Posted inDaily News Local Histories World War 1

Local Boys Return from Service

postcard showing ruined buildings, titled "The School and Belleau Woods"

Arthur Kief and John Shea, recently returned from overseas service, have received their honorable discharge, and arrived home yesterday. Kief wears a wound stripe. At Chateau Thierry, on July 18, in the battle of the Marne, he was blown up by a high explosive shell, and laid for thirty-six hours unconscious in the shell hole where he fell, supposed to be dead. It was a week later that he regained consciousness in a hospital. He spent seven months in different hospitals, and when be returned to his company in January last, the fighting was over.

Posted inAviation World War 1

Greatest Defeat of War Crushes German Zeppelin Airfleet

picture of several men examining the frame of a crashed zeppelin

WASHINGTON, Oct. 23.—Germany probably lost one-half of her total effective fleet of super-Zeppelins as a result of the raid of October 20 over England, according to official cablegrams received here. All France is exultant over what the dispatches declare to be the greatest defeat administered to an air fleet since the beginning of the war. The gratification is more intense because it is now known that the German raid was an attempt to carry out a fearful threat of vengeance made four days before.

On that occasion the German government sent out a warning to both France and England of dire punishment to follow what the Germans declared to be unwarranted and inhuman attacks by British and French aviators upon peaceful German towns. Reprisals were threatened in an official German communication, which in part reads:

Posted inMaritime & Naval History Ship Histories World War 1

Cassin, in Fight, Fought Off Boat

Submarine Bettered in Battle With American Vessel

Damage to USS CASSIN, torpedoed on 15 October 1917, by German submarine U-61. Photographed while under repair in England.
Damage to USS CASSIN, torpedoed on 15 October 1917, by German submarine U-61. Photographed while under repair in England.

Washington, Oct. 23.—Coolness and quick maneuvering by Commander Walter H. Vernon saved the American destroyer Cassin from possible destruction in an encounter with a German submarine in the war zone on October 16, the Navy department was advised yesterday by Vice-Admiral Sims in his full report of the fight. Meagre details of the incident were received last week, but the destroyer’s name was withheld until yesterday.

Before she had an opportunity to fire a shot, the destroyer was hit on the stern by a torpedo, which killed Gunner’s Mate Osmond Kelly Ingram, slightly wounded five others of the crew, and put one engine out of commission.

The Cassin had been searching half an hour for a submarine first sighted five miles away when Commander Vernon suddenly saw a torpedo 400 yards distant and making for the ship at great speed. He ordered full speed ahead and the wheel hard over. The patrol boat was just clear of the torpedo’s path when the projectile broached on the surface, turned sharply, and hit its objective.

Posted inWorld War 1

Full Story of Cruise of Famous German Raider Seeadler Is Related

The German auxiliary cruiser SMS Seeadler capturing the French bark Cambronne off the Brazilian coast on 20 March 1917. Depicted by Willy Stöwer.

Naval Department Makes Public Interesting Account of Exploits of Kaiser’s Seamen on Board American Vessel Which Had Been Taken From English Prize Force While Sailing For Kirkwall

Washington, November 10.—The full story of the cruise of the German commerce raider Seeadler has been obtained by the navy department from Capt. Haldor Smith of the American schooner R. C. Slade, and three other mariners, who landed at Tutuila in an open boat September 29 after being marooned on Mopeha Island by the master of the Seeadler when the raider grounded and was abandoned.

The Seeadler, formerly the American ship Pass of Balmaha, belonged to the Boston Lumber company, and was in the Nova Scotia trade before the war. After the war broke out she was put under the American flag and was captured by the British and a prize officer was put aboard her with instructions to taKe her to Kirkwall, Scotland. On the way she was captured by a German submarine and sent to Bremen, and fitted out as a raider. A picked crew was placed aboard, some of whom spoke Norwegian, and sent out into the Atlantic under the guise of a Norwegian ship.

Posted inWorld War 1

Grave-Digger of Navy

"Grave-Digger of Navy" Von Tirpitz Is Called By People of Germany By DELT M. EDWARDS.I. N. S. Staff Correspondent. LONDON, March 23.—The German navy and everyone in it—except the U-boat…