Evening Republican, Volume 21, Number 215, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 19 September 1918 — UPHOLD TRADITIONS OF FLAG [ARTICLE]

UPHOLD TRADITIONS OF FLAG

American Sailors Have Never Been Found Wanting in That Courage Which Is their Heritage. A radio to the bridge of our destroyer told of a steamer being shelled by a submarine. She was too far away for us to help, but It drew a reminiscence from the skipper, who had joined us on the bridge, Herman Whitaker writes in New York Independent. “Some one will go to her assistance and if she puts up a fight like the old l they’ll stand a fine chance to be saved. We were 90 miles away when we got her first call and while we were smoking it over the ocean, just hitting the tips of the waves, the L kept us posted on the fight. It was like reading the rounds of a championship battle on a bulletin board: ‘Bridge shot away!’ ‘On fire In two places!’ ‘Have extinguished the fires!’ ‘We have thrown code books and papers overboard!’ “We were still 30 miles away when this happened, but we wirelessed her not to surrender and received a reply that would make a fine subtitle for a movie melodrama —‘Never!’ And she did not —thanks to the American naval gunners who refused to stop firing when the captain defemed it time to haul down his flag. It was their quartermaster who sent the radio.” A little later came a second call for help; again too far for our service. Other radios that floated in late that night told how the derelict, deserted by captain and crew, had been towed in by a patrol and safely beached. Of those streaming radios never one that did not produce a tale or reminiscence from the “bridge.” Usually tragic, recording the deaths of fine ships and brave men, their grimness was shot through here and there with a gleaming thread of humor. Such was the case of the M - and L •, a fine munition ship that was carrying a $1,000,000 cargo when she was torpedoed 100 miles from the bases. From afar the admiral sent an anxious inquiry concerning her condition and progress. He received in reply: “We are making three and a half knots, but it is a d long way to Tipperary.” It was, alas! The poor ship foundered at sea. Then there was the Lovely Lucy, a trim little steamer that strayed away from her convoy during a thick mist. Late that evening a radio came in from a destroyer that had just picked up the estray, “What did you do to the Lovely Lucy? Found her at dusk, without an escort, zigzagging wild through the mist.”