There has been a great desi of emphasis very rightly laid upon the gallant part undertaken: by the troops who landed at Gallipoli, the occasion of which was celebrated yesterday; so much so that it is just possible that the share taken by the Royal Navy in these opera tions has not been given the credit it deserves, The failure of the naval attack on the Dardanelles is /now admitted to be more the fault of the officials sitting in London than of the officers who were ordered to carry out a most hazardous undertaking on the spot. ied And it is generally believed by all but close students of the Gallipoli campaign that the Navy's share in the subsequent operations was confined to covering the landing of the troops, bombarding various Turkish positions, and keeping open the means of communication in the Mediterranean""Thereby one of the most brilliant and heroic of the British Navy's operations has partially been lost sight of by the Public—the operations of the submarines that penetrated the ever increasing mine-fields laid by the Turks in the arrows, and terrorized the Sea of Matmora so effectively that the Turkish com~ munications were seriously hampered and troops even refused to embark on transports that they re~ garded as being certain. victims of the underwater craft infesting what might otherwise have been regarded as a private Turkish sea.
Shanghai is just now enjoying one of the very rare visits paid to the port by British submarines. It is perhaps a coincidence that there happens to be here at the same time an officer who was intimately connected with the exploits of British subs in the Dardanelles; in days when submarines were not nearly so efficient as they are now and when the dangers were greater. The submarines which were engaged in those operations sank no fewer than 225 Turkish and German vessels in the course of their various visits to the Sea of Marmora. the number is probably more, since some of the submarines did not come back, being either lost. with all hands or running aground under the Turkish guns, and having their crews captured and held prisoners of war. Assicting the daring of the commanders of the submarines was, of course, the Turkish laxity in intelligence reports, a laxity which has been com~ mented upon in the official German history of the operations as fo lows:—
"The clearness and -reliability of reports were often tinged by the of the Oriental For instance, on May 15, 1915 the local authorities at Armudli, Gulf of Mudania, reported:—"At ten o'clock yesterday marks the Golden Jubilee of Vancouver, the western metropolis Visitors from all over Canada and morning, we saw, quite close to the coast a body, that looked like a boat on the water, It made noise like a wolf, three times. At the same time, @ small boat was there with a Greek in her. The Greek went to the body mentioned and took on board a man in black clothes, -both conversing in Greek. Tue man remained in the boat which then went away, whilst the other body vanished, We have taken steps to arrest the Greek and clear up the matter.
'Again, when "E.11" drove a small steamer' ashore, the local gendarmerie reported:—"A submarine has rua ashore between Kutchuk Checkmejen and the match factory. Her officers and men have come ashore. They were surrounded by sentries."
There was also considerable naively in the Turkish orders outlining methods of resisting submarine attacks. The Turks were informed that they might recognize a submarine from the fact that "it made a noise like a motor car" when on the surface. What ought to make anti-submarine measures of greater interest to anglers was, however, the instruction:
"If the submarine fires a torpedo the direction of the ship........ the ship will at once go at full speed towards the submarine." So far so good. "And cast anchor. In this way the chain will catch in the propeller and render the submarine helpless."
Incidents like this may, however, be regarded as the lighter side of submarine warfare. The men who took the underwater craft into the heart of the Turkish areas, through mines and nets, had much greater perils to face than the peril of fouling their propellers in the anal chains of a charging Turkish warship. To quote from the report of the commander of "B,11," the first British submarine to venture through and which torpedoed the battleship Messudieh:
"From the fact that the boat appeared to be entirely surrounded by land......-...1 calculated we were in Sari Sighlar Bay, Struck bottom in 38 feet and) bumped along until we hit deeper water, T then came up and steadied the boat as best I could on what, appeared fo be the high ground on the European shore, and held on in this direction until 'T could see a clear horizon on my port beam, when 1 altered course to port and proceed: ed towards it at 60 feet'
"B.11" was under water for nine hours. When she surfaced the air inside the boat was too bad to start the engines and they had to be run round on the motors for ten minutes to clear the air. Lieutzrant Holbrook, the commander, got the V.C, and Turkish Headquarters got part of "B.1I's" torpedo as a souvenir, Another thrilling episode may be best told in the words of the person who has obligingly provided the material for this article, "A.E2" entered the Straits again at 6300 on April 25, and proceeded up on the surface, She was cat ight in the beams of the searchlights but apparently not sighted as it was not until off Suandere* that she was from the western United States will be attracted to Vancouver this year in connection with the Jubilee celebrations that are being arranged. There will be about nine weeks of festival in the busy Pacific seaport, which: has grown rapidly through the years {o be the third city in Canada.
