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Show 111 I FDR HOURS .ON U-BOAT HUNT Crack New York Flier Has Painful Experience While Chasing" Hun Submarine. Sees One Companion Killed When Craft Makes Dive; Severely Hurt Himself. . By D. M. EDWAEDS, j Universal Service Staff Correspondent. AMERICAN NAVAL, BOMBING EASE, France, Nov. 23. Ensign Edward DeCer-nca, DeCer-nca, of New York City, is walking around the base with a Ifmp, a kink in his back and hia lower jaw showing the effects of a severe fracture, lie is still under the surgeon's care, but now is able to move about with increasing ease every day. He is one of the crack fliers here. He Is a bomber. He suffered his injuries in a bad fall while testing out a new flying boat. ; This occurred just a week after he had made the record for the base in duration of scouting, his record trip ending end-ing in a fight with a submarine. He and his companions were in the air seven hours and fifty-five minutes, trying to dig a submarine out of the North sea. They landed three times to replenish their crasollne. The submarine was sighted far off the coast. The wind was blowing hard. Aviators Avi-ators do not like high winds. Ensign DeCemca olimbed into his big bombing craft, with observers, gun -layers and plenty of bombs. They slid up off the -water and out into the teeth of the wind. For two hours they zigzagged over the ocean toward the east and north. They kept fairly close to the water to better , spot the form sliding below the surface. Periscope Is Sighted. Several times they thought they delected de-lected the Hun boat under the sucface. '. They shot over the spot to find It nothing more than the black patch reflected by : the moving clouds. "Submarine in the west, air," called the observer, just as the daylight was beginning begin-ning to fade. Out in the setting sun's golden path was the periscope. It stuck up against the glow like a black pencil. Then came the conning tower. The suds, washing back from the tower, appeared like a spreading mustache. NShe was heading west, straight inlo -j (ho dying sun," said one of the officers. describing the adventure. "Erhe was astern of us. "We put about Immediately and bore down on her. As we came close they must have seen us, for simultaneously with firing our recognition signal she started to dive. "We gave her a bomb. It struck about thirty or forty feet off the port quarter. It blew up a geyser twenty feet. The submarine seemed then to be starting for the surface again. We let go another bomb. This landed about twenty feet or so away from the first In the direction the submarine was taking. The submarine subma-rine disappeared. She did not come up again. Probably Destroyed. "She sent up a film of oil that stretched out for more than a mile. That is always a good sign for us. but it does not necessarily mean the ship lias been sunk, for they usually put out some oil as a ruse. "But our bombs landed so close to her and exploded so directly, we are pretty certain the work was done. At any rate, we chased her off the surface and out of the North sea." One week afler this Ensign DeCernea took the new flying boat out for the lest. Walter Kovc, a yeoman of Washington, was In the after gunpit and Harry Lavin, of New York. In the observer's pit. Kove had never been up before. Just before they entered the boat, Kavln asked: "Where do you want to sit?" "Makes no difference," returned Love. "Well, you better take the after pit," said Lavin. Love climbed up into tho rear, while Lavin took the front. Fifteen minutes out, Knslgn PeOernca started to make a left turn. Something went wrong. The, bigv heavy flying , boat would not steer back into a balanced position. She made' a sudden jump, then dropped into a nose dive. When these heavy craft sart on the dive they cannot be straightened out again. There was nothing for the men to do but brace themselves and wait for the crash. Have Narrow Escapes. The heavy machine struck the water like a shell. She plunged deep down, came slowly back and lay on the water helpless, bavin lay crushed and held, by his seat; I'eCernea could not move. bovo crawled along the fuselage to DcOernea. "Can't move my leg," said tho ensign'. Tjove lifted him up and propped him as far from the water as he could. Then he crawled out to bavin, livln was unconscious, uncon-scious, Lov pulled him out of the seat wreckage and dragged him closo up to Denernca. Half an hour laler a motorboat ran alongside and look the men aboard. T'e-Cernea T'e-Cernea had sustained a broken jaw, broken leg, wrenched back and side, bavin was beyond all aid. . Love was unscathed. j |