_December 16th_. Pretty heavy sea, and gale blowing and hitting us hard. At 2 P.M. asked permission of the convoy to leave for Brest before the big storm breaks. _Later._ This may be the last entry I’ll ever make. We are in a hurricane and a mountainous sea. Unable to proceed without swamping and are now hove to in the teeth of the gale, barely making headway. The water is about four feet deep on the decks.... _17th._ A terrible day and none of us expected to live through it. At 2.45 A.M. there was an awful crash and then a flood of water poured below. We all thought she had foundered and fought our way to the topside through water and wreckage. I had just reached the deck when there was a tremendous explosion and the ship took a bad list. Water poured in everywhere. I heard some one yell, “My God, we’re torpedoed,” but I thought it was one of the boilers. Some of the men were manning the boats, and I had some battle to get to my station on the bridge without being washed off like a chip. I had just climbed to the bridge when there was another explosion, and a flash. My first thought was that we had struck a mine-field and then I heard one of the officers say that our own mines were going off. Ensign Schanze ran aft to see if our stern was gone and found the watch chasing loose mines all over the deck. As fast as they were caught, the detonators were removed and they were pitched overboard to get rid of them. I stood at my post on the bridge expecting the ship to sink under my feet at any minute. I had made up my mind not to try to go in a lifeboat on account of the size of the sea, but to grab something wooden if I could. At this time a heavy rain squall swept over us. When I saw that the ship was not sinking, I went below to the engine-room to get warm. I found conditions pretty serious there, with two feet of water around the engines and the engineers and firemen working in water up to their knees. The word was passed that we had turned and were running before the sea, and as long as the waves did not start breaking over the stern we could stay afloat. At 7 A.M. the seas got worse and began coming over. First to go was the engine-room bulkhead. It caved in with a frightful crash. Our radio also went down. Things looked mighty unpleasant, believe me, and after a conference with the executive officer, our commander decided to run straight ahead and try to fetch the coast of Spain. It was our only chance to save our skins, so we plugged ahead at a few knots.