A fine Great War submariner’s D.S.M. group of three awarded to Chief Petty Officer W. Dowell, Royal Navy, for his part in the E. 11’s famous patrol in the Sea of Marmora in May 1915, that resulted in the destruction of at least 90 enemy vessels and the award of the V.C. to his skipper, Martin Nasmith. Dowell was also awarded the Royal Humane Society Medal in bronze for his gallant attempts to save life during the ‘Blackwall Disaster’ of June 1898


Distinguished Service Medal, G.V.R. (146095. W. Dowell, Ch. P.O. H.M. Submarine. E.11.); Queen’s South Africa 1899-1902, 2 clasps, Cape Colony, South Africa 1901 unofficial rivets (W. Dowell, P.O. 1. Cl., H.M.S. Naiad); Africa General Service 1902-56, 1 clasp, Somaliland 1902-04 (W. Dowell, P.O. 1 Cl., H.M.S. Naiad.) mounted for display, first very fine or better, contact marks to campaign medals, therefore nearly very fine (3) £2,000-£2,400

D.S.M. London Gazette 13 September 1915:

‘For service in submarines in the Sea of Marmora.’

R.H.S. Case no. 29,586:

‘At the disaster on June 21st, 1898, as detailed in Case 29,525, W. Dowell, petty officer, H.M.S. Mars, at great risk, rescued three persons.’

William Dowell was born in Poplar, Middlesex in January 1873. He joined the Royal Navy as Boy 2nd Class in August 1888, and advanced to Able Seaman in September 1891. Subsequent service included with H.M.S. Mars, January 1898 - January 1900, during which time he was involved in the ‘Blackwall Disaster’ and was awarded a bronze Royal Humane Society Medal for his actions during that event:

‘A special meeting of the Royal Humane Society was held on Wednesday, Col. Horace Montagu presiding, for the purpose of considering the merits of a number of cases arising out of the Blackwall disaster after the launch of the battleship Albion on the afternoon of June 21st last [1898]. Bronze medals have been awarded to Privates Dorrington and McMillan, of the Royal Marine Light Infantry, who were both standing near when the accident happened, and dived in and saved six between them. Dorrington was struck by wreckage, and then his comrade stuck to him. William Dowell, 26, petty officer, of the battleship Mars, Arthur Freeman, 20, A.B., and George Moir, A.B., both of the Pembroke, very gallantly rescued many persons by diving several times under the floating timbers and wherever people were thought to be. They have been awarded the medal in each case.’ (The Naval and Military Record, 1 September 1898, refers)

Thousands of people had gathered to watch the launch of the Albion on the Thames. A wave created by Albion's entry into the water caused a stage from which 200 people were watching to collapse into a side creek, and 34 people, mostly women and children, drowned in one of the worst peacetime disasters in Thames history.

Dowell advanced to Petty Officer 1st Class in April 1900, and served with H.M.S. Naiad, March 1901 - August 1904. He advanced to Chief Petty Officer in September 1910, and joined the Submarine Service prior to the Great War - serving at H.M.S. Dolphin, August 1912 - September 1914 and with the submarine depot ships Maidstone and Adamant. Dowell appears to have joined the submarine E.11 on 1 April 1915.

The spring of 1915 found the E.11 attached to the Fleet in the Mediterranean and, with Lieutenant-Commander Martin Eric Nasmith in command, she proceeded to make history at a rapid rate. It was in the middle of May that she left for her perilous passage through the Dardanelles, and before she was through them she ran into her first encounter with the enemy. When the Narrows had been successfully negotiated, and the submarine rose to get fresh bearings, two battleships were seen to be lying a little further on. Such an opportunity was not to be let slip without an effort, and, necessarily keeping the periscope above water, Lieutenant-Commander Nasmith at once proceeded to put his boat in a suitable position for launching a torpedo. Unfortunately, the Turks sighted the periscope a minute or two too soon, and instantly the battleships began blazing away with their light guns as hard as they could. At the same time they ‘upped anchor’ and got under way, so there was nothing for it but for the E.11 to dive and hide herself until the furore had subsided. She was far too slow to catch the battleships if she ran submerged, and if she rose to the surface she would almost certainly have been breached by a shell. After a little, therefore, she gently settled herself on the bottom of the Straits, and there she remained until dusk.

That same evening she pushed on into the Sea of Marmora, where for several days she alternately rested and cruised about without finding anything that was worth the expenditure of a torpedo. Lieutenant-Commander Nasmith made Constantinople the centre of his operations during the whole of this raid, and his first reward came one Sunday morning, just before half-past six, when a big gunboat was seen cruising off the port. The submarine was ready for instant action, and in less than a minute the fatal torpedo was underway. At 6.25 the gunboat was hit; at 6.30 she had sunk, but not without giving the E.11 something of a shock. While she was heeling well over to the water's edge, a shot was fired 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 about six feet lower, it would very probably have made a breach in the conning tower, and so rendered the submarine helpless, as she would not have been able to dive.

