“HUMAN TORPEDO.”

Taihape Daily Times, Volume 8, Issue 129, 1 June 1916, Page 6

“HUMAN TORPEDO.”

GALLANT BRITISH OFFICER SAVES TRAPPED SUBMARINE. Whilst busy destroying the Turkish shipping in the Sea of Marmora, the submarine Ell got into difficulties, but was released through the gallantry of an officer on beard, who played the part of a “human torpedo.” The incident is described by a naturalised American of Turkish birth, rescued from a torpedoed troopship, who for twenty-four days guided the Ell in her operations. Shortly after raiding Constantinople, he says, the submarine became entangled in the network of the mastg of a sailing ship that had been sunk some few days before. “Finally,” said the informant, “it was decided that one of the officers should don his diving suit and leave the boat through one of the torpedo portholes in the stern of the boat and find what ailed us on the outside. So instead of releasing the torpedo in the water, we withdrew it from its bed, and still keeping the outer hole closed, we put the third lieutenant-com-mander in the space just vacated. Then, after having closed the inner door, we opened the outer end of the torpedo bed as though we were going to shoot out a torpedo, and then we shot him into the water. It was a perilous job, for if he ha found out perilous job, for if he had found out tangle he could not return to the boat, as we could not open our hatches unless we had risen to the surface of the water. The lieutenant, Guy d’Oyly Hughes ,had taken along with him a small steel saw, a service revolver, and a dozen sticks of dynamite. In ten minutes he had cut the ropes that had entangled our propeller and pounded on the shell of our boat twice, which was an agree signal to reverse motclrs and pull bajek. jin another fiv e minutes we were out of the water, our heroic third lieutenant clinging to the torpedo hole, just above the propeller.” The hero of this exploit, Lieutenant Guy d’Oyly Hughes, D. 5.0., was awarded the D. S.O. in October last for services on August 21st, 1915, when, in the Sea of Marmora, h e voluntarily swam to shore from a submarine, and blew up a low brickwork support to the Tsmid railway line, in spite of the presence of an armed guard within 150 yards of him. After a running fight of about a mile, he dived into the sea. and was finally pulled on board the submarine utterly exhausted having had to swim nearly a mile in his clothes. The gallant lieutenant is about twenty-six, a n stands over six feet.