Just imagine what his feelings must have been on realising that after spending fifteen months on a raiding and mine laying cruise, and always evading his enemies, he had run his vessel aground almost at the gates of Germany, and in place of receiving the Iron Cross first class, there was the possibility of his facing court martial on his arrival home, provided of course he was lucky enough to escape internment. Thinking this I fell asleep and at 6:30 A.M. of February 25th (shall I ever forget the date?) I was awakened by one of the German seamen named "Hans" knocking at my door and saying: "Kapitaine, Kapitaine, wake up and get ready to go ashore in the boats." I'll bet we broke all speed records getting on deck. Rose asked me to get into the life-saving boat first, as the Danish crew could not speak English, and then I could help the balance as they came down the ladder. I got Juanita firmly on my back and climbed down into the boat. There was a large sea running and as the _Igotz Mendi_ was stationary on the bottom and the life-boat was riding on the seas, one moment it would be even with my feet and in another would be fifteen feet below. The idea was to jump at that instant the boat was even with me. This was easy enough with myself and wife, who understood such things and had had previous experience, but to the balance of the passengers it was hard to make them let go at the right time; they all having a tendency to hang on until the boat had started to go down again. Then, if they should let go, the drop was so great that the men in the life-boat could not hold them when they tried to catch them. In some cases it was necessary absolutely to tear the passengers off the ladder by main force. However, we finally got all the women, children and men into the boat and we started for the beach. When we got into the breakers and the seas washed clean over us, many thought it would be a case of swim or drown, not reckoning on the kind of life-boat we were in or on the class of men that manned it.