His relentless quest for new targets was resumed on 27 May, when he came within an ace of getting in a torpedo attack on the Barbarossa, one of two elderly Turkish battleships known to be operating in the Marmora. But as he lined up for a surface shot, Nasmith was forced to dive as one of two escorting destroyers came, in his words, ‘either by accident or design almost on top of us’. Later that day E11 enjoyed another narrow escape when she approached a yacht which opened fire at close range with a hidden gun. Luckily, the gunners’ aim was not as true as their compatriots aboard the Pelenk-i-Dria or the riflemen at Rodosto.
Nasmith, however, remained unshaken. On 28 May he added to his tally a large supply ship, one of a convoy of six vessels steaming along the northern shore. Three days later, he ventured into the Panderma Roads, on the southern coast, and torpedoed a large new steamer belonging to the Rickmers Line. The stricken vessel was towed ashore, listing heavily to port. After a fruitless spell roaming the south-eastern corner of the Marmora, Nasmith notched his next ‘kill’, an ammunition ship, on 2 June. The explosion caused by his single torpedo was of such ferocity that it appeared to ‘lift the whole of her upper deck overboard’.
By now Nasmith was running short of provisions and torpedoes, despite novel if illegal measures which enabled him to recover two which had failed to hit their intended targets by setting them to float at the end of their run. It also appeared as though his luck was wearing thin. On 3 June E11 had her closest call when she was forced by an advancing destroyer to make what Nasmith later confessed was ‘a somewhat spectacular dive at full speed from the surface to 20 feet in as many seconds’. Even so, Nasmith still showed little sign of strain. He was preparing to allow D’Oyly-Hughes to carry out his pet project of blowing up a stretch of the Baghdad Railway when a crack was discovered in one of the intermediate shafts between a diesel engine and its main motor. Reluctantly, Nasmith decided it was time to head home.
The journey out, on 7 June, was not without its drama. Having chosen to ignore a large, empty transport anchored by the Moussa Bank in the hope of finding a Turkish battleship or other more tempting targets closer to the Narrows, Nasmith discovered all the anchorages deserted. By then he had travelled beyond Nagara almost as far as Chanak. Most men would have decided to continue their passage home, but not Nasmith. He turned E11 round, headed back up the Straits and sank the transport.
Struggling through the narrow confines of the Straits around Kilid Bahr, the crew had to battle to keep control. An hour later, a scraping noise was heard, similar to that experienced when grounding. Nasmith brought the boat up to 20 feet and to his horror spotted ‘a large mine preceding the periscope at a distance of about 20 feet’. The mine’s moorings had apparently become entangled in the submarine’s port hydroplane and was being dragged along. Without informing anyone of the danger, Nasmith ordered the submarine down deep and proceeded on through the Straits, rising to 20ft off Kum Kale. There, to the astonishment of his crew, he ordered a succession of strange manoeuvres which eventually resulted in the mine falling clear.
Nasmith’s patrol was hailed an outstanding success both in terms of physical damage and the psychological harm done to Turkish morale. As early as 31 May, Keyes had written to his wife praising his new hero. He added: ‘I only hope he comes out safely to get the VC he so thoroughly deserves.’ The Victoria Cross was duly gazetted on 25 June. As in the case of the E14, the E11’s other two officers, Lt. D’Oyly-Hughes and Lt. Robert Brown, received Distinguished Service Crosses while the rest of the crew were given Distinguished Service Medals. The citation accompanying Nasmith’s award, which strangely made no mention of his raid on the Turkish capital, read:
For most conspicuous bravery, in command of one of His Majesty’s submarines, while operating in the Sea of Marmora. In the face of great danger, he succeeded in destroying one large Turkish gunboat, two transports, one ammunition ship, and three store-ships, in addition to driving one store-ship ashore. When he had safely passed the most difficult part of his homeward journey he returned again to torpedo a Turkish transport.
Nasmith was promoted commander and went on to complete two further patrols in the Marmora. In their own ways, both were every bit as successful as his first excursion through the Dardanelles and yet, apart from accelerated promotion, Nasmith, like Boyle before him, received no further awards.
