THE SINKING OF THE "PROVENCE II"
Told by M. Bokanowski, Deputy of the Department of the Seine
The French auxiliary cruiser La Provence II, formerly a passenger liner, was sunk by a submarine in the eastern end of the Mediterranean while serving as a troop transport. Nearly 4,000 men are said to have been on board, of whom only 870 were saved. One of the survivors, M. Bokanowski, wrote this thrilling description to President Poincaré of France:
Monsieur Le President: You are doubtless familiar, in all its details, with the fate of the Provence II. I should like to describe to you—to assuage in a measure the grief of France—the noble behaviour of those who made ready at that moment, between sea and sky, to die for their country.
We had on board a battalion and some detachments of the Third Colonial Regiment of Infantry. At the moment of the explosion I was on the bridge, with the commander of the ship, his second in command, and several of the higher officers. We directed the steps to be taken, distributing lifebelts, superintending the launching of boats and liferafts. Not an outcry, not a complaint, not the slightest sign of panic—only the dignified tranquillity of men who long ago had consecrated their lives to the sublime cause that had put arms in their hands.
Everybody would have been saved had it depended only on officers and crew. Unfortunately the ship sank rapidly. The water soon found its way into the boilers. When they began to explode, about ten minutes past 5, I jumped into the sea and swam as fast as I could in order to get beyond the radius of suction. A few moments later there were several deafening explosions. I turned and saw the end. The ship was going down stern foremost. Captain Vesco, still standing on the bridge, cried in a voice above the uproar: "Vive la France!" The survivors, swimming about the ship, or safe on boats and rafts, saw the Provence make a sudden plunge, her forward deck standing perpendicular in the air. They, in their turn, saluted with a cry of "Vive la France!" It was a quarter past 5.
After swimming for half an hour I succeeded in reaching an overloaded raft, the occupants of which pulled me aboard. Night was falling, the wind was chill and nipped the flesh of the men, who were almost entirely naked. Throughout the endless night, not a whimper! My companions in misfortune had no words except to lament the fate of those who were drowned and to curse the Boche, who, neither before nor after his treacherous shot, had dared to appear and show his flag. In water up to the waist, with teeth chattering from the cold, but upheld by the desire to survive and be able to punish the villains, we were picked up eighteen hours later by a trawler. Several men had died from the cold on the rafts, and several others had lost their reason.
An English patrol and a French torpedo boat divided the survivors between them, some heading for Milo, others for Malta. I was among the latter, and we arrived here about 1 o'clock yesterday. Captain Vesco, who was in command of the Provence II.; Lieutenant Besson, second in command; Colonel Duhalde, commanding the Third Colonial Regiment of Infantry, remained on the bridge until the very last second of the ship's life in the most noble spirit of self-sacrifice, giving with perfect calmness precise and effective orders for saving the passengers.
The gunners of the Provence's stern gun, having loaded it when the torpedo struck, remained at their posts, trying to discover the hidden foe in order to repay him in his own coin.
Surgeon Navarre of the Third Colonial Regiment, being taken aboard a trawler nearly exhausted by his eighteen hours on a raft, refused to change his drenched clothing or to take any food until he had dressed the hurts of the wounded and looked after the sick. He was prostrated a long while after such superhuman labours.
And I must mention this other incident, which brings tears to my eyes:
Gauthier, Assistant Quartermaster of the Provence, having been taken on board a greatly overloaded raft, was hailed by a soldier asking for help; he jumped into the water to give him his place, saying: "A sailor's duty is to save the soldiers first of all."
He was picked up, twenty-one hours after the wreck, clinging to a plank.
I call attention also to the devotion and zeal—meriting our profound gratitude—of Lieutenant Sinclair Thompson, commanding the English patrol Marguerite, and of his officers and crew, by whose labours about 300 survivors were taken from the place of the wreck to Malta.
Pray pardon the form of this story, Monsieur le Président. I have written it hurriedly, with a bruised hand, and with a head still in a sad muddle. I wished, before my impending departure for Saloniki, to say to you with all my heart: "That is what these noble fellows did!"
Bokanowski.