Show ITALIAN WARSHIPS FOOL AUSTRIANS explore mine defended pola harbor fire torpedoes and ana escape unscathed FOE THINK IT AN AIR RAID searchlights illuminate the sky batteries open fire wildly and binef while destroyers quietly slip away rome three italian torpedo boats have succeeded in breaking the boom at pola tile best defined and most fortified certified naval harbor in the world they spent two hours exploring the harbor a few hundreds of yards from the forts and came out safely after they had accomplished their most difficult and delicate mission when numerous powerful searchlights vainly illuminated sky and sea and the batteries fired wildly and inefficiently 11 the most difficult and delicate mission consisted in torpedoing a manol man mano ol o war in fact when the torpedo boats reached the customary anchorage of part of the austrian fleet possibly the good roadstead in the channel of fasana the entrance of which they had successfully forced torpedoes were fired against a large enemy war vessel but it was ascertained that both remained entangled in the nets protecting the ship and as they failed to 0 o strike a hard substance their charges were not ignited and the torpedoes did not explode saved by nets had tho the torpedoes exploded the italian warships would not have been able to come out of pola and probably would have been lost in fact they wed awed their safety to the non explosion at f the torpedoes three italian torpedo boats left port on 01 the evening ot of november 1 and toward midnight they were off pola shortly after midnight the warships were ivere near the entrance of the fasana channel closed by means of iron chains steel cables enormous beams and nets extending across the mouth of tile the channel as a protection against submarines tile the barrier Is formidable and its removal luebs impossible A patrol boat Is I 1 moored alongside the boom the men on board tire are supposed to be on watch instead they are asleep two out of the three torpedo boats silently approached the barrier and their crews got to work in less than twenty minutes the boom was lowered sufficiently to allow their passage one of the torpedo boats entered the harbor of pola iola and came out after two hours there was absolutely no sign of life inside the port and few lights were to be seen on shore the aus arians relied so much on their mine fields barriers and batteries that they were quite convinced an attack was impossible either by day or by night and they slept soundly without watching results not known the results of the torpedo boats exploration inside pola are of course not known undoubtedly they must have been very valuable judging by the fact that no attempt was made to torpedo any of the enemy ships before two hours and it Is to be presumed that all this time was not had not dawn been so near dear the torpedo boat would have surely prolonged her ex inside pola it was about five in the morning when the two torpedoes were fired against the austrian battleship in the fasana channel almost simultaneously and at it a very close range they both got entangled in the nets protecting the ship evidently three nets protected the ship because two were cute cut but the thil third A prevented the torpedoes from striking the hull and their propellers kept going outside the water with a loud oise noise resembling that made by the propellers of an airplane in fact the austrians Aust lans rians on board the battleship as well as those on board other ships and on shore mistook noise and took it for granted that pola lad been attacked by hostile air craft the alarm alarin was raised at once with the tha rapidity of lightning searchlights were put on and illuminated the sky while all the guns of the aerial defense on the hills and on the islands as well as all those on the ships and of the t h e shore batteries opened fire simultaneously wildly and inefficiently I 1 i the italian torpedo boat headed straight for the barrier the austrians Aust lans rians in the patrol boat watching the entrance of the channel who were not quite awake assumed that tha t she was one of their torpedo boats going out to sea in search of the italian airplanes that were raiding pola |