Titanic Hero by Arthur Rostron

Author:Arthur Rostron
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781445607849
Publisher: Amberley Publishing

9

HMS Tuber Rose

In 1918 the Mauretania was commissioned and armed as an auxiliary cruiser, and once again I was on her bridge.

The first voyage was made to New York and it was a record – of slowness; she took over eight days to make the passage. From the time we left our escort of destroyers off the north-west of Ireland, we experienced a series of westerly gales with tremendous seas which delayed us. Before we moored in New York, indeed, we had an attack of what is known as ‘coal fever.’ The Mauretania at that time was fuelled with coal and, naturally enough, there is little room to spare for much more than the necessary quantity to make the crossing. On this occasion, being half as long again as usual on the trip, we were down to the dregs. As a matter of fact, when we were at last putting into port, the stokers were scraping the bunkers for sufficient power to conclude the journey. And during that same period our colleagues on the Aquitania were in even worse plight. They were using brooms to get the last traces of coal for the boilers. Another few hours and they would have been stranded.

The Aquitania had been commissioned and also the Olympic, so the three large liners were under the White Ensign, the Cunard ships making New York, for American troops, and the Olympic mostly Halifax for the Canadians. My ship in all conveyed about 35,000 US troops, including the last uniformed men to leave, while also we landed the first to return after the Armistice.

Speaking of coal. It was on that return voyage that we were supplied with fuel of a greatly inferior quality. It was quite a mistake, but it worried us because we were able to steam only nineteen knots instead of our customary twenty-five. We picked up a bit as we neared Ireland because the ship was getting lighter, but every one on board was thankful when we sighted our escort, seeing that 1918 was a pretty tough year regarding the submarine menace, and the Mauretania would have been a fine feather in the cap of any enemy submarine commander.

Perhaps it was as well that all the time we were armed we never were called upon to defend our lives by gunfire. Once we sighted a periscope and were fired at, but the fog closed in and the enemy submerged before we could bring the guns to bear on him. Those guns were not of the latest pattern, and the four mounted on the forecastle were under water half the time in bad weather. We were very fortunate all through; even when during that year influenza was carrying off men by the scores both on board ship and in the training camps in America, we never had a case. Yet every voyage we carried 5,000 officers and men and in addition had a ship’s company of 992.

You may wonder how we handled so great a number, five times the usual quota of peacetime passengers.

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