Chapter 101 – Dacre

Many details in this chapter are taken directly from Lieutenant-Commander Dacre Stoker’s autobiographical account Straws in the Wind . Some wording changes have been included, but details of the attempted escape, seeing the Mediterranean on the 15th day (7 April 1916), the encounter with a goatherd, and recapture are generally as Stoker’s own account (pp. 268-277).

Quotes by Admiral de Robeck to Commander Stoker prior to the AE2 mission are taken from Straws in the Wind (pp. 100, 105).

Stoker states that his original cell was four paces long (p. 206). The cell he was placed in after escaping is not described to this detail.

The poem-prayer that Stoker composed whilst in solitary confinement, back in the same Istanbul prison where he was previously held, is reproduced verbatim (p276-277).

Hugh Dolan states in 36 Days – The Untold Story Behind the Gallipoli Landings, that after being captured from submarine E15 , Lieutenant C. Palmer spent the rest of the war at Afyon Kara Hisar prison in Turkey, and shared a room with Dacre Stoker, commander of the submarine AE2 (p. 375).

Stoker lived out the war as a prisoner, then returned to England. He wrote at autobiography Straws in the Wind , which has been an important reference for this work. In a more recent biography, by Fred and Elizabeth Brenchley, Stoker’s Submarine , Stoker’s life story is outlined to the end. He became an actor, staring in plays and films. He was called up to provide advice during WWII, and met with Eisenhower, Montgomery, Churchill and King George VI on 15 May 1944 in the preparation of the D-Day landings (p. 219). In 1962, Stoker won the Irish Crochet championship at the age of 77 (p. 221). He died in 1966.

Fred and Elizabeth Brenchley, in Stoker’s Submarine , provide a compelling argument that Dacre Stoker should have been awarded a Victoria Cross, as were three other submarine commanders at the Dardanelles (201). They include details from British Press after the war that the two British submarine officers who followed Stoker through the Dardanelles were awarded Victoria Crosses, but Stoker was only awarded the lesser DSO (Distinguished Service Order), owing to the delay of his return (p. 212).