The Children's Story of the War Volume 4 (of 10): The Story of the Year 1915 — John Shaqi
The Children's Story of the War Volume 4 (of 10): The Story of the Year 1915Parrott, Edward
History
The Children's Story of the War Volume 4 (of 10): The Story of the Year 1915
Parrott, Edward
World War, 1914-1918 -- Juvenile literature
You must not suppose that our submarines carried out their raids in the
Dardanelles and in the Sea of Marmora without loss. Several of our
under-water boats came to grief. E15, for example, while trying to
torpedo a Turkish ship at the Narrows,[19] ran ashore on the Asiatic
side. She was undamaged, and a Turkish destroyer speedily appeared on
the scene. The admiral on the station was anxious that she should not
fall into the enemy's hands, so he gave orders that she was to be
destroyed. The story of how she was finally blown up is worth telling.
Five different methods of destroying her were tried, but all in vain.
Aeroplanes endeavoured to drop bombs on her, but without success;
submarines tried to torpedo her, but failed; destroyers attempted to
sink her, but could not manage to do so; and two battleships fired at
her, but did not hit her. The battleships aimed their turret guns from a
distance of 5¼ miles, and found that the conning tower of the submarine
was too small a target. As a last resort the admiral gave the following
order: "Two picket boats from _Triumph_ and _Majestic_ are to attack E15
to-night (April 18) with torpedoes fitted to dropping gear. . . . Only
volunteer crews to be sent."
An officer in charge of the _Triumph's_ boat tells us[20] that he was
joined by the boat from the _Majestic_ at 10 p.m.
"We steamed about eight knots, as the current was strong, and until we
reached the beginning of the dangerous area we chatted--to keep up our
courage, perhaps! As a matter of fact, I wasn't in much of a funk, and
felt fairly cool, for I have been under fire a good many times, and I
recognized that I had got a chance that does not often come in a man's
life. It was a bit eerie, though, steaming along in the pitch dark, with
all lights out in the boat, towards the distant searchlights, not
knowing whether death or life awaited us. . . .
"We kept nearly in the centre of the channel, to avoid being spotted by
the No. 7 searchlight, which was not a very high one. We had come along
quite unobserved until we were abeam of it, passing the smaller
searchlights without much trouble. Unfortunately the men stationed near
the No. 7 searchlight saw us, and started firing 6 or 12 pounder
shrapnel at us.
"Thus the ball opened. We still had three to four miles to go. We
continued our way and approached the other searchlights. The alarm
having been given, all the other searchlights came on and sent their
beams searching round to pick us up, and as each beam struck us, bang
would go another gun. A few seconds later we would hear a ping as the
projectile whizzed past us, or a sharp metallic crack as a shrapnel
burst just over our heads."
By the time they arrived near the stranded submarine eight searchlights
were trained on them, and guns were firing at them from six different
points. Presently they saw a dark mass which they thought to be the
submarine, and fired a torpedo at it, but missed.
[Illustration: The End of a Submarine.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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