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Show THREE SRIPS SUNK IN DARDANELLES THREE OF THE ALLIES' VE3SEL8 8ENT TO BOTTOM BY FLOATING MINE8. Turks and Germans Had Set Adrift Floating Containers of Explosives and These Came In Contact With the Doomed 8hlps. Londpn. Tho British battleships Irresistible and Ocean, and the French battleship Bouvet wero blown up by floating mines while engaged with the remainder of tho allied fleet In nttacklng tho forts In tho narrows of tho Dardanelles Thursday. Tho crows of tho two British ships wero virtually all saved, having been transferred to other ships undor a hot flro; but an Internal explosion took placo on board tho Bouvet after sho had fouled tho mlno and most of her crow was IobL Tho Bouvet sank, within three minutes of tho tlmo that sho hit tho mine. Tho wators in which tho ships wero lost had boon swopt of mines, but the British admiralty asserts that tho Turks and tho Germans set floating containers of explosives adrift, and theso were carried down by tho current cur-rent Into tlio allied ships gathered In-sldo In-sldo tho entrance of tho straits. All tho ships that wero sunk wero old oneB, tho Bouvet having been completed com-pleted nearly twenty yeara ago, and tho Ocean and Irreslstiblo In 1898. Thoy were very useful, however, for tho work In which they wero engaged In the Dardanelles. Tho sunken British ships aro bolng roplaced by the battleships Queen and Implacable, vessels of a similar type. Thoy are said to havo started somo tlmo ago for near eastern wators In anticipation of Just such losses as havo now occurred. |