On the 7th February, 1917, at 11.30 a.m., in squally weather the _Vulcana_ sighted a German submarine on her starboard boom, about 1 mile distant. The U-boat at once opened fire. She found the range after firing half-a-dozen shots.
The skipper gave orders for the boat to be lowered, and while the tackle was being carried forward, he stood close by the engine-room door on the starboard side of the deck. The second hand was standing about 2 feet away from him at the time. Just afterwards a shell exploded close by. One piece struck the second hand's boot and another cut his hand slightly. The skipper was struck on the top of the head; his head was smashed in and part of his face was blown away. The second hand heard him say: "Dear me," and he fell to the deck, dead.
George King, the second hand, now took charge. Shells continued to burst about the deck; one passed through the galley and struck the trimmer, wounding him severely in the back. After the boat had been got out she capsized, and had to be righted before the crew could get in. The skipper being dead, they left him where he had fallen, and he went down with his ship. George King followed the crew into their boat, and soon after she had got clear the ship went down, about noon. The submarine then submerged and disappeared. The survivors were picked up by a patrol-boat at noon on the following day. The trimmer was taken to hospital, where he afterwards died.
The _Vulcana_ was a British trawler, although, from the savageness of the German attack, it might have been thought that she was a warship. The lives of the skipper and trimmer were sacrificed to German blood lust. The trawler could have been sunk without any loss of life.
On the morning of the 7th February, 1917, the British steamers _St. Ninian_ and _Corsican Prince_ were within a quarter of a mile of one another. A U-boat torpedoed the _Corsican Prince_, striking No. 3 hold and bursting her engine-room bulkhead. The _St. Ninian_ was then sunk. She went down in five minutes. Both ships were torpedoed without warning, the casualties being 15 in the case of the _St. Ninian_ and one in the _Corsican Prince_.
The British steamship _California_ carried 32 passengers and a crew of 171 hands; she was bound from New York to Glasgow. On the morning of the 7th February, 1917, the weather was fine and clear, the wind was N.E., and there was a heavy swell running. At 9.30 a.m., the master and two junior officers being on the bridge, a periscope was sighted about 250 yards away on the port quarter. The master at once ordered the helm hard aport and an S.O.S. signal to be sent out, but before the vessel had paid off 3 points a torpedo struck her on the port quarter, about No. 4 hatch, and the submarine was not seen again.