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[Page 18]
During this time we are lying close to the Asiatic shore, so that anything passing would go well clear of us. About an hour after we started to charge our batteries a ship was seen coming towards us from the direction of Chanak. She was showing all lights. At first we thought it advisable to stop our engines as a thick heavy smoke was lying all along the water. However the ship was passing well clear of us and we did not stop our engines.
Soon after this three small launches were seen approaching us from Gallipoli. They were probably small torpedo boats. This time we stopped engines and they passed without seeing us. At 3.30 we stopped our engines having had a fairly good charge. We then prepared to dive to enter the Sea of Mormora. (During the time we had been lying on the surface a light rain was falling. We could plainly hear the reports from the big guns lower down.
N.B. This was the day of the landing on the Peninsula.
We managed to get a wireless message through to the fleet to say that we had succeeded so far). We submerged at 3.40 At 4 a.m. we sighted two ships coming down. One was a gunboat leading the way, and the other was a battleship of the Turco Reis class. We fired a torpedo but missed. We were seen and the gunboat came in chase. We went down to 70 feet and turned back on our course completely throwing them off. We then turned back on to our proper course and proceeded. We passed the town of Gallipoli at 9 a.m. There was nothing there worth torpedoing so we proceeded into the sea of Marmora entering same 9.40 a.m.
Just as we were coming to the surface some forts outside Gallipoli opened fire on our periscope. Lucky for us that they did, for if they had waited five minutes they would have had a good shot at us lying on the surface. So we proceeded out of range. We soon saw two ships coming towards us, evidently making for Gallipoli. Thinking they may be troopships we prepared to attack. The first ship we came up with there was a certain amount of doubt as to whether she was a troopship or a cargo ship as we had orders to sink only ships of war and troopships. However while we were dodging round to see if she had troops on her they noticed our periscope and fired on us with some small gun. By this time she had got too far past us to get a shot in so we went down out of sight.
The second ship was a gunboat. We fired a torpedo at her and missed probably through her shallow draught. There was also another steamer. She seemed to be in great difficulties steaming round in circles etc., to try and prevent us getting a shot at her, but we did not want to fire a torpedo at her. As each of these ships came along they were warned that there was a submarine about by a small