Remembering the heroic submariner who caused havok in Ottoman waters but spared its civilians

Tom Mendelsohn, ITV News

The Gallipoli Campaign was one of the great Allied defeats of World War I. From 25 April 1915 until 9 January 1916, the crumbling Ottoman Empire managed to hold out against superior British and Anzac forces attempting to secure a sea route through to the allied Russian Empire.

But despite the fact the Allied powers quit the campaign after just eight harrowing months, there are many individual tales of great heroism; not least the campaign waged by the-then Lieutenant-Commander Martin Dunbar-Nasmith of the Royal Navy.

Admiral Sir Martin Dunbar-Nasmith, as he would eventually become, was awarded the Victoria Cross after a three-month period attacking Ottoman shipping in the Sea of Marmara - in doing so becoming the first enemy captain to penetrate the Golden Horn past Turkey's Bosphorus Straight in 450 years.

Lt Cdr Dunbar-Nasmith and his crew sank 97 Ottoman ships in total, but, says his son Sir James Dunbar-Nasmith, a renowned Scottish architect, he always endeavoured to fight a civilised war.

Lt Cdr Dunbar-Nasmith was a man of principle. He'd torpedo enemy warships without warning, but much of the shipping he encountered was civilian.

"If it were a dhow," explains Sir James, "he'd come to the surface and hail the captain. Mostly they had ships boats, but if there were none, he'd inspect their cargo and purloin it, and allow the crew aboard his submarine."

Once, he confiscated a cargo of Turkish delight from one dhow. When the next one turned out not to have boats and to be carrying old ladies, he rescued them before sinking their vessel.

"He then put them ashore on some inconspicuous coast, and one by one shook them warmly by the hand and gave them each a box of Turkish delight," says Sir James.

"There's a photograph of the deck [of the submarine] awash with a whole row of Turkish men, all wearing fezzes with their feet in the water, going quite fast.

Another tale surrounds what is probably the only military action in history involving a submarine and some cavalry, who fired down from a cliff to drive the submarine away from the ship it was pursuing.

Amid the chivalry, however, it's easy to forget that the Sea of Marmara was extremely dangerous for submariners.

"The big hazard was getting into the sea itself," says Sir James. "There were two big anti-submarine nets hung with mines, with boys on the top to warn the army if they were disturbed."

The best way through was to put out a cutting wire and drive at the nets at top speed - hoping to cut through them. On Lt Cdr Dunbar-Nasmith's first exit attempt, they did just this. He found to his dismay a mine had been caught on his boat, so without telling the crew, he tipped his nose down and reversed his engines in a risky but successful attempt to shake it off.

"He was naturally a modest man," says Sir James. "People didn't like to talk about the Great War, because for many of them it was too traumatic an experience. If he did talk about its experiences, it was never in terms of being brave."