, and then it hove into view again, scintillant as burnished steel. A gleam of sheet lightning quivered through the blackness, and where the glistening thing had showed was a whole acre of driven foam, shells bursting and spitting about in a whizzing hail. From Sampson’s quiet flagship immediately blazed the signal, “Cease firing,” and on the next morning a general order was issued a bit ourt in tone and to tho effect that henceforth no more empty coffee tins were to be thrown overboard or anything els© that might drift inshore and cause fusillades at night, THE NEW YORK’S CLOSE CALL. One of the narrowest escapes from terrible disaster was when the torpedo boat Porter oame near sinking the flagship New York, believing .that vessel was an enemy. This was in the early days of the war and on the Havana blockade. At that time no one knew the whereabouts of Cervera’s fleet, and those on blockade duty were not sure but the four fine armoured cruisers of Spain and its flotilla of destroyers might appear at any moment. To tho Porter had been delegated tho duty of seeing that only friendly keels approached the blockade Line, and with “stripped hull slinking through the gloom, hall guessed and gone again,” the Porter, in her indistinguishable coat of olive green, had circled twice or thrice around the fleet, when suddenly through the gloom and close aboard loomed the outlines of a large vessel, running without lights, and apparently standing in from a direction in which the enemy was expected. "Show the night fleet signal,” ordered Lieutenant (now Commander) Trenton t. The signal was shown, but there was no reply. Dark and unheeding, tho stranger held her course, and on the instant the torpedo hoat was in pursuit.

Onoe more the night fleet signal was shown, and when there waa no reply Tremont was convinced that the vessel was an enemy, and the three torped-xes which the Porter carried were made ready for a simultaneous discharge at the stranger. Any on© would, have destroyed tie vessel in an instant, and the torpedo boat was then so near that there was no possibility of escape if all throe were launched. The ship was rolling with a deep easy motion, and the Porter was bo close that a pebble could have been tossed from one to the other. ,r Wait until she shows her boot log on the next roll,” Fremont ordered, "and then fire.” Between the terrible dilemma of destroying a friend or letting an enemy escape, Fremont determined to give the vessel one last chance, and the menace in his had, ,c What ship is that?” told his silent crew that it waa to bo her last. The ship was just beginning to lift her underbody to a long slow heave of sea and fingers were just beginning to press triggers when clear and distinct came back the reply: 'This is the New York. Is that the Porter?” As it afterward developed, the Now York had seen the signals and the signal officer had sought to reply, hut all unknown to him the apparatus had not worked. ‘You may live a long time,” Fremont said later to one of his friends on the flagship, “but you will never have a closer shave than you had that night.” AS CRANE DESCRIBES A CRISIS. In his “Wounds in the Rain” (Frederick A. Stokes Company), the late Stephen Crane tells of how his despatch boat, the Three Friends, waa fired upon and rammed by the gunboat Macliias.

The despatch boat was off the Cuban coast one dark night, when “suddenly a familiar signal of red and white flashed like a brooch of jewels over the pall that covered the eea. It was the electric question of an American warship, and it demanded a swift answer in kind. The man behind tho gun! What about tho men in front of the gun ? . “Our signals, far from being electric, wore two lanterns which wo kept in a tub and covered with a tarpaulin. When wo were accosted at night it was everybody’s duty to scramble wildly for tho tub and grab out the lanterns and wave them. It amounted to a slowness of speech. I remember a story of a sentry who upon hearing a noise in liia front one dark night called his usual sharp query, ‘ Hal,, who goes there? Halt, or I lire.” And getting no immediate response lie fired ©von as ho had said, killing a man with a hare lip, who unfortunately could not arrange his vocal machinery to reply in season. We wore something like a boat with a hare lip.” Describing how the vessel, which proved to bo tho gunboat Machine, first fired a shell across the bow of the Three Friends, rammed her and then backed off, tho writer says that “later from some hidden part of the sea the bullish eye of a searchlight looked at us and the widening white rays bathed us in the glare. ‘•There was another hail. ‘Hello, there. Three Friends!’

“ ‘Ay, ay, sir.’ “‘Arc you injured?’ “Our first mate bad taken a lantern and was studying tho side of the tug, and wo hold our breath for Iris answer. I was sure that he was gojng to say that wo wore sinking. . . . But the first mate said ‘No, sir” Instantly tho glare of tho searchlight was gone. Tho Machias was gone, and the incident was closed.” SHELL-LADEN RESOLUTE?S ESCAPE. There is another story of that “blindfold game of war” which is told in whispers by navy men, and has never been told elsewhere. It tells of a midnight encounter off the north coast of Cuba between tho Resolute, one of the converted cruisers, and tho cruiser Cincinnati. Tiro Resolute, which was then unarmed and heavily laden with ammunition for Sampson’s fleet, mistook the Cincinnati, which was coming up astern, for a Spanish cruiser, and her efforts to avoid the stranger convinced those on the Cincinnati that she was an enemy seeking to escape. With all men at quarters and guns loaded and trained, the Cincinnati was on tho point of firing a broadside at close range when the identity of the Resolute was discovered. A half dozen or oven one five-inch shell bursting in that heavily-laden ammunition ship would undoubtedly have destroyed her in an instant. The Wanda, a yacht under charter to the Associated Press and engaged in despatch boat service, had many adventures with our men-of-war. On© was when she was approaching the Santiago blockade directly after the investment of Oervora’s fleet by Sampson. It was in the grey of early dawn when she drew near, and • the first that those on board knew of their proximity to the fleet was when a shell whizzed under her how. The little craft promptly stopped, and her startled crew saw the loom of a dark grey mass a short distance away. This was soon mad© out to be a battleship of high degree, and a few minutes later the voice of Captain Clark, of the Oregon, was heard hailing.