'High points in entertainment, which will actually take in the whole summer in its scope, will be the visit of 15,000 Shriners from the convention at' Seattle in mid-July; an Aldershot tattoo every Saturday night; Chinese and Japanese tea gardens and fes-rivals; reconstruction of a Hudson's Bay fur trading post, complete with Indians: a Hawaiian village; frontier week with all the old-time frills; athletic week, including land and water sports, with prominent athletes ind teams competing: carnival week, street dancing, pyrotechnic displays, costume balls, beach fashion shows; naval and military pageants; and, during the last eleven: days, the Canadian Pacific " Exhibition, which will be opened by the Governor-General.
One of the highlights of Vancouver's celebration will be the re-enacting of the arrival of the first Canadian Pacific train almost halt a century ago. The venerable old engine, first into Vancouver, will be run again, with its original pilot again at the throttle, Some of the old-timers who saw the first train arrive will also be present for the ceremony, fired upon. She dived and proceeded at periscope depth until daylight, when, having fixed her position, she went to 70 feet to negotiate the mine fields. Twice she came up to have a look, and found on each occasion that she was going much faster than she had anticipated.
om having a current against £2" had one in her favour when at 70 feet. Frequent scrap pingsas of chains and wires were heard along the hull, but on coming up for his third look, Stoker (the Commander) found ' himself through the mineflelds—ss he know and in the Narrows, It was flat, oily calm, and while looking for possible tume-droppers, the periscope was sighted and 'a brisk-fire opened from the forts on either side, "A.E2" successfully torpedoed a small cruiser which looked like a mine-dropper and was, but in dodging the subsequent attentions of the many patrol craft, she ran ashore with only 10 fect of water on her guage, and half her conning-tower sticking up into the air, This was on the Eastern shore. Five minutes later "AE2" was off untiarmed, but with her bows polnting down-stream, In attempting to (ura round she ran ashore again, this time on the Western shore, and with 8 feet on the guage. After four minutes manoeuvring she got off again, bows up-stream, and an hour Ister was off Nagara, Unstill in attendance, and "A.E2" was heavily fired at every time she put her periscope up. This, besides making observation difficult, led Lieutenant-Commander Stoker to think that he was towing an obstruction of some sort which gave his position away, so when he saw two tugs sweeping for "A.E2" with wire, he retired to the bottom in 70 feet and had a rest, near the Asiatic shore, They could hear the engine of the patrol craft overhead and a curious knocking sound, which they soon identified is a single-engined craft, which they dubbed "Percival." 'An attempt to move during daylight proved useless, as the boat had lost her diving' trim, and_it was not until G45 pam. that "Percival's" engine Passed overhead for the last time, and 845° pin, before "AE2" surfaced, having been submerged for over 16 hours, Another exploit that smacks more of the days of Drake und cutting out expeditions than to-day occurred when "E.11" actually en tered Constantinople and sank a large store ship lying alongside, The following is an extract from the report of her commander:—
June 6, 1235, Fired port bow tube, Torpedo failed to run, Fired starboard bow Tube and observed track heading for the larger. vessel Two explosions were heard, probable that the stray torpedo found a mark as well as the one directed at the ship lying alongside the arsenal, Dived to 75 feet and turned to go out. Grounded heavily at 70 feet and bounced quickly to 40 feet, Further rise was checked by going lull speed astern and flooding internal tanks, Th: ship's head then swung from SE, through East and North to West, It was therefore concluded that the vessel was resting on the shoal under the Leander Tower and Heid was then brought round to South and the motors started ahoat when the boat bumped gently down to $5 feet of water. After bumping along for sometime at this depth, the boat was brought off the bot-fom, On bringing the boat to the surface about 20 minutes later, she was found to be well clear of the entrance." The next day (June 7) "E11" passed Gallipolt at 90 feel, On coming up she observed a large amply troop ship anchored by Moussa bank, but reserved torpeoes in the hope of finding a battieship lower down, Proceeded below 'Nagara and examined the straits as far' as Chanak. Seeing nothing turned round and went back and torpedoed and sank the large troop ship, afterwards continting the journey down the strait, 2 pin, "Trim became quite abnormal, necessitating the admittance of 8 tons of water to get the boat down to 70 fect, 3. pin. Heerdva noise similar to ground: ing knowing this to be impos sible—I came up to investigate and observed a large mine proceeding the periscope at a distance of 20 feet, which was apparently hung up by its moorings to the port by hydroplanes, Continued our course out of the straits at a depth of 30 feat, as it was impossible to come up to clear the mine owing to the batteries on shor." Later.
"Went full speed astern and blew water from the after tanks, this Teaving the bow submerged and the stern on the surface, when the rush of water from the screws, together with the stern way gathered, al~ lowed the mine {o fall clear ahead cof the vessel."
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.