Characters of WW1 - The First Commando?

Lieutenant Guy D’Oyly-Hughes was born in Salt Lake City, but after his parents returned to Britain, he joined the Royal Navy in 1904 and volunteered for service in submarines the year before the outbreak of WW1. He was then appointed as the First Lieutenant (second-in-command) of HMS E-11 under the command of Lieutenant Commander Martin Nasmith.

After being unsuccessful in his attempt to take E-11 through the straits of the Skagerrak and Kattegat into the Baltic in late 1914, Nasmith was instead ordered to the eastern Mediterranean in early 1915 to help with the Dardanelles campaign. (I tell the tale of those who did successfully enter the Baltic in my submarine thriller, Where the Baltic Ice is Thin.) Nasmith was one of the submarine commanding officers able to pass through the heavily mined and defended Dardanelles Strait to enter the Sea of Marmara. There, he and his crew marauded the sea to create havoc with the Turkish sea trade resupplying he forts at Gallipoli. D'Oyly-Hughes was a strong swimmer and helped recover torpedoes that had missed their intended targets and been set to float to the surface at the end of the run. Nasmith was awarded the VC for his actions on this patrol and D’Oyly-Hughes the Distinguished Service Cross.

On E-11’s second foray into the Sea of Marmara, Nasmith and his crew found fewer targets afloat since the success of the submarine campaign had forced the Turks to depend on the railway instead to resupply their troops in Gallipoli. However, on this patrol, the submarine had been fitted with a gun and the ship’s company became very adept at shelling trains along the coast as they ferried troops and ammunition to Gallipoli. On one occasion, D’Oyly-Hughes swam ashore alone with a raft of explosives to destroy a section of the Istanbul-Gallipoli track and a viaduct. Some deem this to be the first commando-type raid from the sea in history. D’Oyly-Hughes was subsequently awarded the Distinguished Service Order (DSO) for this action. My first submarine novel, The Custom of the Trade, describes HMS E-11’s operations in the Dardanelles and is said to be a gripping read.

D'Oyly-Hughes went on to gain a bar to his DSO, to learn to fly and to be promoted to Captain. He died when his command, the carrier HMS Glorious, was sunk off the Norwegian coast in June 1940.