NAVAL WARFARE IN DARDANELLES.

Hawke's Bay Tribune, Volume XII, Issue 241, 25 September 1922, Page 3

NAVAL WARFARE IN DARDANELLES.

(To the Editor.) Sir,—The problem for our fleet at the Dardanelles in 1915 was how to sweep up the anchored mines. Our battleships were never beaten by the Lurkish guns, though these were fortress guns up to 14iii. calibre, as well mobile howitzers, etc. It is doubtful if any guns that the Turks can move up would bo able to prevent British warships running through the Straits at night, or fighting through by dax. provided that the ships had efficient aircraft to spot for them, and that tho Turks remain unable to lay down proper minefields. At the present time tho Turks have not got fortress guns, minefields, or U boats, to close the Dardanelles with, but only mobile guns, such as were a great nuisance m 1915, when supported by the other things mentioned, and when the problem was to sweep up ten or eleven rows of mines with trawlers in front of the enemy’s well prepared forts. Even if the Turks could now’ lay mines and get the help of Russian submarines, they would find that bulge-protected ships and paravanes and depth charges— not to mention our own mines—had made mines and submarines not quite what they were in 1915. If our ships and aircraft demonstrate. according to Lord Beatty’s' plans, 1 don’t think they will be altogether helpless victims to any Turkish gun on a hillside.—l am, etc., R.H.F. Havelock N., Sept. 23. 1922.