A British destroyer which had been seriously damaged by collision was torpedoed and sunk by an enemy submarine in the Mediterranean on August 6, 1918. Two officers and five men lost their lives as a result of the collision.
On the next day, August 7, 1918, the old French cruiser Dupetit Thouars, which was cooperating with the American navy in the protection of shipping in the Atlantic, was torpedoed by a submarine. American destroyers rescued the crew, of which, however, thirteen were reported missing. The Dupetit Thouars, 9,367 tons, was launched in 1901. She carried two 6-inch and eight 6.4-inch guns.
Two British destroyers struck mines and sank on August 15, 1918. Twenty-six men were reported missing—presumed killed by explosion or drowned. One man died of wounds.
In the latter part of August, 1918, a notable feat was performed by an Italian submarine. On August 20, 1918, it was officially reported that, a few days before in the upper Adriatic, the Italian submarine F7, after crossing certain mined areas, boldly entered the Gulf of Quarnerolo, and seeing near the island of Pago a large Austrian steamer going south, the F7 succeeded in hitting the vessel amidships with a torpedo, which sank her. The submarine returned unharmed to her base.
Although the Germans gave no opportunity to the British and Allied fleets to enter into a real naval battle, the British were active in the Helgoland Bight, and were carrying out operations with various kinds of light forces in the North Sea, the average number of such operations being no less than five daily. The number of German surface crafts destroyed in the Bight during the year ran into three figures.
A British torpedo-boat destroyer was sunk on September 8, 1918, as the result of a collision during a fog. There were no casualties.
Eight days later, on September 16, 1918, a British monitor was sunk as she was lying in a harbor. One officer and nineteen men were killed and fifty-seven men were missing and were presumed to have been killed.
In the latter part of September, 1918, a part of the British fleet again, as it had done many times before, bombarded successfully the German defenses and points of communication on the Belgian coast. This operation was carried out in cooperation with extensive military operations on the part of the Allied forces on the Flanders front.
Still another British torpedo gunboat was sunk on September 30, 1918, as the result of a collision with a merchant vessel. One officer and fifty-two men were reported missing, presumed to have been drowned.
That the Swedish navy suffered the loss of one of its boats during the month of September, 1918, became known when it was announced on September 25, 1918, that the Swedish gunboat Gunhild had been sunk by striking a German mine in the Skagerrak, with the loss of the chief officer and eighteen men.