PIRACY ON HIGH SEAS.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 21020, 8 May 1930, Page 15

PIRACY ON HIGH SEAS.

SENSATIONAL CAPTURE. CONVERTED BEFORE EXECUTION, One of the most amazing chapters in the history of piracy on the high seas has been brought to its close by the carrying out of the death sentence on a notorious rum-runner, who fought a desperate stand-up battle with the coastguard officials before he was finally overpowered and captured. * Known as the “Gulf Pirate,” James Horacd Alderman, former fishing guide and “racketeer,” died on the scaffold at the coastguard base at Fort Lauderdale without confessing his crime. His last hours, however, were remarkable for his conversion to religion by his wife and family. No more dangerous buccaneer ever roamed the high seas than Alderman. For over seven years he had evaded the coastal officials—rum-running at the Bahamas, smuggling, and risking capture almost every time his highly powered boat nosed its way out to sea. And then suddenly his career terminated in the swift drama that resulted in his capture, Alderman and his second in command, Robert E. Weech, were running from the Bahamas with a cargo of liquor when he ran foul of a coastguard patrol boat which rapidly overhauled him. The cutter drew alongside and the coastguard men come aboard. Alderman offered no opposition. But when the officer in charge, Sydney Sanderlin, turned to walk to the pilot house to wireless the news of his capture to the officials on shore, the pirate promptly drew his revolver and shot him dead. Another eoastgua rdsman named Lamby whipped out his automatic, presented it at Alderman’s head, but the cartridge missed fire. The next second he was lying on his back with a bullet in his chest and face. Taking Sanderlin’s revolver, the pirate commanded the other coastguardsman on board and a man named Webster, a secret service official, to stick up their hands. He then ordered his henchman to unfasten the fuel pipes in the Government vessel with a view to forcing the two officials into it and setting it on fire. Throwing discretion to the winds, Webster made a mad rush and closed in with the' pirate. He was stopped by a bullet which sent him toppling to the deck in a dying condition. Other coastguardsmen swarmed on the pirate with fists and gun butts, and he was overpowered and manacled. In gaol, awaiting the carrying out of the sentence; Alderman was a changed man. A few hours before his death he was singing hymns and praying in the company of his wife and children.