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Updated: May 16, 2025
It took only a moment -an interval of time during which the torpedo from the American submarine and the German cruiser seemed irresistibly drawn toward each other. And then came the crash -the impact of the torpedo's war-nose against the steel side of the cruiser, the detonation of the powerful explosive, the rending of the German hull.
Vessels of the cruiser type, fast, and with a heavy quick-firing armament, are best suited to cope with torpedo-boats, which would find it difficult to get to close quarters with such craft. Warships have lately been built with a considerable increase of length, which of course increases a torpedo's chance of striking by giving it a larger target.
And he had been in the ocean and seen his ship go down with a torpedo's jagged rent in her side. But he had never been lost in the water in the sense of losing all his bearings in the darkness. For a minute it quite unnerved him and his stout heart sank within him. Then out of the tumult came a thin, spent voice, barely audible and seeming a part of the troubled voices of the night.
The signal was distinct, but very faint indeed. And the rocket was then traveling so it was later computed at seven-eighths of the speed of light. Between the flat cone on the front of the distress-torpedo, and the flat cone on the ground, a field of force existed. The field was not on the back surface of the torpedo's cone, but before the front surface.
Ross drove the water out of the tube, opened the breech-door; and, reaching in with a long, heavy wire, lifted the starting lever and water tripper that gave motion to the torpedo's engine. The exhaust of air into the tube was driven out into the boat by the rapidly moving screws, and in a few moments the engine ran down.
The excitement was almost more than I could bear; I turned away, waiting for the tremendous concussion; I heard awful curses from the men, the cowardly shouting of "Roaring John," the blasphemies of "Dick the Ranter." I knew that Black alone was calm; and at the last I fixed my eyes upon him when the head of the torpedo's foam was not thirty yards away from us.
Here a powerful air-pump was set to work, and the torpedo's lungs were filled almost to the bursting point. Its deadly head brought from the magazine was at the same time attached to its body. Another instant and a port was thrown open in the Thunderer's side, through which the Whitehead was launched. It went with a sluggish plunge into the sea.
I climbed to the surface to get a sight through my tube of the effect and discovered that the shot had gone straight and true, striking the ship, which I later learned was the Aboukir, under one of its magazines, which in exploding helped the torpedo's work of destruction. "There was a fountain of water, a burst of smoke, a flash of fire, and part of the cruiser rose in the air.
Under such conditions, it seems to me that ease and rapidity of manoeuvring is of more advantage than gigantic weight of ordnance and armour, because after all the torpedo's attack is directed against a part which nothing can render invulnerable."
Many of the passengers, including several Americans, saw the torpedo's wake. It was stated that the undersea craft approached the Sussex under the lee of a captured Belgian vessel, and when within easy target distance fired the torpedo.
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