A THRILLING STORY.

Taranaki Daily News, 6 January 1920, Page 5

A THRILLING STORY.

VERY GALLANT GENTLEMEN. I (Lyttelton Times' Correspondent.) London, Nov. 5. A 6tory recalling to those of us in middle-age the days when we revelled in the inspirations of Ballantyne, Mayne Reid, or Stevenson, and one that should be "told »8 a tale" for the benefit of future generations of British boys, was narrated this week in the terribly prosaie atmosphere of the law courts. It concerns the amazing adventures of eight British officers —one commander of the Royal Navy and seven soldiers—who last year escaped from captivity in Turkey, marched for three weeks through a hostile country to the coast, spent a week in hiding to recover from their privations, and then ran off with a Turkish tugboat to Cyprus. For close upon a year they had explored every likely avenue of escape, from their prison camp, and repeated failures to regain their liberty served merely to harden their determination to escape. Eventually they succeeded in '"breaking camp," and then followed a dogged battle against hunger and thirst, with brigands and with cutthroats, which makes as fine a story as any which the Great War has produced.

Instinct led them to the coast, where salvation awaited them in the unromantic hull of a Turkish tug. It was moored some distance from the shore, and there was no boat available, but the gallant little band were not to be baulked of liberty by 300. yards of water. Some of the party swam out to the tug, cut out the dingy astern of her, embarked their comrades, and towed the tug out to sea before they raised steam in the boilers. The case came before the Price Court on an application by the Crown that the Turkish tug Hertlia and her cargo should be condemned as prize. The story told by counsel for the Crown was to the eifecf. that Commander Archibald Cochrane, R.N., on the night of August 7-8, 1918, with other officers, carried out plans that, had been maturing fur eleven months previously, and escaped from the camp at Yozgad, Turkey, and, after a aeries of adventures involving battles with brigands, privations due to hunger and cold, and narrow escapes from cutthroats, they succeeded in arriving at a point in the Anatolian coast west of Korgos Island. On arriving there the party were too done up to proceed immediately with their bid for liberty, but 'after a rest of about seven days they resumed their travels. On September S Commander Cochrane saw a Turkish tug off the Isle of Koras towing a barge full of Government stores. It anchored some distance from the shore. The party resolved to swim off some 300 yards to release from the barge the dinghy attached to it. The first attempt was a failure, for, owing to the noise made by the lifting of the anchor, a Turkish sentry bad been alarmed. A second attempt, however, resulted in success. After dark the officers swam off and cut adrift the dinghy astern of the barge, and the rest of the party paddled alongside of the Hertha without being seen by the sentry ashore, or from the place where the crew of the Hertha were lying lying about thirty yards away. These officers, in spite of their enfeebled condition, got the anchor up and succeeded, with the aid of hastily improvised paddles, in rowing the boat out to sea under the nose of the sentries, notwithstanding that the Turkish crew were thirty yards from the tug at the time of the capture. When they were a mile or two out to sea they started the Hertha's 54-liorsc power engine—an operation taking four or Jive hours—and finally the tug was brought, to Cyprus and handed over to the British authorities.

The president of the Court asked how it was that they contrived to navigate her to Cyprus. The commander said he knew the general direction of Cyprus, they had a compass, and the high mountains of the island were visible forty miles away.

Commander Cochrane, by the way, comes of the right stock for n venture of this kind. He himself has served through the war and won the D.S.O. and a mention in despatches, and lie comes of a family which has given many a gallant son to both the fighting services. Second son of the Hon. Thomas Horatio Cochrane, who served in South Africa, he is a nephew of the Earl of Dundonald, who made a name for personal daring in the Soudan War in IRB4, and who commanded the mounted brigade of the Natal army in the South African War, and led the advance into Ladysmith. Commander Cochrn lie's great grandfather was the famous Lord Cochrane, tenth Earl of Dundonald, whose naval career was one of a long series of brilliant exploits and acts of daring. His destruction of the enemy's sliips in the Basque Roads dealt a crushing blow to Napoleon's maritime efforts, and subsequently, when serving under the Government of Chili and Peru, which had revolted against Spain, his naval assistance was the main factor in I their deliverance. He afterwards commanded the Greek navy in that coun,try^s lstfm£l»4«££M<iQß„ * '"*