The Italian Navy migrated from Libya to Rhodes to
Çanakkale during the war with Turkey, 1911-1912.
An Italian fleet of 24 ships gathered at the mouth of
the Strait in April 1912 but could not advance due to
Turkish defenses. The probing mission of
Capt. Millo followed in July of that year.
The battery firing continued and increased as we
advanced. The sea
before us was lit up
so brightly by the searchlights that it might as
well have been daytime. The Spica torpedo boat headed at high speed
to Kilitbahir point and rounded it quickly to avoid giving the enemy
the chance
to focus its firing. At Kilitbahir, I observed battery firing
coming
from a low lying place that someone advancing from the
south would not be able
to see. The firing was directed toward
the east.
Just then, the Spica, on which
I was aboard, slowed down and stopped
dead a few meters beyond.
The Spica’s commander, First Lieutenant Bucci, worked
courageously
to save his ship in just a few minutes, after which both of the
boat’s
machines propelled the craft at high speed. This incident occurred
along the buoy line
where the minefield begins and which runs from
Kilitbahir to Çanakkale. At that time, we could see the searchlights
of
the ships at Nara and we were 10 meters off of Kilitbahir’s easternmost
point.
When both of the Spica’s propellers stopped suddenly I
thought that the
boat had been tangled up with steel cables, nets or some other
kind of
trap. But, somehow, the torpedo
boat was miraculously set free. In any
event, the Spica’s sudden stop had given
me the chance to observe the
area north of the Kilitbahir-Çanakkale line that
was illuminated by the
searchlight beams.
The rapid-fire battery at Kilitbahir began to shoot in
volley fashion that
could hit each of our boats and the only path open to us to
avoid the
minefield was along the point’s shore. So, since the reconnoiter mission
I had been
ordered to undertake had been completed, and seeing no
chance for us to fire
torpedoes at the enemy ships – on the contrary, the
torpedo boats under my
command were quite vulnerable to enemy
cannon fire – I decided not to risk the
lives of the crews and the boats
themselves for no good reason. Fortunately, up to this point all of our
boats were unscathed and the enemy lay two miles to the north.
Navy Capt. (later Admiral) Enrico Millo
Millo bio click here for background.
As a result of all these things, I concluded our reconnoiter
mission and
ordered our return.
Following the miraculous restart of the Spica, as I
described above, I
had the torpedo boats hug the right shore, without
keeping in line, and head south. My fleet entered into the minefield
are and
began to follow our escape route, amid the firing of shore
batteries and the
(Ottoman) fleet ships. The fact that,
under these
difficult conditions, there
were no encounters between my boats and
the enemy was a testament to the merits
and cool-headedness of the
boats’ commanders.
At full speed, the Spica and the other torpedo boats emerged
intact
from the minefield area and followed the Strait’s European shore.
As we passed there, various enemy batteries,
and particularly the
ones at Samandra Bay, fired upon us. But the searchlight beams
were either
alongside or behind us so all of our torpedo boats exited
the Strait at full
speed and without a scratch.
The enemy fire suddenly stopped when we reached the area
southeast
of Samandra. The Spica
reassumed its position at the head of the line
of torpedo boats, which all
headed for the mouth of the Strait. The
searchlights at Kumkale and Helles were turned toward the interior
so they saw
our approach and signaled it with continuous flares.
//END of PART THREE//
Hiç yorum yok:
Yorum Gönder