the
daring spirit of this young lieutenant. Instead, the cruel treatment
of the prisoners, the daily contact with the stupid German guards, made
him long once more to cut through the clouds and bring down another
boche. Accordingly, he became a leader in carrying out the plans for
escape.

Lieutenant Edward V. Isaacs, of Cresco, Iowa, an officer in the United
States Navy, was another leader. He was crossing the Atlantic in the
big American transport, President Lincoln, when it was torpedoed by the
submarine U-90, on May 31, 1918. He went down with the ship, but came
to the surface again and crawled up on a raft where he stayed until one
of the lifeboats came by and the men took him off. But the boat had
gone but a short distance, when the guilty submarine pushed its nose up
through the surface of the water near by. Its commander ordered the
lifeboat to draw near and the helpless oarsmen had to obey. When asked
the whereabouts of the captain of the vessel, the men in the lifeboat
answered that, as far as any of them knew, he had gone down with the
ship.

Then the commander, probably noticing his uniform, singled out
Lieutenant Isaacs, demanded that he come on board the submarine, and
informed him that if he did not find the captain, he would take him
instead to Germany.

Two days later, the U-boat carrying this American officer was sighted
by two American destroyers. Immediately the destroyers made for the
submarine and tried to sink it.

The U-boat quickly submerged and floated far below the surface while
the destroyers circled about for several hours dropping many depth
bombs, five of which exploded not three hundred yards from the
submarine. So great was the shock of these explosions that, in telling
of his experiences afterward, Isaacs said it seemed as if the ocean
shook the boat much as a dog shakes a rat.

During this time not a word was spoken except by the watch officers,
who were at their posts like the rest of the crew, and reported to the
commander the directions in which the bombs were falling, thus enabling
him to move the boat about in a safe course. The bombing continued
until nightfall. Then the commander thought he was safe. But the next
day, another American warship appeared, and the U-90 made for its home
port as fast as possible.

Lieutenant Isaacs, more fortunate than many U-boat prisoners, was
treated well by the officers and crew. He messed with the officers and
heard them m