9,10,11

WORLD W A R

9, 10, II

S.S. Lehigh, Captain Vincent P. Arkins, 4,983 gross tons, owned by U.S. Maritime Commission, flying U.S. flag, lat 8DEG N, long. 14DEG W, bearing south along the African coast for Takoradi to pick up manganese ore consigned to U.S. . . . 8:55 a.m. . . . All well. . . .

An ordinary seaman was sitting on deck reading a book when it happened. The explosion shook a hatch beam loose; the beam cut off four of his toes. The third assistant engineer, below, was brained by falling deck plates.

The torpedo had struck fair on the starboard side. No. 5 Hold filled at once. The Lehigh began to settle fast. The main topmast came down, carrying away the main radio antenna, so that Sparks thought his SOS was not transmitted. All hands manned the boats and pulled away while she sank. All four of the lifeboats were picked up by British vessels within 50 hours.

S.S. Bold Venture, 3,222 gross tons, owned by U.S. Maritime Commission, flying Panamanian flag, lat. 57DEG N, long. 24DEG W, bearing north for Reykjavik with general cargo bound for Britain. . . . 11:40 p.m. . . . All well. . . .

There were 19 men in the fo'c'sle drinking coffee when the torpedo struck up forward. They all must have been killed.

The other 17 officers and men got overside into two lowered boats. The men watched the Bold Venture go down. Until almost the last moment, her electric lights continued to blaze. After a wait of only two hours a Canadian corvette had picked them up.

S.S. W. C. Teagle, 9,552 gross tons, owned by the Standard Oil Co., flying the British flag, manned by a British crew, bearing north for Iceland with a cargo of bulk oil. . . .

The Teagle was sunk without warning by a torpedo.

Half-Way Mark? Thus were lost the ninth, the tenth, the eleventh U.S.-owned ships sunk in World War II. Intrinsically these losses--in cargoes, in bottoms--did not mean much. But they added to the toll, not only of lost tonnages and lives, but of lost tempers. They brought U.S. ship losses half way to the total of 22 which were lost in World War I before the U.S. temper carried the nation into war.

U.S. Secretary of State Cordell Hull, who has a terrible temper, was asked last week if he would make a protest to Germany over the torpedoing of the U.S.S. Kearny (TIME, Oct. 27).

He replied acidly that one did not very often send diplomatic notes to an international highwayman.

These three sinkings came at a crucial time in Congress' soul-searchings about Neutrality. Some Congressmen must have heard a kind of eloquence in the statement of an American boy, whose life had been saved after his ship, the Lehigh, was sunk: "Say, Roosevelt calls the Jerries pirates --well, we got a name for them, too. . . .

When we have guns, it will be better for us and not so good for Jerry."

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