The Corsair in the war zone

by Ralph Delahaye Paine

THE CASTAWAYS FIND A HEARTY WELCOME ON THE CORSAIR

At 6.19 P.M. proceeded S. 17° East, speed fourteen knots, and continued search for survivors of the Saint Pierre. Opened communication with some British destroyers and informed them of the condition and position of the Eugene Louise. At 9.08 P.M. the destroyers radioed that they had the Eugene Louise in tow and were proceeding to the Scillys. Heard two German submarines communicating with each other by radio. Five minutes later heard two more enemy submarines in radio communication. The signals were coming in very strongly which indicated their close proximity. Under these circumstances it was considered unwise to take the Eugene Louise in tow without the presence of escorting vessels.

It was an animated scene aboard the Corsair when the thirty-one men and officers of the Eugene Louise were disputing whether or not they should go back to their ship and sail her into port. There were also two dogs, one of them shaggy and black, who barked in energetic approval of remaining on the Corsair. Their Breton shipmates appeared to share this opinion. Panic had gripped most of them. They were literally frightened out of their wits. Red kerchiefs knotted about their heads, gold rings twinkling in their ears, they looked like shipwrecked buccaneers, but their spirit was quite otherwise.

The captain of the Eugene Louise was a man of stout heart and, besides, he owned a share of the barkentine. He raced between bridge and deck, conferring, imploring, expostulating, but his fishermen refused to follow him. They were fed up with submarine warfare and, in their opinion, once was enough. The next U-boat would undoubtedly cut their throats and it was a long road to Saint-Malo. Their refusal brought genuine grief to the navigating officer of the Corsair. Nothing would have pleased Lieutenant Robert E. Tod more than to sail the barkentine Eugene Louise into the nearest French port, and he had already volunteered for the job.

He was a faithful and zealous officer of the Corsair, but, after all, she was a steam kettle and his heart went out to the spars and stays and canvas of a sailing vessel and the winds that served to steer her by. Such had been his own training as a yachtsman, and he knew he could shove this French square-rigger along for all she was worth, with thirty nimble Breton sailors to swarm aloft. Alas, Captain Pierre Catharine, of the Eugene Louise, could not argue his frightened crew into accepting this sporting proposition. It was left for the industrious British destroyers to take her to safety at the end of a tow-line. The news was gratifying, when received later, that the barkentine with her cargo of fish, so welcome to the Breton villages, had been rescued from the brutal destruction of the enemy. One of the Corsair’s deck force sadly noted in his journal:

I also volunteered to go with Commodore Tod as quartermaster for signals, but our skipper decided to leave her derelict. It was a great disappointment. Mr. Tod thanked me for offering to take a chance on the barkentine, which I appreciated.

During the night of this same day the Corsair was zigzagging toward Brest at twelve knots when she encountered one of the submarines which had been running amuck among the fishing vessels. The weather was hazy and obscured and an occasional rain squall drove across the ship. The bridge and deck watches were peering into the gloom which lifted between the squalls to let a watery moon gleam through. Lieutenant Tod was officer of the watch and Quartermaster Augustus C. Smith, Jr., stood at the wheel. At 11.25 P.M. one of the whistling flurries of rain and wind had passed and the sea was visible in the illumination of the misty moonlight.

No more than five hundred yards away the outline of a large submarine was clearly discernible as it rested at leisure upon the surface of the water, having emerged, no doubt, to open hatches and give the crew a breathing spell. This was a sight which the crew of the Corsair had dreamed of. It was too good to be true. Quartermaster Augustus Smith, a bland, unruffled young man in all circumstances, had an uncommonly keen pair of eyes and he did not have to be informed that yonder was the enemy. He spun the wheel at the order. Lieutenant Tod threw the handle of the engine-room indicator to emergency speed, and the Corsair swung to rush straight at the U-boat, hoping to ram.

Commander Kittinger and his executive, Lieutenant Commander Porter, instantaneously appeared upon the bridge, while Ensign Gray dashed for the chart-house deck to make certain that the forward gun crew had sighted the submarine for themselves. There was excitement, but no confusion. Long training and disciplined habit had prepared them all for such an episode as this, like sprinters set and ready on the mark. No time was lost in wondering what ought to be done. Those who hunted Fritz had to be quickwitted or else he would scupper them.

The submarine, caught napping, went ahead on its oil engines, moving slowly on the surface and almost in the same direction as the plunging Corsair whose forward battery endeavored to bear on the mark, which was difficult for lack of a bow-chaser. Number Two gun barked once and the shell kicked up foam astern of the U-boat which was submerging in the very devil of a hurry, as one may imagine. Before the Corsair could fire again, the conning tower had vanished and the gray shape of the slinking submarine was slanting downward in a “crash dive.”