How They Look in the Trenches
What Sailor Ingram Did. ——
Neither Casablanca nor Horatius at the bridge surpassed in heroism young Osmond Kelly Ingram, who threw overboard the explosives on the American destroyer Cassin in order that the German submarine’s torpedo should not detonate them and destroy his ship—and gave his life for his comrades and his country in doing so. Ingram sought danger instead of fleeing it. He might have saved his life without discredit. But he did not think of his life—or if he thought of it, he knew that he was deliberately sacrificing it. And he acted with instant resolution.
To his courage and his quickness is due the fact that Ingram’s was the only life lost in the German attack on the Cassin. That result he foresaw and welcomed. He knew how to take death as his portion without an instant’s hesitation. He was of the breed of heroes, and his name will be borne forever on the nation’s roll of honor.—Boston Transcript.