During his second patrol, carried out between 5 August and 3 September, he made up for his failure to sink the Barbarossa by despatching the aged battleship some five miles north-east of Gallipoli. For a spell Nasmith and Boyle, the twin scourges of the Turks in the Marmora, operated together. It was during this cruise that Lt. D’Oyly-Hughes carried out his famous ‘commando-style’ raid on the Ismid Railway, a mission left over from the first patrol.
Nasmith’s third patrol lasted forty-seven days, a record for submarines operating in the Marmora. By the time E11 made its last entrance into the Narrows the Turks had greatly strengthened their defences, with extra minefields and new nets. But Nasmith was not to be denied his final glory. In all he sank or destroyed eleven steamers, five large sailing vessels and no fewer than thirty smaller craft. On one occasion he rescued forty-two survivors from a destroyer he had torpedoed, later transferring them to a captured sailing vessel.
A few days later, on 14 December, Nasmith repeated his most daring feat with a second raid into the harbour at Constantinople. Spotting a large steamer secured inside the breakwater, Nasmith coolly waited for a small tug towing a string of dhows to pass before sinking her with a single torpedo. There was a brief scare as E11 grounded in shallow water at the end of the breakwater, but Nasmith’s luck held good and he managed to bring his boat clear. Incredibly, although the submarine’s periscope had been clearly visible for several minutes, not a single gun had opened fire on the hapless boat. Nine days later, the E11 made her way back through the Straits for the last time. The campaign in which she had been one of its most prominent and successful players was over. According to some commentators, the Allied submariners had almost succeeded in bringing Turkey to her knees. Churchill believed ‘their exploits constitute … the finest examples of submarine action in the whole of the Great War’, and it was with bitter disappointment that he noted ‘their prowess and devotion were uncrowned by victory’.
There would be only one more attempt to break through the heavily guarded Narrows. On 28 January 1918, while attempting to locate the damaged battle-cruiser Goeben, Boyle’s old submarine, the E14, now commanded by Lt. Cdr. Geoffrey Saxton White, was spotted and sunk. There were only seven survivors, and based upon evidence supplied on their eventual release from captivity, White was given a posthumous Victoria Cross.
Martin Eric Nasmith, the most successful of Britain’s submariners to dare the Dardanelles, was born at 13 Castelnau Gardens, East Barnes, London on 1 April 1883, the eldest son of Martin Nasmith and Caroline (née Beard).
His father was a stockbroker and his two brothers both served in the Army during the Great War, one gaining a Distinguished Service Order and a Military Cross and the other a DSO before his death in action.
Nasmith was educated at Eastman’s, Winchester, before joining the Britannia in May 1898, at the start of a long and distinguished naval career. As a midshipman aboard the Renown, Nasmith volunteered on the same day as his friend Courtney Boyle for submarine service. Their careers continued to run in parallel for the next few years. Nasmith, known as ‘Nazims’ to his crew, quickly made his mark. A youthful commander of an A-class boat, his technical expertise was such that before the war he was appointed training officer at Fort Blockhouse, the Navy’s submarine depot. According to Brodie, Nasmith had been chiefly responsible for the introduction of instrumental aids which made submarine warfare less a matter of inspiration and more a science.
Given command of the E11, Nasmith spent the early part of the war in the North Sea. Having failed in his attempt to join two other E-boats in the Baltic, Nasmith suffered further misfortune when, during an attack
on German battle-cruisers returning home from a raid on Hartlepool, he saw his torpedo pass beneath his intended victim. As a result, a despairing Nasmith swore never to drink alcohol or smoke again until he had sunk a battleship; a vow he kept up to his destruction of the Barbarossa the following summer.
Posted home, his successes in the Dardanelles made him a popular hero. Nasmith received his VC from George V at Buckingham Palace on 15 January 1916. Six months later he was made the youngest captain in the Royal Navy. By the autumn of 1917 he was commanding a submarine flotilla based at Bantry Bay, Ireland. William Guy Carr, who served as a navigating officer aboard one of his boats, and later wrote one of the most popular histories of the Submarine Service, remembered him being ‘extravagantly admired by his crews, affable and sociable in the ward room’. Guy Carr reckoned: ‘He had that rare combination, a delicate sense of the incongruous and an almost ferocious insistence on efficiency.’ There were others, however, who noticed the young captain’s weakness – a failure to delegate responsibility.
