Gardens of Hell by Patrick Gariepy

Author:Patrick Gariepy
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Potomac Books Inc.
Published: 2014-12-08T16:00:00+00:00

Turkish Losses

Turkish naval losses during the campaign were dwarfed by those of the British and French. One reason was that they had so few to lose. Another was that most ship-to-ship combat involving Turkish surface craft involved Allied submarines. These submarines carried a limited number of often-fallible torpedoes.

Because there were so few Ottoman warships in the Sea of Marmara and none operating off the Gallipoli Peninsula, submarines were often forced to use their precious supply of “fish” on the civilian vessels that moved troops and supplies down the straits to Maidos, where they would be disgorged and moved overland to the front. One of them was the transport Nagara. American newspaper reporter Arthur Ruhl witnessed the sinking. He wrote that Nagara “disintegrated in a cloud of yellow smoke and sank, and with her the heavy siege-gun she was taking to the Dardanelles.”18 Allied submarines were so successful that the Turks were forced to move men and material overland via oxen and camel trains. There were no railroads in the area and few proper roads, so the going was slow and arduous.

All of the Turkish warships lost during the campaign were sunk by the British submarine E11 under Lt. Cdr. Martin Nasmith. The sub began the first of three patrols into the Dardanelles on May 19, 1915, and, in common with the other boats of its type, carried a single twelve-pounder deck gun and five torpedoes. Among the vessels it sent to the bottom were the Nagara and the ammunition ship Stambul, which Nasmith had the audacity to sink while it was moored next to the arsenal in Constantinople.

Nasmith was well aware that torpedoes were a rare commodity and that he could not risk losing them if they malfunctioned. Thus, his crew trimmed them so that they would float to the surface if they missed their targets and could be recovered for later use. To do this he waited until his intended victim was out of sight, then would sail up to the floating projectile. Crewmen would then jump into the sea, pull the torpedo back to the sub, and push it back into the bow tube. Following his orders to “go and run amuck in the Marmara,” E11 sank one gunboat, a naval auxiliary vessel, and four steamships on its first voyage. For his exploits Nasmith was awarded the Victoria Cross, and the members of his crew were awarded Distinguished Service Medals.

Nasmith’s second patrol was also successful. On August 8, 1915, he sent the Turkish battleship Hayreddin Barbarossa to the bottom off the Narrows with a single torpedo. Fifteen minutes after being hit, the stricken vessel capsized and sank with a loss of 250 men. On August 14 E11 struck again, sinking the destroyer Samsun in the Sea of Marmara.

E11 sank the last Turkish warship to go down during the Gallipoli campaign on its third and final voyage into the Marmara. It was the destroyer Yarhisar, commanded by Binbaşi Ahmet Hulusi Hasan. At the time, on December 3, 1915, Yarhisar was searching for E11.

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