Newspapers / The Mount Airy News … / July 4, 1918, edition 1 / Page 5
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I. W. WEST DRUG CO. MAIN STREET MOUNT AIRY. N. C. WILKES MAN ON SHIP SUNK BY SUBMARINE. U. S. S. Prmdnl Lincoln Wm Comnund«d by Percy W. Foot*—Thrilling Story. following is • thrilling atory from • rBrant maaa of the York Her old on tha sinking of tha U. 3. M. Preauient Lincoln. a« related liy a nor eivor. Tha ship *» in charge of rommander Pan-ay W. Fnnta. «on of former rounty aupenntendent, Major Jamea H. Koote. of Wilkea, ami broth er of Mr. A. V. Poote of North Wilkea boro, secretary of tha Williams Mill Company at Ronda and brother of Mr. Jama* Foote, of LitUe Rock A r kanaaa. and of Mr*. Electa Cooper, of Stateaville; Mrs. Lillian LeOrand, of Winaton-Salem. H«. was returning to thia country from France, the ahip do ing aervice aa a United Staea trans port. The story ia aa follows : Thrilling and dramat.c and reveal-1 ing how the traditional courage, cool neaa and diacipline of the American navy in time of danger waa upheld in tha sinking of the United State* transport President Lincoln ia the sto ry related to the Herald by Lester Neuberger of 2d Park place, an enlist ed man in the navy ami one of the •urvivor*. With the ?.ide of their ship torn by a torpedo from a German submarine live hundred miles off the French coa*t on morning of May 3 tut, the Amenran (run crews kept firing while the transport nettled beneath their feet. Commander Percey W. Foote, In command of the transport, remain ed on the hridp*. giving order* thru a megaphone ax calmly a* th<> he were entering a friendly port. At the solicitation of his subordi nates, Commander Foote and his exec stives donned seaman's uniform* and thus e*«raped capture when the U-boat commander made a tearrh for them. The Hons, however, took prisoner Lieutenant Edward V. M. Isaacs, who was ill and unable to dixguise himself. The 6W! survivors made their es cape in boats and on rafts and were picked up by desth/yera after drift ing tor 16 hours. >teuberger drew a rir»d picture of the men singing a-; the President Lincoln sank and the submarine wove in and out among the groups of survivors on the fruitless search for the commander. Undisturbed by the danger, one of the teaman sat on * raft and drew the akeu h of the -ubmarine which the Herald here print*. Neuberger said that the German commander was a mm of fine appear ance and spoke faultless English. He described an usual incident in sub marine warfare acarrying on by the Prussians hy telling how they took a seaman, C. E. Anderson, who was ill from one of the small boats and re leased him after giving him coffee, hardtack and cognac. Neuberger declared that the crew of tte transport has been in France but six days and began the return run in good spirits. "We were called on deck at ftquarUs to three o'clock as usual on May 31," he said. "The 0 order. 'All hands on deck, up all ham mocks!' came from our Jimmy Legs,' for it is compulsory that every man be on the pen deck from dawn till sun rite, just at he must be from dusk and until dark, with lifebelts on. Dawn on the morning of May 31 was at a quarter to 8 o'clock. Besides having to be on the open deck during those two periods morning and evening, we also must sleep with all our clotho on, including shoes, while we sre in the so-called war tone. We are not P permitted to turn in for the night un til officially notified to do so. r.xpmuon follow* Alarm "On this particular moraine rrary thinr want wall until meat. I wan b» lovr primping op for 'aoiMibljr,' when st about 10 minutM to 9 I heard the general alarm nouiulad. For parhapa thirty wondi; I baliaved that it waa a call for apodal drill hut a fearful axplnaion thut -ama than mada ma raalixa (hat (he alarm had baan a torpe<!'i or p* ibly a mina had if one home.' It afterwarHa turned out that tha tnrpado that atruck 'ha Preaident t.in rain atruck bar aide not ■ hundred feat from where I »M in my 'ahop.' I made my way aa quickly and quietly aa I could above. "Tha discipline iinnn( tha hoy* waa wonderful. K very body moved with out the alightc t traca of excitement, altho everybody below at tha time knaw that wa had bean fairly struck and that it wax a quantum of taking to the boat* and quieting tha good old "My station wa« that of 'Man th* falls,' who-.