Historical Newspapers of South Carolina

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SOUTH OAKOUN4 ) .. * i y r i. * ■ . fcrn pier. and that vanished in a roar nrt<l leap of flumes *vl»1eh called to the guns.’ : • “Over the town n flattie- suddenly appeared high In the .air and sunk slowly earthwards—the slgnalUm! the airplanes had 'seen and understood. Almost coincident!? with their /lrst bombs came .the first shells, whooping up from the monitors The sur prise purt of the nttnek/wiis sprung. “The surprise, despite the^Gerinans’ watchfulness, seems to have been com plete. Up until the moment when the torpedoes of the motorboats exploded there had not been a shot “from" the land—only occasional routine' star shells. , . Great Batteries Blinded." “The motor launches were doing tl|e4r»\vork magnificently. These pock et warships, manned by officers. and nieri of the Rovftl Naval volunteers conplngTower. Lieut. Sir John All/yne and Lieut. V. A. C. Crutchley were- •stlll within. Commander Godsal was flosd tO’fhe tower outside. IJeut. Al- leyue was stmmed by\ the shook. Lieut. Crutchley shouted through the slit to the commander, and receiving no answer, rang for the port engine /nil speed astern, to help the swinging ship. By this time she was lying at nr) angle of about 40 degrees to the pier; and seemed to he hard/ fhst • s ^- * was impossible to bring her farthei around:. *After working the engines shine minutes.) to po effect, Lieutenant Crutchley gave the order to clear the engine room and abandon ship, accord ing to the program previously laid down. Engineer Lieutenant Commander William A. Bury, who was the last to leave the engine- room, blew the main of Fire Sent Ship to the Bottom of Ostend Harbor. > * , Attack Comes From Sea, Land and -Air Before Germans Awake^-Vin- dictlve, Screened by Smoke From Launches, Plods Si lently to Its Goal. The British admiralty Issued the following graphic story of the recent raid on Ostend, which resulted In blockading nearly all the entrance to the U-boat bast* by the sinking of the old cruiser Vindictive across the chnn- chnrges by a switch'ins are specialists at smoke pro reserve duetlon. They built to either haniL.of the Vindictive’s course the likeness of it dense sen mist driving landward with the wind. Star shells pal eel and were lost ns they sank In it; the beams of searchlights seemed to break off short upon Its front, it blinded the’observers In the great batteries, which Suddenly, upon the warning of th * explosions of guns, roared"Into ac tion. “There was a w uproar. The cop* ponderously .egiilpi These now opened fire Into the smoke and over It at the monitors and ma rines, And the. monitors replied. “Meanwhile the airplanes were-bomb ing methodically., and anti-nircraft guns were searching the skies for them. Star shells spouted up and llonted down, lighting the sinoke hanks with spreading green fires, and those strings of luminous green halls, which the airmen cull “flaming onions.” soared up to‘lose themselves In' the clouds. “Through All this stridency and blaze, of conflict the old Vindictive, still un- hurrylng, was walking the lighted wa ters towurd the entrance. It was then that those on the destroyers became aware that what seemed to be merely smoke was web and cold; that the dig ging was beginning to drip, and that there were no longer any stars. A sea fog had come on. Air Attack Suspended. “The destroyers had to turn on their lights and to use their sirens to keep Jn touch with each other. The nlr attack was suspended, and 'the' Vindictive, with some distance yet to go, found herself in gross darkness. “There were motor boats, on either slit*? of her escorting her to the,'en trance. “The Vindictive then "put her helm over and started to cruise To find the entrance. Twice she must hnve washed* across, and at the third turn, upon reaching the positions at which she first logt her way, there came a rift in the mist and she saw the’entrance and the piers on either side, and an opening dead aheud. The Vindictive tenant Crutc.hiey_„ble^ The. auxiliary k charges In thh forward Mx-inch magn- ^ zlne from thje conning tower. Her Work Is Finished. “Those on board felt the ohl ship ® shrug, ns the explosive tore the bottom plates and bidkheads from her. She o sank about six feet and lay^upon the\, “ Kntf Am r\ P ♦ Vi /iV\nnn/\l “The Sirius lies In the surf some II,- 000 yards