By the 18th of March, 1915, three more British ships had been made the victims of German torpedoes. The _Atlanta_ was sunk off the west coast of Ireland only a day before the _Fingal_ was sunk off Northumberland. And the _Leeuwarden_ was sunk by being hit from the deck guns of a German submarine off the coast of Holland. There was no loss of life except during the sinking of the _Fingal_, some of whose men were drowned when she dragged a lifeboat full of men down with her. By way of variety the Germans attempted to sink a British ship in the "war zone" with bombs dropped from an airship, the news of which was brought to England by the crew and captain of the _Blonde_ when they reached shore on March 18, 1915. This ship had been German originally, but being in a British port when the war started was taken over and run by a British crew. Two or three mornings before the men landed they had noticed a Taube aeroplane circling over their ship at about 500 feet altitude. It then swept downward and took a close look at the vessel. Two bombs which fell into the water near the ship, were dropped by the German aviator. The captain of the _Blonde_ ordered that the rudder of his ship be fastened so that she might drive in a circle and her engines were set at full speed, with the intention of making a more difficult target for the airship's bombs. The whistle of the ship was set going and continued to blow in the hope of attracting help from other ships. More bombs were near the vessel, but none of them found its mark. After one more attempt, when only 300 feet above the ship's deck, the aviator let go with his last supply, but again being unsuccessful he veered off to the north and allowed the _Blonde_ to escape. The naval attack on the Dardanelles is told in another chapter, but the work of the Allies' submarines there included the use of French submarines, which is not narrated elsewhere. On the 19th of March, 1915, Rear Admiral Guepratte of the French navy reported that one of his submarines had attempted, without success, to run through the Dardanelles. The object of the attempt was to sink the Turkish battle cruiser _Sultan Selim_, formerly the _Goeben_. The submarine submerged and got as far as Nagara. But she had to travel "blind" and her captain, being unfamiliar with those waters, struck some rocks near the shore and immediately brought her to the surface. She became a target for the land guns of the Turks at once and was sunk, only a few of her men, who were taken prisoners, escaping death.