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Show 1 iL fjijL American Steamer Mas Ninety-mile Battle Witts U-Boat MOT FIRE OPENS U. S. Gunners Land SKell Squarely on German's Ger-man's Back. ' LIVERPOOL. Feb. 21. (Correspondence (Corre-spondence of tho Associated Press.) An officer of a stoamer from an American Ameri-can port gives a stirring account of a 90 -mile fight with a U-boat in the Atlantic. It lasted from the firing of a torpedo which just missed at 11:45 a. m. until 5:40 p. m. During that time the stokers worked without ceasing to get every ounce of speed out of the boiler. The engineers got her up from a 'normal ten or eleven knots to more than thirteen and a half. "The gunners wero on duty every socond,"said tho officer. "From the bridge wro could see every shot fired at the submarine. We wero a big targot 500 feet long and the enpmy showed only a small dome flvo miles astern. A couple of hours' effective shelling made him a bit venturesome, but our gunners Bpccdily showed him that it was unhealthy to come too close. We had plenty of ammunition and we used it lavishly. With constant practice too, lour gunners began to get better. Nev-i Nev-i crtheless, about 3 o'clock the German gunners got out some hotter shells and shrapnel began to rain on our decks. The man in the whcolhouse was struck by a 'splinter. A shot pierced the scupper over tho boatswain's room. Another struck us abaft the on-gineroom on-gineroom on tho port side. "For a while the fight was fierce. Then for half an hour no shots were fired, while tho submarine maneuvered maneuver-ed for position. Our ship was vibrating vibrat-ing with the speed. Our captain paced the bridge, keenly observant. When tho U-boat finally got the position he wanted and renewed tho shell fire, our I gun crew decided 1.0 let them have it J as hot as our gun would stand. After a , few minutes wo landed a shell squarely square-ly on tho German's back. It apparently apparent-ly disturbed lrim a. good deal for he stopped firing at once, then slackened I speed, altered course and submerged." |