«* duty in to kand!« the line fi»r lowmrnr 'lif boat.i, to whirli I had been previously a»-i>;n«L "For a lime it looked a* it the Presi dent Lincoln would not sink. When I i-ame on deck there wan a severe lint to port, fmm wliich the biff ship right ed herself, very quickly, and remained on an even keel for what seemed, of course, a mui'h longer time than real ly pa- sed. The inrush of water* pro bably caused the «hip to list heavily to ftarboard. the side f »ai on. It seemed that I could «lmo«t touch the top of the waver as they washed up underneath my station. "The weather wa.s all that we could wish for and thia, added to the abso lute discipline among the men, made the first general alarm was given, and the rafts that had Inter launched when survivor" -afely into the Soars arrd to also to bring back in safety every man of them to France after aomesix teen hours in our frail craft on the big seas. f.avr His Orders Calmly. "The President Lincoln was hit «» actly at three minuten to nine a. m. and sank exactly at twenty minutes after nine a. m. It was an inspiring light to »ee the commander on the bridge with his megaphone giving or ders just as calmly as if we were merely manoeuvering out of a harbor ir^tead of fetiir.g away from a sink ing ship as quickly a* possible. ' Anotoer ihii.<: that will forever remain in my memory as a most won derful .spectacle was to/ee No«. 1 and 2 gun crews, forward, remain at their posts and fire at the submarine while the President Lincoln '.ras slowly set tling under their very feet. It wa« a* if the good old ship, in her dying struggle, wa even then trying to de stroy the elusive assailant that had given her lea;h blow. "During this firing at the U-boat, the men from the tran'prt went over, board like frogs into a pond, that is, tl e who were makir.g for the big rafts that were floating near the ship's side. "As the seventh shot was fired the gun crew gui the 'abandon ship' order and quit. "The transport's stern was settling all the time, but all hands, except the twenty-aix missing, of whom three were officers, were well clear of the vessel when she toon her final plunge, stern first. There was a terrific rush of air from the ventilator* that we could plainly hear, a considerable distance away. We expected the boiler* to ex plode sooner than they did. When they did, there was a loud dull roar and the eliigle funnel, which at the time wan half way under water was lifted into the air and came back into the ocean with a great *pU«h. "All the men in the hoata and on the raft* wero sin/ring, 'Over the Rounding Main,' "Hail, Hail, the .Gang'* All Here,' 'We May be Gone for • fiong. T^-ng Time,' 'If Mother | Could Only See U» How,' and^Many Inn HmtU tn Ailn| Is dm Dm* "1W boat la wfcie* f wae h—».< lata • dapdi ihai ji which nt ail oat «i the top of • rhut. Yoa ran iMf. mm wa pulled away from there aa the Isnhlt ifutck. Fight Agaiaet OM *e|rtaae. Of court* there could be no help from the other ships, aa the rutaa are ta scatter whan ana vaaaal la hit. But the wtralaaa from the others, aa wall aa our owi wireieeo, had notified the float headqu&'tara ami we know that iloetroyora would ha sent to piek ue , tip it we coulj only light off old Nop i tune long enough. "We had touted make, hift signals if all earta. In our boat we had one made from an officer'* undershirt, which he obllri'rlngly donated. "Very «onn after wa had seen the | President Lincoln disappear the V IhihI came toward ue. "Vow, since sailor* on the sea are the same aa soldlara on the field, all nf ue thought that the Germans would Open Are 0:1 our hnata and destroy im aK legitimate prey, so that wr 1 votild be combatants no longer. But j nothing of the sort happened. "The captain of the I'-boat was the handsomest cliup I ever saw and he ( poke faultle-s English. "He and hi* men hove to a little distance from ua and ralmly took napshot* with ramwu from the deck j of the U-hoaU Aftar the;- had taken all the picturea they wanted, from a , distance, they came alongside the boat t was in, with several of our other boats clustered nearby, and took some real 'clo*e-upa' of ua! I "When that wan over with they put away their cameras anil began moving from boat to boat, inquiring for the commanding officer of the Prevalent Lincoln. "For very,good reason they did not And the comma.ider .tor any of the of ficer* except First Lieutenant Isaac*, who wa.