The very next day brought an adventure which, if it was not so exciting, at any rate did not lack in interest. A big steamer was sighted making her way from Constantinople towards the Dardanelles, and the E.11 came to the surface a short distance ahead, fired a shot across her bows, and brought her to a standstill. There happened to be a facetious American newspaper correspondent on board, and when Lieutenant-Commander Nasmith hailed “Who are you?” - meaning, of course, to inquire what the ship was and what was her business - this gentleman replied by giving his own name and that of the paper for which he was working. This was not good enough for the E.11. A few more questions elicited the fact that the ship was a Turkish transport, the Nagara, and when he got as far as that, Nasmith promptly replied, “Right. I am going to sink you”. “May we have time to get off?” queried the newspaper man, by this time rather subdued. “Yes”, came the answer from the submarine, “but be d..... quick about it.”

The Turks were so quick that they upset two of their boats in lowering them, and capsized several men into the water, though all of them managed to get into safety again. Then Nasmith went on board the ship to see what she carried. There was a six-inch gun, destined to strengthen the forts on the Dardanelles; there were several sets of mountings for weapons of large calibre; and there was a great quantity of ammunition for heavy guns on its way to the Dardanelles. The ship was, in fact, loaded from keel to upper deck with war material; and when the crew, and the American correspondent, had withdrawn to a safe distance, the submarine drew off, fired a torpedo, and sent the ship to the bottom.

The most audacious act of the E.11 was, however, her raid on Constantinople itself. Early one morning, while she was slowly cruising off the mouth of the harbour, she hailed a Turkish merchantman to stop; but the enemy ignored the demand and ran for all he was worth toward the harbour, with the E.11 in hot pursuit. It may have been this incident that gave Nasmith his inspiration; but however that may be, the E.11 found herself early one morning lying actually within the port of Constantinople itself. Observations were cautiously taken, and it was seen that a number of enemy transports were lying alongside the wharfs and that some of them actually had troops on board. The harbour of Constantinople is traversed by tricky currents, and although the E.11 fired two torpedoes, neither of them hit the object at which it was aimed. Nasmith's intention was, of course, to sink the transports, and although the first torpedo did not do that, it blew up a barge with such force that the transport Stamboul, lying close by, was so badly damaged that she had to be run ashore in order to save herself from sinking. The second torpedo did not hit a ship, but it exploded against the quayside and destroyed a considerable length of it. In the Turkish capital itself the moral effect of this attack was tremendous. Hearing the explosion of the two torpedoes and the noise of the guns - for the Turkish batteries went on firing long after the E.11 was safely out of sight - the civil population jumped to the conclusion the Allied Fleet had arrived before their city.

This by no means ended the thrilling experiences of the E.11. Before she set out on her return journey from the Sea of Marmora she had sunk in all one large gunboat, two transports, three small ships, and one ammunition ship (the Nagara), and had forced another store ship to run ashore; and when, on her way back, she was about to enter the Dardanelles again, Nasmith sighted another transport coming up astern, and he waited until she came along and then torpedoed her and sent her to the bottom. In all the E.11 destroyed eleven ships, no bad record for a small vessel with a crew of 30 officers and men, who had to face the gravest perils single-handed from the time they entered the Dardanelles until they left them. On the way out these perils were encountered in a most alarming form. As the E.11 was making her way seawards beneath the surface, those on board became aware of a resistance which was not of the sea, and every now and then a faint bump was heard against the vessel's side. Instinctively and instantly everyone on board realised what had happened.

The submarine had fouled the cable by which a floating mine was chained to its anchor on the sea bed, and the cable, instead of slipping past the smooth hull, had somehow become entangled in the forward hydroplanes. Any one of those ominous bumps might suffice to explode the mine and send the submarine to the bottom like a log. It was impossible for Nasmith to manoeuvre his boat in an effort to get rid of the thing, for he was passing through the most thickly mined area of the whole Straits, and any deviation from the set course would almost certainly have taken the boat straight to destruction. Nor could he rise to the surface and send a man out to detach the machine, for the churning screws of the patrol boats could be heard overhead. There was nothing for it but to carry on as slowly and as carefully as possible and to trust to Providence. For eleven miles the submarine crept on with sudden death dangling from her bows, a death from which those on board were saved only by the lightness of the bumps by which the mine had announced itself. A sharp blow would have detonated it. One can imagine what feelings of relief there were when the boat at last reached an area where she could 'break surface' in safety. Once afloat again, it did not take long to disentangle the cable and drop the mine over the side.

His courageous services brought Lieutenant-Commander Nasmith the award of the Victoria Cross, while the two other officers on board, Lieutenant Guy d'Oyly-Hughes and Lieutenant Robert Brown, R.N.R., received the Distinguished Service Cross. All the Petty Officers and men were granted the D.S.M.

Remarkably, Nasmith, his crew and the E. 11 returned to the Sea of Marmora for two further protracted and highly successful patrols. On the first of them, in July-August 1915, which lasted for 29 days, they sank the Turkish battleship Barbarossa, a gunboat, six transports, a steamer and 23 dhows, in addition to bombarding enemy troops and other military objectives along the coast. And on the second, which lasted for 42 days in November-December 1915 - the longest patrol accomplished by any submarine to date - they sank a destroyer, 11 steamers and 35 sailing ships.

From the end of 1916 Dowell served above the waves in a variety of vessels, finishing his service at H.M.S. Dolphin in March 1920 (awarded the L.S. & G.C. in May 1906).

Sold with copied research, including the relevant extracts from Deeds That Thrill The Empire - in which Nasmith’s and his crew’s exploits are retold.