The Davenport New Era (Davenport, Okla.), Vol. 10, No. 9, Ed. 1 Thursday, April 11, 1918 Page: 3 of 12
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SPOTS SUBMARINE
ON BED OF OCEAN
IS WIRELESS OPERATOR
Seaplane Has Important Part in
Hunting Down German
U-Boats.
SNARED WITH STEEL ROPES
Enemy Is Qiven Five Minutes to Rise
and Surrender, Then Is Blown
Up—Vivid Description by
English Writer.
London.—One of the methods by
which, as the first sea lord, Sir Eric
Oeddes said recently, the submarine
menace 1s being "held," Is vividly de-
scribed by a writer in the Liverpool
Journal of Commerce.
A seaplane had "spotted" a subma-
rine lying on the sea bed. Instantly
.the observer's finger commenced to
tap a key. Ten miles away a long,
lean destroyer and four squat trawlers
detached themselves like a pack of
hounds working a covert, and hastened
to the kill. Meanwhile the seaplane
circled around. When the surface
ships arrived, her Instructions, deliv-
ered by wireless, were curt and pre-
cise.
Acting upon them the trawlers sta-
tioned themselves at the four corners
of a wet quadrangle, while the de-
stroyer kept her guns reacfy to talk to.
Fritz should he appear above the sur-
face.
The trawlers at the corners got out
their sweeps—long wire hawsers, with
a heavy "kite" In the center to keip
their bights down on the seabed—and
HOHENZOLLERNS DOOMED
commenced to steam toward each
other.
As the pairs of vessels met, their
wires simultaneously engaged them-
selves under the U-boat's bow and
stern, and commenced to work their
sinuous way between her hull and the
sea bottom.
Then the strange thing happened.
Two round, black objects seemed to
detach themselves from her hull and
float surfaceward, to hover a second
and then to commence bobbing down
the tide.
"Minelayer, eh?" called the sea-
plane's observer.
"That's It, lad," came the telephoned
answer, "but her eggs can wait for a
minute."
Then ,the trawlers crossed their de-
pendent cables and thus held the U-
boat in a kind ot wV « cat's cradle. She
seemed to suddenly awake to her
danger, for with a bound she tried to
disentangle herself from the meshes
which held her. But It was no use;
the trawlers had been too long at the
game and the submarine was doomed.
^Uot him," signaled the seaplane.
"1 hanks," responded the destroyer.
The End of the U-Boat.
At a flag signal from the destroyer
the port foremost trawler and the star-
board after one clipped a small red
tin of high explosive to the bar-taut
wire, and allowed It to slide down till
It touched the U-boat's hull.
It was the seaplane's turn to wave a
flag, and Immediately there followed
the fall of two fists upon two firing-
keys ; the uprising of two gray mounds
of water and a rumbling, muffled ex-
plosion.
The seaplane circled twice above
the patch of rising oil, ascertained
that Fritz had been destroyed, and
notified the destroyer. Then, with her
observer slipping a drum of cartridges
into his machine gun, she sped on after
those objects bobbing down tide.
A burst of rapid firing—and the first
of the devil's eggs, its buoyancy cham-
ber punctured, sank with a gurgle;
the second gave a better show, for It
exploded grandly—and harmlessly—as
the bullets reached It.
Miss Elizabeth Duval, wireless op-
erator on the steamship Howard which
plies between Baltimore and Norfolk
and Savannah and Jacksonville. The
young lady Is the first of her sex to
hold that position on an ocean-going
steamship. She has Just obtained her
certificate as an American seaman.
Dog Kills Wildcat.
Monrovia, Cal.—Chum, the Alredalle
belonging to Ben Ocerturff, fire war-
den for this district, has demonstrated
that a dog can lick his weight In wild-
cats. Chum attacked and in five min-
utes killed a wildcat that stood ns tall
as the dog, though not as heavy. The
Airedale, following his master on a
trapping expedition near Deer Park,
"flushed" a bobcat, and chased It Into
a pile of brush. He went In at a dis-
advantage and killed the animal.
Chum's owner believed he would at-
tack a mountain Hon.
SHOVEL IS HIS WEAPON
Thrilling Story of Trawler Skip-
per's Exploit.
According to an ancient German
legend the fall of the house of Hohen-
zollern will come when the statue of
"Christ on the Cross," a relic of the
seventh century which stands In
Kaysersburg, decays. The statue has
been fastly decaying In the past few
years, and since the war the authori-
ties have been continuously repairing
the damaged parts been use of the ef-
fect of the destruction of the statue
would have on the people familiar
with the ancient legend.
Third Blow of Flaillike Implement
Puts Out U-Boat's Eye and Al-
lied Crew Escapes.
London.—When one's vessel Is In
danger from enemy submarines any-
thing will do as a weapon of defense,
as Is shown by the story of a captain
of a British trawler who used a coal
shovel with good effect against a Ger-
man-U-boat. The trawler, according
to the story told by on« of the crew,
was In the North sea In a stiff breeze
when the skipper saw a periscope
crawl through the breaking surface of
the sea about a hundred yards off.
There was no gun aboard and the traw-
ler's best speed was less than eight
knots.