< too seasick to disguise him self, and who wis taken a prisoner on the L'-ho*t. "The rom.nander. at the urgent so licitation of hia nwn. had donned a sailor'* uniform and had taken hia place at one of the war*. So bad the I executive officer of the transport. "Hut <t sort of intuition mode every man of the surv ivors say that the ' commander and the executive officer had gone down with the ship when they w* e queitioned by the I' boat commander. "The V boot comrnamler's rank I , would like to know. All he had on hie ileeve wu a rrewn. He and his ! crew remained with as for five good hour*, questioning us and looking for the captain and the executive officer, | and every now and then again taking snapshots of ox In oar boats and rafts. I "When the C"-boat drew away and disappeared at 3 o'clock that after noon we got all our boats and raftx ixge'.her into a sort of drifting com munity, and then one of our officer* took stock of what we had in the way of smokes. He collected all we had ar.d then divided equally the stock of ! cigarettes ami matches. "In my Vat there wa; a" army <.ffi ■ cer wh > had a satchel who had not volunteered to decla-e, Mall of un other fellows had done. ju.-t what he had in the way of cigai ette.s and , matches A Kttle later he got to be very rciukk, and when cne of our men took a chill and there was no { clothing to put around him, somebody opened the army man's satchel to see if there wa* anything in the way of clothing in the bag. The army man was too sick to notice what we did. In the satchel we found some heavy un derclothing for our mar. who was ill and at the bottom of the bag. we found several large cartoons of cigar ettes that the army man had not cared to disclose he possessed. You may be sure that we took everything away from him and divided the loot among all hands in all boats. "In emergencies such as the one is : which «t found ourselves, we are not allowed to to'jch food or water for { twelve hours, if lite ihances of retwue -com far off. That i# a precaution in | order to make the supplies last as long as possible. "We had not yet touched the food or water when at 11 o'clock that night we lighted a flirV.ert.ijr light. It camp rearer and nearer. It was a destroy ' >r, which had rvachad the scene of actual toTp*4olng at 7 p n».. Vot *« we J liad drifud a U| way off, had not tommd ft ON U o'clock. *1 Umm4 sflai dM two te •etroyara Im4 mm ami had ahiM • tanmile rs#aa. bat aa »• had drifted eighteen ill—. they had mat found us, and had than begua a second tan-mile circuit, whan thay Anally raiaa upon the place whara «a were. Tha second destroyer aoan ram* up. and hy I o'clock la tha morning all hand* had. baan transferred to tha war ahipa "Tka deetroyers, alth all swvivors on hoard, remained on tha arena until I a. m., halpinir to pick up othara and than wa proraadad to tha French coaat. A i o'clock wa paased a great ma«< wrerkagc of tha President Lincoln—rlmu, fumitura and so on. Dt*Ma Koad and »aafcaa. "Tha at an on tha daatroyar wara certainly Ana. Thay divided all thair clothes, amokes and fond with us sur vivor* and wara a rtoapitable lot ail lha way thru. "I might add that thara wara forty two man in my boat, whara I hail tha atroka oar. Wa atartad from tha ahip with about eighteen and pirkad up tha othara from tha water or from over crowded boata or rafta. Whan wa gathered, aftar tha l,'-boata left. We laahad many of our boata and rafta to gether, which waa poaxil la because of tha Ana waathar. "1,'ndar tha cool directions of our officer* we took man from rafta and plat-ail them in lifeboats, according to thair physical condition, tha at r on if. younger men being placed on tha rafta, where tha exposure waa more severe than in tha boata. Thia will prove to Americana tha Ana order and discipline that we maintained thru out our trying experience. "Just aa tha Lincoln went down we gave three hig cheers, juat to give the old girl a Atting send-off and make her feel a bit easier as aha lies on the bottom of the Atlantic." War Profit* Will B« Made To Pay Enormous War tax Washington, July I.