"If We Goes Down"

Sirs:

Here is a most interesting war letter from a friend of mine, a young officer in the British Army and a nephew of Lady Diana Duff Cooper. His father was killed in the last war and, as you will see, he came very close to being killed in this one.

RUDOLF KOMMER New York City

Dear Rudolf:

Seamen are traditionally suspicious folk, and so I was not unduly disturbed by Dickson's pessimistic face as we sailed out of Algeciras Bay on Friday, the 13th October. Dickson was a cabin steward aboard S.S. Yorkshire, and I was a passenger.

"Never mind," said Dickson, "Bibby never lost a ship in the last war."

"Don't talk too soon," said I.

"Oh well, if we goes down we goes down, and if we stays up we stays up."

Much comforted by this profound and philosophical reflection, Dickson withdrew and left me a little thoughtful. It sounded so easy, "if we goes down--." I wondered what it would be like to be torpedoed. . . .

Most of us on board were invalids, or personnel of the R.A.M.C., returning home from the East. We had on board a magnificent variety of interesting diseases, and were usually talked about as if we were the diseases, instead of the unfortunate individuals suffering from them. . . .

I was "the Rheumatism." I had been in bed for eight weeks, and although much better was still unable to walk, as my feet were affected; I had in fact only twice put them to the ground during my illness.

Dawn on the 17th October found us about 200 miles from land in the Atlantic with our head for home. . . .

After lunch I played a game of chess with the ship's doctor, an old Scotsman of about 70. ... It must have been just 25 minutes after three that the Doctor was faced with the loss of his castle. I remember he sat studying the board for two or three minutes, then--

"Aye, y've got ma rook," and he advanced a pawn.

I leant forward to take the piece but my hand never reached it, for there was a sudden crash and the chessmen went flying across the deck. We had been torpedoed; the impossible had happened.

I found myself on my feet for the first time in eight weeks, and they gave beneath me and I fell flat on my face, half in and half out of the saloon. My life belt was under my chair and I put it on from ground level.

As I did so I looked back over my shoulder and saw a great red sheet of flame with smoky edges hanging in the sky above our stern. I once more struggled to my feet, just in time to be thrown over by the second torpedo which hit us amidships. . . . Somebody said "Put your arm around my neck," and we all trooped off.

My boat station was Starboard 5. ... Near this boat station there was a companionway which leads over No. 3 hatch, and it was here that the second torpedo had struck us. The boards covering this hatch had been blown off by the force of the explosion, and there was a deep yawning hole.

Hanging by one hand to the corner of a tarpaulin and swinging over this abyss with kicking legs was a little girl. She and two others had been playing on top of the hatch --the other two had been killed. I saw a soldier pull her to safety, and she was eventually saved.

By this time our boat's complement had collected, and we waited anxiously for its appearance. I sat on the bottom of the steps.

A great fat woman came down the steps screaming with all her might for her baby; as she went by I remember thumping her on the back as hard as I could, and yelling at the top of my voice that everything was going to be all right. I noticed that when anyone did anything, whether it was lowering a boat or just speaking, they did it with all their force. The one unendurable thing was to do nothing. I derived great comfort from expending energy on this poor woman.

I had told her that all would be well, and it was not until I had done so that I first asked myself whether indeed all would be well.

The Yorkshire was listing to starboard and something seemed to be wrong with the life boat, as it did not appear. . . .

And then, at last, our boat came down. God, but we were pleased to see it! Some women started to get in and I waited on the steps wishing desperately that I could do something; it was wretched just sitting on those steps--no good to anyone and not much good to myself.

The waves seemed to me to be nearer the deck, and in truth they were, for suddenly the sea seemed to gather itself together and come aboard us in a rush; a great green, smooth-backed wave surged over the side.

Those standing around the boats were either swept overboard or trapped between the two decks; those of us who were still on our feet struggled up the companionway and down on to the port deck. . . .

I staggered to the side on watery legs, straddled the taffrail, and looked down. There was a boat in the water and several ropes leading down into it. These were the life liners and were fastened above to the boat deck. Halfway down one of these ropes was a woman in yellow, clinging to it like a monkey to a stick. A man with a red face was in the boat trying to help her in; he looked up; his mouth was open and his eyes looked like saucers.

The woman got off the rope and I slid down it. It must have been a 12-ft. drop and the lifeboat was jumping to the swell. But my arms felt strong and I landed right in the middle and scrambled to the side.

Several more people came down. Then somebody shouted: "Trim the boat." We all echoed his words but nobody did anything. And then in a desperate voice the same person shouted: "Cast off, for God's sake, she's going."

Dickson was in the bows and managed to free the falls from that end, but before the stern falls could be cut or cast off, the Yorkshire reared her bows into the air and slid backwards to the bottom.

