Cloverdale Union High School - Spectator Yearbook (Cloverdale, CA)

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o’clock we had the bay hehind us, and had reached open water. Everyone aboard was glad that he was bound southward now into a tropical zone, where the sun was shining, and where the weather was not like that in the part of the globe, where we were now, where the sun during the winter months never came through the clouds. All these happy thoughts shouldn’t last very long. Around half past two, a terrible explosion occurred, something strange seemed to lift up the heavy steamer for a second, and then we began to sink. An indescribable panic followed now. All the two thousand soldiers and officers, accept one, who had died during the night, and was ready to be burried in the sea, came running on deck. Everyone tried to reach the highest point, in a few seconds the smoke-stack, the masts and the life-saving boats were crowded with the panic-stricken men. In their excitement and ignorance, they had cut the ropes on which the life savings boats hang on the davits. They thought that the boats would simply float, when the water reached the boats-deck. They didn’t think about the current. On rear-deck was a boat, which was always swung out, when having passengers on board. This, too, was overcrowded and from the weight of all those who were in it, one of the ropes broke, and the boat fell, and hung on one davit. All those who had been in the boat found their grave in the icy waves. It was impossible for us to rescue them. We had more than two thousand people aboard, and it was our duty to save them. Immediately after the explosion, which was caused by a floating mine, we gave danger signals, and then turned our sinking steamer landwards again. Our signals were answered by some of the ships which lay way out in the bay. They all tried to .come to our rescue, but were unable to get out of the ice. At last a Norweigian steamer, which had come in the day before, succeeded in get¬ ting its propellor moving, and came as fast as it could towards us. 16

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The next day we continued our trip. We steamed down the Shelde, then went through the English Channel, into the Gulf of Biscaja, through the Strait of Gibraltar, and into the Med¬ iterranean Sea toward Port Said, our next port. Now we went sout hward again through the Suez Canal into the Red Sea. When passing Cape Perim, we signaled. From here the telegraph reported our whereabouts to those at home, several thousand miles away. 1 he next port to be made was Colombo. Then came Pan- nang, Singapore, Hongcong, Sanghai, Moji, Kobe, Jokahama, and Nagasaki. An order awaited us here to sail to Jokaitsy, from which place we had to take Russian soldiers and officers, which had been the prisoners of the Japanese, to Vladivostok. We left Jokaitsy January the nineteenth, and arrived in Vladivostok on the twenty-second of January, 1905. It was very cold there, the thermometer showing thirty-three degrees below zero. The Bay of Vladivostok was covered with ice, which was about seven or eight feet thick, and only with the help of a very large ice cutter were we able to get into port. About a half a mile fr om shore, we fastened our steamer, and landed the soldiers and officere on the ice. Vladivostok, which is merely a Russian naval sea port, on the Japan Sea, was at that time in a terrible condition. There wasn t a single building in town which wasn ' t demolished, almost everyone being sho or burned down. lhe streets were crowded with revolting soldiers and dirty Coreaner, natives of that country, which look like Chinamen, only that the men have a beard. I never saw a soldier saluting an officer. The latter ones were glad when they were not bothered with them. We were to have the pleasure of getting acquainted with these Wodka loving warriors. On January 28 we took two thousand two hundred men, in¬ cluding seventy officers aboard, to take them back to Odessa (Southern Russia.) We left Vladivostok the next morning at 6 a. m. At 2 15

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In the meantime, we had been able to make our way towards the ice without any assistance. When the Norwegian steamer came close we signaled it to stand by us, in case the iron wall, which separated the engine room from the front compartment, in which about two thou¬ sand tons of water had poured, couldn ' t stand the pressure. He might be able to take our soldiers and officers aboard, and save us, too, the crew and officers of our ship. As soon as we had reached the ice, the soldiers with cork- waists tied over their heavy fur coats, had thrown ropes over the railing, and were climbing down on these upon the ice, even, while the steamer was in motion. By six o’clock we had reached the shore and had succeeded in grounding the steamer, to prevent it from sinking farther. The greatest danger was now over. The Norwegian steamer, which had stood by us all this time, left us now. The soldiers and officers, who had remain¬ ed until now were landed. Next day divers were summoned to repair the leak tem¬ porarily, which took them about six weeks. When the hole was repaired, and the water pumped out, we found seven bodies frozen into the ice. How many were killed in the accident was never really known, because most of the soldiers had fled over the ice. From Vladivostok we sailed to Nagasaky (Japan), where we docked and repaired the ship for our return trip. After making the different ports, such as: Moji, Shankhai, Hongkong, Singapore, Pennang, Mulmain, Colombo, Eden, Suez, Port-Said, Le Havre, and Bremerhaven, we arrived after almost a ten months’ trip, in Hamburg, our home, sweet home, town. Ed. Note —Phillip Crell is a little German boy who has been in this country only a short time. Purposely the language has been left in the odd style in which the article was handed in.