ON THE SEA.

Taranaki Daily News, 28 September 1915, Page 5

ON THE SEA.

GOEBEN REAPPEARS. WHGUT DISEINGUISHttWS HERSELF, . Received Sept. 27, 6£ pjn. Petrograd, Sept. 26. The Goefcen appeared in the Black Sea, fifty miles from the Bosphorua, and cut off the retreat of a Russian torpedo-craft, which, skilfully handled, escaped. The Goeben's fire was inaccurate.

DUTCH UNER SUNK. ' Received Sept. 27, 6.16 pjn, London, Sept. 26. The Dutch liner Efmdijk hag been sunt The crew landed. DARING SUBMARINES. NUMEROUS SKIPS SUNK. EFFECTIVE WORK AT THE DARDANELLES. In the English files just to hand i* contained the following account of the great exploit of submarine Ell in the Sea of Marmora. The story is sent by; one of the crew-: "We left Imbros one morning at about, 3 o'clock and steamed towards the Dardanelles. We dived as the day was breaking and got through the narrows OJL When we arrived at the other aide we saw two battleships, and were getting ready to torpedo one of 'em, when they spotted us, opened fire on us and nipped, banked, ran away. We then jonrneyed on for a mile or two —then went to the bottom ana rested 'imtil about 8 p.m. When we came up it was dusk, sowe looked around, but nothing in sight broke the surface. We entered the Sea of Marmora and lumped around for a few days without sighting a thing until Sunday morning, when we were* diving outside Constantinople, and saw a big gunboat. At 6\25 a.m. we gave her tin' fish. By 6.50 a.m. she was no more. Bnt Wore she sank, and while she was listing over, they opened fire on us. A second shot hit our periscope ami done it in. That gunner must hate been- a cool card, eh? On Monday we sighted a steamer, came to the surface alongside her, and told her to stop. She stopped, and tire amen were so anxious to get clear that one boat capsized. No lives were lost. A Yankee correspondent aboard tried to bluff us. No good, though, because an officer and two men boarded her, and discovered she had a 8-inch gun, with several gun mountings, and lWnch ammunition aboard. So we blew her up. A few minutes later we sighted another steamer and told her to «top. Sh» would not

We chased her into the harbor, and when she was securing alongside the pier we torpedoed her. Soon after we sighted another steamr, and chased Iter tis she ran ashore. We were about) to board her when some cavalry came up and opened fire. We replied, dropped a few, and then dived aad torpedoed the ship.

I Next day, Tuesday, our skipper decided on entering Constantinople. To. make a long stojy short, we got intothe harbor without mishap, fired two 'torpedoes, one of w&ich sank a transport loaded with troops, and the otherexploded on shore somewhere. We learned afterwards that it caused some panic.

The troops refused to go on another transport, shops were closed, and the people ran up bills—in fact, it caused an uproar for a time.

On the following Friday morning we isaw five transports escorted by destroyers. We banged the first the biggest one, which sank in about three minutes. A few days later we went back to our old corner, where we sank those odher three. We caught a supply ship nap-i ping a few days later, we torpedoed a German transport, and then we got no more blood for a time until last Monday morning, when on way back, just before entering the Narrows, we sah|t a transport. That was our farewell smack.

Wben we broke the surface that evening, we found a mine hanging over our bows, and chucked it off as quickly as possible. When our escort came up they gave us three cheers, and off we went. When we entered the harbor it was dark. Had it been daylight the Admiral would have made us steam round the,fleet. All the ships we passed as we were making for tfce ! Adamant cheered us. SUBMARINE'S ESCAPE. REPAIRS MADE JUST IN TIME. FIVE OF THE CREW DIE. : / ' Without food, without light, their supply of oxygen rapidly diminishing, their commander and two of their comrades dead, the- crew of an Italian submarine labored for seventy hours on the bed of the Adriatic to repair the machinery of their craft, set the engines in motion, and in the end reached their base.

An official statement from Vienna said an Austrian •submarine had torpedoed and sunk the Nereide, one of Italy's newest submarines. The Nereide failed to return to her base, and the Ministry of Marine was inclined to accept the Austrian statement as true and to place the craft and her ccew on the navy's casualty list. In the meantime, one of the romences of the war, to which the submarine has contributed so much, was being enacted fathoms deep on the bottom of the sea.

The Nereide was attacked by an Austrian craft, as Vienna told. The Nereide's commander, however, had distinguished the wake of the torpedo speeding towards him and swung the diving lever hard. The Nereide responded to her rudders so quiokly that the torpedo passed just above her, but the strain on her mechanism was so that when she was brought again to the horizontal it was found her motors were out of commission. Feverishly the crew sought to repair the damage. The failure of the motors threw the weight of the current used by the electric bulbs on to the storage batteries and these soon become exhausted. The men redoubled their efforts in the dark. With the exhaustion of the reserve store of electricity, the ventilating apparatus failed. Thirty men were trapped, but despite their apparently hopeless situation their courage never faltered and their efforts to repair their craft's driving machinery never failed. Hour after hour, in the stifling, fcrambursting interior of the submarine, without sleep, without rest, they worked un4er the inspiration of their commandflrt

faith. Then the thickening fumes toot »tbeir toll of him, and a subordinate dl rested the wort. The men lost'tHM «d tsne. Onee they obtained * fS lewtations of the screw, and a fkmf fcnsky cheer used up more of the pgqeiot* wryigen. Bat their exhilaration «M brief, for the motors stopped and fb( work had all to be done over again. Two more men collapsed and w«# barely kept alive, when the chief e» giaeer,, exploring with blind finger* found the seat of the trouble and «i ' length repaired it. The motors atartot once more. Slowly the shell began tt rise from the bottom. The pstucsp* reached the surface and found a clett sea. Out from the water came the huff

and the hatch of the conning tower war opened for the first breath of fresh at in three long days. But it was tot late for the three men in collapse toloW They died without regaining conation* nesa. Two more men died on the wa( to port. Obtaining his bearings, the navifsiat steered his course for the base op tht Adriatic coast, and the Nereide, no) ning awash, appeared among hwr fist ilia, a ghost from the sea. Theinewt was flashed to Rome and to th«'n*va| ships afloat:— ■ • '

"The Nereide, sunk, is risen again,'