Echo, Escapade, Eclipse, etc.

Most notorious ship in the world last Jan. 6 was a blunt-nosed little Spanish freighter named Mar Cantabrico. With $720,000 worth of second-hand U. S. airplanes for Spain's hard-pressed Reds, she lolloped out of New York harbor and over the Three-Mile Limit only one hour before the House passed a bill making such shipments illegal. As she chugged off to Vera Cruz to pick up $1,300,000 more in munitions, disgruntled U. S. neutralityites opined that though she had passed the Scylla of Congress she might have greater difficulty avoiding the Charybdis of Rebel Spanish cruisers lured by her fame.

Last week this belief was justified. Off Bordeaux in the Bay of Biscay the Mar Cantabrico was cornered by the White Spanish cruiser Canarias. In an effort to embroil Britain, the Mar Cantabrico flashed frantic radio calls for help, signed them with the letters of one of Britain's Elder Dempster liners. To the rescue of "an unidentified British ship" while Europe waited breathless rushed the destroyers Echo, Escapade, Eclipse, and Encounter. Arriving first, Echo reported that the Mar Cantabrico's, crew had been taken off by the Canarias "so presumably the ship sank." Next day a Red seaman from the Mar Cantabrico popped up in France, said he was rescued by a fishing smack and that he saw the Canarias towing the crippled freighter and her rich cargo to a White port.

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