The “Aquitania’s” chapel
The next vessel to claim our attention is the Vinovia, and high as was the standard set by, and expected of the Cunard Company’s commanders, there were few instances of greater coolness and bravery than that of her skipper, Captain Stephen Gronow, when she was torpedoed in the English Channel on the 19th of December, 1917. She was then on her way from New York with a Chinese crew, and it was at half-past three in the afternoon that the torpedo struck her on the starboard side. As the Vinovia did not at first appear to be sinking Captain Gronow ordered his engines full speed ahead, and made a gallant endeavour to reach the land. At 4 p.m. a small tug came on the scene and made fast to the Vinovia, after some of her crew had left the ship on one of the lifeboats. A patrol boat then came alongside, and the remainder of the crew jumped aboard her. For the next three hours Captain Gronow, the only man left on his sinking vessel, steered her by means of the hand gear. At seven o’clock in the evening a drifter approached and the Chief Engineer returned on board to assist his Captain in making a rope fast, and then returned to the patrol boat. It was now quite dark, but Captain Gronow, sticking to his forlorn hope, remained alone on board the Vinovia, and continued to steer her and attend to the ropes. By half-past seven, he noticed that she appeared to be making no headway, and groping forward by means of the rails, he found the forecastle deck already submerged four feet. He also discovered that the tug had slipped the wire. In making his way back again, he was so severely struck by a piece of wreckage that for a time he remained unconscious.
On recovering he made his way to the bridge and put on a life-jacket. Here he remained until, at eight o’clock, five miles from land and in pitch darkness, the Vinovia sank under his feet, and he was thrown into the water. He succeeded however, in supporting himself on some wreckage, to which as it happened the ship’s bell was attached; and it was this little fact that in the end proved his salvation. Attracted by the ringing of the bell, a small patrol boat the next morning decided to investigate the wreckage, and there Captain Gronow was found lying unconscious. Unhappily his vessel, with her valuable cargo, of 9,000 tons was lost, but in endeavouring to save the Vinovia, Captain Gronow had provided yet another illustrious example for his successors at sea, and happily survived to receive from the Cunard Directors a handsome inscribed silver vase, together with a certificate, a silver medal and a monetary gift from Lloyds.
Cunard National Aeroplane Factory
Twice it has been our duty to record the torpedoing of vessels under the command of the gallant Captain J. A. Wolfe, but he underwent this ordeal three times. He was in command of the Volodia on the 21st of August, 1917, when, at half-past seven in the morning she was torpedoed and sunk some 300 miles from land. As was usual, there had been no warning, and the Volodia was struck amidships, several of her engine-room crew, mostly Chinamen, being killed by the explosion. In addition, before she sank, the Volodia was also shelled by the attacking submarine. Captain Wolfe, with the survivors of the crew, had, however, succeeded before this in getting away in three boats, in charge respectively of Captain Wolfe himself, the Chief Officer, and the Second Officer, and these boats were chased by the submarine. On catching up with the Second Officer’s boat, the submarine commander enquired for the Captain. He was told by the Second Officer that his last sight of Captain Wolfe was on the bridge of the torpedoed vessel. The Second Officer was then taken on board the submarine and questioned, but was subsequently allowed to return to his boat.
Captain Wolfe then gave sailing directions, and the three boats kept together until nightfall, by which time the wind had increased to the violence of a gale. During the night the three boats became separated, and it was only the magnificent seamanship of Captain Wolfe and the two other Officers, together with the splendid endurance and courage of the crews, that succeeded in bringing any of them to safety. For three days they were adrift in the open Atlantic, rations being reduced to one biscuit and one dipper of water a day. The Captain and Chief Engineer were actually on one occasion washed out of their little boat. It was in the Captain’s boat that the sea-anchors and rudders were carried away, and Captain Wolfe then improvised a sea-anchor out of some canvass, sewing it with his penknife and rope-yarn, and putting in it the last three remaining seven-pound tins of meat, the only articles of weight left in the boat. This contrivance he lashed to the broken rudder, and by this means was enabled to weather the breaking seas. How well to the course the vessel was kept can be gathered from the fact that when she was picked up by a destroyer, she was within 30 miles of the Lizard, having sailed 300 miles without seeing a ship. Both the other boats had similar adventures, but both were at last found and their exhausted and almost helpless crews brought safely to land.
Thus ends a record, perhaps equalled, but certainly not excelled, by any other of the great Mercantile Marine Companies, upon whose unsung exertions our success both on land and sea was primarily founded. The list which appears on the next page, in tabular form, summarises in brief the losses sustained by the Cunard Company during this, the severest ordeal, that any maritime nation has ever undergone.
From this it will be seen that vessels amounting to over 205,000 gross tonnage were lost by the Company, and this does not include the Campania, which had just passed from the Company’s service, or two further losses, that of the Ascania and the Valeria, which were wrecked by stranding during 1918, and which added to the total another 14,985 tons. In all, more than 56 per cent. of the Company’s gross tonnage was sacrificed in the performance of services of the highest importance to the nation in the hour of its greatest jeopardy.