mer, the _Athomas_, struck a
mine and was badly injured by the explosion. Her crew abandoned her
and were picked up. The officer commanding the _Resono_, observing
that the _Athomas_ was not in immediate danger of sinking, decided to
salvage her. The men composing her own crew refused to go on board of
her again, though it was explained to them that they would have to go
through the minefield in any case, and that they would be safer in a
ship of large tonnage than in a trawler. Therefore the captain of the
_Resono_ called for volunteers from his own crew, put them on board
the _Athomas_ despite the heavy weather, towed her safely away, and
handed her over to the Sheerness Patrol in sheltered waters. The
_Resono_, after having accomplished much good work, eventually was
blown up by a mine off the Sunk light-vessel on Christmas Day, 1915.

Another well-known trawler was the _Lord Roberts_. During her long
career of patrol work in the Harwich area she went to the assistance
of many mined ships and rescued a very large percentage of their
crews. Unfortunately, she was mined and lost in October 1916, with a
loss of one officer and eight men. The _Lord Roberts_ had become a
familiar and welcome sight to the merchant vessels using the channels
off Harwich, and there was sorrow when she was lost. One Trinity
House pilot, missing her from her usual patrol ground, wrote a letter
to the authorities asking what had become of "our old friend, the
_Lord Roberts_."

As I have shown, a large vessel with watertight compartments has a
fair chance of surviving the effect of a mine. But with the small
vessel it is otherwise, and on her the effect of the explosion of a
German mine is indeed terrible. Thus the official message reporting
the loss, March 31, 1917, of the drifter _Forward III._, of 89 tons,
read, "_Forward III._ mined. No survivors." As far as can be gathered
from the circumstances, the drifter must have struck the mine with her
keel dead amidships, and when the smoke cleared away there was nothing
to be seen on the water beyond a few broken pieces of wood. A large
section of her wooden keel came down on end, pierced the deck of the
drifter _White Lilac_, and remained standing upright, looking, as it
was put to me, like "a monument to the gallant men who had gone."

The loss of the trawler _Burnley_ in November 1916 affords another
example of the total disappearance of vessel and crew after the
striking of a mine. The _Burn