When they went to look they found that thirty-odd feet of the after end of their ship had been blown clean off. The torpedo had hit them on the port side, and the wreckage was hanging from the starboard quarter. Of the after gun only the base was left; they never did see any of the rest of it. The gunner's mate, one of those men who love to keep a gun in shape, was swabbing it out at the time, and they never saw anything of him again.
The chief petty officers' quarters were farthest aft on the 343. The after bulkhead to their compartment was blown in, leaving the inside of the ship open to sea and sun. Fourteen men were in there at the time, lounging around or in their bunks. Many of them were bruised and all were shook up, but they all made the deck. They do not know how they made it, but they did. The after hatchway to the deck was closed with tumbling wreckage, so they must have gone up the midship hatch.
One man taking a nap in the cot bunk farthest aft had a part of the bulkhead blown past him. It cut off a corner of his cot and broke one of his legs, and blew him into the passageway in passing. Landing in the passageway he sprained his other ankle. He is not quite sure how he made the deck without help, but he did make it, and he says he beat some of them to it at that.
The man who was working on the after gun with the gunner's mate who was blown up, saw the shining torpedo leaping in the sun and heading straight for his part of the ship. If he did not do something he knew he was in for it, so he began to take long high leaps forward. The explosion came while he was in the air on his third long high jump. All he remembers happening to him after that was of an ocean of water flowing over him, and he not minding it at all. When he came to, the doctor was looking him over for broken bones, but did not find any. After the doctor left him he sat up and said: "I bet I've been as near to a torpedo exploding and getting away with it as anybody in the world, hah?" And "Yes," said one of his shipmates, "and I bet you made a world's record for three long high jumps, without a run, too. You sure did travel, boy."
When it was all over the two propeller shafts were still sticking out astern, one naked and shining in the sun; the other also shining and naked, but with a propeller still in place on it. Spotting that, the skipper ordered the engines turned. To their delight the shaft revolved, the ship began to move. No record-breaking pace, but—God love the builder of a good little ship—she was making revolutions. The wreckage hanging from her starboard quarter acted as a rudder, and so, instead of going straight ahead, she began to go round in circles.
She continued to make circles, and her officers and men stood to stations and waited for what next would happen. Destroyer people have it that there are grades of U-boat commanders—some of nerve, some only ordinary. The U-boat man with nerve enough to attack a destroyer is a good one. He will bear watching; so what they expected was to see this U-boat come up and finish the job. If she did come up and at the right place to get another torpedo in, then the 343 was in for a bad time. So they waited, some thinking one thing, and some another, but all agreeing that the odds were against them.
The U-boat did show again. They saw her conning-tower slipping through the water at about 1,500 yards. The skipper of the 343 was ready in so far as he could be ready with his poor little cripple. Crews were at gun stations, and that conning-tower had hardly got above the surface when two of the 343's guns cut loose at it. They got in four shots, the fourth one pretty handy. But no more. She submerged to the discouragement of one earnest gun-pointer. He leaned against the breech of his little 4-inch to say: "One more and I'd 'ave got her. Bet you me next month's pay that I get her if she shows for two shots again."
She did not show again, but her not showing did not end the 343's troubles. They could steam in circles, but it was not getting them anywhere. A few miles away was one of the roughest shores in the world, the kind where green seas piled up against rocky cliffs—and a tide that was already setting them toward it. A bad enough place in any kind of weather, but with wind and sea making, and this time of year!
It was about two in the afternoon they were torpedoed. By dark they were being driven by the tide and white-capped seas to the shore. They had one hope left. Their radio operator had managed to keep the radio gear in commission, and through all their troubles he had been sending out S O S calls, though not with too great hope that anybody would come in time. The U-boats had been pretty active thereabout, and it was not on any main sea route. There was always the chance, of course, that some war-ships would be somewhere near.
For one hour, two hours, three, four, five, six hours they drifted. Their wireless kept going out of commission, and their radio operator kept patching it up and getting it going again. S O S—he never let up with that call. It was midnight when a British mine-sweeper bore down and hailed. By then they could hear the high seas breaking on the rocks abeam. The Britisher got the word across the wind, and tried to pass a messenger—a light line, that is—across to the 343. They did not make it. They tried again and again, but no use. The 343 was then within a few hundred yards of the breakers.