Diary of David John Davies, 'Life in the Libyan Desert, Tripoli', 5 November 1915 - 17 January 1916 [image 1 of 33]

Description

This is the diary of David John Davies, an engineer on the HMS Tara which was torpedoed by the Germans in the Mediterranean on 5 November 1915.

The HMS Tara, a former passenger steamer, had been requisitioned by the Admiralty in 1914 and was sent to the Mediterranean in 1915. Following the torpedo attack, the surviving crew members were taken to Port Sulieman and handed over to the Turkish authorities. The crew members, the majority of whom hailed from Anglesey, found themselves held captive by a group of Senussi soldiers commanded by the Turkish officer, Nouri Pasha. On 17 March 1916, 135 days after they were captured, the prisoners were finally rescued by members of the British Forces.

In the first entry in his diary, dated 5 November 1915, David John Davies describes the torpedo attack on the ship HMS Tara. He explains that the HMS Tara, an auxiliary patrol boat, was formerly known as SS Hibernia of the L&NW [London & North Western] Railway, and carried passengers between Holyhead and Dublin. The ship was travelling towards Sollum, an Egyptian port on the border between Egypt and Libya, when it was hit by a torpedo on the starboard side. The ship sank almost immediately but three lifeboats managed to get clear of the ship: 93 of the 104 crew members were landed by the German submarine U35 at Port Sulieman, some 20 miles west of Sollum. The crew in the engine room and three men who were in their cabins near the engine room were killed in the attack.