New Britain Herald Newspaper, April 9, 1926, Page 27

% CYCLOPS MYSTERY may be SOLVE A 4 Disappearance From Seas Few Years Ago of Ill-Fated U. S. Naval Collier May Be Explained by Recent Mishap to Sister Ship Orion, Which Limped Into Port After Nearly Buckling Up in Atlantic Waters By Call T. Crum NE of the most amazing mystetles that has ever baffled the Navy De- partment is probably solved at last. Navy officials believe they have the answer to the strange fate of the colljer Cyclops, which vanished so completely and weirdly en route from South Amer. ica to this country during the World War, taking some 300 human lives and a huge cargo of manganese ore down with it, The last heard from the Cyclops was when she left the Barbadoes, British West Indies, where the stopped for bunker coal. Then she mysteriously d_isappenrcd, without a word or a ves- tige of wreckage to indicate where or how she had come to grief. For seven years the Navy Department has never abandoned itz search for an explanation to the vess disappearance—some bot- tled message or scrap of labeled drift- wood, washed up on shore, that might zgu the story. It hag carefully {nves- tigated every possible rumor, some of them manifestly ridiculous and none of '_hum adequate, concerning the ship’s fate. And then, last month, an accident to the naval collier Orion, sister ship to the Cyclops, and identical in eon- struction, suddenly threw g great ray of illumination on the matter, ,Caught in a severe storm outside the Virgi Capes, the Orion, laden with large cargo of coal, buckled and nz}xl_y made port in safety. It is now believed that this is precisely what hap- pened to the Cyclops; that she encoun. tered one of the tropical storms sq fre- quent in the neighborhood of the Wess Indies; that the’ weight of the grect piles of manganese ore—much heavier than coal—in her hold shifted, and that she buckled and went down sud- denly before lifchoats could by o (.r'nd, f;\fr‘(v appliances reached or eyen the wireless put into operation, THAT the Cyclaps L= » equipped a8 ghe With superior wireless appara- d out one signal 8 always been considered strangest ures of her d.s- rance. But this feature i easily ained if, as the ship bent and twisted and ‘h(:r dec gave way, the wireless was injured il to sen one of the app At any rate, P the assumption that the velops sed and sank as the Orion collapsed and nearly sank is the only one of all the theories so far advanced that appeals to the Navy De- partment as distinctly plausible. A careful i cction of the damaged Orion las been ordered by Secretary Wilbur to determine if flaws in its construction were responsible for the buckling of the hip. And ould such flaws be found, it Is predicted that the secret of the ps disaster will come to light with them. Although other ilently Cyc vessels have sailed riously off to the port f missi In recent years, none created quite the furor that the vawishing Cyclops did. 11 it, the Cy 4 )inx upon it. hed on started When May 7, 1910, R f William Cramp & Sons Ship and 1 Building Company Philadelphia, vessel did npt start down the ways when expected, and there Was an anxious wait of aboul ten min- utes while the | bow was raised by acks. Then it took the water without difficulty bad omen!” :aid the sea- men who watched the proceeding. “She balked & start!"” velops started on v the following No- ejoicing. As the in the world equipped with for coaling at sea, { de in her and sent navy took T her on sev- FTER the United States entered the war, one of our great needs was ke hard steel. The N i ‘ country was and the réurces of other s had to be drawn upon. Brazil tad a large quantity it was willing to scll, so the Cyclops was sent to South America to get it. Arriving at Rio de Janeiro on Jenuvary 25, she began load- ing manganese ore until she had taken on 10,800 tons of it. The job completed, on February 16 she left Rio for Balti- more, carrying with her several pas- for man, sengers from Brazil, including the American Cansul and his party from Rio, Headed for the Barbadoes as her first port of call, the Cyclops started slowly on her way. She was never a speedy boat, ‘and this time she was handicapped by a heavier cargo than usual and by the disablement of one of her engines, Later, there were seamen in Rio who claimed that they had watched her oft with the greatest misgivings, that they had seen her decks sag, and feared she would never make port with the heavy cargo she was carrying, But at the time, no hint of warning was raised. When the vessel reached Barbadoes she was still in good condition, except for the one engine. After filling her bunk- ers with coal, she departed from the island on March 4, and that was the last that was ever heard from her, WHEN she failed to appear at the port