The Hays Free Press

TRIP OF UNDERSEA
CRAFT THRILLING

Story of Voyage of German U-Boat Across Ocean Outrivals Fiction.

HOSTILE SHIPS ARE DODGED

Submarine, During Hazardous 3,800 Mile Run, Submerged Many Times to Escape Possible Attack From Enemy.

Baltimore, Md.—Pictures of adventure no less thrilling than those which fill the pages of Jules Verne's "Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea," are called up by the amazing story of the trip of the German U-boat Deutschland across the Atlantic ocean—a voyage that has been pronounced the most daring in the history of the sea.

The story of the remarkable voyage made by this submarine—the first to cross the Atlantic ocean—through a maze of hostile warships, has been told simply by Capt. Paul Koenig, commander of the undersea craft.

Koenig was modest about it all. He had a few words of praise for his crew and none for himself. When he spoke of the fatherland his eyes sparkled and his whole body twitched with eagerness. When he talked of "just dropping down when he saw a destroyer" his voice was calm.

Would He Surrender?

Just once did he display real emotion. That was when toward the end of the interview this question was suddenly shot at him:

"Suppose on your way back, just as you left the Virginia capes, you saw a destroyer bearing mercilessly down upon you. Suppose there wasn't time to dodge, wasn't time to submerge, what would you do? Would you surrender?"

The undersea skipper's face turned a sudden red that looked queer under his thick weather tan. His hands clenched, his eyes flashed, then slowly each word painfully thought out, came the answer:

"Would I surrender? I couldn't tell about that—positively I can't. I don't know—surrender? I think the moment would bring the decision. Yes, that moment would carry its own decision."

That was the spoken reply, but in every bit of the man's tone, in every set line of his face could be read the real answer—Capt. Paul Koenig has no intention that the Deutschland shall ever fall into enemy hands.

Fears No Enemy Warship.

And he has every confidence that he will take the Deutschland back to Bremen loaded with the rubber and nickel that the Fatherland so craves for its munition factories.

"Six, ten, a dozen, twenty cruisers outside will not stop us," he exclaimed. "We will go back; we will go back easy. And we will come again, and others will come and trade will go back and forth, and the British blockade—that will be a thing to laugh at."

"The future of the submarine has now been proved to be unlimited," he asserted.

"There is practically no maximum to their capacity; their mechanism has been perfected; we have shown that they can do anything any other ship can do, and more besides."

"About that I am positive. The coming of the Deutschland, 3,800 miles to America, and her arrival with a range of almost ten thousand miles left, with fuel and water and supplies and everything for that much travel still aboard, shows that you can go with a submarine simply where you want to go."

Koenig is a small man, ordinarily looking until he begins to talk, when his force and personality become at once apparent.

First Submarine Trip.

One of the first questions asked of him brought one of the most surprising replies of the interview. Requested to tell in detail of all the submarine experience he had before being selected to attempt the crossing, he replied quickly:

"But you see I have not had any. Of course we practiced after we went aboard. We practiced a great deal. Navigation I know. Submarines I think I know now."

"Was it fun? Sometimes, yes. Most it was fun in the English channel. There we lay ten hours on the bottom, snug and comfortable. Some of us slept and some of us read, and most of us listened to our graphophone playing a beautiful song from 'Peer Gynt,' while above us raged the destroyers and cruisers that would have thought us the very choicest of prey had they but known what lay hidden there below them. It was not a long ten hours. We drank a little champagne, and we ate and attended to the machinery."

"No, we didn't submerge because of any cruiser chasing us; not once were we chased."

How They Submerged.

Nothing more vivid about adventure could be drawn from Koenig than the detailing of these times "we just sank." As far as his words went, that was all there was to it. A vessel was sighted; the Deutschland was quickly submerged; she ran along under water for a time, and then—she came up and opened her hatches for fresh air, while officers and men went about their work, their rest, or their play.

"Once each day we submerged as a practice drill," he said, "and besides we submerged, as I remember, five times in the North sea, six in the English channel, and three or four in the open water."

"Yes," laughing heartily, "yes, each time there was a reason."

