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Dominion, Volume 12, Issue 217, 7 June 1919, Page 7

The Australian destroyers have had au, experience \that has scarce befallen any other part of the Imperial fleet. They have thrashed the Pacific, the Indian Ocean, the Mediterranean,, the Black Sea. They have come in contact with tlio .enemy, and with the Bussians, about whom the complement has formed no opinion except that they are lunatics. One of our boats was at Batoum wluie the landing of the British soldiers went'on. '■ Warding Off Attacks! But, long before they settled down to policing the Adriatio and the Mediterranean, they were engaged in patrol and transport duty. It was during the period, that the Hun was'most active with his submarines. ■ The Parramatta claims to ■have sunk an attacker; the Torrens the same. Both discharged depth bombs; both saw oil ■ floating, on ■ the troubled waters. Neither knew whether the submarine had been actually accounted for. But as the submarine did not turn up again neither cared very much;. But the star story of the fleet is that of the Warrego, which, by the way, wns the ■ first destroyer built and launched in .Australia. No vessel of the flotilla, according to ono officer of another bout, saw such' a variety of service bb she did. The Comet, a British destroyer, had been : injured. Part of her stern had been shattered.' Along came the Warrego' to put a line aboard, and to tow her to Brindisi: The'opportunity seem ed admirable to the enemy. Ono of his' submarines let' go a torpedo, and the' Warrego,'backing so furionsly as topan' all the lines, avoided it. The Comet was, struck, and went to the bottom in no time;-The Warrego. picked up the crew. The Warrego had gone alongside th» Comet to take over her .supplies of oil. Meanwhile other. Australian and Britit'n destroyers, racing towards the r/ace : .from, which the torpedo came, sent the enemy to cover. .• . . • "The barrage across the Straits of; OK ranto was the great thing iu which cur destroyers were engaged. They worked from Brindisi as headquarters, and-''zig-zagged day after, day in all sorts of weather—and- some of it was terrible—lo keep the Austrian fleet bottled up. One day the Austrians-tried a raid.on. the enclosing.line. They sank some drifters, but. the Australian Fleet and their Italian Allies 'drove them off. The cordon was never broken. \ ■ One officer talked the other day of seeing British monitors in action on the Albanian coast. 'They, had 15in. (runs, he said, and they did terrific, execution. On another occasion, after ■ the success of an Italian attack, the Austrian seaplanes, not.' knowing the situation,- returned ;to land in. the midst of the Italians, and.tcbe captured. .Many •were'the-stories told of hairbreadth escapes- from- torpedoes. But that is alt part of; the game, apparently and the stories amounted to little moro than a casual .mention.

But there is one' thing our men are proud of. One of them told the story this way:— "Off Ismid, in the Black Sea, Captain Chatwood, an Imperial officer, came aboard;' ahd acknowledged' our superiority in gunnery. ■ .."And we • could shoot 'em, said the narrator, "when the Hun gave us -a chance."