TERRIBLE SUBMARINE DISASTER
A certain section of the waters in and around Provincetown Harbor have for several years been used as the testing ground for new or reconditioned submarines of the U. S. Navy.
Early in December of 1927, the submarine S-4 was at this testing ground, standardizing her engines following some changes which had been completed at the Charlestown Navy Yard. Her complement of forty officers and men were on board, and two civilian visitors.
In the early afternoon of December 17th this submarine went under to test some part of her machinery and a little workout, and steamed submerged out of the harbor; when about half a mile south of the Wood End Lighthouse, and directly in the channel for vessels leaving or entering the harbor, started to come to the surface. Just at this moment, coming in from a patrol cruise along the coast, came the Coast Guard cutter Paulding, steaming for an anchorage in the harbor at a sixteen miles an hour speed, and crashed with great force into the side of the submarine, just breaking the surface water. The sharp iron stem of the Paulding tore a great ragged hole in the side of the S-4, just forward of the conning tower, and passed completely over her. The torrent of water which poured through this hole sent the under-sea boat to the bottom of the sea in five minutes, with her crew of forty-two imprisoned in her iron hull, with walls that barred their escape from certain death. Caught like rats in a trap without the possibility or hope of escape, they were sealed up in their coffin more than one hundred feet beneath the sea.
When this disaster became known, and it was within five minutes of the crash, radio and wireless messages sent it to every section of the country. It sent a thrill of horror to every point the news had reached; the awful tidings were broadcast to the whole country and even to points in Europe.
Every available means of possible rescue were hurried to the scene. A dozen deep sea divers were rushed by train and auto from New London. Provincetown was the nearest point of approach to the location of the disaster. Big ships and tugs carrying chains and appliances were rushed forward by every available means, hoping to accomplish something towards raising the sunken boat before all her officers and men had perished by drowning or suffocation.
There was hope that at least some of the men might have been able to close the watertight compartments before they were overcome by the inrushing current.
Many kinds of appliances were hurried to the locality by fast ships; many tugs and steamers gathered over the place where the S-4 lay at the bottom of the sea off Long Point. Over the sunken boat white-capped waves were breaking, forced over the surging waters of the bay by a thirty-mile northwest gale.
As soon as the divers reached the locality a man was sent down and succeeded in placing a chain over the bow of the submarine; they had hoped to raise the bow enough to tip the bow towards the surface, but failed to offer any help.
Again a man was sent down with a hammer, and instructed to pound along the iron sides of the sunken boat; if he got any response from the inside it would indicate that there was life there.
The diver when a short distance forward of the locality of the conning tower and the great hole which had been torn open by the Paulding when she overwhelmed the under-sea boat, heard a responsive tapping from the inside. Then the diver tapped out in the telegraph code, “Are you alive.” The answer quickly came back, “Yes, six of us are alive here.” Again the diver tapped, “Everything possible is being done to help you.” Again from the inside, “The air is very bad in here, please hurry.” This was Sunday afternoon, twenty-four hours after the disaster.
When it was found that six men were still alive renewed and strenuous efforts were made to reach the men. All day Sunday and all Sunday night a hundred men with such appliances as it was possible to get, labored to bring the bow of the boat to the surface.
Late in the afternoon of Sunday a diver went down and in response to his tapping found that the six men were still alive, but they signalled, “We are still alive but growing weaker. We cannot stand it much longer. Please hurry.”
The diver’s tapping along all other parts of the ship obtained no other response.
The other men on the boat had been imprisoned either in the engine room or the after compartments and were all probably drowned when the ship went to the bottom.
Monday morning brought no change or any hope of relief. The northwest gale had become bitterly cold, and it was more and more certain that not a man on the boat was alive, as these men had been entombed more than forty-eight hours, so the probability or even possibility of any man being alive down there a hundred feet under the sea was remote indeed.
