The following story has been told of a fight between a British submarine and a Zeppelin. One day a boat came to the surface, and found herself right underneath a Zeppelin that was flying only a few yards above the sea. The commander could not see the sky, only the shining bulge of the airship. Luckily he was not under the "stinging end" of the monster. Immediately he sank till his decks were awash, and went away to windward, so that the Zeppelin had to follow him with the wind in its teeth. Then he sent a man to the gun on deck. The waves were washing over the submarine, and the man was nearly drowned; but he hung on, and whenever he saw a chance, fired a shot at the airship, which by this time was dropping bombs. One of his shots got home, and the Zeppelin was obliged to steer to leeward and give up the chase. A fortnight later she was seen with a patch on the place where she had been hit.
On page 283 of our third volume I told you how Lieutenant Holbrook won the Victoria Cross for conspicuous bravery while in command of a submarine which was scouting in the Dardanelles during December 1914. In these narrow waters, and in the Sea of Marmora, some extraordinary feats were performed by our submarines during the year 1915. An American correspondent tells us that our under-water boats created a reign of terror amongst the peasants and villagers living on the shores of that sea. Turkish warships and gunboats and large numbers of transports and supply ships were sunk, and navigation was almost entirely suspended. On April 27, 1915, Submarine E14 dived under the enemy mine fields and entered the Sea of Marmora. In spite of strong currents, the presence of hostile patrols, and the hourly danger of attack from the enemy, she succeeded in sinking two Turkish gunboats and two transports, one of them large and full of troops; and after cruising in the enemy's waters for twenty-two days, returned in safety. For this remarkable exploit, which the admiral at the Dardanelles declared himself unable to do justice to, Lieutenant-Commander Edward Courtney Boyle received the Victoria Cross.
Late in May the British submarine E11 had an extraordinary "bag." She succeeded in destroying one large Turkish gunboat, two transports, one ammunition ship, and three storeships, and drove another storeship ashore. Then she passed through the minefield on her homeward way; but, on sighting another Turkish transport, returned, and managed to torpedo it. In the course of her cruise she entered the Golden Horn, and actually discharged a torpedo at a transport lying alongside the arsenal. The Turks declared that the torpedo struck the quay and blew up two hundred yards of masonry. Lieutenant-Commander Martin Eric Nasmith, who was the heart and soul of these intrepid feats, was rightly awarded the highest token of valour.