Submarine and Anti-submarineNewbolt, Henry John, Sir
History
Submarine and Anti-submarine
Newbolt, Henry John, Sir
Submarines (Ships); World War, 1914-1918 -- Naval operations -- Submarine
On April 25, A.E. 2 went successfully up and entered the Sea of
Marmora; on the 29th, Lieut.-Commander Edward Courtney Boyle followed
in E. 14. He started at 1.40 A.M., and the searchlight at Suan Dere was
still working when he arrived there at 4 o’clock. The fort fired, and
he dived, passing clean under the minefield. He then passed Chanak
on the surface with all the forts firing at him. Further on there were
a lot of small ships patrolling, and a torpedo gunboat at which he
promptly took a shot. The torpedo got her on the quarter and threw up a
column of water as high as her mast. But Lieut.-Commander Boyle could
not stop to see more--he became aware that the men in a small steamboat
were leaning over and trying to catch hold of the top of his periscope.
He dipped and left them; then rounded Nagara Point and dived deep.
Again and again he came up and was driven down; destroyers and gunboats
were chasing and firing in all directions. It was all he could do to
charge his batteries at night. After running continuously for over
fifty hours, the motors were so hot that he was obliged to stop. The
steadiness of all on board may be judged from the record of the diving
necessary to avoid destruction. Out of the first sixty-four hours of
the voyage, the boat was kept under for forty-four hours and fifty
minutes.
On the afternoon of the 29th, he sighted three destroyers convoying
two troopships; fired and dipped--for the destroyers were blazing at
his periscope, and he had only that one left--the other had stopped a
shot the day before. But even down below a thud was audible, and the
depth gauges flicked ten feet; half an hour afterwards he saw through
the periscope his own particular transport making for the shore with
dense columns of yellow smoke pouring from her. And that was her last
appearance. A few hours later he sighted A.E. 2 and spoke her. She had
sunk one gunboat, but had had bad luck with her other torpedoes and had
only one left. Lieut.-Commander Boyle arranged to meet her again next
day; but next day the gallant A.E. 2 fell to a Turkish gunboat.
During these days the Sea of Marmora was glassy calm, and the patrol
ships were so troublesome that Lieut.-Commander Boyle decided to sink
one as a deterrent. He picked off a small mine-laying boat, and fired
at a larger one twice without success, as the wake of the torpedoes was
too easily seen in the clear water.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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