Iron County record. [volume] (Cedar City, Utah) 1893-1982, 1918-08-09


SpahIs, Turcos-all kinds. When we
messed, we had to squat down on the
steel mess deck and eat from metal
plates.
There had been a notice posted be-
fore we left that the Zeppelins had be-
gun sea raids, and we kept a i've eye
out for them. The news proved to be
a fake, though. and we did not see
single cigar while we were out.
We made the trip to the Dardanellds
without sighting an enemy craft, keep
ing In close touch with the Duplex,
and busy every minute preparing for
action.
1 was made gun captain and given
charge of the starboard bow turret,
mounting two 14-inch guns. had my
men at gun practice daily, and by the
time we neared the Dardaneles, after
five days, they were in pretty fair
shape.
1t was about a. m. when we drew
near Cape Helles and took stations
for action. The Duplex was In front
Of us. The batteries on the cape
opened up on us, and in a few min
utes later those at Kun Kaleh Joined
in.
AS the Duplex made for "V" beach
and prepared to land her troops, we
swung broadslde on, raking their bat
teries as we did so, and received a
shell, which entered through gun
port in the after turret and exploded.
Some bags of powder stored there
(where they should never have been)
were fired and the roof of the turret
was just lifted Off. 1t landed on deck,
tilted up against the side of the tur-
ret.
On deck the rain of fire was simply
terrific. Steel flew in all directions,
1t was smash, crash, slam-bang all
the time, and do not mind saying /
never thought we would come out
of II.
Some Of the heavy armor plate up
forward was shot away and after that
the old Cassard looked more like a
monitor than anything else to me. AS
we drew nearer the shore they began
using shrapnel on us and in no time
at all our tunnels were shot full Of
holes and a sieve was watertight COM
pared to them.
Naturally we were not Just taking
all this punishment without any come
back. Our guns were at IL fast and
from the way the fire slackened IN
certain places we knew we were MAX
hight effective. My guns did for two
enemy pieces that know of, and per-
haps several others.
The French garbies were good
deal more excited in action than 1
thought they would be. They were
lodging around below decks. trying
to miss the shrapnel that came
aboard. shouting, swearing. singing
but fighting hard, at that. They stood
the gaff Just as well as any other
garbies would, only In their own
sweet way-which is noisy enough.
believe me.
One of our seamen was hit 1870
times by fragments of shrapnel, so
you can see what they were up
against In the lodging line. A gun
turret in action is not exactly the
man nor one who likes his comfort.
There is an awful lot of heat and
noise and smell and work. all the
time In a fighting gun turret. But
during an engagement l would rather
be In gun turret every time than
between decks. At that, If anything
does happen In turret-it is good
night sure for all, and no rain checks
needed
One of our junior lieutenants was
struck by fragment Of shell as he
was at his station behind the wheel
house and a piece of his skull was
driven into his brain. He was car
ried into my gun turret, but he
would not let them take him to sick
bay TO have his wound dressed. There
he sat, asking every now and then
how the fight was going and then sort
of doing OFF for a while.
After half an hour of action we put
about and started away, still firing.
AS Il parting slap on the back the
Turks tore off one of our big-gun tur-
rets, and then away we went, back to
Brest with casualty list of only 10.
We did not have much trouble guess
ing that 1t was dry dock for us again.
We got back to Brest after quiet
voyage, patching ourselves up where
we could on the way, and again there
was the rush work, day and night,
TO get into shape and do 1t over again.
They turned us out in - days and
back we went to the Turks and their
Hun assistants.
We were lucky getting inshore, only
receiving nasty smash astern, when
the Turks got our range and landed
two peaches before we got out. We
nearly tore our rudder off getting
away. But we had to come back right
away, because we had carried quite