The explosion wrecked everything in the engine-room, including the ice machine and dynamo, and almost instantly flooded the compartment. The engine-room was filled with ammonia fumes and with the high-pressure gasses from the torpedo, and it is believed that every one on duty there was either instantly killed or disabled, excepting one oiler. This man happened to be on the upper gratings at the time. He tried to escape through the engine-room door but found it jammed and the knob blown off. Unable to force the door and finding that he was being overcome by the gases and ammonia fumes, he managed to escape through the engine-room skylight just as the ship was going under. Within a few seconds after the explosion, the water was over the crossheads of the main engines which were still turning over slowly. Of the twenty-one men on duty in the engine and fire rooms, only three escaped. Besides the oiler, two firemen crawled up through a ventilator. The fact that the engines could not be stopped and the headway checked, added to the difficulty of abandoning ship. That only four boats out of ten succeeded in getting clear was due to this and several other causes,—the short time the ship stayed afloat, which was four and a half minutes by my watch, the rough sea, the heavy list, and the destruction of boats by the explosion. When there was no one left in sight on the decks, I went aft on the saloon deck where several men were struggling in the water near No. 5 boat and making no attempt to swim away from the side of the ship. I thought that they might be induced to get clear before the suction carried them down. By this time, however, the ship which was listed over at an angle of forty-five degrees, started to upend and go down. This motion threw me across the deck where I was washed overboard. The behavior of the naval personnel was equal to the best traditions of the service. The two forward gun’s crews, in command of Lieutenant Tisdale, remained at their gun stations while the ship went down and made no effort to leave their stations until ordered to save themselves. Radio Electrician Ausburne went down with the ship while at his station in the radio-room. When the ship was struck, Ausburne and McMahon were asleep in adjacent bunks opposite the radio-room. Ausburne, realizing the seriousness of the situation, told McMahon to get his life-preserver on, saying, as he left to take his station at the radio key, “Good-bye, Mac.” McMahon, later finding the radio-room locked and seeing the ship was sinking, tried to get Ausburne out, but failed.