Stoker's Submarine

Australia's Daring Raid on the Dardanelles on the Day of the Gallipoli Landing

by Fred & Elizabeth Brenchley

HarperCollins Publishers, 2001, colour and b/w photographic plates, paperback, ISBN 073226703X

Like New Condition, minor edge and shelf wear, uncreased spine

'On 25 April 1915 - the day the Anzacs landed at Gallipoli - Lieutenant Commander Dacre Stoker set out as captain of the Australian submarine AE2 on a mission to breach the treacherous Dardanelles Strait with the intention of disrupting Turkish supply lines to the isolated Gallipoli peninsula.  Facing dangerous currents, mines and withering enemy fire, Stoker and his men succeeded where British and French submarines had come to grief.
Stoker's  achievement meant much more in military terms and even more emotionally in boosting the morale of embattled Allied troops.  But what was proclaimed at the time as 'the finest feat in submarine history' has since sunk into oblivion.  Few Australians even know their country had a submarine at Gallipoli, much less that it achieved daring feats, sank an enemy craft, and possibly played a pivotal role in Anzac troops staying on the beachland for eight months.'