73 Yards Quotes

less than 300 yards. With Eagle beam-on and at this point-blank range, U73 could not miss. The time was 1315. Aboard Eagle, at 1317, no one had yet thought of jumping over the side from the quarterdeck. Even with dead engines, Eagle’s 21,000 tons momentum still took her through the water at about four knots, two minutes after being hit. If anyone dived over now, they would fall astern and not be rescued. In any case I had no Mae West yet. It was hopeless trying to get to the Island by the normal route. There was only one way. I had used it once before. This was the batsman’s escape route from the flight deck to the main deck, a vertical distance of about 50 feet. It was a pipeshaft, about three feet in diameter, with a rusty ladder fixed inside. It was entirely dark inside and as its lower level on the port side was by now under water and at about 40 degrees from the vertical, once I had started up the ladder, there would be no turning back. Just as I bent down to get into the tube, with my feet already in the water on the low side of the heeling ship, I looked above me. I could see an officer trying to organise the launching of the ship’s whaler. As

The MS City of New York commanded by Captain George T. Sullivan, maintained a regular schedule between New York City and Cape Town, South Africa until the onset of World War II when on March 29, 1942 she was attacked off the coast of Cape Hatteras, North Carolina by the German submarine U-160 commanded by Kapitänleutnant Georg Lassen. The torpedo struck the MS City of New York at the waterline under the ship’s bridge instantly disabling her. Surfacing the U-boat circled the crippled ship making certain that all of the crew had a chance to abandon ship. In all four lifeboats were lowered holding 41 passengers, 70 crewmen and 13 officers. The armed guard stayed behind but considering the fate of those in the lifeboats did not fire on the submarine. At a distance of about 250 yards the submarine fired a round from her deck gun striking the hapless vessel on the starboard side at the waterline, by her number 4 hold. It took 20 minutes for the MS City of New York to sink stern first. The nine members of the armed guard waited until the water reached the ships after deck before jumping into the water. The following day, a U. S. Navy PBY Catalina aircraft was said to have searched the area without finding any survivors. Almost two days after the attack, a destroyer, the USS Roper rescued 70 survivors of which 69 survived. An additional 29 others were picked up by USS Acushnet, formally a seagoing tugboat and revenue cutter, now operated by the U.S. Coast Guard. All of the survivors were taken to the U.S. Naval Base in Norfolk, Virginia. Almost two weeks later, on 11 April, a U.S. Army bomber on its way to Europe, located the forth boat at 38°40N/73°00W having been carried far off shore by the Gulf Stream. The lifeboat contained six passengers, four women, one man and a young girl plus 13 crew members. Two of the women died of exposure. The eleven survivors and two bodies (the mother of the child and the armed guard) were picked up by the U.S. Coast Guard Cutter CG-455 and were brought to Lewes, Delaware. The final count showed that seven passengers, one armed guard and 16 crewmen died.

His career has ended in much the same way it had begun: with a lie.