"It was a situation to dismay most
men," said the seaman. "Our skipper,
however, has a fighting spirit. A touch
of the wheel sent the trawler's blunt
bows pointing at the submarine's
whaleback, and we wallowed menac-
ingly toward the pirate.
"The U-boat swung round to avoid
tha impact and the sides of the traw-
ler scraped along the sides of the sub-
marine. The periscope still was well
out of the water but was beginning to
slip down as the submarine dived.
"The skipper bawled for a hammer, i
a crowbar, anything that would hurt j
One of the crew thrust a coal shovel
Into his hand and he scrambled on the
bulwarks and leaned over, two of the
crew hanging on to his coat so that he
wouldn't fall overboard. Backward
and forward he swung the heavy scoop
at the fragile periscope, and the third
blow reduced It to fragments.
"The submarine commander, hearing
the noise and wondering what new and
horrible device the enemy had Invent-
ed, crept to his periscope to have a
look, but all was black. He was blind,
and the trawler got away In safetv."
FOOD COSTS 9 CENTS MORE
8tudent Who Has Been Living on 23
Cents a Day Finds He Must
Pay More.
Greensberg, Pa.—Roy R. Mumma of
Jeanette, Pa., who, while a student at
Carnegie Institute of Technology has
been living on 23 cents n day, has had
to Increase his budget. He is now liv-
ing on 32 cents a day.
Since he graduated from Tech laRt
June Mumma found a Job, saved $400,
took unto himself n wife and has Just
been accepted as a private In the radlo-
mechonlcs branch of the aviation serv-
ice.
Mumma's diet program Includes
bread, milk, cereals, cocoa, rice, pea-
nut butter, fruit, eggs, meat, gelatin,
oleomargarine and even pie.
roo MUCH FOR HER
Woman Could Stand a Lot From
Mere Man, But—
IVhen She Was Told That She Dldnt
Know Enough to Wind a Watch
She Was Ready to Fight
at Once.
"I feel exactly like an alarm clock
all wound up and ready to strike," she
announced.
"What In the world has happened?"
■aid I.
"Nothing," said she, "except that a
mere man has Insinuated that I haven't
sufficient Intelligence to wind a watch."
"Who is the brute?" I demanded.
"Oh, a man downtown In a Jewelry
store. You know," she went on, "that
Peggy has to have a watch or she'd
never come In from play ofi time and
she has to have one that doesn't ob-
ject to being stepped on occasionally,
or dropped on the sidewalk, or left In
the bathtub. So I buy her a cheap
and hardy variety that lasts about a
year and when that is used up I get
■ her another. It's more economical
than paying to keep a higher bred
article In repair.
"Well, I bought her a new one last
week. The thing acted queer from
the start. Sometimes It would plunge
furiously ahead a.) though It were bent
on beating all the rest of the time-
pieces. Sometimes it would lag hours
behind and sometimes It balked alto-
gether. It performed more antics than
you would think possible for a creature
with only two hands. And all this
time I was winding it faithfully.
"After several days of such acro-
batics, I gave up winding it and intern-
ed the thing In a bureau drawer to
await a time when I could take it back
to the Jeweler's.
"I took It back yesterday. I laid the
watch and my troubles before that
Jeweler. He spld if I'd leave it half
an hour he'd look Into the matter.
"Half an hour later, when I return-
ed, a dozen other folks, more or less,
had collected around the watch coun-
ter, all apparently waiting for their
watches, too. I asked for mine. And
In the presence of all those attentive
ears and eyes he handed back that
crazy little rattletrap, and remarked
In a clear voice that 'It was run down
and I couldn't expect any watch to go
If I didn't wind it.'
"Now, I've been stuck on the road
In an auto that refused to budge an-
other Inch. And I've sent to the serv-
ice man who has rushed to my rescue
for the purpose of telling me that
there wasn't any gasoline In the tank.
But that didn't Irritate me. Any-
body's liable to run short of gasoline.
"And once, a long time ago, when I
lived in a house that had a cistern and
a pump In it, I paid a plumber to com*
up and tell me that the cistern was
empty. I did not mind that, either. I
hadn't been down in the cistern—how
Bhould I know it was empty?
"But for any man to presume to In-
form me that a watch has to be wound
—well, I suspect that when Kipling
wrote that stuff about the female ol
the species being more deadly than the
male, hp had Just seen some woman
who had been told that her watcB
wouldn't run unless she wound It."
"However," said I In my best Peac«
Palace style, "to my certain knowledge
there are a number of Jewelry stores
In this town where they listen to one's
troubles with all the patience and at-
tention of a family doctor. I suggest-
that you erase this painful episod<
from the tablets of your memory and
buy your annual watch at one of thess
other places."
"It's a good suggestion," said sha
"and so be it."—Detroit Free Press.
"To Thine Ownself Be True."
If a man has nothing to reproact
himself with, he can bear anything.—
Phillips BrooVi
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Tryon, A. L. The Davenport New Era (Davenport, Okla.), Vol. 10, No. 9, Ed. 1 Thursday, April 11, 1918, newspaper, April 11, 1918; Davenport, Oklahoma. (https://gateway.okhistory.org/ark:/67531/metadc109474/m1/3/: accessed March 29, 2024), The Gateway to Oklahoma History, https://gateway.okhistory.org; crediting Oklahoma Historical Society.