United States. Navy -- History -- World War, 1914-1918; World War, 1914-1918 -- Naval operations, American
What happened to her? There were many theories, most of them wild and
untenable; none that seemed to fit the case thoroughly. Many people
jumped to the conclusion that she was sunk by a submarine, but, so far
as known, there was no submarine anywhere near that region. Others,
seizing upon the fact that her captain, Lieutenant Commander G. W.
Worley, was a native of Germany, and that a number of the crew had
German names, thought captain and crew had turned traitors and taken
the ship to Germany. Her captain had come to America as a boy. He had
been employed in the Naval Auxiliary Service for nearly twenty years
with no evidence of disloyalty. But this belief among some outside the
Navy, that the ship had been taken to Germany, persisted until the
armistice, when there was undeniable proof that no such vessel had been
captured, turned over or sighted, and the Germans knew no more about
her fate than we did.
The only theory that seems tenable is that the _Cyclops_ was caught
in a sudden West Indian hurricane; that her cargo shifted, listing
the vessel, which turned turtle and went down. This is the only way
in which seamen account for the absence of wreckage. Our colliers of
that type have high steel beams like cranes, with chains of buckets
to load and unload coal. If she went down bottom-side up, these huge
steel fingers may have pinned down everything on deck, allowing nothing
to float to the surface. But, like everything else connected with the
case, that is all conjecture.
"Fate unknown," is the inscription beside the name of the _Cyclops_
on the Navy list. The waves that sweep over the spot where she lies
conceal the secret. Her fate will probably remain a mystery until that
Last Day when the waters are rolled back and the sea gives up its dead.
The most serious loss of life, next to the _Cyclops_, sustained by
the N. O. T. S., was in the sinking of the _Ticonderoga_. This animal
transport, manned by Navy personnel but with soldiers aboard to care
for the cargo, was almost in mid-Atlantic, though nearer Europe than
America, the night of September 29, when her engines broke down and she
fell behind her convoy. At 5:30 the next morning she was attacked by
the U-152. Though the steamer was riddled by shells, and most of her
men were killed or wounded, she fought on for two hours until both her
guns were disabled. Lifeboats had been smashed by shell-fire, and there
were not even enough rafts left to accommodate all the men. They were
hundreds of miles from the nearest land, the Azores, with little hope
of getting to shore.
The wounded were given the preference in getting into the boats. Of the
237 men aboard only 24 were saved, the majority of them wounded. Two
of the officers, both junior-grade lieutenants, F. L. Muller and J. H.
Fulcher, were taken prisoners and carried to Germany by the submarine.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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