The Thracia’s propeller had by this time become badly damaged, and the ice-breaker herself was finding it all she could do to secure her own safety. It was now clear that to remain in the drifting ice would be bound in the long run to prove fatal, and thereupon Captain Doyle made an effort to drive his vessel close to the land ice, where some degree of shelter might be found from the gales which were constantly driving enormous floes up and down with the ebb and flow of the tides through the narrow neck of the White Sea.
After many days and nights of the heaviest and most unremitting toil, the Thracia was finally brought close to land, and a net-work of cables and ropes thrown out to secure her position there. For seven weeks, until the 18th of March, she was held here, during the whole of which time she was being submitted to the severest pressure owing to the alternating flow and ebb of the tides driving the packed ice against her side, under her bottom, and piling it up round her counter to a height of as much as 20 ft. Serious damage was done to her hull, and for three months her pumps had to be kept going constantly in order to keep her afloat, while the greatest skill and ingenuity had to be exercised in order to protect her rudder from the ice pressure under her counter.
The “Aquitania,” having escaped the fate of so many of her sisters, reappears in the Mersey in her peace-time guise
So matters went on until the night of the 18th of March, when, owing to heavy off-shore gales, the Thracia broke adrift, her anchors, cables, and ropes being lost and her windlass broken. Fortunately, a few days later, the ice began to open here and there, and with the courageous assistance of another vessel, and under her own steam, she succeeded at last in reaching a position inside the bar of the Archangel river on April 9th, when her cargo was landed in good condition on the stationary river ice and conveyed by sleighs to Archangel.
Her troubles, however, were not yet over, for within less than three weeks, the river ice itself began to break, and the outgoing stream, carrying this broken ice to sea, drove the Thracia on to the Bar. Her propeller blades were now reduced to the merest stumps, but in spite of this, she succeeded, at high water, in working herself free again by her own exertions. Obtaining ground tackle from another ship, which had come down from Archangel at the first break-up of the ice, the Thracia was enabled to come to anchorage in the gulf, and here she remained for about a week until the Dwina river was finally cleared of ice. She then proceeded slowly up river to the town itself, where she arrived on May 9th. So great had been the damage sustained by her, that she was then dry-docked for the necessary repairs to enable her to return to England; and when she at last arrived home, about the middle of August, 1915, it was not until her voyage had lasted some seven and a half months.
After this diversion, let us return to the record of the war experiences of other Cunarders. It was on March 30th, 1917, that the Valacia, Captain J. F. Simpson, left London for New York, and it was at 5.30 the next evening that she was struck on the port side by a torpedo, when in the English Channel off the Eddystone Lighthouse. An attempt was made by one of the torpedo boats, of which several happened to be in the neighbourhood, to tow the Valacia, whose No. 6 hold, engine-room, and stoke-hold were all full of water. She proved too heavy, however, and tugs were accordingly sent from the shore, the Admiralty officials intending to try and beach the ship. Although a heavy gale was blowing at the time, Captain Simpson, in view of the fact that the bulkheads were holding, strongly advised that this course should not be pursued, but that an attempt should be made to tow the Valacia into Plymouth Harbour. This advice was taken, and as it proved with complete success, the Valacia being taken safely into Plymouth Harbour, where she was subsequently docked for repairs, and whence she was enabled, within a few months, to take her place again in the Company’s fleet, and do much useful service.
“Aquitania” as Hospital Ship
The hole in the ship’s side caused by the explosion of the torpedo was no less than 25 feet long by 20 feet deep, and the greatest credit is due to Captain Simpson for his splendid judgment and seamanship in bringing the vessel safely into port, and saving her both for the country and the Company.