At 7:50 P.M. on the night of July 31, the Belgian Prince was traveling along at ten knots, when she was struck. The weather was fine and the sea smooth. It was a clear day and just beginning to darken. I was on the after deck of the ship, off watch, taking a stroll and having a smoke. The donkeyman shouted out, "Here's a torpedo coming." I turned and saw the wake on the port about a hundred yards away. I yelled a warning, but the words were no more than out of my mouth when we were hit.

I was thrown on deck by a piece of spar, and when I recovered I found the ship had a very heavy list to port and almost all the crew had taken to the boats. I got into the starboard lifeboat, which was my station. Until then I had seen no submarine, but now heard it firing a machine gun at the other side of the ship. With a larger gun it shot away the radio wires aloft so that we could send out no S. O. S. messages. As soon as we had pulled away from the ship I saw the U-boat, which promptly made toward our own boats and hailed us in English, commanding us to come alongside her. We were covered by their machine gun and revolvers. We were in two lifeboats and the captain's dinghy.

The submarine commander then asked for our captain and told him to come on board, which he did. He was taken down inside the submarine and we saw him no more. The rest of us, forty-three in number, were then ordered to board the submarine and to line up on deck. A German officer and several sailors were very foul and abusive in their language. They ordered us, in English, to strip off our life belts and overcoats and throw them down on the deck.

When this was done they proceeded to search us, making us hold up our hands and threatening us with revolvers. These sailors, while they passed along the deck and were searching us, deliberately kicked most of the life belts overboard from where we had dropped them. Beyond making us take off our life belts

and coats there was no interference with our clothing. They robbed me of my seaman's discharge book and certificate, which they threw overboard, but kept four one-pound notes.

After searching us, the German sailors climbed into our lifeboats and threw out the oars, gratings, thole-pins, and baling tins. The provisions and compass they lugged aboard the submarine. They then smashed our boats with axes so as to make them useless, and cast them adrift. I saw all this done myself. Several of the German sailors then got into our dinghy and rowed to the Belgian Prince. These men must have been taken off later, after they had ransacked the ship.

The submarine then moved ahead for a distance of several miles. I could not reckon it accurately because it was hard to judge her speed. She then stopped, and after a moment or two I heard a rushing sound like water pouring into the ballast tanks of the submarine.

"Look out for yourselves, boys," I shouted. "She is going down."

The submarine then submerged, leaving all our crew in the water, barring the captain, who had been taken below. We had no means of escape but for those who had managed to retain their life belts. I tried to jump clear, but was carried down with the submarine, and when I came to the surface I could see only about a dozen of our men left afloat, including a young lad named Barnes, who was shouting for help.

I swam toward him and found that he had a life belt on, but was about paralyzed with cold and fear. I held him up during the night. He became unconscious and died while I was holding him. All this time I could hear no other men in the water. When dawn broke I could see the Belgian Prince about a mile and a half away and still floating. I began to swim in her direction, but had not gone far when I saw her blow up.

I then drifted about in the life belt for an hour or two longer and saw smoke on the horizon. This steamer was laying a course straight for me, having seen the explosion of the Belgian Prince. She proved to be a British naval vessel, which also found the two other survivors in the water. We were taken to port and got back our strength after a while. None of us had given the submarine commander and crew any reason for their behavior toward us. And I make this solemn declaration conscientiously, believing it to be true.

The two common sailors who survived were William Snell, a negro, of Norfolk, Virginia, and George Silenski, a Russian. William Snell's story is as follows:

Two men of the submarine's crew stayed on top of the conning tower with rifles in their hands which they kept trained on us. Seven other Germans stood abreast of our line on the starboard side of the boat, armed with automatic pistols. The captain of the submarine, a blond man with blue eyes, was also on deck and stood near the forward gun, giving orders to his crew in German, and telling them what to do. Pretty soon he walked along in front of the men of the Belgian Prince, asking them if they had arms on them. He ordered us to take off our life belts and throw them on deck, which we did. As they dropped at our feet, he helped his sailors pick them up and sling them overboard.

When I threw my belt down, I shoved it along on the deck with my foot, and finally stood on it. As the commander walked along the line, he huddled us together in a crowd and then went and pulled the plugs out of our lifeboats, which were lying on the starboard side of the submarine. When he went back to the conning tower, I quickly picked up my belt and hid it under a

big, loose oilskin which I was wearing when I left the Belgian Prince. The Germans did not make me take it off when they searched me. I hugged the life belt close to my breast with one

arm.

When the commander returned to the conning tower, four German sailors came on deck from below and got into our captain's small boat, which was on the port side. The submarine then backed a little, steamed ahead, and rammed and smashed one of our lifeboats, which had been cast adrift.

The four men who had jumped into our captain's boat now pulled alongside the Belgian Prince. The submarine then got under way and moved ahead at about nine knots, as near as I could guess, leaving her four men aboard the Belgian Prince, and all of us, except our skipper, huddled together on the forward deck, which was almost awash.

She steamed like this for some time, and then I noticed that the water was rising slowly on the deck until it came up to my ankles. I had also noticed, a little while before this, that the conning tower was closed. The water kept on rising around my legs, and when it got almost up to my knees I pulled out my life belt, threw it over my shoulders, and jumped overboard. The other men didn't seem to know what was going to happen. Some of them were saying, "I wonder if they mean to drown us."

About ten seconds after I had jumped, I heard a suction as of a vessel sinking and the submarine had submerged entirely, leaving the crew of the Belgian Prince to struggle in the water.

I began to swim toward our own ship which I could see faintly in the distance, it being not very dark in that latitude until late in the evening. The water was not cold, like the winter time, and I was not badly chilled, but swam and floated all night, on my back and in other positions. One of our crew, who had

no life belt, kept about five yards from me for half an hour after the submarine submerged. Then he became exhausted and sank. I could hear many other cries for help, but I could not see the

men.

When day came, there were lots of bodies of old shipmates floating around me. Then about five o'clock, as near as I can judge, I made out the Belgian Prince and four men coming over the side. They had been lowering some stuff into a boat. I cried out, "Help, help!" but they paid no attention to me.

Then the submarine came to the surface and the four sailors hoisted their stuff out of the rowboat and were taken aboard. Ten minutes later the submarine submerged. Then there was a great explosion as the Belgian Prince broke in two and sank. Soon I saw a vessel approaching and she passed me, but turned and came back just in time. I was all in. It was a British patrol steamer, and as soon as I came to, I made a full report to the captain of the loss of the Belgian Prince and the drowning of her

crew.

The Russian, in his story, tells of the taking away of the life belts and the smashing of the lifeboats; of the crew of the Belgian Prince being left to sink or swim after the U-boat submerged -in all of these details agreeing with the stories of the other two. And he adds:

Then I swam toward the ship all night, although I had no life belt or anything to support me. About five o'clock in the morning I reached the Belgian Prince and climbed on board. I stayed there about an hour and got some dry clothes and put them on.

I saw the submarine come near the ship and three or four of her men climbed on board. I hid and they did not notice me.