RIVER WARFARE IN SERBIA

Taranaki Herald, Volume LXIII, Issue 144777, 6 September 1915, Page 4

RIVER WARFARE IN SERBIA

DARING EXPLOITS OF A-PICKET BOAT. (London Times Correspondent.) BELGRADE. The present situation in Belgrade is almost more than Gilfcertian. After lunch, when you are idle, you go into the street and look at the enemy and yawn and wonder when he is going to begin. You can ascend to the roof of a favourably situated house, or walk to the higher ground outside the town, and look through glasses up the Danube to where, beyond the Austrian town of Semlin and the island of Grosser Krieg, the Austrian river monitors are lying, black and ugly, in the stream.. At one time there were seven monitors, but there are only six now; and you can generally see three, one of which always has steam up, with a picket boat on guard over them. What you cannot see is that they are lying inside a boom; for since their number was reduced from seven to six by a pretty piece of torpedo work, on the part of the solitary little picket boat, commonly known as ‘’The Terror of the Danube, 1 ’ the enemy’s monitors have been singularly unenterprising. , . 'There are understood to bo weighty reasons why nothing must be known ip England of the composition of the mixed artillery force which, under General Jivkovitch, military commander of the district, has charge of the defence of Belgrade. Its composition is thoroughly well - known to the Austrians. The essentia] facts have been published in French,, American, Swiss, and other newspapers. But it appears that the most calamitous consequences might bo expected to, follow any publication of, the same . facts in England, j One can say nothing, then, except that ! the .force is charmingly cosmopolitan, and that the young gentlemen (I cannot, happily, at the moment remember their nationality, for I hare not seen them since lunch) who have charge of the Terror of the Danube have great larks with it. They poke their way on dark nights into creeks and passages where they are not in the least expected and annoy the Austrians dreadfully, TRAPPING A DREADNOUGHT. The Austrians have three picket gunboats which look like toy Dreadnoughts, with machine-guns mounted in their turrets. Any one of them could eat up the “Terror” in a few minutes if it could got at it. But the ••Terror” comes up when it is nice and dark and makes rude remarks with its single machine-gun to ono of the Dreadnoughts aud then, runs like a hare. Ten days ago one of the Dreadnoughts chased it into a.prepared minefield, and the Dreadnought’s remnants drifted ashore on Kojara Island, in mid-stream, where the hull and turrets are plainly visible from Belgrade. The crew escaped and they threw the machmcguns overboard; but even so, the Terror” next dav got a lovely haul, of plunder out of her, from maohine r gun ammunition and automatic pistols to a gramophone with an excellent stock of records, as. well as, the Dreadnought’s ensign aud pennon, three admiral’s and one general’s flags. The young gentleman in command of the “Terror” (whose nationality still escapes me) has within the last two days been decorated!by his Government with a—well, what corresponds to n D.S.O. And most thoroughly has ho earned it. Night .after night he and those with him go gaily on errands of the, utmost danger, and they keep fairly terrorised an , enemy force of monitors and gunboats and what-nots of literally more than a hundred times their strength. It almost makes one weep that one cannot say who these yopng men arc. The Times adds the following footnote:—We understand that the officer referred to by onr correspondent is Lieutenant-Commander Kerr, R.N., who has recently -boon; awarded ' tho D.S.O. for the “pretty piece of torpedo work” , mentioned. Tho crew of the boat (The Terror of the Danube) all received the Distinguished Conduct Medal.