"TANKS OF THE SEA."

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume XLIV, Issue 14446, 5 November 1917, Page 5

"TANKS OF THE SEA."

WORK OF THE BRITISH AND ITALIAN MONITORS. ROME, Aug. 24. Tlie British monitors and their brave and effective action against the Hermada occupy the front page of all the papers hero to-night. Commander Larking, the British military attache, as the guest of Admiral Thaon de Reevl, witnessed the bombardment by tbe monitors from a motor-boat placed at his disposal. Tho Tribuna siays that Wiheh the two "British Colossus", opened fire with their 305 millimetres (12 inch) guns against the south-eastern slopes of the Hermada the group of monitors seemed transformed into a volcano witJli a hundred craters, ! witli streams of lava running from top to bottom. Tlie monitors continued their implacable work, m spite of the attempt of the Austrians to counter-at-tack them with naval batteries landed near Nabresina, their bombardment centring constantly all its efforts against, the Hermada until they saw the Italian troops, led by the Duke of Aosta, climb tho western flanks of the m6untains, attacking the enemy trenches. Tho monitors returned unscathed to their naval bases protected by " numerous flotillas of Italian unsinkable motorboats. A war correspondent of the Tribuna, v writing of the recent work of the British end Italian monitors m the Gulf of Trieste, says: "Last May only British monitors took part m- the battle, but now along with the British are Italian monitors, still larger and more monstrous, armed! 'with guns of a calibre and range hitherto, unknown and superior to those of the Austrian Dreadnought guns. These monitors are armed like motor tanks; they are very slow,, but invulnerable. The range of their guns was a fresh surprise for the Austrians. "While the British monitors were bombarding Mount Hermada, the Italian monitors attacked the military works at Trieste, surprising the enemy, who only replied, and that unsuccessfully, with his guns at Nabresina. Our torpedo boats barred the Gulf, while other light vessels protected the monitors. The Austrian navy did not come out -from its moorings at Pola,' and only during the night did enemy airmen appear at sea, where they ,expected to find the monitors and where they dropped bombs. , The monitors, however, were elsewhere, and the result of the enemy raid was the loss of one of their airships, the K2O, which was hit by shrapnel, causing its bombs to explode, and it fell into the sea."