The chief petty officers' quarters were farthest aft on the 343.

The

after bulkhead to their compartment was blown in, leaving the inside of

the ship open to sea and sun. Fourteen men were in there at the time,

lounging around or in their bunks. Many of them were bruised and all

were shook up, but they all made the deck. They do not know how they

made it, but they did. The after hatchway to the deck was closed with

tumbling wreckage, so they must have gone up the midship hatch.

One man taking a nap in the cot bunk farthest aft had a part of the

bulkhead blown past him. It cut off a corner of his cot and broke one of

his legs, and blew him into the passageway in passing. Landing in the

passageway he sprained his other ankle. He is not quite sure how he made

the deck without help, but he did make it, and he says he beat some of

them to it at that.

The man who was working on the after gun with the gunner's mate who was

blown up, saw the shining torpedo leaping in the sun and heading

straight for his part of the ship. If he did not do something he knew he

was in for it, so he began to take long high leaps forward. The

explosion came while he was in the air on his third long high jump. All

he remembers happening to him after that was of an ocean of water

flowing over him, and he not minding it at all. When he came to, the

doctor was looking him over for broken bones, but did not find any.

After the doctor left him he sat up and said: "I bet I've been as near

to a torpedo exploding and getting away with it as anybody in the world,

hah?" And "Yes," said one of his shipmates, "and I bet you made a

world's record for three long high jumps, without a run, too. You sure

did travel, boy."

When it was all over the two propeller shafts were still sticking out

astern, one naked and shining in the sun; the other also shining and
naked, but with a propeller still in place on it. Spotting that, the

skipper ordered the engines turned. To their delight the shaft revolved,

the ship began to move. No record-breaking pace, but--God love the

builder of a good little ship--she was making revolutions. The wreckage

hanging from her starboard quarter acted as a rudder, and so, instead of

going straight ahead, she began to go round in circles.

She continued to make circles, and her officers and men stood to

stations and waited for what next would happen. Destroyer people have it

that there are grades of U-boat commanders--some of nerve, some only

ordinary. The U-boat man with nerve enough to attack a destroyer is a

good one. He will bear watching; so what they expected was to see this

U-boat come up and finish the job. If she did come up and at the right

place to get another torpedo in, then the 343 was in for a bad time. So

they waited, some thinking one thing, and some another, but all agreeing

that the odds were against them.

The U-boat did show again. They saw her conning-tower slipping through

the water at about 1,500 yards. The skipper of the 343 was ready in so

far as he could be ready with his poor little cripple. Crews were at gun

stations, and that conning-tower had hardly got above the surface when

two of the 343's guns cut loose at it. They got in four shots, the

fourth one pretty handy. But no more. She submerged to the

discouragement of one earnest gun-pointer. He leaned against the breech

of his little 4-inch to say: "One more and I'd 'ave got her. Bet you me

next month's pay that I get her if she shows for two shots again."

She did not show again, but her not showing did not end the 343's

troubles. They could steam in circles, but it was not getting them

anywhere. A few miles away was one of the roughest shores in the world,

the kind where green seas piled up against rocky cliffs--and a tide that
was already setting them toward it. A bad enough place in any kind of

weather, but with wind and sea making, and this time of year!

It was about two in the afternoon they were torpedoed. By dark they were

being driven by the tide and white-capped seas to the shore. They had

one hope left. Their radio operator had managed to keep the radio gear

in commission, and through all their troubles he had been sending out

S O S calls, though not with too great hope that anybody would come in

time. The U-boats had been pretty active thereabout, and it was not on

any main sea route. There was always the chance, of course, that some

war-ships would be somewhere near.

For one hour, two hours, three, four, five, six hours they drifted.

Their wireless kept going out of commission, and their radio operator

kept patching it up and getting it going again. S O S--he never let up

with that call. It was midnight when a British mine-sweeper bore down

and hailed. By then they could hear the high seas breaking on the rocks

abeam. The Britisher got the word across the wind, and tried to pass a

messenger--a light line, that is--across to the 343. They did not make

it. They tried again and again, but no use. The 343 was then within a

few hundred yards of the breakers.

The skipper of the Britisher then hailed that he would try to get a boat

to them. They could hear him calling for volunteers to man the boat. He

got the volunteers, and without being able to see every detail of it in

the dark, the 343's people knew what was happening. They were making a

lee of the trawler so as to get the boat over. But the boat was swashing

in and out against the side of the ship--up on a sea and then bang! in

against the side of the ship. Merely as a sporting proposition, their

own lives not depending on it, the 343's people would have been praying

for that boat to get safely away.