Word: vessel
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...convoy. The Germans claimed a foray by their motor-torpedo boats close to the British coast which sank more tonnage, took 40 Britons prisoner. They claimed another raid by German destroyers in the mouth of Bristol Channel, in which they engaged a British cruiser squadron, torpedoing one vessel. They said they sank a British submarine off Le Havre. They claimed that their coast artillery kept Britain's Channel patrol of destroyers bottled up in Dover. There were stories that Germany would invade Eire and Iceland as a prelude to ultimate invasion of Great Britain...
First an explosion "threw the vessel violently on its beams"-something like a car being tipped over on its sides; your nautical editor take note-"next minute a second torpedo crashed into the engine room." Whence the torpedoes, TIME? Did anyone see them? Or are they just part of the British report...
They will bear looking into. First, it was a dark night, which makes torpedoing a very hard job, even assuming that by pure chance the vessel should have been discerned-she was showing no lights, I presume. More important, it was an exceedingly stormy night: high wind, mountainous waves, rain and spray. Ask a naval expert about this-he will probably tell you that effective submarine operations under such conditions are all but impossible. Secondly, two torpedoes were reported, which is strange, considering the relative unimportance of a passenger vessel...
Perhaps you will agree with me that the story has its dubious side. A more logical conclusion is that the "torpedoed" vessel in convoy met with an accident of a quite different nature. Possibly an internal explosion-sabotage, if you will-such as a boiler explosion; the power is sufficient. Or perhaps a collision with another ship: in the darkness somebody zigged when he should have zagged. In either case an alert British propagandist could make excellent capital of the mishap-with a rigid and sympathetic censorship holding up the news until the collective stories should hang together fairly well...
...peculiarly British sense of superiority which classifies all foreigners as "natives," which makes Britons refuse to learn any language but their own, which in peacetime is simple bigotry, but in war becomes a kind of national virtue. The British were last week more sure than ever that the favorite vessel of the Axis, the airplane, was not necessarily superior to the proud conveyance of Drake, Nelson, Jellicoe. They were sure that Britain could not be brought to her knees until her Fleet was put out of action. And they were also sure that Adolf Hitler, who was mighty sick...