Nevertheless, Nasmith’s star continued to burn bright. His war services were recognised by a CB in 1920. Apart from his VC, he had already been made a Chevalier of the Legion of Honour. That same year he married Beatrix Justina Dunbar-Rivers, and took the name Dunbar-Nasmith. They had two sons and a daughter.
By 1928, the wartime submariner had risen to rear-admiral. He was forty-four years old, one of the youngest men to achieve Flag Rank. Further promotions and honours followed. He was made rear-admiral of the Submarine Service in 1929, promoted vice-admiral in 1932 and appointed commander-in-chief, East Indies. Knighted in 1934, Sir Martin Dunbar-Nasmith held one of the Navy’s key commands, Plymouth and Western Approaches, at the outbreak of the Second World War. He succeeded Courtney Boyle as flag officer in charge, London in 1942, a post he held until 1946.
After the war he lived in Morayshire, Scotland, and served as vice-chairman of the War Graves Commission and later vice-lieutenant for Morayshire. In retirement, he listed his hobbies as sailing, skiing and forestry.
Admiral Sir Martin Dunbar-Nasmith, who had been created a Knight Commander of the Order of St Michael and St George in 1955, died in Elgin on 29 June 1965, almost fifty years to the day after his gallant leadership had been marked by the award of his nation’s supreme honour.
A. JACKA
Courtney’s Post, Anzac sector, 19 May 1915
L/Cpl. A. Jacka after being commissioned
At 3.30 a.m. on 19 May 1915, the Turks launched an all-out assault on the Anzac perimeter arcing across the ridges above Ari Burnu. More than 40,000 troops were pitched forward in the greatest single effort to destroy the beachhead.
It was an operation as ill-conceived as any of the Allied attempts to break through the Turkish lines. The mass attack was met by a storm of fire. Only at one place did the Turks breach the defences, but even that minor triumph was short-lived and ended in their dramatic expulsion thanks almost entirely to a single Australian soldier, Acting L/Cpl. Albert Jacka.
On the morning of the Turkish attack, the 14th Battalion were manning Courtney’s Post, the central position of three posts established on a vital ridge at the head of a gully which bisected the entire Anzac beachhead. Courtney’s took its name from the CO of the 14th Battalion whose task it was to garrison that sector of the 4th Australian Brigade line. It occupied one of the narrowest points on the razor-back ridge known as McLaurin’s Hill. Here, friend and foe were separated by only a matter of a few yards. Behind the post, the ground fell away sharply to the beach below.
The 14th Battalion were on the alert, ready for the assault that intelligence reports had forewarned them was imminent. At the time of the attack, Jacka’s D Company was in support. Together with about ten members of his platoon, he was standing on a fire-step cut into the front wall of the trench on the left of the position. As the fighting erupted all along the Australian line, a party of Turks took advantage of some dead ground in front of Courtney’s to creep to within a few feet of the parapet. From there they bombed the trench, killing two defenders, wounding two more and throwing the remainder into confusion. As they fled from the bombs, the Turks swiftly occupied some 12 yds of trench at the head of Monash Valley. One man, however, refused to run. Jacka, standing behind a traverse in the next-door bay, drilled a volley of warning shots into the back wall of the fire-bay occupied by a then unknown number of Turks. In doing so, he single-handedly barred any further progress north. Meanwhile, other Australians had rallied in a communication trench to prevent a move south, trapping the Turks in the middle.
As news filtered back, Lt. H.N. Boyle, of the 14th, went up the line to investigate. Peering from the corner of the southern communication trench, he was promptly shot in the ear and stunned. Supports were ordered forward, but before they arrived Lt. W.H. Hamilton, of D Company, decided to try and dislodge the Turks on his own. Charging along the communication trench, armed only with a revolver, he was shot dead.
