Arrived Barbados, West Indies, 17303 for bunker coal. Arrive Baltimore, Md., 12013. Notify Office Director Naval Auxiliaries, Comdr. Train (Atl), 07004.
Class 3 U. S. S. CYCLOPS.
DNAS 1145AM 3-4-18.
Three hundred and nine men perished when the Cyclops went down. In addition to her officers and crew, she was bringing north some 72 naval personnel who had been serving on United States vessels in South American waters, as well as a few civilians returning from Brazil, among them Mr. Maurice Gottschalk, United States consul at Rio de Janeiro.
What happened to her? There were many theories, most of them wild and untenable; none that seemed to fit the case thoroughly. Many people jumped to the conclusion that she was sunk by a submarine, but, so far as known, there was no submarine anywhere near that region. Others, seizing upon the fact that her captain, Lieutenant Commander G. W. Worley, was a native of Germany, and that a number of the crew had German names, thought captain and crew had turned traitors and taken the ship to Germany. Her captain had come to America as a boy. He had been employed in the Naval Auxiliary Service for nearly twenty years with no evidence of disloyalty. But this belief among some outside the Navy, that the ship had been taken to Germany, persisted until the armistice, when there was undeniable proof that no such vessel had been captured, turned over or sighted, and the Germans knew no more about her fate than we did.
The only theory that seems tenable is that the Cyclops was caught in a sudden West Indian hurricane; that her cargo shifted, listing the vessel, which turned turtle and went down. This is the only way in which seamen account for the absence of wreckage. Our colliers of that type have high steel beams like cranes, with chains of buckets to load and unload coal. If she went down bottom-side up, these huge steel fingers may have pinned down everything on deck, allowing nothing to float to the surface. But, like everything else connected with the case, that is all conjecture.
"Fate unknown," is the inscription beside the name of the Cyclops on the Navy list. The waves that sweep over the spot where she lies conceal the secret. Her fate will probably remain a mystery until that Last Day when the waters are rolled back and the sea gives up its dead.
The most serious loss of life, next to the Cyclops, sustained by the N. O. T. S., was in the sinking of the Ticonderoga. This animal transport, manned by Navy personnel but with soldiers aboard to care for the cargo, was almost in mid-Atlantic, though nearer Europe than America, the night of September 29, when her engines broke down and she fell behind her convoy. At 5:30 the next morning she was attacked by the U-152. Though the steamer was riddled by shells, and most of her men were killed or wounded, she fought on for two hours until both her guns were disabled. Lifeboats had been smashed by shell-fire, and there were not even enough rafts left to accommodate all the men. They were hundreds of miles from the nearest land, the Azores, with little hope of getting to shore.
The wounded were given the preference in getting into the boats. Of the 237 men aboard only 24 were saved, the majority of them wounded. Two of the officers, both junior-grade lieutenants, F. L. Muller and J. H. Fulcher, were taken prisoners and carried to Germany by the submarine.
One of the few survivors, Ensign Gustav Ringelman, officer of the deck, said the submarine was sighted only 200 yards off the port bow; the captain put his helm hard to starboard and came within 25 feet of ramming the U-boat. The submarine fired an incendiary shell which struck the ships' bridge, killing the helmsman, crippling the steering gear and setting the amidships section ablaze. Lieutenant Commander J. J. Madison, captain of the Ticonderoga, was severely wounded by a piece of this shell. But, wounded as he was, he had himself placed in a chair on the bridge, and continued to direct the fire and maneuver the ship until the vessel had to be abandoned.