the operation. The plan called for the battleships to enter the narrows and suppress the fortresses while minesweepers cleared paths in the Ottoman minefields. At the same time, transport ships outside the straits would conduct a demonstration to convince the Ottomans they were going to land troops; the Entente commanders hoped this would tie down the Ottoman mobile guns. The British ships initially succeeded in inflicting heavy damage on the fortresses, but the battleship and then the battlecruiser began taking serious damage from the coastal batteries. The French battleships also began to take damage, and the battleship Bouvet struck a mine and exploded. Later in the day, was disabled by a mine in Erenköy Bay. Once it became apparent that the ship could not be saved, all of her surviving crew was taken off by destroyers except for her commanding officer and some volunteers trying to keep her afloat. Ocean was sent in to tow her out, but she ran aground during the attempt, and, after freeing herself, found it impossible to take Irresistible under tow because of the shallow water, Irresistibles increasing list, and heavy enemy fire. Ocean then took off the remaining members of Irresistibles crew and left the abandoned battleship to her fate; Irresistible sank unobserved by Allied forces, at around 19:30. While retiring with Irresistibles survivors aboard, Ocean herself was hit by an artillery shell fired by Seyit Çabuk, an Ottoman Army gunner, and struck a drifting mine at around 19:00. Her starboard coal bunkers and passageways flooded, her steering jammed hard to port, and she took on a list of 15° to starboard. She came under fire from shore and began taking hits, which flooded her starboard engine room and prevented steering repairs. The destroyers , , and came alongside and took off her crew (and the survivors from Irresistible) at around 19:30. She then drifted into Morto Bay, still under fire, and sank there unobserved by Allied forces at about 22:30. When destroyer Jed entered the bay later that evening to sink Ocean and Irresistible with torpedoes so that they could not be captured by the Turks, the two battleships were nowhere to be found. Notes References Further reading Dittmar, F. J. & Colledge, J. J., "British Warships 1914–1919", (Ian Allan, London, 1972), Gibbons, Tony. The Complete Encyclopedia of Battleships and Battlecruisers: A Technical Directory of All the World's Capital Ships From 1860 to