AN AMERICAN WOMAN'S STORY OF THE "ANCONA" TRAGEDY
Told by Dr. Cecile Greil, an American Physician
Dr. Cecile Greil was the only native-born American on the liner Ancona, which was shelled and sunk by an Austrian submarine. She tells this intensely graphic account of the terrible event in the New York Times. She precedes it with a description of the crowd of passengers, mostly poor Italian women and children, that had passage on the ship—the most pathetic gathering, it seemed to her as they came aboard the ship, that she had ever seen.
I—"WHEN THE TORPEDO STRUCK US"
The bell for luncheon rang at 11:30. As we sat at the table, still without the Captain, we joked and laughed together, to hide our lack of ease. We spoke of trivial things. We were through with lunch now; the others were going out; I was rising from my seat, at the same time drinking the remainder of my coffee. Then the thing came upon us that we had all, strangely enough, felt coming, in our hearts.
A terrific vibration shook the ship. I was thrown back into my seat. I knew that the ship must be stopping. I heard a running and scurrying about the deck outside. Looking out, I saw, through the dining saloon window, six or ten stewards in white whirling out of sight around an angle.
"What could be wrong, Doctor?" I asked one of the ship's doctors in French.
"Heaven only knows!" he answered, as he carefully adjusted his military cape, and hurried out. The dining saloon was emptied in an instant; everybody had bolted as if they were running to a fire.
It was evident that something had gone wrong with the ship, though, by some queer process of mind, at that moment nobody thought of a submarine. But hearing the next moment a sharp, quick crash, as of lightning that had struck home close by, at the same instant I both thought of the possibility of a submarine—and saw one!
The fog had lifted slightly. There, in full view framed in the window with a curious, picture-like effect, lay a submarine with its deck out of the water. It was long and flat, horribly longer and bigger than the mental conception I had formed of what such a thing would be like. There was a gun mounted in front, and another at back, and both had their muzzles leveled directly at the Ancona.