WAR PERILS AT SEA

Taranaki Daily News, 2 August 1919, Page 6

WAR PERILS AT SEA

A CAPTAIN'S ADTENTUBES

FIGHTS WITH SUBMARINES. Dnnedin, July 28. Many adventures during the war fell to Captain Ueorge Martin, an old Otago High .School Boy, who is captain of the frinzessin, and who is in Dunedin again after an absence of 19 years. Captain Martin considers that the narrowest escape of his life wan at the sinking of the steamer Zcna, of which he was in command in 191fl, shortly after the sinking of the Lusitania. The Zena was an unarmed vessel returning to the United States for supplies. Disaster overtook her one night when 23 miles off the south of Ireland. Two torpedocß struck her fairly, amidships, and in less than a minute she was out of sight. Out of CO odd on board only 11 were saved. They seemed to have owed their lives to a lucky chanee. Captain Martin was micked down with the sinking vessel, and believes that it was a rush of air from the bursting bulkheads that blew him back to the surface. For three hours and ten minutes he drifted on wreckage, till the warship Lavender, a mine-sweeping sloop, happened to come within hail, and he and ten others were picked up. The occasion was noteworthy as being the first recorded submarine attack at night. Three weeks later the captain had another experience to remember. Off Queenstown he was navigating the Miami in a dence fog, when the Kelvin Brae mistook her for a submarine on the surface. The Kelvin Brae charged at full speed, and both vessels were badly smashed up. The Kelvin Brae had to be abandoned. Captain Martin rescued her crew, and though his own vessel was very seriously damaged, managed to reach Liverpool afloat. He was badly shaken, and had to take some months' holiday, but was soon back at his work again.

"Do you think the Germans had any friends about the south of Ireland?" asked the interviewer.

"Undoubtedly," was the answer. "Wc knew for certain that submarines were getting food supplies from the west of Ireland."

THREE ATTACKS IN FOUR HOURS. In 1917, when in charge of the Camito, Captain Martin put up what is recognised as a record by being attacked three times in four hours by three different submarines. At that time he was on the Canadian mail service betwcearAvonmouth and Montreal- He had a gun action with the first submarine, which was firing- at a range of four or five miles, but the weather was too hazy to enable them to see their enemy. They were, however, successful in scaring hiin off. The second submarine fired a torpedo and missed, and then disappeared, but afterwards succeeded in sinking a small ship within sijiht of the Caniito. The third submarine opened gunfire, but it was within sight, and the return fire of the Camito quickly induced it to submerge.

Just at this time Captain Martin picked up over 30 survivors from the Tortlon, which had been sunk twenty-five hours previously. When rescued they were 180 miles from the nearest land. One man had a broken leg, and few of them had any clothes except their singlets.

Captain Martin was engeged in bringing American troops across the Atlantic when the White Star liner Persic, with over 2000 American troops 011 board, was torpedoed west of the Scillies. Captain Martin's vessel was next to her. The Persic did not sink, and tho discipline on board was magnificent. Two aeroplanes swooped down on the submarine and dropped depth charges, 'and destroyers also rushed to the spot, with the result that the submarine was destroyed. Some of the crew from it were rescued. That was in September, 1018. CONVOY'S DISASTROUS VOYAGE, About three months before that Caplain Martin was with a convoy that made a disastrous voyage from Liverpool round the north of Ireland. The whole thing was so scandalous that the captain scarcely cared to refer to it. The convoy ran, into a minefield, and within a few minutes three crack ships in the convoy and three destroyers were lost. On his last trip before the armistice Captain Martin was with a conovy ol sixteen laden troopships which ran into P. drifting minefield, laid a few hours previously, just north of Rathlin Island. They exploded seven of tho mines in and around the convoy, but no ship was hit and all got through safely. The smallest of the ships had 1500 troops on board and the largest 3500.

night from New Plymouth, had an ex.

IN COMMAND OP MYSTERY SHIP. For 12 months Captain Martin had charge of the mystery ship Q3. but his luck was out, and he got nothing. Every conceivable device was tried to disguise her and lure the enemy to closer acquaintance, but there seemed to be something about her build that it was impossible effectively to conceal. The end of her cruising as a mystery ship came when, leaving Plymouth for Halifax, she had her stern blown off by one of her own dcptli-bombs. During the last two years of the war the Admiralty had in operation a splendid course of anti-submarine training. Captains took this course every six months, so that they kept thoroughly up to date in the latest developments of submarine tactics. Latterly, the British were surely getting the upper hand, and instead of fearing the submarine it was- coming to be the submarine thrf* feared'them.