And we were still tied to her. . . .

I remember being pinned between the gunwale of the lifeboat and a rope which was held taut across my chest. The davits were within a few feet. Beneath me was a tangled mass of ropes, oars, iron and foaming water. I saw the red-faced man disappear into this turmoil, and then I was in it myself. There was a roar of rushing water, which almost but not quite obliterated the noise of screaming. . . .

The water brought me back, if not to earth, at any rate to a realization of the imminence of death, and I started to struggle for life.

I did not go deep: it never became dark, but was always frothy. Hard things swept by me. I groped upwards with my hands, and kicked with my feet. I remember thinking rather numbly: "I suppose they will see it in The Times." And then to my intense surprise I was on the surface, spluttering but otherwise feeling remarkably well.

The first thing that struck me was that the sun was shining, and that the great ship had completely disappeared. ... I came up within a foot of a life raft (one of those yard-square contraptions which are festooned with rope and wooden handgrips) and caught hold of it. Somebody was close to me in the water. Looking back, I am more and more amazed by the unreality of the whole affair. I remember being seriously worried as to the propriety of scrambling on top of this raft. I was not au fait with ocean etiquette. For all I knew, good Riflemen ought to hang onto the side. However, my scruples cannot have been very serious, for the next moment I was established on top.

Then somebody with a dead white face and a bleeding forehead came up beside me. I helped him on to the raft and he was horribly sick. His trousers had been sucked off. He said he was a cabin steward.

I know one is supposed to feel pretty grim perched precariously on a raft in the middle of the Atlantic, but I didn't. I have seldom felt better. I suppose the realisation that one wasn't dead was such an inexpressible relief that anything else seemed trivial by comparison. I felt rather like one does on coming to after laughing gas; I had the giggles.

My manners, I am proud to say, never deserted me; I remember asking Brady, my companion, whether he could find it in his goodness to forgive me if I made so bold as to relieve myself.

I spent a long time telling Brady about the interrupted chess game. . .

There were two other rafts, each with two men on them, quite close; otherwise we could see nothing except the other ships of the convoy making off as hard as they could. It was only then that I remembered that they were forbidden to pick us up. We should have to wait until warships arrived--perhaps for many hours.

I stopped giggling.

And then a lifeboat appeared. It was in charge of Nelson, who shouted at me something about chess, and asked whether we were all right on the raft, as the boat was full.

I said I supposed we were--it looked pretty cosy inside that lifeboat.

Nelson threw us a rope and we made fast. We were then towed about for two hours. They tried first to salvage an empty lifeboat but the bottom had been stove in. They then picked up one poor woman who was clinging to a piece of wood, and an unconscious man who was starfished on a hatch board. He was covered with engine oil and had a great bloody eye. It was my friend and cabin steward, Dickson. . . .

At length we were joined by four other lifeboats which were towed by a small motor boat. Somebody shouted at me from one of these boats: "Have you seen my wife?" And then, and not till then, so selfish is man, did J realize how lucky I was to have no one to ask after, and what this ghastly business would mean to some.

Brady and I were taken aboard a comparatively empty lifeboat which, even so, was overladen. I didn't realize how cold I was until I tried to talk and found that my jaws were stiff. There were a. number of Lascar seamen on board; they crouched on the bottom of the boat paralysed with cold and fear. Poor devils, they longed for the sun of Bengal; it wasn't their war anyway. . . .

It soon got dark, and our optimism waned with the light. The sea looked cruel as death, and the swell seemed more formidable, the wind increased a little and began to break the tops of the swell. All the boats were shipping a certain amount of water, and we had to bale continuously. The Lascars were worse than useless: they were too paralysed even to bale. I had quite a struggle to keep hold of a blanket I had been given, so anxious were they to hide their heads beneath it. It was pretty cold by this time, and my wretched pyjamas were not much protection against the wind.

Almost everybody was seasick. Their moans of misery made a fitting background to the scene. Some of us sang. Speed Bonny Boat and Loch Lomond were inevitable if inappropriate choices, and they must have sounded dismal, but they warmed us up.

And then we saw a light--only a pinpoint --but definitely a light. It was a long wav away, but by God, it looked good! We had some flares and these we lit. . . .

We strained our eyes and tried to think that the light was coming nearer, and the seasick stopped moaning, and we all felt vastly better.

But it came no nearer. . . . We watched it for an hour or more, and then it faded out of sight.

It is extraordinary how much that feeble light had meant to us. While it was there we had forgotten the intense discomfort. But as soon as it disappeared the world suddenly became a darker and a colder place, and I, for one, felt for the first time the vastness of the ocean. How could any ship hope to find us? It seemed impossible.

Everybody got sick again.

