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[Page 24]
The curtain rang up on October 2nd, 1918, the last act in this long drawn out drama of the nations, that is as far as we of the flotilla were concerned in the Adriatic. On this day we were to fire the last shots and drop the last depth charge against an enemy we were seeking by every last [indecipherable] in our power to destroy.
Perhaps few, if any of us, realised that the German Mars was now tottering to his fall although the cheery reports from all fronts led us to hope that the beginning of the end had come. Bright as these accounts were I think most of us - however optimistic their nature - anticipated spending another winter patrolling under the lee of those arctic Albanian Mountains, searching and ever searching for the ever elusive Fritz., and in our happiest moments none ever dared to think we were within a few weeks of the termination of hostilities.
In a previous article I have mentioned how the T.B.D.s and Cruisers would make periodic sweeps to the N.E. closing the Enemy Coast within a few miles in the hopes of enticing our somewhat diffident foe to combat in open waters. The only result of these sweeps was that the Austrian Navy lay discretely perdu and never accepted our challenge in any shape or form unless it was a solitary airman or two, these latter apparently possessing rather more initiative than their nautical confreres. On this occasion the C. in C. (Italian for we were always under their orders) had determined to make a special effort to tempt the opposing fleet from the its bases in order to join combat.
With this purpose in view the combined Allied ships were to be disposed as follows:-
"Swan" "Warrego" and two English T.B.D.s were to escort the light cruisers "Glasgow" "Gloucester" and the Italian "Marsala" on a cruise course which would take them near Cattaro, the main submarine base of the Austrians and a very constant thorn in our side during the whole of the War.
An Italian battleship escorted by a screen of Italian destroyers was to demonstrate further north still. The main fleet consisting of three Italian battleships, the light cruisers "Weymouth " and "Lowestoff" screened by a dozen English T.B.D.s were to make Durazzo (the most northerly southerly Austrian Naval base) from the southward, close within easy gun range