Evening Republican, Volume 21, Number 280, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 12 December 1917 — “KELLY” U-BOAT CHIEF IS JOKER [ARTICLE]

“KELLY” U-BOAT CHIEF IS JOKER

Commander of German Submarine Shows Vein of UnGerman Humor. IS HERO OF MANY STORIES When Not Laying Mines He Pulls Pranks That Amuse American Seamen—Pays Two-Days’ Visit at Dublin Hotel. Base of American Flotilla in British Waters. —There is a German submarine commander who is known throughout the American flotilla as “Kelly." His real name is something quite different, but the American sailors promptly dubbed him “Kelly of the Emerald Isle,” and the name will stick in the songs and stories of the navy as long as the gr*eat war is talked about. “Kelly” eafned his name by his display on various occasions of a rich vein of quite un-German humor. He has become the hero of numberless stories told in forecastle and on quarterdeck. Not all of these stories are true, and probably most of them have grown in the telling.

“Kelly” Pranks Tantalizing. “Kelly” commands a mine-laying Üboat which pays frequent visits to the district patrolled by the American destroyers. When he has finished his appointed task of distributing his mines where they will do the most harm he generally devotes a few minutes to a prank of some kind. Sometimes he contents himself with leaving a notp flying from a buoy scribbled in schoolboy English and addressed to his American enemy. On other occasions he picks out a deserted bit of coast line at night and goes ashore with a squad of his men for a saunter on the beach, leaving behind a placard or a bit of German bunting as a reminder of bls presence. , ' His most audacious exploit, however —if the legends of the forecastle are to be believed —was a trip which he made several months ago to Dublin, where he stayed two days at a leading hotel, afterward joining his U-boat somewhere up the west coast; He ts said to have informed the British of his exploit by leaving his receipted bill attached to one of their buoys. Still another of “Kelly’s” more recent stunts was to plant the German flag on an eminence on the coast line. It was the first time that the British and Americans knew just where he and his men had set foot and they shared the excitement of the village folk, who awoke one morning to find a new kind of flag flying from their native soil. Fishermen Burn German Flag. But when they made sure that it was the German colors they were furious, for it so happened, so the story goes, that the fisherman along this particular strip of coast had suffered much from submarine raids. U-boats had shelled tlfelr boats, Germans had stolen their fish—their only means of livelihood—and left them empty handed after a week’s hard catch of mackerel. These poor fisher folk were in no mood for this latest display of German humor, so they, according to report,, promptly burned the flag and set a watch for “Kelly."