east of the entrance to Os tend harbor, which she failed so gal lantly to block, and when, In the early hours of the morning, the Vindictive groped her' way through the smoke screen and headed-for the entrance It was ns ‘though the old fighting ship awoke and looked bn. “A coastal motor boat had visited hs*’ and hung a flare In her shack and rusty rigging, and that eye of unsteady Are, paling In the blaze of star shells, or reddening through the drift of smoke, watched the whole great enter prise from the moment when It hung in doubt to Its ultimate success. Depended on Surprise Attack. “The planning and cxeeutloi) of that success had been-intrusted by^ Vice Admiral Sir Robert Keyes je^Commo- dore Hubert Lynes, who directed the previous attempt to block the harbor with the Sirius and Brilliant. Upon that occasion a combination of unfore seen and unforeseeable conditions had fdught agnlnst him. “Upon this, the main problem was to obtain the effect of n surprise at tack upon an enemy who was clearly, from his ascertained dispositions, ex pecting him. 1 The Sirius and RrlllTant had been hhfiled by the displacement^ of the St room batik buoy, which marks the channel to the harbor entrance. 1—Double litter slung betwetn donkeys used by the aides in the Balkan re -'American gun crew on the west fruit scraping the big shells, in antieipatioJTf o.sslyn Wemyss, first sea lord of the British admiralty, with Captain I’ringle, U Tii, the admiral was inspecting. • bottom of the channel. “Her work was done. “It Is to be presumed that Com of tremendous mender Godsal was killed by the shell which struck the conning tower. Lieu tenant Crutchley,- searching the -ship before he left-her, failed to find his body or that of Sublleut. MacLachlan FRENCH CAVALRY -AND BRITISH INFANTRY AWAIT THE HUN In that wilderness of splintered wood and shattered, steel. “All was according to program. He- eall rockets for the small craft were fired from the flagship at 2:30 a. in. “It Is not claimed by the officers who carried out the operations tha't Ostend harbor Is completely blocked. ’But Its purpose to embarrass the en emy and -make the harbor* Impractica ble to any but small craft and render dredging operations difficult, has been fully accomplished. The position of the, .Vindictive is with stem on to the eastern pier, and not her stern, as shown in certain published Illustra tions.” IJIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIU = Counterfeiter Shortage ^ Another Result of War | Washington. — The war has caused a -shortage even of coun terfeiters. The spurious ten-dollar note, the fashioning of which was the favorite indoor sport of a group of skilled imitators, has prac* tically disappeared, it was said by secret service operatives, who are inclined to the belief that the slump is directly due to the war. It was thought that the foreign members of these bands hud been rounded up In the mobilization of reservists, and that the Americans had been taken In the draft. However, secret service operatives are not resting on their oars. On the contrary, recognizing the possi bility of new talent appearing almost at any ^lme, they are continuing to subject the na tion’s Jmper currency to the closest' scrutiny. Tommies are •osslhle results. BACK FROM THE FRONT LINE ONE DAY’S BAG OF HUH PRISONERS the enterprise—nearly windless-^-nnd# what little breeze stirred came a point or so west of north. The sky was lead blue, faintly star-dotted, with no moon, and a still sea for small craft, motor launches and coastal motor boats, whose work was done clpso Inshore. “From the destroyer which served the commodore for a flpgshlp the -re mainder .of s the force, were*visible only aa silhouettes of blackness. “From Dunkirk a sudden brief flur ry of gunfire announced that German airplanes were about. They actually were on the way to visit Calais, and over the Invisible coast of Flanders the Bummer lightning of restless artillery rose and fell monotonously. ““There’s the Vindictive*!’ The muf fled seamen, and marines standing’ !