OCR Text |
Show RAIDING VESSEL li GETS MORE SHjPS Hl j .Vlysterious German Continues H ' 1 to Sink Enemy Merchant- Hj ! men in the Atlantic. I ! ) " ! I Madrid, via London, Feb. 23. Fly- Ilng the German naval ensign and in charge of a prize crew, tho British (steamship Westburn, of 201S tons, ' 'lias arrived at the port of Santa Cruz H de Teneriffe, according to dispatches H j I from the Canary islands today. The H I I j, Westburn asked the hospitality of the H ' Spanish government "pending the H ) ' making of repairs." H The Westburn Is in command of a 1 German "prize crew consisting of one ouicer and seven men. bne nas on H I board 20C prisoners taken from six H ' British and one Belgian vessels, all H , I except one of which are believed to H have been destroyed by a mysterious I1 ( raider, i One of the members of the prize crew wore a cap bearing, according to the Teneriffe dispatch, the inscription pjpjpj , "Cap. S. M. S. Moeben." (Meant for Moewe. This is assumed to bo meant for , Moewe, the German raider, which, aft- H ' cr sinking British vessels in .mid-At- H lantic, placed their crews or part of H them upon the British passenger liner H Appam, in charge of Lieutentant Hans H Berge and a prize crew of twenty-two B J and sent the young officer away with H the command to "bring her into an H . American port or sink her." Among the prisoners aboard the H Westburn arc part of the crew of the H ' British steamship Clan McTavish, H sunk, according to its captain, by the Hl ,' Moewe on January 17 last off the H J coast of Portugal. This fact, coupled H ,' , with the Inscription on one of the H sailors' caps, connects the Westburn H ' with the exploit of that sea rover. H . , Clue to Vessel's Name. H ! I A third "clue" leading to the Moewe H , is the fact that the Westburn has B j ( aboard part of the crew of a steamship H (j called in dispatches from Teneriffe, H j the Cambridge. This is supposed to H i be the British steamship Corb ridge, H 1 sunk, according to previous advices H jj from Newport News, by the Moewe on H i i January 11 off the coast of Portugal. H j I The Westbirn left Liverpool on H jj 1 1 January 21 for Buenos Aires, a oy- H II ' age which would have taken her about H jj thirty-five days, as she Is not believed B I to be capable of making more than H between six and seven knots. All of H jj , the ships previously reported sunk or H ' captured by the Moewe met their fate H j in the Atlantic. H II I Ran Into Raller. H ' It appears, therefore, that the West- HH burn, which must have steamed into H t the raiding zone off the Moroccan H coast, about ten or twelve days after H j her departure from Liverpool, ran into H h t the German sea rover's path about tho H' end of January or about the first days of February. Like the Appam, she H , was a welcome arrival to the Moewe, H' for she was used for the same purpose H , that of transferring to her the M crews of seven vessels, with tho dif- H ' ference that she was dispatched to a H near-by Spanish port instead of the lH 3000-mile trip to Norfolk. H; Aboard the Westburn thoro are also j j -eleven Spanish sailors. I could not Hf De learned tonight whether they were H' 'rom a Spanish vessel captured or H'; sunk by the German raider. M t List of Vessels Sunk. H ' The British vessels whose crews are H ' reported among the prisoners upon j tho Westburn are: , Flamenco, Captain Martorell, 2559. 1 ' tonB from Buenos Aires, January 8,1 H i fr Bordeaux; last reported at Gibral- ; tar, January 20. B ! Horace, Captain Jones, 2KJ3 tons, H J ' om Liverpool for Buenos Aires; last H i reported arrived at Montevideo, Janu- H ; ary U, H ' I Cambridge, believed to be the Cor- bridge, with 600 tonB of coal, captured by tho Moewe on January 11. Edinburgh, Captain Burnley, 1406 tons, last reported leaving Rangoon on September 22 last, for Liverpool. Beige, supposed to be the Belgian, Captain Atkinson2364 tons, last reported re-ported leaving Liverpool January 22 for Colon. Built In 1900. The Belgian vessel represented by prisoners upon the Wesbburn Is the Luxembourg, Captain Eberhard, 27S2 tons, last reported leaving Newport on January 18 for Buenos Aires. Built in 1908. First Hint of Raider. A little more than three weeks ago on February 1 the British liner Appam of nearly 4000 tons, at that time reported "lost." entered Hampton Roads in charge of Lieutenant Hans Berg, commanding a prize crew of twenty-two men. Like the Westburn, she flew the German naval ensign. She brough tho first hint that a German raiding vessel, believed to be an auxiliary cruiser, called Moewe In honor of a small surveying vessel sunk last year off Dar-es-Salam, was holding sway over a wide stretch of the seas which had been supposed to be cleared of German ships. With her arrival, seven maritime mysteries were cleared up. Her commander com-mander had little to say, but from the 451 persons aboard enough was gleaned glean-ed to piece together the details of a remarkable romance of the sea. Mysteries Cleared Up. When the Moewe was first sighted by tho Appam she was taken to be a British tramp In distress. But when the Appam came to within two hundred hun-dred yards of the stranger and had stopped her engines, a sudden transformation trans-formation in her appearance took place. Forward and aft her railings, which looked quite solid up to that instant, in-stant, simply disappeared as if by magic. "We learned later," said Sir E. Merewether, who was aboard the Appam Ap-pam as a passenger, "that whole sections sec-tions of these solid-looking railings were actualljr composed of accordion-like accordion-like strips of steel which dropped into in-to a slot at the pressure of a button located upon the bridge At the same Instant the square structure which had been mistaken for deckhouses also al-so collapsed and exposed batteries of guns. The guns ranged between four and six Inches." Resistance Useless. As resistance was useless, the German Ger-man prize crew which came aboard under protection of the battery of guns on the raider met with no resistance resist-ance and was allowed to disarm the Appam. The crew rrom the raider wore many different cap bands, among which were those of tho German Ger-man vessels Moewe and Paw. The passengers were locked up in various cabins and only allowed to exercise In small numbers' at a time, so that the small German crew might have them under good control. For a time tho Appam and the Moewe kept the same course. Twenty-four hours after tho capture of the steamship another steamship, the Clan MacTavish an Australian freighter, was met. The raider ordered the steamship to stop. The Clan MacTavish, Mac-Tavish, however, replied by putting on full speed and attempting to escape. es-cape. The Moewe sent a shot after her, which was returned, and the battle bat-tle was begun. The unequal battle was witnessed by the prisoners on board the Appam from the port holes. Although the unseasoned crew of the Clan MacTavish made a desperate resistance, the heavier guns of the Moewe made short work of the heroic fighter, which went down with colors col-ors .flying. Later the Ap'pam steamed in close to the scene of the combat and picked up Tour wounded sailors belonging to the Clan MacTavish. All the others, nineteen In number, In addition to the officers, went down with the ship. Lieutenant Berg, the German officer on board the Appam, then got orders to part company from the Moewe. For some distance the Appam towed the steamship Corbridge, which had been previously captured. For four days the two captured steamships, displaying display-ing the British flag, proceeded on their voyage westward. The Appam then began transferring coal from the Corbridge to her own bunkers. Finally Fin-ally the collier was scuttled. Tho Appam Ap-pam arrived at Norfolk on February 4 th, |