of Baltimore when she was due on March 13, the Navy Department was not, alarmed. Reviewing her past record of brilliant service, naval officers felt sure P’ o s Equipped with powerful wireless and in the lane of traffic, the Cyclops disappeared leaving ulwo?u?cly no trace, and now an acci- dent to the Orion, a sister ship, seems to indicate the nature of the accident in which the ill-fated vessel was lost she would bring her valuable cargo safely in within the week. But as the week went by and no word came from the Cyclops, there was reason to fear the worst. For the ship carried a splen- did wireless equipment, and the captain would certainly have notified the de- partment of any undue delay. Requests for information from anxious relatives of the men on board came flooding in, but the navy withheld a definite state- ment, refusing to believe that the ves- sel was actually lost. At last, however, on April 14—“in justice to the relatives of those on board,” the Secretary said— the following statement was issued: “The U. S. S. Cyclops, navy collier of 19,000 tons displacement, loaded with a cargo of manganese, and with a per- sonnel on board of fifteen officers and 221 men of the crew, and fift passengers, is overdue at an Atlantic port since March 13. She last reported at one of the West Indian Islar March 4, and since her departure from that port no trace of her nor any infor- mation concerning her has been ob- tained. Radio calls to the Cyclops from all possible points have been made and vessels sent to search for her along her probable route and areas in which she might be, with no success. “No well-founded reason can be given to explain the Cyclops being overdue, as no radio communication with or trace of her has been had since leaving the West Indian port. The weather in the area in which the vessel must have passed has not been bad and could hardly have given the Cyclops trouble. While a raider or submarine could be Yespon- sible for her loss, there have been no reports that would indicate the presence of either in the locality in which the Cyclops was, “The search for the Cyclops continues, but the Navy Department feels ex- tremely anxious as to her safety.” If\l) EDIATELY, in spite of the navy's lack of pgports, the rumor spread that the Cyclops had been sunk by a U-boat—a umstance that would clearly indicate a German submarine base on this side of the Atlantic. Soma were even of the opinion that she had not been sunk, but that the Germans had captured her—in some overwhelm- ing manner that would prevent her using her wireless—and had towed her across the Atlantic to a German port, where the officers, crew and passengers were all being kept prisoners. In support of this novel theory, it was pointed out that Commander George W, Worley, who was in command of the Cyelops and had been ever since the day Mysteries of the Sea ORE than one thousand American Navy men have gone ="Ldown to the sea in ships that have disappeared without leaving a trace. From the brig Reprisal, lost in September, 1777, down to the tug Conestoga, which dropped out of sight in the Pacific in 1921, there is a long list of ships on filc in the Navy Department marked—missing! unique only in that she was the first ship with a wircless equipment to make a silent exit. Here is the Navy's list of vessels lost, together with the date of their disappearance: Reprisal, 1777 General Gates, 1777 Saratoga, 1781 Insurgent, 1800 Pickering, 1800 Hamilton, 1813 Wasp I11, 1814 Epervier, 1815 Lynx, 1821 Wildcat, 1829 It is curious to note that between the period of the Civil War and of the World War, the Navy lost no boats whose disappearance could not be explained. No reason is advanced. however, for this mystery-free period reasonable, b she was launched, was of German birth, although he med to have been born in San F DISEATIET) v with his sister in San Francisco sed the fact that Worley’s name was really George Frederick Wichman when he ar. rived in this country as a little boy But in California he was adopted by a man named Worley, and when he grew up he applied to the courts for permis- The €yclops was Hornet, 1829 Sylph II, 1839 Sea Gull, 1839 Grampus, 1843 Jefferson, 1850 Albany I, 1854 Levant II, 1860 Tug Nina, 1910 Cyclops, 1918 Conestoga, 1921 The sea is never »5p305L0E e sion to change his name to Worley at the same time that he filed papers for American citizenship, In 1918, when everybody with a Ger- man name was suspected of having se- eret dealings with the enemy, these cir- nees were regarded as most sus- bg . It was also brought out that Worley kept a photograph of the Kaiser prominently on the wall of his cabin, and t he had been tried by court- martial a few mor before the Cy- led for being intoxicated in his 1 the vessel was passing