April 16, 1912: Disasters at sea bear witness to deeds of heroes
DISASTERS AT SEA BEAR WITNESS TO DEEDS OF HEROES
Man Who Faces Bullets in Heat of Battle Has Relatively Easy Task.
BRAVELY MEET DEATH
History Full of Accounts of Courage When Men Have Faced Doom Unmoved.
It is to histories of marine disasters that we turn for examples of supreme courage and bravery, the greatest that can be displayed by man in the face of danger. The soldier comes in frequently for his share of praise, when he rushes forward under fire to plant a flag on the enemy’s ramparts, but what of the man who stands by at attention, listening to the straits of the national anthem, while the ship on which he stands sinks slowly into a watery grave?
As Kipling has out it in “Soldier and Sailor, Too:”
“To take your chance in the thick of a rush with firing all about,
Is nothing so bad when you’ve covered at ‘and an’ leave an’ liking to shout;
But to stand and be still to the Birkenhead drill is a damned tough bullet to chew.”
The Birkenhead was a British troop ship which struck on a rock off Simon’s bay, South Africa, in 1832. This was the danger point between the Cape of Good Hope and Cape Argulhas. Before the men were really aware of what was happening the ship had struck and was sinking. There was only time to summon all hands on deck, and with the crew of 700 men standing at attention, the boat sank swiftly. Only 184 of the crew were rescued.
THREE VESSELS SANK IN SAMOAN DISASTER.
In the Samoan disaster, which occurred in 1889, when six or seven warships were badly damaged in a sudden hurricane and three vessels sank, heroism of a rare type marked the numerous disasters. The harbor of Apia, at Samoa, is formed by a circular chain of coral reefs about a mile in circumference. There is one narrow outlet, barely wide enough to admit of a ship’s passage. Into this small space seven ponderous men-of-war were crowded when a terrific hurricane broke forth on an afternoon in February. Unable to withstand the fury of the gale, the warships were tossed about, colliding with one another and finally being thrown upon the reefs. The Vandalia, an American boat, was one of the first to suffer. Colliding with the British Calliope, its bowsprit and figurehead were carried away and the boat beached on a reef. The men of the crew hung in the rigging until the following afternoon, when they were rescued by the Trenton, which bore down upon them after having her side ripped by the Olga, a German warship.
As the Trenton drifted down on the Vandalia, although the Vandalia crew had been hanging for more than twenty-four hours to the rigging, the men found courage to lift their voices in greeting. “Three cheers for the Trenton!” they cried, faintly, and the sailors on the Trenton, despite the fact that they might be dashed to pieces at once by the collision with the hulk of the Vandalia, returned the cheer heartily, “Three cheers for the Vandalia!” and the band struck up the “Star Spangled Banner.”
A few minutes later the Trenton was beached and life lines sent out to the Vandalia crew, the last man being hauled on board as the hulk of the Vandalia sank entirely from view.
HEROES OF THE MAINE REFUSED TO LEAVE SHIP.
The bravery of the officers and men of the fated Main, who refused to leave the ship after the explosion, is well known. The first word of the disaster following the road and shock of the explosion, was brought to Commander Sigsbee by a private, who bumped into his commanding officer as the latter was groping his way forward to learn the cause of the trouble.
“Beg pardon, sir,” said Private Anthony, “I have the honor to report that the ship is sinking. The exact time of the explosion was 9:40, sir.”
There was no excitement, no scurrying here and there, as the commander reached the forward deck. Boats were being lowered at the command of the officers, but only to rescue the wounded and drowning men who were shouting from the bay and not to save themselves.
Not until the life boars returned alongside and reported that all the men had been picked up was there a move among the survivors to leave the ship. Even then there was extreme politeness among the officers, not only to the commander, but to each other. Sigsbee claimed it as his privilege to be the last to leave the Maine. Even as Kipling said:
“We’re most of us liars; we’re ‘alf of us thieves, an’ the rest are as rank as can be,
But once in a while we can finish in style (which I ‘ope won’t ‘appen to me.”)