the ship
sinking, the added threat of exploding boilers--all these dangers and
more must have been apparent to every man below, and yet not one man
wavered in standing by his post of duty.

WONDERFUL DEVOTION TO DUTY.

"No better example can possibly be given of the wonderful fact that with
a brave and disciplined body of American men, white or black, all things
are possible. However strong may be their momentary impulses for
self-preservation in extreme danger, their controlling impulses are to
stand by their stations and duty at all hazards.

"In at least two instances in this crisis below, men who were actually
in the face of death did actually forget or ignored their impulse of
self-preservation and endeavored to do what appeared to them to be their
duty. One man was in one of the flooded fire rooms. He was thrown to
the floor and instantly enveloped in flames from the burning gases
driven from the furnaces, but instead of rushing to escape, he turned
and endeavored to shut a water-tight door leading into a large bunker
abaft the fire room. But the hydraulic lever that operated the door had
been injured by the shock and failed to function. Three men at work at
this bunker were drowned. If this man had succeeded in shutting the
door, the lives of these men would have been saved as well as
considerable buoyancy saved to the ship. The fact that he, though
profoundly stunned by the shock and almost fatally burned by the furnace
gases, should have had presence of mind and the courage to endeavor to
shut the door is a great example of heroic devotion to duty as is
possible for one to imagine. Immediately after attempting to close the
door he was caught in the swirl of inrushing water and thrust up a
ventilator leading to the upper deck.

STRANGE EFFECT OF THE EXPLOSIONS.

"The torpedo exploded on a bulkhead separating two fire rooms, the
explosive effect being apparently equal in both fire rooms, yet, in one
fire room not a man was saved, while in the other fire room two of the
men escaped. The explosion blasted through the outer and inner skin of
the ship and through an intervening coal bunker and bulkhead, hurling
overboard seven hundred and fifty tons of coal. The two men saved were
working the fires within thirty feet of the explosion and just below the
level where the torpedo struck.

"It is difficult to see how it was possible for these men to have
escaped the shower of debris, coal and water that must in