World War, 1914-1918 -- Naval operations -- Submarine; World War, 1914-1918 -- United States
While these preliminaries were taking place, a couple of German sailors
disappeared into the interior of the submarine, stayed there a moment or
two, and then returned to the deck. They had apparently performed a duty
that was characteristically German; for a few minutes after they
appeared again, the _U-58_ began to settle in the water, and soon
afterward sank. These men, obeying orders, had opened the cocks and
scuttled the ship--this after the officers had surrendered her! As the
submarine disappeared, the men and officers dived and started swimming
toward the _Fanning_; four of them became entangled in the radio antennæ
and were dragged under the waves; however, in a few minutes these men
succeeded in disentangling themselves and joined the swimmers. As the
thirty-nine men neared the _Fanning_ it was evident that most of them
were extremely wearied and that some were almost exhausted. The sailors
from the _Fanning_ threw over lines; some still had the strength to
climb up these to the deck, while to others it was necessary to throw
other lines which they could adjust under their arms. These latter, limp
and wet figures, the American sailors pulled up, much as the fisherman
pulls up the inert body of a monster fish. And now an incident took
place which reveals that the American navy has rather different ideals
of humanity from the German. One of the sailors was so exhausted that he
could not adjust the life-lines around his shoulders; he was very
apparently drowning. Like a flash Elxer Harwell, chief pharmacist mate,
and Francis G. Conner, coxswain, jumped overboard, swam to this
floundering German, and adjusted the line around him as solicitously as
though he had been a shipmate. The poor wretch--his name was Franz
Glinder--was pulled aboard, but he was so far gone that all attempts to
resuscitate him failed, and he died on the deck of the _Fanning_.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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