TWO WOUNDED AS SHELL HITS TUG
(On July 21, 1918 off Nausset Beach in Orleans, Massachusetts, a
German U-Boat surfaced and
attacked a tug and string of barges. Some shells from the sub's
deck gun hit the beach, making it
the first time the US had been shelled since the War of 1812.)
Dr. James P. McCue of Orleans was summoned to treat members of the crew
of the Perth Amboy
who had been wounded when the tug was struck. He found that the man
most seriously wounded
was John Bogovich. An Austrian, twenty-five years old, the helmsman,
who was on duty at the wheel
when the pilot house was shattered by a shell.
His right arm was hit by a splinter either from the exploded shell or
from the demolished pilot house.
He said that he didn't know what hit him. His arm was in such
a serious condition that the physician
thought that it would have to be amputated.
Dr. McCue gave the wounded man first aid treatment and bandaged up his
arm. He found the arm
badly shattered between the elbow and a shoulder and the lower third
of the humerus had been
completely torn out. After the wound had been given temporary
treatment, Dr. McCue took him to
his office in Orleans.
He also brought to his office one of the deckhands of the Perth Amboy
who gave the name as John
Zitz, twenty years old, an Austrian. The fingers of his right hand
were badly bruised from a flying splinter.
After the two men had been treated Dr. McCue ordered them sent to the
Massachusetts General
Hospital as he thought that they were cases requiring hospital treatment.
When the physician ordered
them sent to the hospital the man giving the name of Zitz asked Dr.
McCue to give him a letter to
David R. Chase, agent of the Lehigh Valley Transportation Co.
The doctor complied with his request and told Zitz to sign his name
as means of identification when
the letter might be presented to the agent. Zitz then explained to
Dr. McCue that his name on the
payroll and shipping papers was John Evancih.
The man being Austrian and giving two names, the physician became suspicious.
He told the injured
man to wait in his office with his fellow countryman while he went
looking for Some military or
naval officer to whom he might explain the situation.
Dr. McCue met Deputy Sheriff James Beland to whom he told the story
about the man giving two
names. On the way back to the office the physician and the civil officer
met a naval officer, Lieutenant
Williams, who went with them.