The doctor trusted to them until three o 'clock in the morning, when he found the ship had run aground. Then he took a hand in navigation. The captain and the mate were examining a chart on deck and wondering how they had missed the shore light. Studying the charts, the doctor told them they should have been twenty miles further east, and said, "Now, I'll take charge."
Fortunately, it was low tide when the ship went on the beach, and when the flood-tide came at daylight, the vessel, using her engines, was backed off. By eleven o'clock they had reached the entrance to Havre.
Seeing her coming, with the marks of battle upon her, the people crowded down to the water-front. They cheered the Navy gun-crew, the sailors, and there were tears for the wounded and cheers for the doctor as he came down the gang-plank with them.
Attacked by a submarine off the Spanish coast, a shell exploded in the gasoline tank of the Moreni and set the ship afire. Chief Boatswain's Mate Andrew Copassaki and his gun-crew had begun firing as soon as the "sub" was sighted, but the Moreni was slow and the U-boat had a decided advantage. Raining shells upon the ship, the enemy shot away her steering gear, and the vessel, beyond control, began steaming around in a circle, but the naval gunners kept shooting away.
Two men were wounded; one lifeboat upset as it struck the water and two of the merchant crew were drowned. But the armed guard kept up the fight until the entire ship was in flames. During the contest, which lasted over two hours, the Moreni fired 150 shots, the submarine 200. The ship was hit 45 times. When the Spanish steamship Valbanera came up to rescue the survivors, both the Spaniards and the Germans aboard the submarine cheered the Moreni's naval gun-crew for the brave fight they had made.
After his return to this country, I had the pleasure of congratulating Copassaki, who came to my office. Tall and bronzed, with a sweeping black moustache, he was a stalwart figure, modest as he was brave.
"That must have been a thrilling experience you had," I remarked as I thanked him. "It must have been terrific for those men at the guns, with the flames mounting around them." "It was pretty hot," modestly replied Copassaki, who seemed to think that about covered the subject.
The first Americans taken prisoner by the Germans were Chief Gunner's Mate James Delaney, four members of the armed guard and the master of the Campana, which was sunk about 150 miles from the French coast on August 6, 1917. But they were captured only after a running fight of more than four hours, during which the Campana fired 170 shots and the U-boat twice as many. After three hours' firing, the Campana's captain wanted to stop and abandon ship to avoid casualties, as the vessel was clearly outranged by the more powerful guns of the submarine, but Delaney protested, and kept up the fight for an hour and ten minutes longer, firing until his ammunition was exhausted.
The submarine, the U-61, headed for the lifeboats, keeping its 6-inch gun and revolvers pointed at the survivors. They took aboard Delaney and four of his gunners, and Captain Oliver, the ship's master.
Believing Delaney was a lieutenant, the U-boat officers grilled him for hours with questions, but could get nothing out of him. The German captain congratulated him, and told him that he had put up the longest fight any merchantman had ever made against a submarine. The U-boat had not only shot away most of its shells, but had fired two torpedoes at the Campana, and its captain told Delaney he would have to carry him and some of his gunners to Germany, as otherwise they could hardly make their authorities believe they had had to expend so much ammunition to "get" a single ship.