A Naval Venture: The War Story of an Armoured Cruiser

by T. T. Jeans

And so, for perhaps twenty rounds, firing went on. "Bill", wherever he was, had never spoken a word; the aeroplane signalled "O.K.", the interpretation of which being that, as far as she could see, the last shell had made a direct hit; and presently the Gunnery-Lieutenant, who generally had the idea that the aeroplane "spotter" didn't know his left hand from his right, or "overs" from "shorts", and also was as blind as any bat, thought it was about time to finish, and would climb down and ask the Captain if he should "pack-up".

The War Baby's guns' crews were then ordered to secure and "sponge out" their guns, and a searchlight signal was made to the aeroplane that the firing was finished. Down she would circle to her aerodrome, and if she had anything exciting to tell, would signal it across from the Naval Signal Station close at hand.

After such a proceeding it often happened that, almost before the aeroplane had come down to land, "Bill" would plump three or four high-explosive shells on "W" beach or in the soldiers' "rest" camp. He was a facetious fellow, very wanting in tact, and most elusive.

To understand the difficulties of hitting him, you must try and imagine yourself on the deck of an ordinary steamer, standing somewhere about twenty feet above the level of the water. The distance of the sea horizon is then just a little over five miles. If you now imagine that, instead of a continuous, uninterrupted curved line, the curve of the horizon is broken up by small gullies and ravines and depressions, in any one of which "Gallipoli Bill" may be concealed—in fact, is absolutely hidden from you—and all you know is that he is supposed to be in line with, perhaps, a particular tree which you can see; that up above, there is an aeroplane quite possibly "spotting" on a dummy gun, and that only a direct hit will destroy "Bill", you obtain a good idea of the difficulties of hitting him from where you are—standing in your steamer.

One day, in order to reduce the range, the Achates anchored in another billet, off "X" beach, farther along the "outside" coast of the Peninsula, and had hardly dropped her anchor before a cheeky battery of 4.1-inch guns began dropping their shells all round her. It was impossible to locate the battery, and there was no option but to shove off again, out of range. Again, you must bear in mind that the flashes these guns make when fired are very slight, and quite momentary, also that dummy flashes were also fired some distance away. The only sure proof that the actual position of the firing gun had been located was by observing the cloud of dust blown up from the ground in front of the gun. The size and density of this depends naturally upon the kind of ground, and also, of course, a position behind ground thickly covered with bushes is generally chosen to reduce the dust to a minimum; so that, at a range of five miles, what dust is thrown up is very, very seldom visible.

In the course of the campaign many of the Turks' guns were knocked out by the ships; but every shell must fall somewhere, and if you fire a sufficient number, sooner or later a lucky one may do the "trick" and fall on the exact spot required.

But a ship's magazines are not inexhaustible; with very little effort she could empty them in an hour, and be as useless as a Thames barge until they were refilled. If there had been an inexhaustible supply in the ammunition ships at Mudros, and if a ship had made full use of it, she would have worn out her guns in next to no time; accurate firing would be impossible, and the ship again practically useless.

Knowing all these things, you should now be able to realize the extraordinary difficulties of hitting a single gun from ships at those necessarily long ranges, and be able to understand their comparative failure to do so.

To return to the submarines. It was on a Saturday, the 22nd May, that the first German submarine actually made its appearance off the Peninsula. Just as the Honourable Mess had finished their meagre lunch, a signalman brought the Sub a signal, just received from the Triumph, at anchor off Anzac. The Sub read it aloud: "Hostile submarine sighted N.E. of Gaba Tepe".

"Well, it's a good thing to get the show over," the Sub said; and Uncle Podger remarked that "At any rate it will be pretty to watch." They all went on deck; and the sight of a long line of transports, store ships, and hospital ships hurrying across from Anzac to the little protected harbour of Kephalo, in the island of Imbros, made it certain that they evidently did not doubt that a submarine had been seen.