Collier's War Maps of the Dardanelles, the Sea of Marmora, and the Bosphorus, with insets for the Dardanelles and the Gallipoli Peninsula, the Narrows of the Dardanelles, Constantinople (Istanbul), and the Bosphorus between the Sea of Marmora and the Black Sea
Collier's War Maps of the Dardanelles, the Sea of Marmora, and the BosphorusInset:The Dardanelles and the Gallipoli Peninsula, an inset from Collier's War Maps of the Dardanelles, the Sea of Marmora, and the BosphorusInset:The Narrows of the DardanellesInset:Constantinople (Istanbul)Inset:The Bosphorus between the Sea of Marmora and the Black Sea
"The Russians repeated the [mining] operation on the night of 24 May. The Svobodnaya Rossiya and five destroyers were also at sea to cover the operation and a reconnaissance of Sinope by the seaplane carrier Aviator. The Russians varied their original plan slightly. The Pamiat Merkuria now brought the launches to within 12 miles of the Bosphorus in order to spare them the long haul to the minelaying area, and they were then towed by the destroyer Pronzitelni to the edge of the old minefield, roughly 12 miles from the entrance. The operation was successful, the mines were laid undetected."
The Russians successfully laid mines in the Bosporus — the strait leading from Constantinople to the Black Sea — the night of May 17, 1917, the action they were repeating on the 24th. Repeating the operation on the 25th, one of the mines exploded while still in the Russian launch, destroying the boat and alerting the Turks who discovered the new mine field. Many of the ships mentioned had been renamed after the Russian Revolution to eliminate imperial references: Svobodnaya Rossiya (Free Russia) had been Imperatritsa Ekaterina Velikaya, Aviator had been Imperator Nikolai I.
A Naval History of World War I by Paul G. Halpern, page 251, copyright © 1994 by the United States Naval Institute, publisher: UCL Press, publication date: 1994
1917-05-24, 1917, May, Black Sea, Bosporus, Bosphorus, mine
