THE NAVY.

Otago Witness, Issue 3251, 5 July 1916, Page 23

THE NAVY.

RUDYARD KIPLING OH THE NAVY. (Copyright 1916 by Rudyard Kipling.) LONDON, June 27. Mr Rudyard Kipling, in his third article, continues his description of the adventures of submarines in the Sea of Marmora, and includes a detailed description of El2's (Commander Bruce) cutting-out affair. Her main motors gave trouble, and she was a cripple for most of the trip. She sighted two small steamers, one towing two and the other three sailing vessels. She stopped the first steamer, and noticed that she carried stores, while the crew were all on deck with their lifebelts on. Not seeing any gun, El2 ran alongside, and told the first lieutenant to board. The steamer then threw a bomb at El2, which struck, but did not explode, and opened fire on the boarding party with rifles and a concealed 1-inch gun. El2 answered- with six-pounder guns and ako rifles. Two of the sailing vessels in tow tried to foul El2's propellers, and also fired rifles. The first lieutenant and the boarding party were engaged with one steamer. El2 was foul of the steamer, and being fouled by the sailing vessels. The six-pounders were methodicaly perforating the steamer from, bow to stern, while the steamer's one-inch gun and the sailing sh'p's rifles were raking everything and everybody else. El2's coxswain, on the conning tower, passed ammunition to his vessel. The one workable motor was developing slight defects when power to manoeuvre was vital. The story is almost as difficult to disentangle as the actual mess must have been. At any rate, the six-pounder caused, an explosion in the steamer's ammunition, by which she sank in a-quarter of an hour, giving time for El2 to get clear and sink two sailing vessels. She then chased the second steamer, which slipped her three tows and ran shoreward. El2 knocked her about a good deal with gun fire, and saw her drive on the beach well alight. El2 carried an externally mounted gun. While diving in the Dardanelles this got entangled in the hawsers of a net, which caught the conning tower gun. The submarina backed, got tip speed, barged ahead ; and shored through the hawsers, but the submarine was strained and leaky for the rest of her cruise. She did her work, though worried by torpedo-boats and hunted by aeroplanes, but throughout her chief preoccupation was that strained gun-mounting. Finally she got it firing again, but had to keep the water down 'by hand-pumps coming home. Mr Kipling concludes : " The submarines throughout never willingly took the life of non-combatants. These were transferred to boats and personally conducted safe to a beach."