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Saturday 17/4/15

Lemnos Bay.

Fine day. water perfectly
calm. I visited divisional H.Q.
ship the “Lutzow”, on duty, & also
the “Achaia”. Afternoon rowed to
the Queen Elizabeth & had a look
round. She is absolutely the
last word in naval construction
very plain & trim in appearance
and quite devoid of the gear
& outwardly visible paraphernalia
of many warships, but purely
& simply a fighting machine.

Several of our transports are
“prize” ships – late of the N.D. Lloyd
line. These are very fine ships
and are being used to good purpose.

Reports today state that the
Turks again attacked Suez Canal
& were repulsed:– the N.Z.M.R
are said to have taken part &
were railed from Cairo without
horses for that purpose.

Yesterday a British transport
was overhauled by a Turkish
torpedo boat off Asia Minor and page 33 was fired on with torpedoes
three times. The first two are
said to have missed & the third
failed to explode
by this time — in response to
a wireless call H M S Minerva
and a French cruiser hove in
sight & the Torpedo boat made
off, only to run ashore during
her flight. It is reported that
a number of soldiers were
drowned off the transport.

It appears also that the cruiser
were searching for the Turk when they
received the call as they
had reason to believe she
was in the neighborhood.

Official report states that
British forces defeated the Turks
in Mesopatamia inland from
the Persian Gulf. There are
today about 60 transports &
27 warships (exclusive of destroyers
& small craft) & numerous
colliers in harbour with others
arriving daily. Several warships
are also at the Dardanelles