What still further added to the horror of the situation, the increasing cold and freezing winds drove the rescuers from their work, because it was impossible to send divers down. By this time the imprisoned men had been so long in their iron coffin, it was not possible that human life could endure for that time or withstand the terrible conditions.
Sunday night two monstrous pontoons were brought to the scene, hoping by their use the bow of the boat might be brought to the surface. These pontoons were brought from New London by four powerful tugs, through the Cape Cod Canal, but this was unavoidably slow on account of the unwieldy shape of the tow and there was no hope that these pontoons could reach the spot until it was too late.
Eight skilled divers were already on the scene. Diver Thomas Eadie went over the side earlier in the day and it was he who was able to communicate with the entombed men by means of the hammer tapping signals.
The last signals tapped from the inside of the ship were, “How long will you be now, hurry.”
Late Sunday P. M. diver Michaels heard from the dying men, “We cannot live beyond six o’clock.”
In some way this diver’s life line became entangled in a part of the ragged hole in the hull, and though he struggled frantically to clear himself, after he had been down more than half an hour it became evident that something was wrong. Then diver Eadie, with a hack saw, went down and found Michaels badly tangled in projecting bits of broken iron of the hull, and it required another half hour for Eadie to saw off the piece of iron that held Michaels. He had been held there more than two and a half hours and another half hour would have resulted in his death. He was hurried to a hospital in Boston and was ill for some time.
Up to this time every effort to raise the boat or rescue any one of her crew had utterly failed and some of the boats and gear departed for other duties.
The attempts to rescue these imprisoned men encountered awfully adverse conditions.
This disaster happened on Sunday, on that afternoon, and on Monday, the next day, had there been adequate saving appliances at hand it is believed some of the men might have been saved, but it required so much time to get them on the ground that all attempts were futile.
Another case where men have gone down in the deep sea in a vessel that was the meanest type of craft ever conceived by man.
Forty good men sent to untimely graves because someone failed to observe proper care.
“Theirs not to reason why,
Theirs but to do or die,
Somebody blundered.”
What a miscarriage of justice this building of this type of vessel is. If these vessels are built for fighting purposes, it is an uncivilized method of warfare and every nation on the earth should be barred from building another submarine. Already we have sent the battleships to the scrapheap. By all means send the submarine to join them.
In regard to the wretched lack of proper appliances for handling such a terrible disaster, we see one more tragedy. Men familiar with submarines, their building and handling, declare that it was a case of criminal carelessness on the part of the Government and the Navy Department in particular.
Secretary Wilbur, of the United States Navy, visited the locality of the disaster and ordered that the work of salvaging the submarine and bringing out the bodies must proceed until every one is brought to shore.
On the 4th day of January three bodies were recovered from the engine room of the under-sea boat and in time the others in the after compartments will be brought to the surface.
Representative Gifford came on from Washington to learn from personal observation if everything possible had been done to save the men from their coffin.
Among the crew of the S-4 when she went down was a seaman by the name of Walter Bishop. He had previously been on a submarine when an accident happened, and among his effects, left with relatives, was found a poem of thirteen verses, in which he described the situation and conditions on these ships in full detail. We have room for only the first verse, which certainly hits the mark.
“IN THE CANKEROUS MIND OF THE DEVIL,
THERE FESTERED A FIENDISH SCHEME,
HE CALLED HIS COHORTS TOGETHER,
AND THEY DESIGNED THE SUBMARINE.”
The time having long passed when it was possible for any human being to be alive, the only thing to do was to some day raise the boat to the surface.
Submarines have figured in some of the most awful tragedies of modern times. Only a partial record is available, but a recent statement of the story discloses that no less than 295 human beings have gone to death in submarines in the last decade.
In 1923 a Japanese boat carried down to death eighty-five persons. In 1925 the No. 51 with thirty-three men, and now the S-4 with forty.
THE MUTE REMAINS OF A TRAGEDY OF THE SEA