Kankakee Valley Post, Volume 9, Number 45, DeMotte, Jasper County, 28 September 1939 — Floyd Gibbons' [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

Floyd Gibbons'

ADVENTURERS’ CLUB HEADLINES FROM THE LIVES OF PEOPLE LIKE YOURSELFI

“Jf /iite Streak in the H ater” Hello everybody: Bill Mogge says he has nothing to kick about, and that’s a swell way of looking at it. And at the same time I’m wondering how many other people could go through what Bill did, and suffer as Bill suffered, and lose as Bill lost, and still take that same attitude that Bill takes about what happened to him in the dreadful hours that followed his seeing a white line shoot toward him across the wind-tossed waters of the North sea. That white line was a common sight on the North sea in World war days. It meant bad luck to the ship from which it was seen, and that was no mere sailors’ superstition either. Bill saw it on July 29, 1915, from the Belgian steamer Princesse Marie, on which he was working as an able seaman. And now the Princesse Marie is at the bottom of the sea, several of her crew are dead, and Bill Mogge has some terrible hours to remember. Bill lives in Nutley, N. J. He has a wife and. a thirteen-year-old daughter, and he says, “Life is good, after all.” But on that July day in 1915 his prospects for continuing that life began to look as though they weren't worth a plugged nickel. Then he was a young Dutch lad working on that Belgian ship for the extra ten shillings that were handed out every month to the men who risked death in the submarine-infested war zone. Bill and the boatswain were up on a scaffold washing the sides of the wheelhouse and the bridge when Bill looked off over the water to starboard and saw that white streak. ~ Streak Headed for Center of Ship. Bill says he froze in his shoes. Every sailor knew what that streak meant. Torpedo! And this streak was headed right for the center of the ship—right for the spot below the wheelhouse on which he and the boatsw'ain were working. “Like a man in a dream I watched that white mark grow longer,” he says. “It was almost on us, and I knew there wasn’t time to avoid it. Almost at the same instant I saw a periscope come out of the water. I shouted to the bos’n, but I’ll never know whether he heard me or not. For at that-same instant there was a terrific explosion, and everything went black before my eyes.” When Bill came to again he was lying on the deck in a lot of debris—and a pool of blood. The ship had all but broken in two. Water was rushing into it and it was sinking fast. Bill tried to get to his feet, but he couldn’t move. His arm hurt, and his head seemed to be spinning around like a top. “I tried to shake off that dizzy feeling,” he says, “but it was no use. Blood was running into my eyes from a wound in my head, and my injured arm was useless. I thought I would go crazy as I lay there, unable to move, while the ship sank steadily, threatening every moment to go under.” But at last Bill managed to pull himself together. He struggled to his feet and looked about him. The decks were deserted. His right

arm was covered with blood and nearly blown off. Using his left arm, he climbed the ladder to the boat deck—but there were no boats there any more His shipmates had gone, leaving him to drown. Last Life Boat Ready to Shove Off. Just as Bill was ready to give up he looked over the side, and that look saved his life.:. Down there in the water was just one lifeboat—the last one-getting ready to shove off. Bill knew he didn’t have a moment to lose. Those lads in the boat weren’t going to wait for stragglers. He had to get in that boat or go down with the ship, and the only way to get into it in time- was to jump for it. Bill did jump—right from the boat deck. He landed in a heap on top of a bunch of cursing sailors who wanted to know who he was. “I thought they were crazy to ask such a question,” says Bill. “Didn’t they know me—their shipmate—any more? Little did I realize how I looked to them. I was just a black and bloody mess that even my own mother wouldn’t have recognized.” Lifeboat Steams Full Speed Toward Harwich. The boat had no sooner pulled away than the ship sank w’ith a groan and a hiss of steam. Bill lay in the bottom while the others rowed. “My head was burning,” he says, “and I thought I would go crazy. Oft and on I did go out of my mind. About an hour later we were picked up by a British mine sweeper. They pulled me up in a canvas because I was too weak to climb aboard. Some officer put an emergency bandage around my head, and they kept giving me coffee and cigarettes to keep me alive. We steamed full speed toward Harwich, the nearest port where there was a hospital.” Radio messages to shore had told the hospital of their coming, and there was an ambulance waiting for Bill at the dock. “When I got to the hospital,” says Bill, “I felt somehow that I would be safe, and didn’t fight any more against the darkness that kept trying to close down over my eyes. I don’t know what happened after that, but when I awoke the nurse told me I had been unconscious for two days.” They did their best for Bill at that hospital—in spite of the fact that he was a Hollander and the English had just about all they could do o take care of their own wounded who were coming over every day from France. One day a nurse started to teach him to write with his left hand —and then Bill knew he would never use his right arm again. When his wounds had healed up the Dutch consul general sent Bill to a hospital in Holland, and there he spent two more years while the doctors performed five operations trying to give him back the use of his arm, and a little while after he was discharged he came to America. And after all he went through, Bill still says he has no kick coming. “The Belgian government awarded me a pension,” he says, “and I am grateful to that country for the square deal it gave me. I’ll never forget the wonderful treatment I got in the British hospital, and I am thankful to America for the wonderful opportunities it has given me.” And that’s from a bird who really got a tough break and has every right in the world to complain about his luck. (Released by Western Newspaper Union.>

“At the same instant there was a terrific explosion, and everything went black before my eyes.”