Evening Republican, Volume 21, Number 232, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 3 October 1918 — PLAY GAME WITH HUN “TIN FISH” [ARTICLE]

PLAY GAME WITH HUN “TIN FISH”

London. —How a certain United States naval observer dally plays the game of life and death with Hun “tin fish” was Interestingly told here recently by a member of the committee on public information as follows: “A short, thick, temporary ensign, one T. H. Murphy, with red face and very blue eyes, sits day and night in his office in a little shack at a United States naval air station, poring over raised maps with colored strings stretched on them and queef redheaded pins stuck in them. “His job Is to keep track of every Hun submarine that Is In operation. Being a former submarine ifian himself, his instinct for them is that of a ferret after a rat. “He knows when they need air, how badly every depth charge has tickled them —knows even when they must come to the surface for the skipper to smoke his cigar, as there is no smoking inside a submarine. “Murphy’s knowledge decides the success or failure of the many young reserve ensigns of the naval flying force now at stations where there are young men who have left the ballrooms of New York or the battlefields of Yale and Harvard to take a whack at the Hun. “Take, for Instance, Ensign E. J. Schieffelin of New York city and of the Yale class, 1919. He Is direct descendant of John Jay, of Revolutionary fame, and his father left home for the Spanish-American war in the same ship that carried his son to tills one. Murphy Was Right. “Schieffelin was in Murphy’s office early one morning when that expert took the pipe from his mouth, stuck a pin in the middle of the North sea and then blew out a blue cloud of smoke. “‘They’ll be needin’ one,” he said, ‘right about there.’ “ ‘One what?’ ‘“A smoke, of course. They’ve been under so many pours on such and such a course. In three hours they’ll broach and the reason will be tobacco. Search area —and —and you’ll find a sub.’ ' “Schieffelin was the first pilot. The second pilot was Lieut. Roger W. Cutler, stroke and captain of the Harvard varsity crew of 1917. The crew of the big seaplane was completed by Bernstein, the machinist’s mate, and Taggart, electrician and champion 100-yard sprinter. “Three hours later a bright herringbone sea was creeping under them. Through the mist the visibility was bad, but suddenly both officers made the same exclamation

under their breath as the seaman called' to his mate: “‘A large Hun Is going north, one gun,’.Schieffelin remarked. ‘Say, Murphy was right, only I don’t see anyone smoking.’ “The plane got Itself between the sub and the sun. Then, for two whole minutes it bore down on the Hun shark. She loomed up through the mist ‘big as a house,’ Schieffelin said afterward. “Within a half minute she started to submerge with — “Crash! “‘Now,’ said Cutler, *we will give them a light.’ Brought Home the Onions. “He tripped his bomb release at the Instant the big plane was directly over the enemy’s conning tower, which was exactly awash. Schieffelin threw the machine -Into a vertical bank to observe the effect of the explosion. “A white geyser spouted fifteen feet on the enemy’s port beam. The delay had been just right. “ ‘Look, her propeller’s out,’ laughed one of the men. They knew then that she was damaged and that her diving pfanes had been so injured that she could not submerge. They knew she had to cling to the surface, that all her advantage in being a sub was lost and that she was "a prey to any patrol. “As the plane was short of petrol, having a forty-mile wind to fight against, the American lads set sail for home with a sense of a deed well done. The rest was routine. The plane signaled a drifter: ‘There Is a damaged sub five miles northwest of you.’ “The drifter, knowing that a sub on the surface would start to run like a scared cat, as' damaged subd do, and that they couldn’t catch her, relayed the news to certain destroyers. “The destroyers did the rest, hurried up, rammed the U-boat, and there were only six survivors. Her diving rudder had probably been damaged. The destroyers put her down, but she was the prize of Schieffelin of Yale and Cutler of Harvard. It was Cutler’s first fly as a pilot on a war patrol. “The first bombs he ever dropped in action ‘brought home the onions.’ ”