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ten knots ahead, the Dardanelles, guarding the Sea of Marmora, might well have seemed secure against our submarines. How little they were really so, was, however, made clear by Mr. Asquith in his summary of their achievements up to the end of October, 1915-a couple of months before the evacuation of the Peninsula and our

a thankless task, though the only possible one, to select particular units for our purpose. Just as in the Baltic, however, the two outstanding figures were Commander Horton and Captain Cromie, so in the Dardanelles the names that n

s unequalled by any individual enterprise of the war. Then about twenty-six, Lieutenant-Commander Holbrook had been in command of the B11 for a year, the submarine herself, one of an early type, being part of the Malta Flotilla, and, at the time o

however, unobserved, took their bearings with the current streaming past them, and then submerged to sixty feet, and began their blindfold journey toward the minefields. Here they had to rely entirely on their electric motors capable of about 190 horse-power; and so, for hour after hour, t

had been successfully accomplished. The B11 crept up again to within fifteen feet. There was a fraction of a pause, and the torpedo was launched. This meant her discovery, of course, and, had not the torpedo gone home,

us opponent, and her maximum speed was but 16 knots. But she was one of the only three battleships in the Turkish Navy; she carried a crew of 600 and was guarding the minefields; and the moral effect of her loss in so dramatic a fashion was p

e. At a depth of thirty feet there came an ominous shock; for ten minutes, she grated along a bed of shingle; but her good luck held, and she slid at last undamaged into the deep channel that she had been looking for. So the return journey began; the five rows of mines were once more successfully passed; at a depth of six

er Nasmith in the E11. Leaving Imbros at three o'clock one summer morning, he set out for the Dardanelles, dived at daybreak, and pushed his way, as Holbrook had done, beneath the defences of the Narrows. Emerging on the other side of these, he rose to the s

ed, in naval phrase, into the Sea of Marmora at her leisure, but for a few days was unable to get in touch with any enemy craft. Not satisfied with this, she then made her way to the neighbourhood of Constantinople, where, on Sunday

when another steamer was sighted and, refusing to stop, chased into harbour, where she was torpedoed in the very act of making herself safe alongside a pier. A little later, yet a third vessel was seen and also chased to the shore; and then there ensued one of the strangest little actions that had been fought during the course of the war. For

siderable local panic. From Tuesday to Friday time passed uneventfully, but, on Friday morning, a convoy was sighted, consisting of five transports escorted by destroyers. Selecting the first and biggest, this was torpedoed, sinking in less than three minutes, the others escapin

y have been her last for, when she came to the surface again that evening, it was to discover a mine, like a piece of seaweed, hanging over her bows and caressing her side. It was a perilous moment, but, in the words of one of her crew, the mine w

of her second in command, Lieutenant D'Oyly Hughes, who had already been decorated for his services in the earlier raid just recorded. His object was, if possible, to destroy a viaduct over which passed the Ismid Railway, skirting the coast; and, with this in view, on th

ingly he pushed out his raft again, and swam along the coast until a more promising ascent revealed itself, where he dressed, loaded himself with his charge, and, after a very steep climb, reached t

railway, talking together loudly, and evidently quite oblivious of him. Crouching in the darkness, he watched them for some little time, and t

sturbed dreams it would surely be true to say that nothing could have been remoter than the vision of a British naval lieutenant, cursing under his breath, in the middle of their fowl-run. He was soon well away from this, and not very long afterward was within three hundred yards of the viaduct, where it soon became cl

would allow. After a further search, he discovered a low brickwork support, carrying the line over a small hollow, and it was beneath this that he finally decided to place and explode h

e. Instantly they were on their feet and running down the line, and there was nothing for it but to take to his heels, the three men following at the top of their speed, a couple of revolver shots failing to check them. They too fired,

s therefore swam back to the shore again, and, after having rested for a few moments, decided that there was no other course open to him than to swim round this bend. Day was already nearing, and, time being imperative, he threw away his pistol, bayonet, and electric torch; and it was not until he had rounded the last point that his whistle was heard by the watchers on the E11. But others had heard it, too, and, from the top of the cliffs above him, there began to float down shouts and the reports of rifle shots. Owing to a trick of

k in the previous September, and the destroyer S126 put down three weeks later It was early on a fine Sunday morning that the E8 had sighted the Hela about six miles south of Heligoland. Two torpedoes were launched, and about half a minute after the second was despatched, the listeners on board E9 had heard an explosion telling them that one at any rate had got

y in the Sea of Marmora; and he was worthily succeeded by Francis Cromie, than whose personal story the war produced no stranger. Entering the Baltic in the summer of 1915, as a lieutenant-commander

visible fruits, not only in the number of vessels sunk, but in the precautions forced upon the enemy. Within a few days, in the early autumn, no less than ten of these vessels were put out of action, the majority being total losses. Amongst the victims were the Lulfa, Ni

y bunk. We met a German submarine and had to dive in a hurry, and found ourselves down at 140 feet, before I could get out of bed to take charge. The third day we found a lot of 'wood' outside neutral waters, and, after a short chase, we made a lovely bonfire, being unable to sink the stuff. The 'inhabitants' left hurriedly, leaving a small puppy dog, which we rescued. Its father was a Great Dane, and its mother a pug, but considering it is a 'Hun' it is not half bad, and is a great favourite. Nothing travels by daylight since our last raid on the 'hen-run'; so

ate risk, for the predicament in which they found themselves, he instantly took the full blame. For several hours, they had tried in vain to free themselves, and it looked as if at last they had been outwitted. Calling his crew together, he frankly confessed to them that he had taken them into this trap and that he saw no way out. His intention was, therefore, if the worst

roundings, he found or made time to learn the Russian language, with results quite impossible to over-estimate. By the end of 1916, he had acquired-let us rather say there had come to him-a reputation extending far beyond the little technical world of the British submarine contingent. For patent efficiency, complete honesty, and entire fearlessn

uarters on the Russian cruiser Dwina, Cromie lived through the spectacle of beholding his own Russian servant appointed to the command of the vessel; yet, though he had vigorously deplored the formation of the committees that took over

Germany and the Bolshevik Government had been signed at Brest-Litovsk, hope flickered out. There was then nothing left but to destroy the Brit

ish representative. Even when the British Embassy was withdrawn, he remained at his post in spite of the fast-accumulating threats of hunger, pestilence, fanaticism, and German i

e not too common even in the navy itself. A Chevalier of St. George, in the case of Francis Cromie, it may be said that