GROUPS and SINGLE DECORATIONS for GALLANTRY


E.11 in action


Leonard Charles Allen was born in Reading, Berkshire in 1877, and attended St Stephen’s School. His first job was as a fitter alongside his father at Huntley and Palmer’s biscuit factory. He then worked for a London engineering firm and joined the Navy at Chatham in 1898, when he was 21. He was stationed at Harwich on the depot ship H.M.S. Thames, where he met and married Miss Winifred Wells, of Dovercourt. They had two girls, Peggy and Doris. He was complimented by a Coroner and jury for bravery following an incident on Dovercourt beach where he attempted to save a 20 year old grocery assistant who apparently had a heart attack while swimming. Allen was promoted to Chief Engine Room Artificer in March 1913, after 15 years service.


The Royal Australian Navy had ordered two of the latest E-class submarines as the nucleus of a brand-new Australian Submarine Service and the two vessels were commissioned at Portsmouth in February 1914. Allen was transferred from the Royal Navy to the Royal Australian Navy, and was assigned to AE. 1, which, together with its sister AE. 2, and escorted by H.M.S. Eclipse, sailed for Australia on 2 March 1914, making the voyage partly under its own power and partly under tow. The submarines passed through the Mediterranean, but AE. 1 then lost a propeller near Aden. The crews suffered from intense heat in the Red Sea and Indian Ocean, and had to contend with several fierce storms. Allen received his L.S. & G.C. in 1914 whilst in H.M.A.S. Penguin, the Depot and Receiving Ship at Sydney.


When war was declared in August 1914, both Australian submarines were refitting. At the end of the month they sailed to join the naval force tasked with capturing the German colonies of New Guinea and the Bismarck Archipelago. Shortly before their departure, Allen was transferred to AE. 2. He was a very lucky man for AE. 1 mysteriously disappeared, lost with all hands, off Rabaul on 14 September. In October, AE. 2 was sent to help defend Fiji against a possible raid by von Spee’s Asiatic Squadron. In November she returned to Sydney.


After the destruction of the German Asiatic Squadron there were no potential enemy targets left in Australasian waters. The Australian government therefore offered AE. 2 for service in Europe. It was allocated to the British squadrons operating around the Dardenelles and after another long voyage arrived in February 1915. On 10 March, the submarine ran aground off Mudros when returning from patrol and had to be towed to Malta for repairs. Allen was involved in an accident in Valletta harbour when a small boat carrying six of the crew was rammed and stove in. He was injured and hospitalised for three days, missing AE. 2’s return to the Aegean. When the cruiser bringing him back arrived at the Dardenelles at the end of April 1915, AE. 2 had already left on patrol and was subsequently sunk by a Turkish patrol boat. With both Australian submarines lost in action, Allen was loaned back to the Royal Navy, serving briefly on a battleship before joining the British E. 11, skippered by Lieutenant-Commander Martin Nasmith.


E. 11 inflicted a devastating toll on enemy shipping over three patrols in the period May-December 1915, an extraordinary chapter of operational success recounted in Dardanelles Patrol - The Incredible Story of E. 11, a definitive history including eye-witness accounts. She was not the first Allied submarine to pass through the heavily defended ‘Narrows’, but all the proceeding attempts but one had ended in the wreck or sinking of the vessel involved.


E. 11 departed on her first patrol through the Narrows on 20 May 1915. The crew totalled thirty, three officers and twenty-seven ratings. The officers shared two bunks and the rest of the crew slept on the deck. They used buckets for washing themselves and shared two toilets. To avoid the shore guns and moored naval minefields, E. 11 dived to 80 feet just as dawn broke. "Suddenly there was a metal clang forward. They listened in dead silence as a mooring wire scraped along the outside of the hull... The wire seemed to be caught up for an instant on one of the propeller guards and then was thrown clear". Dardanelles Patrol refers


E. 11 scraped several more mines before getting clear of the field. By 9.30 p.m. the long dive was nearly over. E. 11 had been submerged for 17 hours - oxygen levels were low and circulation fans were essential to stop the crew succumbing to carbon dioxide poisoning. "Mingling with the all pervading smell of oil there was a sour smell from the batteries and un-emptied sanitary buckets standing in rows behind the engines.... Grey mist rose from the bilges darkening the interior of the boat like London fog."


On surfacing to get fresh bearings for negotiating the Narrows, two Turkish battleships were seen to be anchored in the stream. Keeping the periscope above water, Nasmith proceeded to put his boat in an attack position. The Turks sighted the periscope and the battleships began blazing away with their light guns and got under way. E. 11 had to dive deeper. She was too slow to catch the battleships if she ran submerged, and if she rose to the surface she would have been hit by a shell. She settled on the bottom of the Straits, and stayed there until dusk. That same evening they entered the Sea of Marmora.


Nasmith made Constantinople the centre of his operations during the whole of this patrol, and his first reward came early one morning, when a big gunboat was seen cruising off the port. In less than a minute a torpedo was launched. Although stricken, the gunboat got off a shot that went clean through the submarine's periscope, carrying away about four inches of the diameter a few feet from the base, and leaving the rest standing. Had the shot struck six feet lower it would have made a breach in the conning tower, and she would not have been able to dive. E. 11’s damaged periscope is to this day on proud display at the Royal Navy Submarine Museum.


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