GROUPS AND SINGLE DECORATIONS FOR GALLANTRY
D.S.M. London Gazette 14 January 1919. Medal of the Order of the British Empire London Gazette 17 October 1919.
Robert Walter Sims was born in Lambeth, London, in June 1878 and entered the Royal Navy as a Boy 2nd Class May 1894. Advanced to Able Seaman in September 1897, he joined H.M.S. Forte in April 1899 and was subsequently deployed ashore with the Naval Brigade in Natal during the Boer War.
By the outbreak of hostilities in August 1914, Sims was serving as a Petty Officer in the fledgling submarine service, and he was duly ordered to the Dardanelles in the E-7 in the summer of 1915. Commanded by Lieutenant-Commander A. D. Cochrane, the E-7 had a short but spectacular operational career, and one in which the gallant Sims had charge of the after-switchboard. By Guess and by God, by William Guy Carr, takes up the story with an account of the E-7’s first patrol:
‘Cochrane took her on her first trip through the Dardanelles on June 30. She had the usual experiences going up. She plunged deep under the minefields; staggered through the nets. Death scratched with iron fingers on her steel plates; the clang of metal striking hollow metal sounded menacingly within her. A destroyer picked up her track and diligently followed. Twice when she came up for a look she escaped ramming by scant feet. The destroyer told the shore where she could be found, and a torpedo from a shore tube passed between her wireless standards. All as requisite, she proceeded on her way until she kept her rendezvous next evening with E -14 at the ‘town pump’ off Kalolimni.
Next day Cochrane set to work. In the morning a small steamer was captured. A boarding party was sent to sink her. A demolition charge was placed in her hold and the fuse took light but the explosion was premature. Lieutenant Halifax and one of the crew were so badly burned that neither of them was of service for the rest of the voyage. Burns under any circumstances are horrible; imagine enduring them for three July weeks in the interior of a submarine. In addition to these casualties, the other two officers and the wireless operator were stricken with dysentery.
Only one who has actually known for himself the abomination of life aboard a submarine can have any conception of what the men on E-7 went through on their three weeks’ voyage.
Despite a truly horrible physical handicap, they carried on. In ten days they sank two sailing vessels, two steamers and a number of dhows. On July 10 they discovered the 3,000-ton Biga alongside the pier at Mudania. Screening her were a number of sailing ships. Cochrane dived under these, came up between them and the Biga, and launched a torpedo at her. The explosion was unusually heavy.
The next adventure came a few days later. On the night of the 15th, while prowling around the entrance to the Bosphorus, E-7 ran aground on the shoal off Leander Tower. To improve the shining hour, a torpedo with a T.N.T. head was fired into the arsenal. At the proper interval a violent explosion was heard, but there was no chance to find out its results. Freeing herself from the shoal, E-7 next moved out into the Bosphorus and shelled powder mills on the western outskirts of Constantinople.
The success of this midnight bombardment must have been the inspiration for Cochrane’s next move. On the 17th he turned up at the mouth of the gulf of Ismid where the railroad line from Scutari passes close to the sea. At one point there is a deep cut. E-7 devoted her attentions to this spot, shelling it until the railroad line was blocked.
And then, as I remember a story I heard more than once, they lingered, hoping for a train. None appearing, impatience beset them, and they started off down the coast to find one. At Derinji they paused to examine a closed shipyard, and while there sighted a troop train bound toward Constantinople. Absurdly they set off at full speed down the gulf in a crazy race after the train. It outdistanced them of course, but they tore hopefully ahead. Within thirty minutes they were rewarded by seeing the train returning slowly. It seemed to be seeking some secluded spot where it might stop. Off shore Cochrane watched it. The train entered a stand of timber. There was a tense wait to see if it would appear at the other side. Minutes passed. Nothing happened. It appeared definitely to have stopped. The gun crew were ordered to action stations. The target hidden, there was no chance to spot their hits. But the genius of the Trade is to reach unseen objectives. After a couple of dozen rounds three ammunition cars blew up.
The flavour of this strange new game appealed strongly to E-7. During the last week of her voyage she returned again and again to the line skirting the north shore of the Gulf of Ismid. At the scene of her first success she caught another train and gave it a sound shelling. She spent unprofitable hours shelling the viaduct that was to be the scene of amazing daring a few days later. She shelled another moving train. But, more than all else, she demonstrated the weakness of the Turk’s main line of communications with Asia Minor. Thus did each new boat to range the Sea of Marmora add to the achievements of her predecessors.
E-7 and her dysentery-weakened crew returned to their base on July 24th, after meeting with E-14, from who they learned of new nets across the Narrows, and to whom they told of the activities along the railroad.’
And of her subsequent demise on 4 September 1915, when Sims worked on the starboard main-motor amidst much smoke and molten copper, A Damned Un-English Weapon, by Edwyn Gray states:
‘E.7 had been selected to go up the Dardanelles to replace Nasmith and, on the evening before he sailed, Lieutenant-Commander Cochrane told Keyes his plans for the next patrol. They were highly exciting and, according to the Commodore, ‘for ingenuity rivalled the most brilliant of his great-grandfather’s exploits.’
The submarine left Mudros in the small hours of 4 September and, in accordance with the usual routine, was escorted to the diving position by a destroyer. After submerging Cochrane took her down to eighty feet and set course for the first minefield. They nosed their way through without any undue incidents and, after rising to periscope-depth to check his bearing, the commander headed for Nagara where the next obstruction in the obstacle race was situated.
He arrived at 7.30 am and, calling for full-power, he pointed E.7’s bows towards the net. Unknown to Cochrane the Turks had recently strengthened the obstruction and it was now an extremely formidable defence system consisting of wire-rope in twelve-foot meshes which reached right down to the bottom of the sea-bed.
E.7 was running at a depth of one hundred feet and she charged into the net under full-power. There was a sharp clang as the wire ropes burst under the impact and Cochrane began forcing his boat through the gap. For a few minutes success seemed assured but, suddenly, a length of wire fouled the starboard propeller and had wound itself tightly around the shaft before the motor could be shut off.
The hum of the motors died away and the submarine rolled gently in the current, the frayed wires of the net scraping against her steel sides like branches clawing at a window in the wind. The Chief E.R.A. bustled into the control room.
‘Starboard motor’s burned out sir.’ Cochrane shrugged.
‘Well we’ll have to make it on the other, Chief. See if your lads can fix anything.’
The engineer nodded, ducked through the narrow opening of the bulkhead door, and went back to the motor-compartment. Cochrane moved over to the chart, studied it intensely for a few seconds, and then straightened up. ‘It’s now or never, Number One. Full ahead port.’
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