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"Will you tell me, Mr. Christy, all you can about the sinking of your ship?"
"I had just come off the bridge and I saw the submarine's conning tower out of the water at about 5.25 GMT. Our position was approximately W.N.W 22-23 miles from St. Kilda, in about 125 fathoms of water. The submarine was approximately 200 yards from us then. I returned to the bridge, and told the Bosun to turn out the crew who had just gone below. By this time the submarine was well out of the water, and had her two guns manned."
"As soon as the crew got on deck I told them to get the boat out. There was a slight hitch so I stopped the engine and went to lend a hand myself. At this time the submarine was slowly manouvering around us. I saw one of the men in the conning tower hold his hand up. He was manouvering towards our starboard bow, and someone sang out 'Get on board your boat', the boat then being in the water, then sang out 'Get your gear away, drop your wireless aerials and follow me'"
"He was manouvering around us whilst I was carrying out his orders, and we then started our engines, got under way, and followed him. He led us toward the Nancy Hague and at this time the Lord Minto was within about 4.5 miles of us, the three trawlers being in a triangle, the Nancy Hague being to the S.W and the Lord Minto about W."
"The submarine increased its speed and when we got half way to the Nancy Hague he hauled off about 4 points to starboard and fired his after gun across the bows of the Nancy Hague, who was at this time lying broadside to us, hauling in her gear. We were then about a mile away from her and the submarine circled her"
"While she was circling Nancy Hague I estimated the submarine to be 160 ft. in length in comparison to the length of Nancy Hague. He waithe until we got up to the Nancy Hague and then steamed off to the Lord Minto which was then about 3 miles away. When he was halfway between the Lord Minto and us he fired a shot at Lord Minto."
"After I had seen Lord Minto lower her boat, th captain of the submarine morsed to us "Set your boat adrift, and come on board to me." We were under way and still following the submarine so we stopped the engines and got the boat out. I was going to go alongside the port side by the Lord Minto's boat when somebody sang out "Come alongside the starboard side." Continued by Skipper C. Pennington (Lord Minto)
During this time the master of Lord Minto said that he was hauling in his gear, but had not sighted the submarine. He heard a report of a gun, and after hauling in his gear, started to steam to the E.
"The crew of Lord Minto scattered about to keep a good look out for the submarine, and we saw him close to the starboard bow. We immediately turned our stem and steamed to the W at full speed. The submarine then morsed us 'I command you to stop', but we kept going and he repeated the signal. At this time we were getting the boat out. I obeyed the second command and we stopped engines, and the submarine came right up close to us and lay broadside to our port side."
"Whilst we had been steaming to the W. I told the operator to send out a distress signal. The submarine shouted out to us 'Is your wireless working?' and we said 'No'. He said 'Get in your small boat and bring me the ship's papers' so we got the boat into the water and rowed towards him. I handed him a couple of the ship's papers and he asked me if I was the captain. I replied 'Yes' and he then told me to go on board."
"When I stepped on board the submarine the Officer who I think was the 2nd Officer and said 'You must come and see the Commander'. I walked towards the Commander who saluted me and held out his hand to shake hands, and I said 'How do you do' or something like that. He then said 'When I catch three ships I make it a rule to sink 2 and let the third one go' By this time the captain of Arlita was alongside and the Commander asked him to go on board." A description of the submarine given after discussion between the two skippers
The length of the submarine was about 160 ft.from bow to water line astern. The bow seemed to be about 4 ft. out of the water. The Captain of Lord Minto consideres that the bow was "Snippy" i.e. raked back from the foremost point downwards towards the water line. The Captain of the Arlita considers that the bow was almost vertical. She was not perceptibly down by the stern, as the portion of the aft deck onto which the Skippers climbed was in their judgement 3 ft. above the water line, but the shape of the hull astern of the point where the Skippers climbed onto the submarine was concealed by the water as they had boarded her just ahead of the water line at the aft end of the superstructure.
The sides of the hull came out in a kind of blister between the after end of the superstructure and the conning tower beginning at a point rather narrow to the conning tower, then to the aft end of the superstructure and running alongside the conning tower. That part of the hull was painted black whereas the rest was a light, silvery grey.
The conning tower appeared to be of uniform colour with the rest of the hull. On each side of the conning tower the master of Arlita saw painted in white an incomplete double circle in the shape of the letter C but does not think it was complete so as to make an O, but cannot be definate that the circle was not rounded off.
There was no net cutter. From either side of the conning tower to both stem and stern there were wires stretched, one on each side of the submarine, about 1" in circumference. There were no stanchions surrounding the decks or handrails of any description. There was a stanchion running up on the port side of the conning tower from which a small wire similar to the thickness of our aerial wire was seized, i.e. fastened down with wire to the after end of the deck. There was also another stanchion on the starboard side of the conning tower on which there was a flag with the Nazi ensign.
The conning tower was longer fore to aft than in the beam perhaps 12 ft. in length fore to aft, and its shape was oval.
The sides appeared to be straight up and down and it seemed that they had some wooden rail or wooden cover on the lip which the men rested their elbows on as they looked at us. There were heads looking over the side of the conning tower up to 20 in number. There was no platform aft of the conning tower, nor were the bulwarks cut away on its aft side, but seemed to run at one level to the deck, conning tower, and the stanchions already mentioned.
Definately there was no appearance of a half way level or open aft portion of the conning tower as shown in photograph 6 . There were two guns, one forward to the conning tower, on a swivel with a shoulder butt which did not seem at all large, and the other one aft of the conning tower which was manned by six men whereas only one man was on the forward gun, but the aft gun was not seen to be aimed or pointed up in the air at any time. It had a large wheel on it as though for training it, but the view of it was obscured by the men standing round it.
The aft gun was definately larger than the forward gun at 5 ft. There were a number of men on both fore deck and after deck as well as the men in the conning tower, and the captain of the Arlita puts the total as high as 60. But the captain of Lord Minto does not put the total so high.
The officer who spoke to the captain of Lord Minto and told him to come and see the Commander spoke good English with a slight foreign accent. He was a yound fellow about 25 , thin faced, clean shaven, but had not shaved that day, but had no heavy growth. He was fair complexioned not noticeable light coloured hair. He was wearing a blue tunic, double breasted and a blue cap. No rings or stars were noticed.
The Commander i.e. the officer to whom the Captain of the Lord Minto was taken after embarking on the submarine, was round faced, about 5 ft. 9" in height, rather fairer than the other officer mentioned. He was clean shaven and also needed a shave. He was wearing a suit of a kind of a grey gaberdine of a thin weight. He had a kind of epaulette which appeared to have carried gold at some time, but what the marking had been was no longer decipherable. The general impression made by this suit was that it might have been an old army tunic, and it was noticed that each leg across the back of the thigh had been stitched across as though the suit had been patched or made good after becoming worn. Id the tunic there were four pockets one on each breast, and one large pocket at each side. The Commander spoke very good English, noticeably better than the officer already mentioned. He had a scarceably perceptible accent. Both officers were very polite and pleasant.
One other man in a blue jacket was noticed by the captain of the Arlita with a chevronne on his left sleeve, over the elbow.
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