The other German act which brought home to Americans the possibilities of the submarine, the visit of the U-53, was a very different sort of matter. U-53 was a German submarine of the largest type. On October 7, 1916, it made a sudden appearance at Newport, and its captain, Lieutenant-Captain Hans Rose, was entertained as if he were a welcome guest. He sent a letter to the German Ambassador at Washington and received visitors in his beautiful boat. The U-53 was a war submarine, two hundred and thirteen feet long, with two deck guns and four torpedo tubes. It had been engaged in the war against Allied commerce in the Mediterranean. Captain Rose paid formal visits to Rear-Admiral Austin Knight, Commander of the United States Second Naval District, stationed at Newport, and Rear-Admiral Albert Gleaves, Commander of the American destroyer flotilla at that place, and then set out secretly to his destination. On the next day the news came in that the U-53 had sunk five merchant vessels. These were the Strathdene, which was torpedoed; the West Point, a British freighter, also torpedoed; the Stephano, a passenger liner between New York and Halifax, which the submarine attempted to sink by opening its sea valves but was finally torpedoed; the Blommersdijk, a Dutch freighter, and the Christian Knudsen, a Norwegian boat. The American steamer Kansan was also stopped, but allowed to proceed. When the submarine began its work wireless signals soon told what was happening, and Admiral Knight, with the Newport destroyer flotilla, hurried to the rescue. These destroyers picked up two hundred and sixteen men and acted with such promptness that not a single life was lost. The action of the U-53 produced intense excitement in America. The newspapers were filled with editorial denunciation, and the people were roused to indignation. The American Government apparently took the ground that the Germans were acting according to law and according to their promise to America. They had given warning in each case and allowed the crews of the vessels which they sunk to take to their boats. This was believed to be a fulfilment of their pledge “not to sink merchant vessels without warning and without saving human lives, unless the ship attempts to escape or offers resistance.”