The Carlisle independent., 1918-09-19

oui StoASS dpodIO, we uFeSSeQ TOT dc- tion-or rather undressed. The decks were clear; hatch covers bolted and davits folded down; furniture, chests, tables, chairs were sent ashore, and in- fammable gear. like our rope ham, moeks, went overheard. You could not find single wooden chair or table in the ward room.
 When the ship is cleared for action, shell bursting inside cannot find much to set afre, and if one bursts on deck, there is nothing to burn but the wooden deck, and that is covered with steel plate.
 Finally, we had roll eall-all men present. Then we set sail for the Dardanelles as escort to the Dupleix, which had on board territorial and provincial French troops-Gascons, Parfsians, Normans, IndoChinese, 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 live eye out for them. The news proved to be fake, though. and we did not see single cigar while we were out.
 We made the trip 10 the Dardanellae without sighting an enemy craft, keep ing in close touch with the Dupleix. and busy every minute preparing for action.
 l was made gun captain and given charge of the starboard bow turret, mounting two 14-inch guns. I had my men at gun practice daily, and by the time we neared the Dardanelles. after five days they were in pretty fair shape.
 It was about 5 s. m. when we drew near Cape Helles and took stations for action. The Dupleix was in front of us. The batteries on the cape opened up on us, and in a few min utes later those st Kun Kaleh joined in.
 As the Duplex made for "v" beach and prepared to land her troops, we swung broadside CD, 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 o1 powder stored there twhere they should never have been) were fired and the roof of the turret was just lifted of. II landed on deck. tilted up against the side of the tur- ret.
 On deck the rain of fire was simply terrific. Steel few in all directions. It was smash, crash, slam-bang all the time, and lo not mind saving never thought we would come out of It.
 Some of the heavy arTnor plate up forward was shot away and after that the old Cassard looked more like monitor than anything else to me. As we drew nearer the shore they began using shrapnel oD us and in no time at all our tunnels were shot full of holes and sieve was watertight con- pared to them.
 Naturally we were not just taking all this punishment without any come | back. Our guns were at It fast and from the way the fire slackened in certain places we knew we were mak- ing 1t 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 I thought they would be. They were dodging around below decks, trying to miss the sbrapnel that came aboard, shouting. swearing, singing but fighting hard, st that. They stood the gaff just as well as any other garbies would, only in their own sweet way-whieh is noisy enough, believe me.
 One Of our seanen was hit 130 times by fragments of shrapnel, so you can see what they were up against in the lodging line 4 gun turret in action is not exactly the best place on earth for q nervous man nor one who likes his comfort. There is an awful lot of heat and noise and smell and work, all the time in Q fighting gun turret. But during an engagement I would rather 5e in gun turTet every time than between decks. At that, if anything does happen in a 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 q piece of his skull was driven into his brain. lie 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 dozing of for while.
 After half an hour of action we put