Evening Republican, Volume 59, Number 75, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 19 April 1917 — TWICE VICTIM OF U-BOAT, HE QUITS SEA [ARTICLE]

TWICE VICTIM OF U-BOAT, HE QUITS SEA

San Francisco Youth Has Had Enough of Excitement for, a While. WILL TRY TO FORGET WAR Met His First Submarine in the Mediterranean and Hl® Second in Irish Sea—No Warning Given Either Time. Boston. —Joseph Barnett of San Francisco, late second saloon cook aboard the Baron- Ogilvy, is only twenty. But twice he has been the victim of a submarine. Young Barnett met his first submarine in Uie Mediterranean a year ago, his second in the Irish sea last January. Now he’s on his way back to San Francisco, where the war seems far away. No more of the sea for himr he says. until - the war’s over. He shipped first, when he was fourteen, as a galley boy aboard a Union Line boat plying between Vancouver, San Francisco and Australia. Four years later found him second saloon cook aboard the Medic of the White Star line, , bound from Liverpool to Mediterranean ports and the Antipodes with a general cargo. This was in February of last year. They had been 15 days out and were somewhere off Sicily, Barnett_ thought, though out of sight of land, "when a torpedo put au emphatic period to their progress. Never Saw Submarine. “We never did see the-submarine or the torpedo,” he “said. “It was about dusk, and the sea was fairly smooth. I was cooking in the galley when she hit us. There was an explosion in the engine room which wined out the whole watch below—about a dozen of them —and tlie ship lurched 1 to starboard suddenly and all the dishes, and pans went sliding. The cook and I rushed up on deck, unil so did the rest, but we were ordered back. ■ “ «it’s Ttfr Ttgtrt;"Tads,’ the~captain said. ‘Don’t lose your heads. Go back. It’ll be all right now.’ “But she began settling down at tlie stern, and soon we were told to take to the boflts. ftTOOk ten millutes to lower them —there was no trouble—and then wo pulled away and laid by until she went down, stern first, half an hour later. A French torpedo boat picked us up and we were landed in Marseilles the next morning.” Six months later he shipped aboard the Baron Ogilvy of the Baron line, out of Glasgow, again bound for Australia. And he made the passage there and back to Liverpool on her, with no unusual incident to mark either voy-

age. It was after his ship had discharged her cargo of frozen mutton at the latter port and was on her way to Barry, on the Welsh coast, to loud with coal for the British fleet, that lie met with his second and greater adventure. For at noon of the next day the stern lookout made out a periscope sticking its tiny head about six inches above the waves in the wake of the ship. He gave the alarm, and part thfr crew was aet to work immediately swinging out llie lifebouts., '"Almost all the rest were ordered below to help Hie stokers crowd on steam, -Meanwhile the gun crew-manned the 13-pounder at the stern, and the captain started his distress rockets soaring. But neither stern gun nor rockets brought results. And with all the extra stokers the Baron Ogilvy could make not. more than 11 knots. The submarine discharged her first torpedo at 12:15, and missed. Then, to get into better position, she 6 rose to the surface, and in the course of the chase circled the freighter two or. three times, diving and rising like a grealporpoise. _. Thought They Had . Lost Her. The Ogilvy appeared fielpless. While the submarine, whether submerged or awash, was racings ahead of her or abreast of her, her stern gun could not be brought to bear on its target. The captain steered a zigzag course, evekedging toward shore. The submarine discharged another torpedo abput three •‘clock, and missed again.

Then for a while she was no longer seen. The crew of the Ogilvy thought they were free of her. Their gun crew had fired 83 shots, all the ammunition they had. About five o’clock, to their consternation, the submarine rose from the sea on their starboard bow and started shelling the Ogilvy with both deck guns. The freighter was only about three-quarters of a mile off shore by this time, and Captain Thompson beached her, while the submarine lay off half a mile and continued her shelling. Both masts of the Ogilvy, her wireless house and her funnel were carried away, but the only human casualty aboard her was a leg wound suffered by one -of the gunners. The battle speedily attracted the coast guard ashore, which brought out artillery and drove the enemy off. Two days later the Ogilvy ivas pulled off the rocks and Into a floating drydock. Her crew made their way to Barry and were discharged. Young Barnett shipped on the Leyland liner Anglian, at London, February 3, and landed in Boston twe week»4aterr-