through the North Atl submarine- infested area. True, he had been ac- quitted of the charge and again placed in command of the big coll but there must have been some cause for sus- picion, people argued. Then there was the strange fact that he had sold his property in Norfolk, where his wife and daughter lived, just before the trip to Brazil, settling up his affairs, with the on, he said, of retiring to the Pacific Coast. Bottles containing eryptic messages were continually being plucked out of the Atlantic from poin off as Maine and Texas, all of urported to have me from the m g The authors of nearly all ship essages were in the subma anted to im Navy De- these firm belie QU\XL’ of these efforts of the public M to amuse itself with the tragedy were especially cruel, since they aroused false hopes in the relative f the lost crew, some of whom cor d to have faith that the from. One Y Philadelphia clergyman was astonished to find in his mail a letter from a sup. posed wireless operator stating that he ad pic e Cyclops. The ship, the letter said, was being rt by a quartermaster, ed man, after the crew had mu- and placed the captain in irons ng that the captain had in- ng over the vessel and crew juartermaster had thus boldly acted and saved the collier for the cause of democracy. The letter 1p W example, a ked up wo: into to the Germans, the One theory to explain the myste- rious sinking of the Cy- clops is advanced by a Navy man, who says he believes she literally broke in two and sank almost immediately, carrying down any lifeboats that may have got away was published, and ni\)n;x_x re}a{t:va:tol‘l 3:: rew probably believe ::;\t'—ycu‘as ‘forced to inform them other- w:‘;\'nthnr of these cruel false clues came in the form of a telegram to the moth;r of & young South Carolina flr'emm\, ;ho was a member of the Cyclops’ crew. " 1] message, dated New York, sald that e; gon was safe in this country agnln ";d that the missing vessel was -being he! in a German port. Naturally, the nlviy[ investigated the ]telogram, although Vi ) bly a hoax. v\x;m} fl"‘rr‘:e \as proved the .uhsurdlty of connecting the Germans with the fate of the Cyclops. We 1;v\n\v : nr:wmfl!\:: th were no enemy submarines n‘\‘:‘:‘" :n this side of the Atlsntjcdnn’d. hesides, tha Germans have failed to claim credit for the lost vessel. As they have been extremely candid in telling ,,l what happened to a large mn}\h" of other ships which they destroyed in wny; that would never have been undorsh:; had they not chosen to explain them, the navy has long since exonerated them f,m;» any blame for the Cyc!cp!. In fact, it is very doubtful if the navy ever had any faith in the U-boat theory. 1t is much more probable that even as carly as a few weeks after the disaster they strongly suspected that the Cy- cln);s had come into conflict merely with natural laws and had gone down like & shot. BRIEF investigation conducted by Lieutenant James M. Hays, who was navigating officer of the navy eol- clops a few days before she , when, by a stroke of good for- tune, he was transferred to her sister ship, the Orion, convinced him that the Cyclops was what he called “an engi- neering disaster,” The ship was loaded, he pointed out, with nearly 15,000 tons of manganese ore. There wera only two stationary cranes to load the ore with, and they were 300 feet apart. So 7500 tons of the ore were loaded forward in the collier and the other 7500 tons aft. “There is no mystery in my mind as to the fate of the Cyclops and her crew,” Lieutenant Hays declared. “I believe that perhaps on a calm and sunny day, when the sailors off watch were dozing, or perhaps at midnight, when all were asleep except the men on watch, the great ship, without warning, parted amidships, splitting her aerials (she sent no wireless call) and sank from “I have often stood on the forecastls of the Orion,” explained the lieutenant, g t, and watched her deck give m sea, The cause of this is that screw colliers are so long that h engines happen to thrust to- r the longitudinal strain is so great re is a give to the framing of the p. Ofttimes during that vibration I bridge and watched the foremast bend like a car- riage whip e looked up at the was this very thing that the seamen in Rio, aston- Even from they could see the Cyclopy’ deck give under the strain.” Very 1 attention, apparently, was paid to Lieutenant Hays' report at the e it was made. There was still too h int t in the submarine theory, possibility that German U-boats might be cruising somewhere about the West Indies. But now it wil] probably be taken out of the department files and reread caref For, in the light of what recently happened to the Crion, the ing officer appears to have been something of a prophet. Corurioht by Public Ledger Company the dreadful