Item 02: Ellis Ashmead-Bartlett articles on the Gallipoli campaign, 1915 - Page 228

[Page 228]

[Text incorporates handwritten corrections by E.A.B.]
tickled up the Turks most effectively especially on the left flank. The amount of work which fell to the these craft during the summer, more especially before the arrival of that new and strange fleet from England which I shall discribe later, defies discription. I do not know when the crews ever rest, I have never seen a destroyer at anchor anywhere for more than a few hours at a time. In all weathers they are somewhere doing something. They remind you of a pack of hounds going through coverts. Their muzzles are glued to the ground peering beneath the surface for submarines. Suddenly they break into full cry when the enemy is sighted and after a long chase backwards and forwards force him to earth and then sit down outside his lair to wait until he comes up once again in search of a fresh victim.

Their is something peculiarly fascinating in watching these long low black craft. The way they can turn is amazing. A destroyer going at full speed will suddenly swing round on her stern just like a racing automobilist who lifts his front wheels right off the ground when turning a corner. Having these craft about the narrow waters gives you a great s feeling of confidence when you are forced to take a passage on the sea. You know that if you are submarined or sunk by a shell or swamped by a wave that a half a dozen of these craft will come up like greased lighting from nowhere and pick you up almost before you have had time to get wet. Destroyers pick up everybody and everything. They are like the Salvage Corps of the London Fire Brigade. They always manage to save everything there is to be saved from any wreck.

But here I must leave these wonderful craft with their gallant crews and their record of splendid work. Whether patrolling the coast of Asia Minor, or examining sailing craft for oil and arms, or dashing up the Dardanelles or chasing a submarine or protecting a transport or bombarding the enemy's trenches or recusing drowing mariners from the deep they are always the same. Speed and efficiency is their motto. Their crews had a terrible time last winter. They have been worked for