For more than fifteen minutes Jacka remained the only obstacle to a Turkish move northwards. Then he spotted another man approaching along the communication trench where Hamilton’s body lay. It was Lt. K.G.W. Crabbe, sent forward to check out Boyle’s report. Jacka shouted: ‘Back out, Turks in there.’ Crabbe called back, asking Jacka whether, if given support, he would charge the Turks. ‘Yes’, came the reply, ‘I want two or three’. Crabbe returned moments later with four volunteers, L/Cpl. Stephen d’Arango, L/Cpl. William Howard and Pte. Frank Poliness, all of A Company, and Pte. Joseph Bickley, of Jacka’s company. Having seen them gather in the communication trench opposite, Jacka leapt across the gap in the Turkish-occupied bay to join them. Then, at the agreed moment, he led the small party in a bayonet charge round the bend in the trench and straight at the Turks. They had hardly begun, however, before they were halted by Turkish fire which wounded both Howard and Bickley. Jacka only just managed to reach the shelter of his original position, behind the traverse. There Jacka, recognizing the failure of the attack, bided his time before leaping back into the communication trench.
Together with Lt. Crabbe, Jacka hatched a second and more daring plan. This time, while Crabbe and the surviving members of the party distracted the Turks, Jacka aimed to dash along the communication trench running parallel to the fire-bay occupied by the Turks and take them from behind. It was a startlingly simple plan and one which relied heavily on courage and faith in his own abilities. After a lull in which Crabbe obtained two bombs from Brigade HQ, the plan was set in motion. Pte. James McNally, of D Company, began the diversion by hurling the two bombs towards the fire-bay. One missed, bouncing into a neighbouring trench, and the other burst on the parapet, throwing up a cloud of smoke and dust. Riflemen added to the Turks’ confusion by firing into the wall of the fire-bay in an effort to convince them that another attack was coming from the north. Jacka, meanwhile, ran the length of the communication trench, cut in behind the fire-bay and climbed out into no-man’s-land. Then, with the Turks’ distracted by Crabbe’s diversion, he leapt in among them. The ensuing struggle has been told many times, and details of it vary. According to Newton Wanliss, the 14th’s historian, Jacka bayonetted the first two Turks, one of them an officer, and shot five more. He also credited the lone Australian with shooting two more as the survivors fled over the parapet. Poliness was said to have shot a further two. When Crabbe entered the recaptured trench, carpeted with dead Turks and Australians, he found Jacka with an unlighted cigarette in his mouth and his face ‘flushed by the tremendous excitement he had undergone during the previous hour’. Jacka merely remarked: ‘Well, I managed to get the beggars, Sir.’
Two wounded Turks and 26 Turkish rifles were recovered from the body-strewn bay. It had been an extraordinary individual action calling for a high degree of courage and tactical skill. Jacka noted in his diary:
Great battle at 3.00 a.m. Turks captured large portion of our trench. D Coy called into the front line. Lieut Hamilton shot dead. I lead a section of men and recaptured the t
rench. I bayonetted two Turks, shot five, took three prisoners and cleared the whole trench. I held the trench alone for 15 minutes against a heavy attack. Lieut Crabbe informed me that I would be recommended.
Jacka, whose rank of lance-corporal was confirmed on 15 July, was recovering from bouts of diarrhoea and influenza on Imbros when the London Gazette of 24 July announced the award of his Victoria Cross. The citation read:
For most conspicuous bravery on the night of the 19th–20th May, 1915 [sic], at Courtney’s Post, Gallipoli Peninsula. Lance-Corporal Jacka, while holding a portion of our trench with four other men, was heavily attacked. When all except himself were killed or wounded, the trench was rushed and occupied by seven Turks. Lance-Corporal Jacka at once most gallantly attacked them single-handed, and killed the whole party, five by rifle fire and two with the bayonet.
The official account, sprinkled with errors, is a classic example of the unreliability of VC citations. In this case, the mistakes were probably the result of a delay in processing Lt. Crabbe’s original verbal recommendation.
When news of the award reached Australia, Jacka became a national hero. As Australia’s first Victoria Cross winner of the war, he received £500 and a gold watch offered by John Wren, a prominent Melbourne businessman. Jacka’s face was soon to be found adorning magazine covers and recruiting posters. In a matter of months, the volunteer soldier from Wedderburn had come to epitomise the heroic Australian fighting men battling against terrible odds in support of the Mother Country.
VCs of the First World War Gallipoli Page 15