CHAPTER V

THE PLOT AGAINST THE RESCUE SHIPS

GERMAN SUBMARINES PREVENTED RESCUE OF LUSITANIA PASSENGERS -- STORY OF ETONIAN’S CAPTAIN -- DODGED TWO SUBMARINES -- NARRAGANSETT DRIVEN OFF -- TORPEDO FIRED AT NARRAGANSETT.

From the lips of Captain Turner, of the Lusitania, and from several of the survivors the world has heard the story of the sudden appearance among the débris and the dead of the sunken liner, of the German submarine that had fired the torpedo which sent almost 1,200 non-combatants, hundreds of them helpless women and children, and among them more than a hundred American citizens, to their deaths. But it remained for the captain of the steamship Etonian, arriving at Boston on May 18, to add the crowning touch to the tragedy.

Captain William F. Wood, of the Etonian, specifically charged that two German submarines deliberately prevented him from going to the rescue of the Lusitania’s passengers after he had received the liner’s wireless S. O. S. call, and when he was but forty miles or so away, and might have rendered great assistance to the hundreds of victims.

Captain Wood charged further that two other ships, both within the same distance of the Lusitania when she sank, were warned off by submarines, and that when the nearest one, the Narragansett, bound for New York, persisted in the attempt to proceed to the rescue of the Lusitania’s passengers, a submarine fired a torpedo at her, which missed the Narragansett by only a few feet.

STORY OF ETONIAN’S CAPTAIN

The Etonian is a freight-carrying steamship, owned by the Wilson-Furness-Leyland lines, and under charter to the Cunard Line. She sailed from Liverpool on May 6. Captain Wood’s story, as he told it without embellishment and in the most positive terms, was as follows:

“We had left Liverpool without unusual incident, and it was two o’clock on the afternoon of Friday, May 7, that we received the S. O. S. call from the Lusitania. Her wireless operator sent this message: ‘We are ten miles south of Kinsale. Come at once.’

“I was then about forty-two miles from the position he gave me. Two other steamships were ahead of me, going in the same direction. They were the Narragansett and the City of Exeter. The Narragansett was closer to the Lusitania, and she answered the S. O. S. call.

“At 5 P. M. I observed the City of Exeter across our bow and she signaled, ‘Have you heard anything of the disaster?’

“At that very moment I saw the periscope of a submarine between the Etonian and the City of Exeter. The submarine was about a quarter of a mile directly ahead of us. She immediately dived as soon as she saw us coming for her. I distinctly saw the splash in the water caused by her submerging.

DODGED TWO SUBMARINES

“I signaled to the engine room for every available inch of speed, and there was a prompt response. Then we saw the submarine come up astern of us with the periscope in line afterward. I now ordered full speed ahead, and we left the submarine slowly behind. The periscope remained in sight about twenty minutes. Our speed was perhaps two miles an hour better than the submarine could do.

“No sooner had we lost sight of the submarine astern than I made out another on the starboard bow. This one was directly ahead and on the surface, not submerged. I starboarded hard away from him, he swinging as we did. About eight minutes later he submerged. I continued at top speed for four hours, and saw no more of the submarines. It was the ship’s speed that saved her. That’s all.

“Both these submarines were long craft, and the second one had wireless masts. There is no question in my mind that these two submarines were acting in concert and were so placed as to torpedo any ship that might attempt to go to the rescue of the passengers of the Lusitania.

“As a matter of fact, the Narragansett, as soon as she heard the S. O. S. call, went to the assistance of the Lusitania. One of the submarines discharged a torpedo at her and missed her by a few feet. The Narragansett then warned us not to attempt to go to the rescue of the Lusitania, and I got her wireless call while I was dodging the two submarines. You can see that three ships would have gone to the assistance of the Lusitania had it not been for the two submarines.

“These German craft were, it seems to me, deliberately stationed off Old Head of Kinsale, at a point where all ships have got to pass, for the express purpose of preventing any assistance being given to the passengers of the Lusitania.”

NARRAGANSETT DRIVEN OFF

That the British tank steamer Narragansett, one of the vessels that caught the distress signal of the Lusitania, was also driven off her rescue course by a torpedo from a submarine when she arrived within seven miles of the spot where the Lusitania went down, an hour and three-quarters after she caught the wireless call for help, was alleged by the officers of the tanker, which arrived at Bayonne, N. J., on the same day that the Etonian reached Boston.

The story told by the officers of the Narragansett corroborated the statements made by officers of the Etonian. They said that submarines were apparently scouting the sea to drive back rescue vessels when the Lusitania fell a victim to another undersea craft.

The Lusitania’s call for help was received by the Narragansett at two o’clock on the afternoon of May 7, according to wireless operator Talbot Smith, who said the message read: “Strong list. Come quick.”

When the Narragansett received the message she was thirty-five miles southeast of the Lusitania, having sailed from Liverpool the preceding afternoon at five o’clock for Bayonne. The message was delivered quickly to Captain Charles Harwood, and he ordered the vessel to put on full steam and increase her speed from eleven to fourteen knots. The Narragansett changed her course and started in the direction of the sinking ship.

TORPEDO FIRED AT NARRAGANSETT

Second Officer John Letts, who was on the bridge, said he sighted the periscope of a submarine at 3.35 o’clock, and almost at the same instant he saw a torpedo shooting through the water. The torpedo, according to the second officer, was traveling at great speed.

It shot past the Narragansett, missing the stem by hardly thirty feet, and disappeared. The periscope of the submarine went out of sight at the same time, but the captain of the Narragansett decided not to take any chance, changed the course of his vessel so that the stern pointed directly toward the spot where the periscope was last sighted, and, after steering straight ahead for some distance, followed a somewhat zigzag course until he was out of the immediate submarine territories.

Captain Harwood abandoned all thought of the Lusitania’s call for help, because he thought it was a decoy message sent out to trap the Narragansett into the submarine’s path.

“My opinion,” said Second Officer Letts, “is that submarines were scattered around that territory to prevent any vessel that received the S. O. S. call of the Lusitania from going to her assistance.”

When attacked by the submarine the Narragansett had out her log, according to Second Officer Letts, and the torpedo passed under the line to which it was attached. The torpedo was fired from the submarine when the undersea boat was within two hundred yards of the tanker.

The Narragansett when turned back had not sighted the wreck of the Lusitania, and her officers, who were led to believe the S. O. S. was a decoy, did not learn of the sinking of the Cunarder until the following morning at two o’clock.

The Narragansett, under charter to the Standard Oil Company, is one of the largest tank steamships afloat. She is 540 feet long, has a sixty-foot beam, and 12,500 tons displacement.