On the afternoon of May 23d, at 4 P. M., while the water-tight door system was being tested, one of the Army officers accidentally had his leg caught in a closing water-tight door. These doors are hydraulically opened and shut and centrally controlled by a lever on the bridge. Prior to the closing of these doors a warning alarm is sounded, but the officer, in some unexplainable manner, became confused and suffered a severe injury. The ship’s log for the next few days showed the single entry “B,” which signifies clear weather and absolutely blue sky. The sea was unusually smooth at this time, hardly a ripple appearing on the surface of the water. “CARLTON” TORPEDOED At 6:37 A. M., May 29th, our escort of destroyers was picked up, immediately taking up their respective positions abeam and ahead of the ship. Everything went well until 4:25 this same afternoon, when we received an S.O.S. from the _U. S. S. Carlton_ that she had been torpedoed in 47° North Latitude, 11° 20´´ West Longitude, and upon referring to our charts we found that we would be in that same position at 9:30 that same evening. It was advisable for us to change our course in order to steer clear of the possible cruising radius of this submarine, which we did at 5:05, heading our course to the north. At 10:45 P. M., after passing the approximate position of the sinking of the _Carlton_, we resumed our direct course for Brest. During this time signals were exchanged between us and our escort upon the advisability of sending one of our escorting destroyers to the assistance of the _Carlton_, but owing to the great value of our own ship and its precious cargo aboard this was deemed inadvisable. This illustrates what stern measures necessarily had to be taken in time of war. We were compelled to leave the crew of a torpedoed ship presumably to their fate for the greater duty involved upon us. However, later reports showed that the crew of the _Carlton_ had been rescued by one of the alert destroyers patrolling the seas in this vicinity. We did not consider all danger past and as an extra precaution, orders were issued on board to have all men assigned to duty on life-boats and similar duties, remain at their stations until further orders. This vigil continued throughout the night. It was a clear moonlight night, but moonlight held no charm for us then. The rays reflecting upon the water lighted up the huge ship and made her a fine target for a lurking U-boat. ENGAGEMENT WITH SUBMARINE