IMPRISONED IN A SUBMARINE

A great story may always be told simply. We published a few days ago the brief official note of an act of heroism which will ever claim a leading place in that long roll of noble deeds of self-sacrifice. It told of a naval hero, Commander Francis Goodhart, who gave up his life in an effort to save his comrades imprisoned in a submarine which had become fast on the bottom in 38ft of water. Placing in his belt a small tin cylinder with instructions for the rescuers, he went into the conning tower, determined to allow himself to be shot up to the surface. But the great adventure miscarried, and the hero paid the penalty with his life. Those who had the privilege of knowing Commander Goodhart declare that he was as modest as he was brave, and his fellow-prisoners remember with admiration the coolness displayed by him when he went forth to take the fraction of a chance. His last remark was: “If I don’t get up the tin cylinder will.”

The circumstances which called forth this heroism may now be referred to. A representative of The Daily Telegraph, who has had an opportunity of conversing with one of the rescued sailors, writes:

I got a version of the story from one of its central figures in reluctant sentences. One had almost as soon have squeezed water from a stone, but the big, hard-knit man – an indomitable spirit encased in a frame of steel – gave me ultimately the grim tale – one of the grimmest in the annals of the sea.