I was next to a kind steward, who rubbed my back and was wonderfully sympathetic. I was feeling by this time that I really didn't mind terribly if I was drowned, if only the damned boat would stop bucking about for half a minute. Then I think I must have slept (I remember using two Lascars for a pillow, and thinking them an extremely good one), for when I looked up again there was the light, but this time it was bigger and closer. And then I saw that there were two lights. By God, that was a good sight! It was a ship, and coming towards us.

Not a moan from anyone now. In a minute we were all cracking jokes and shaking hands. The steward and I thumped each other on the backs, and when the next flare went up I saw that his face was wreathed in smiles.

Soon we could see the navigation lights, and in another minute a signal was ordering us to come to the starboard side.

Quite soon we were alongside and it is impossible to describe the wonderful feeling that that ship gave us. She was an American freighter, the Independence Hall, and I have never heard anything so sweet as the sound of those American voices, as the crew leant over the side and hailed us:

"How y're making out, you fellas? . . ."

The Independence Hall was three days out of Bordeaux, bound for New York. She had, by the grace of God, 80 beds in the hold. . . . There were over 300 of us in that hold, for besides the survivors from the Yorkshire, the crew of the City of Mandalay, another torpedoed ship, had already been picked up. We were as tight as sardines in a tin, all mixed together in an indescribable hotch potch of black and white bodies. But nothing mattered; everything was heaven. We talked most of the night. I think all of us were a little chary of closing our eyes. I know that I was for one. Whenever I tried to sleep I saw the Yorkshire slipping back, saw the staring eyes and open mouth of the red-faced man as he disappeared beneath that foaming mass of tangled ropes and wreckage. . . .

The Independence Hall had picked us up some 200 miles west of Cape Finisterre, and she took three days to return to Bordeaux with her catch. . . . Again and again, we discussed the whole affair; gradually we managed to piece the story together and find out what had actually happened. We learned that the Yorkshire had taken only eight and a half minutes to sink, and that three lifeboats had been smashed by the explosion. We learned, too, of the particularly tragic fate of one boatload. It was No. 5 boat, the one in which I should have been. Several women and children had been put in before the sea had come aboard the promenade deck, and afterwards a few more had managed to get in from the boat deck. The lifeboat itself was eventually freed from the ship and stood a good chance of safety. But as the Yorkshire sank she listed heavily to starboard and this lifeboat was capsized by the funnel, and we believe that the occupants were drawn down it by the inrush of water. . . .

We said farewell to the Independence Hall and came back to the world. For four days we had been shorn of much that goes to make up the life of today, not only of all our worldly possessions but also of the trials, the troubles and the decisions. There had been something rather enjoyable about it, an exhilarating feeling of irresponsibility which I, for one, appreciated; I shall always remember the joy of having no luggage to worry about, and no boxes to pack. As I went ashore I felt just the faintest feeling of hesitation at the idea of plunging back into the world. But it was only momentary, for once the world was round me again there was room for no feelings but those of pleasure and thankfulness.

> For a most articulate account of a most unusual experience, TIME'S thanks to Dr. Kommer and the author of this letter.--ED.

Is-Was

Sirs:

"In the control tower the plotters laid out their instruments--parallel, slide, caliper, is-was." (TIME, Dec. 25, p. 20). This is (was) beyond me. And I thought I was (is) a sort of authority on the tools of mathematics. Come now, what the hell is (was) an is-was?

ROBERT C. YATES Baton Rouge, La.

> No tool of mathematics but a tool of war is the is-was. It is an instrument which, given the data on where an enemy ship is, and where it was, can determine where it will be when the next shell hits. An apter name would be is-was-will-be.--ED.

Leopold's Score

Sirs:

TO SATISFY MY CURIOSITY WILL YOU PUBLISH THE NUMBER OF PEOPLE WHO CALLED YOU ON THE QUESTION QUOTE HOW OLD IS LEOPOLD CLOSE QUOTE (TIME, DEC. 25).

HENRY C. WAYNE Needham, Mass.

> TIME said King Leopold had given Ambassador Davies a golf lesson and a trimming (Davies, 85, Leopold, 69). Only Reader Wayne misread their golf scores for their ages. Agewise, their score is: Davies, 63; Leopold, 38. --ED.

Men of the Years

Sirs:

For how many years has TIME selected a Man of the Year?

Is there a list available of past Men of the Year, together with historical sketch ? . . .

ANDREW BERRY Orangeburg, S. C.

> TIME'S first Man of the Year was Charles Augustus Lindbergh (Man of 1927). The others, in chronological order: Walter Percy Chrysler, Owen D. Young, Mahatma Gandhi, Pierre Laval, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, Hugh Samuel Johnson, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, Haile Selassie, Wallis Warfield Simpson, Chiang Kai-shek & wife, Adolf Hitler, Joseph Stalin.-- ED.

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