—The report of the Federal Trade commission show in if huge war proAta and profiteering in many induxtrie* has aroused mem bers of Congresa at both ends of the capital and may have direct fruit in the framing of the war revenue hill. That radical rate* of taxation will be levied on war profits, in the light of the iHwIimirt which the commi* ion made in it" report to the senate Sat urday, became quite probable tixlay at senators ami representatives di gested the startling revelations. Both the ways and means commit tee and the ftrr.nce committee wiM have the Federal Trade commi.t-ion'< report before them in drafting reve nue legislation. .Senator Simmon and other members of the finance com mittee today »aid the report would be closely scrutinized. Senator Borah, triUiduceti tLe - resolution wh.eh brouifht the report declared today that no bu.-ine-i» institution should ask more than a modest profit in war time and the senators who insisted la.it session on a very excess profits tax were now supported by the report of the C Jtr.mi?Mon. Chii.Tn.Ti Simmons and his e >m mittee undoubtedly -"ul<l consult the trade commission'* report. -We will u.*e the facts disclooed in the report of the trade commission in drafting the revenue bill, and alia other information being prepared bjf the treasury officials," said Sena* or Simmons. "We cannot afford to wins at tuch conditions as have been (In closed in the report. It is true the profits dealt within in that report were largely due to monopolistic con ditions, and I much doubt that busi ness generally has made such pro fits." Senator Mi-Cumber ar.oti.er mrmh-r of the finance r< mmittee. .said the sit uation on profiteering must be hand led by taxation. Price fixing, he sug gested, cannct meet the evil, ilv pre dicted there would be strong tenti mert in the committee for exceeHinr Ijr hecvy taxes on all profits above a mode it and reasonable return on in vestment. Cbnirman Kitchin and members of the house committee have long been convinced of the prevalence of huge war profits and Mr. Kitchin has made several speeches on the subject. The excess profits beneficiaries, therefore, wfll get little rjrmpathy from the Kit dun turnstile* ? Unit Airy tatty & AactM Cn J. A. ATKINS. Mil* MOUNT AIRY, — North , If y<M want to Hay or mII apply ta us. — W« hamfl* all I 'i.mJi of RmI Eatat*. public and private. J OFF»C£ OVER CARP'S STORE. Auction Sale! The lard of G. L. Dorlson known a* the Will Hea ring place will he sold to the highest bidder on I SATURDAY, AUGUST 10th, 1913, 10 A. M i on the Lowgap road ll- miles from Mount Airy. This farm contain* 40 acres, plenty of timber uvi, (food 1 room house and outbuilding. The lan<l wUI be cut up into small -tracts. Will also sell all the household and kitchen furni ture, farming tools, etc. Terms make konwn on day of sale. Music by Mount Airy Band. W. H. DODSON, Exr. Sale Conducted by MOUNT AIRY REALTY * AUCTION COM^'Y. J. A. Atkins, Manager. JJf Speed— f Speed—Speed! Uncle Sam pushed the clock ahnt4 one hour to give more light. Take advantage of it. You owe it * to j onrvlf and yowr cotmfry to make every minute count. Use your car—passenger or com mercial—to the limit. Samuel P. Colt, president of the United State* Rubber Company, helped awaken the country to the economic value of the automobile last fall. He said— i "Everything on wheels must be ar^i e~ ' it.' ''The automobile is second to the raflmds ss ait rdjeirt and -.uppte mentary to therj La culit^Uiig and distributing merchandise. "Owners should use their car*, , both passenger and commercial, more and more." Make the most of your car by using the tires that will extend its usefulness to the utmost. Use good tires—United States Tiren They last longest and carry yam farthest at least cost. There is a United State* Tire fur every car or truck—to guarantee un interrupted service and greatest economy. Our nearest Sale* and Service Depot dealer will tell you which ones wiQ serve you best. United States Tires are Good Tires _j We know United States Tires *re good tires. That's why we sell them. Smith Hdw. Ca ML Airy. KM
The Mount Airy News (Mount Airy, N.C.)
Standardized title groups preceding, succeeding, and alternate titles together.
July 4, 1918, edition 1
5
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