*? the torpedo tubes and guns turned at that name to gaze nTThe great black •hip seen mistily through the screen ing smoke from the destroyers’ fun nels, plodding silently to her gonj and and. x “She receded into the night astern as a destroyer raced to lay a light buoy that was to he her guide, and those on hoard saw her no more. She passed thence into the hands of the small craft whose mission was to guide j her, llglit jier. and Jilde hyr. ln, the I douds of n smoke screen. ; ~ . x . J. “There was no preliminary bom bardment of the harbor and batteries, as before the previous attempt. That was to be the first element in the sur prise. A time-table had been lutd down for every stag** of the operation, and the staff .work beforehand even* Included precise-orders for laying the ■moke barrage, with plans calculated for every direction of the wind; Gait Always Solemh. “Monitors anchored in firing posi tions far seaward awaited the signal. The great sea batteries of the Royal Marine artillery in Flanders, among the largest guns thnt were ever placed on land mountings, stood by likewise to neutralize the bigger German artil lary along the coast, and the airmen who were to collaborate with an aeri al bombardment of the town , waited somewhere In the darkness overhead. Destroyers patrolled to seaward of the small craft. ‘The Vindictive, always at that solemn gait of hers," found tj*e flag ship's light buoy and bore up for where a coastal motor boat command ed by -Lieut: William R. Slnyter was waiting hjtLu ntlrlmn flare upoa -lha-old-i position of the Stroom bank buoy. • “Four minutes before it arrived thepe and fifteen minutes only, before ished by a shell which killed all the occupants, including Sublleut Angus H. MacLachan, who wis In command of It, the upper and lower bridges and BUILD “FABRICATED VESSELS the chartroom, swept by bullets. Com Componept Parts of British Ships Made Inland and Assembled on Coast. London.—“Fabricated” vessels are one of the latest and most Interesting developments of Great Britain’s ship building drive. A fabricated ship Is one whose component parts are manu- fiiotured in other than shipbuilding, yards, usually in plants inland.* The new fabricated ship is larger than most of/the stun lard ships and there is not a curved frame In it. In fabrication of ships the aim was to increase speed of production and also to utilize for shipbuilding pur poses such plants as brldgeJmilding yards and land engine factories. u It Is expected that ships of the new ill materially increase the ccmsfimso: type soon - w tonnage output Clad in the same uniform that site wore at her duties on the western front and holding the gas mask she used while braving war dangers to help the soldiers, (’apt. Ethel Renton of the Sal vation Army Is shown here on her re turn to the United States. She came back after nine.months on front-line duty to aid the war fund drive of the SalVfffiSn Artby. * ^ CONCEALED AMERICAN BATTERY IN PICARDY FRENCH REFUGEES FLEE FROM GERMANS Mysterious “Bron-tTdes." Mystery still attaches to certain ex* plosive sounds, heard In various.parts of the world und known to science as “bromides.” On the coast of Belgium these sounds seem to comCTfifTnFthe •sea, and are called locally “mlstpoef- fers.” In the Ganges delta of India, similar sounds are called “Barisal guns.” Bromides, are Well kndjyn In some parts of Italy, v.hen- they bear a great variety of.names. In Hairi n sound o'Dlhls character'is known ns SpCplS IMW* ;; l&l * rill l:» it is railed ;| .. -mind." jjPgfiqPj Bromides mostly tak* t!:< form of niuf •'MSf tied detonations,; of Indefinite direction < * Probably th.-y are' of. siild. ivoiiean <>r if-'in. Studies of eccentric! t^e* in ‘the SbGhB trunt’IJjjssinii of sound through tie- at- -- ' mosphere J«*ad to the conclusion- that Hunt factor 14 flopping the some of the •sounds hitherto reporied lejtfcture shows a "conceal ed,n s bromides were really -due tr» can gathering empty shells from nonading or blasting.—Popular Sci » . ’ 1 , ence Monthly. rlt was due at the hartror mouTfi, the signal for the guns to q*pen was given. Two' motorboats,', under conwuand of Lieut. Albert L. Poland, dashed iff toward the ends of the high wooden piers and torpedoed them. There was * machine gun on the end of the west* With alTtheirTToOseliold •n the eart uml their two cows Wlffg led behind^these French refugees are fleeing to point* of safety be hind the British lines. Many of the inliahitants of the front-line towns were forced to seek shftlttr’thus when tho first attack\of the German drive was launched. Marty less fortunate th:u^ these pictured In this British official photo were compelled to leave all their worldly possessions behind whet ■they Usd. " , * .—•—l-