February 8, 1918 - Reports on sinking of Tuscania

Don Martin diary entry for Friday, February 8, 1918: 
Had a somewhat varied day. Met Irvin S. Cobb at the hotel and went with him and Captain Sifton of Canada to the Cane tea room. In the evening went to a dinner of the Rotary Club with Russell at Connaught rooms. Heard very good speech by Minister of Labor. At hotel at midnight met Major General [Eben] Swift and Colonel Booth and sat in restaurant with them for a half hour. Then took Colonel Booth around and showed him where the bombs fell. He is just back from French front. Says no cause for pessimism. He talks like a real American.

Reports now say only 100 men lost on Tuscania, American transport sunk off Irish coast. First reports 210 lost.

Fine day.

       The sinking of the Tuscania was the headline news in the New York Herald on Friday, February 8.It incorporated Don Martin's dispatch without attribution.

THE TUSCANIA'S DEATH LIST IS NOW 101; 44 UNIDENTIFIED AMERICAN DEAD ASHORE
ATTACKING U-BOAT BELIEVED TO HAVE BEEN SUNK AT ONCE; ONLY 71 AMERICANS PERISH

British Destroyers Drop Depth Bombs and Avenge Loss - Vessel Afloat for Two Hours After Being Hit Within Sight of the Irish Coast at Dusk Tuesday

SOLDIERS FACE PERIL WITHOUT PANIC; HEAVY LIST DELAYS LAUNCHING OF BOATS

One Torpedo Strikes Boiler Room and Another Passes Harmlessly Astern

A story of disaster at sea, affecting the hearts and hopes of Americans, although they have been schooled to expect it ever since the first contingent of their fighting men left an Atlantic post to become brothers in arms to the Entente warriors who are intrenched against the German hordes, fortunately has dwindled in the telling. 

One hundred and one lives were lost in the torpedoing of the British troop ship Tuscania off the Irish coast at dusk on Tuesday evening, according to the latest report. Thirty of the crew of 220 perished, leaving the number of Americans dead only seventy-one.

            A late despatch from an Irish port stated that forty-four bodies of American soldiers had been washed ashore. They bore no identification tags, as the men had not been definitely assigned to units. That they were killed by the explosion was indicated by the fact that few of the bodies were recognizable.

            She carried 2,397 souls, including 2,179 United States army foresters, engineers, supply train men, military police and aero units, and the first meager details Wednesday night indicated that the death list due to the steamship’s sinking might be approximately 1,000. A later estimate that night, however, gave 267 as the number of men missing. Thursday morning the figure was reduced to 210, and this in turn was lowered to 101 through information obtained by a correspondent of the Associated Press in Ireland and confirmed by the American Embassy in London. The rescued, therefore, numbered 2,296. Among the American survivors are 76 officers.

            The Tuscania, a vessel of 14,348 gross tons, was one of a strongly guarded convoy and was proceeding eastward off the north coast of Ireland when disaster overtook her. The shore line was visible from the starboard side through the dusk of oncoming night, and it was from this direction that the lurking German submarine [UB-77] discharged a torpedo which found its mark in the boiler room of the steamship. A second torpedo was seen to pass harmlessly astern.

            Apparently retribution at once befell the enemy underwater boat. According to the testimony of an American officer who was one of the last men to leave the Tuscania a British destroyer dashed toward the evident location of the attacker and dropped depth bombs which resulted, in the expressive phrase of the submarine fighters, in the enemy being “done in.” 

The explosion of the torpedo had immediately caused a tremendous list and made the launching of lifeboats and rafts extremely hazardous in the heavy sea and the darkness. Almost all the loss of life and the suffering of injuries occurred because of this condition, as there was no panic among the Americans or the men of the crew, and the stricken steamship remained afloat for fully two hours. Many patrol boats assisted the destroyers in the work of rescue, and the survivors were landed at various Irish and Scotch ports, where prompt medical attention was given to the injured and the others were made comfortable.
[In a comment on the Roads to the Great War blog on Feb 5, 2018, Adrian Roberts wrote "It was wishful thinking for this war correspondent to write that the submarine was sunk immediately. UB77 survived the war and so did Kapitanleutnant Meyer. Tuscania was the only vessel sunk by UB77."]     
The February 8 New York Herald contained numerous articles about the Tuscania sinking, some from the Associated Press and some from Washington and elsewhere. One began as follows:

Crowd the Herald Office for News of the Disaster.

Thousands of inquiries from anxious mothers, fathers, sisters, brothers, wives and sweethearts poured into the Herald offices all day yesterday and up to a late hour last night by telephone, telegraph and by visits in person in efforts to learn if their beloved ones were among the soldiers and seamen who lost their lives on board the ill fated Tuscania. 

    And in a dark-black-edged box was the following:

The Tuscania Sinking Makes Us More Determined to Win War, Says Mr. Baker

Washington D. C. Thursday

Secretary Baker issues the following statement: --

“The sinking of the Tuscania brings us face to face with the losses of war in its most relentless form. It is a fresh challenge to the civilized world by an adversary who has refined but made more deadly the stealth of the savage in warfare. We must win this war, and we will win this war.

“Losses like this unite the country in sympathy with the families of those who have suffered loss; they also unite us to make more determined our purpose to press on.”

        Don Martin wrote another article about the Tuscania sinking and the submarine menace on February 8, which was published in the New York Herald on Saturday, February 9.

London Recalls the Baker Forecast of U-Boat Action

Declare Germans Will Exert Every Effort to Prevent Americans Reaching France and That Next Three Months Will be Critical Stage of the War

[Special Despatch to the Herald via Commercial Cable Company’s System]

Herald Bureau, No. 130 Fleet Street, London, Friday

     It is remarked here that the attack on the transports carrying American soldiers and the sinking of the Tuscania was foreshadowed by Secretary Baker in one of his recent statements at Washington in which he predicted that the Germans would exert every effort to prevent American troops from getting to France. 

     The sinking of the Tuscania by a Hun U-boat, it is agreed here, was a part of a scheme to prevent, as far as possible, American participation in the defence against the gigantic Hun offensive now in preparation for the spring.

     Everything points to the fact that the Huns will make a grand final effort to break through the lines on the western front as soon as weather conditions permit and great activity must be looked for on the part of enemy submarines.  Undoubtedly their chief aim will be to destroy American transport and food ships carrying supplies to the American troops in France and to the Allies.

     No attempt is being made here to conceal the seriousness of the situation on the sea. Never has England been more thoroughly aroused to the necessity for combatting the submarine menace by every possible means. British submarines are now searching for the German submarines, and with some success it is averred, although, following a policy which has obtained since the war began, the destruction of enemy submarines is not given out in detail. 

     President Wilson’s statement that the next three months of the war will mark a critical stage of the great conflict between democracy and autocracy is conceded here to be the exact truth, but there is no diminishing of the splendid optimism of the British. Never were they more determined to fight the war to a finish and win, and they give full measure of credit to the assistance of America in accomplishing that object. 

     The official reports of the sinking of the Tuscania show the rare courage and discipline of the American soldiers on board the transport.

     “But that is the sort of thing that is to be expected from such gallant men as American is sending over here” is the British comment.

     The loss of life in proportion to the large number of men on board the Tuscania is commented upon as being remarkably small, and that again is given as evidence of the character of the American soldiers, their coolness, discipline and fine courage in the face of appalling danger.
      Meanwhile the first edition of the Stars and Stripes, a new American military newspaper, came out in Paris on this February 8, 1918.