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Show GERMAN I oi y. 5. SHIPS Three Ships Sent to Bottom by U-Boats, Fourteen Lives Being Lost. MAY BRING ABOUT WAR Vessels Torpedoed Without Warning, the'A'ttacking Submarine Never Appearing That Ships Might ( Defena Themselves. London.-TT of Ihe Affler ican steamers City of Memphis im-nois im-nois and Vigilancia was announced Sunday Fourteen men from the Jgi-fanl'arentissing, Jgi-fanl'arentissing, as are some from ., t iMmi-diiq The crew of the tne 'uay ui -."i' Illinois was landed safely The City of Memphis, m ballast from Cardiff to New York, was sunk by gunfire. The second officer and fifteen men of the crew have been landed. The Illinois, from London tor Port Arthur, Texas, in ballast, was sunk at 8 o'clock Sunday morning. The Vigilancia '.vas torpedoed without warning The submarine did not appear. ap-pear. The captain, first and second ;mates, first, second and third engi-ners engi-ners and twenty-thre men of the crew have been landed at the Scilly islands. The fourth enginer and thirteen men are missing. Third Engineer Thompson of the City of Memphis, in an interview with the Central News, said that the submarine fired a warning shot for the steamer to slow down and subsequently subsequent-ly signaled for her to stop and for the crew to abandon the ship. Ten or eleven shells were fired at the vessel, which began to sink. Then followed a terrific explosion, which caused the vessel to tremble all over, and within twenty minutes she sank, stern first. The crew suffered suf-fered a great deal from exposure dur ing tne nignt. Washington. With the announcement announce-ment of the ruthless destruction of three unarmed American merchant ships by submarines it was officially admitted her that virtually a state of war exists betwen the United States and Germany. One step the president is contemplating contem-plating is a call for an immediate session ses-sion of congress to hear an address asking for authority to adopt aggressive aggres-sive measures against the submarine menace. Already American ships are being armed to defend themselves; the next move must be to send warships war-ships with orders to seek out submarines subma-rines and clear the trans-Atlantic lanes. |