"The longest we actually stayed under was that ten hours in the English channel, but we could stay four days. At the end of that time our batteries would be exhausted, and we would have to rise and recharge them. During the entire trip we traveled a total of ninety miles under water."

"As far as the physical effect on the ship's company is concerned, we could remain forever. We can submerge fifty fathoms—three hundred feet—but as a matter of fact we never went nearly that deep, and probably never shall."

Liked the Submerging.

Those on the Deutschland besides himself were First Mate Krapuhl, Second Mate Gyring, Chief Engineer Kleis and a crew of 25 men. Kleis, he said, over and over again, was "the most important of all." Then he told how the crew spent the time.

"On board they busied themselves with the machinery, for practically all of them are mechanics. They played cards, and they had their singing and their sleeping and their sitting about, and the time passed."

"Best of all, they—all of us, in fact—liked the submerging. Unpleasant? Indeed it was not. It was just like sinking into a sort of blue nest. We open the portholes, and then through the glass we could see the fish and the formations of the sea, and always we listened, listened, listened."

"How do we listen? There are aboard two microphones, and with them we were able to hear the whistling of a buoy six miles off when we were under water. And just before we came up about thirty miles from the Virginia capes, we were able to hear the ringing of a bell buoy six miles from us."

"The screw of a ship we could hear quite plainly while it was yet a safe distance from us. More than hearing it, we could tell whether it was a cruiser or a destroyer. It was quite fascinating to listen so."

Details of the Trip.

Captain Koenig did not take the Deutschland around Scotland, as has been conjectured. He came straight through the Channel, he said.

"We left Bremerhaven at noon on June 14. We proceeded quietly to Helgoland; there we stayed four days. There were three reasons for that: No ship proceeds all the way after starting. It is too easy to calculate when she may be expected at some given place. So we lay in wait a while.

Then, too, we wanted to train the men. During those four days we drilled and taught them hard, and when once more we proceeded we had a capable submarine crew."

"Again, we had to trim the cargo. That must always be done after a start is made. We must shift things about and stow them away. And everything needs to be tested. All worked nicely."

"We carried 180 tons of fuel oil. Of that we have 95 tons left—more than enough to take us back—and we shall not ship any more here. Then we carried many tons of oxygen and twenty tons of fresh water, of which we had ten left."

"The last time we submerged was as we were nearing the Virginia capes and we saw an American boat approaching. We thought it was a fruit boat so we just dipped under for the last time. The men were always glad when we did that—it made such smooth traveling. The Deutschland scarcely rolls at all under water."

"And that about completes the story of the voyage. We traveled, we saw ships and submerged, we traveled again on the surface and at last we arrived."

The Deutschland, built by the Krupp Germania works, cost $500,000. This voyage will pay for her, he said.

Boat a Mass of Machinery.

As described by Dr. John C. Travers, assistant U. S. health officer, who was taken through the boat by Captain Koenig, the Deutschland's interior appears to be mainly a mass of machinery. She has but one deck below and a seventeen-foot depth of hold for her cargo. Dr. Travers descended through the forward hatch, where he found the crew's quarters, bunks on either side of a narrow passageway leading to compartments occupied by the captain and his two officers. The captain's room is scarcely six feet square and barely high enough for a man to stand.

It is furnished all in metal, with the exception of a small oak desk. Directly beneath the officers' quarters is the dynamo, which stores electrical energy to drive the vessel when submerged.

Next Dr. Travers was taken into the officers' messroom, scarcely larger than the staterooms, with a galley built with all the economy of space of a Pullman dining-car kitchen. Aft the messroom, about one-third the ship's length from her stern, is the submerging machinery and two periscopes.

Calls It Amazing Sight.

"I never saw such a mass of machinery in my life," said Dr. Travers. "It was an amazing sight and I doubt if it would mean much except to the engineer who designed it. There seemed to be 5,000 different pieces, an inexplicable tangle of burnished copper and glistening steel."

Aft of the submerging machinery were the submarine's two powerful Diesel oil engines which propel her on the surface.

Captain Koenig told the doctor that while on the surface the noise of the machinery was almost deafening.