Mt. Pleasant Pyramid | 1917-11-16 | Page 7 | Ocean Sailors Fear Subs

OCEAN SAILORS FEAR SUBS Many Deep-Water Tars Went to Great Lakes, They Assert, to Escape Dlver6. Ocean sailors went to the Great Lakes tills year in greater numbers than ever before. The majority of the applicants sought able seamen's papers pa-pers for work on inland waters. Some were negroes, some white and some yellow. Most of them gave as their reason for leaving the ocean their fear of submarines. When John Ojala, a native of Finland, Fin-land, applied for papers, the examiner asked Ojala the usual questions, and then a few personal ones. Ojala said that he had sailed the seas for 15 years, but being twice on vessels sunk by submarines was enough for him. He said that he was going back to the ocean at the close of thelake navigation naviga-tion season. On November 20, 1015, Ojala was sailing on the Mediterranean sea, about 50 miles from Malta, aboard the English Eng-lish ship Mnlinehe, bound from Salonikl to Philadelphia. A U-boat stopped the Malinche and two German oilicers, after chasing off the crew, placed bombs In the boat. Ojala shipped again aboard the Norwegian Nor-wegian sailing ship Falls of Afton, which was sunk about 20 miles off the coast of England. Seven shots from a deck gun on t,he sub sent the Falls of Afton to the bottom.