PUT OUT SUB'S EYE WITH COAL SHOVEL.

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume XLV, Issue 14590, 27 April 1918, Page 8

PUT OUT SUB'S EYE WITH COAL SHOVEL.

BRITISH SKIPPER SWUNG HARD ON PERISCOPE. , LONDON, March 9. ! When one's vessel is m danger from enemy submarines, anything. will do as a , Weapon of defence, as is shown- -by the * story of a captain of a British trawler who used a coal shovel with good effect against a : German U-boat. ; The trawler, according to the story told by one of the crew, was m the North Sea m a stiff freeze, when the skipper ; saw a periscope crawl through the breaking surface of the sea about a hundred yards off. There was no gun aboard -and the -trawler's best speed was less tliari eight knots; . •■ ■ , "It was a situation to dismay most men." said the sailor. "Our skipper, however, has a fighting spirit. A touch nf, the wheel sent the- trawler V- blunt bow pointing at the submarine's whaleback, and we wallowed menacingly toward the pirate. . ; "T.he. U-boat swung around to., avoid' the impact and the sides -Of the trawler ) scraped along the submarine. The peri- i scope was still well out of the \yafev, ; but | was beginning, to slip down as. the ' submarine.' dived. -. . . ' ' . ' , .', . • i "The skipper bawled for a hammer,- ;

a crowtbar, anything that would hurt. One of the creyf thrust a, coal shovel into his hands and he scrambled on the bulwarks and leaned over, two of the crew hanging " on to his coa>t> so that he would; not:; fall overboard.; Backwards and forwards he swung the heavy scoop, at the fragile pferiscope and the third jblow reduced it to fragments. i | "The submarine .commander, hearing ;the noise and wondering what new and Tioiribk device- the enemy. had invented, .crept to his periscope to have a, look, but all was black. ;. He was 'blind and the trawler got away m safety."- |