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Lieutenant Norman Douglas Holbrook VC on board HMS Adamant, December 1914. Image courtesy Australian War Memorial.

Lieutenant Norman Douglas Holbrook VC on board HMS Adamant, December 1914. Image courtesy Australian War Memorial.

  • British naval officer Lieutenant Norman Douglas Holbrook wins the first Victoria Cross medal to be awarded to a submariner. Lieutenant (later Commander) Holbrook sinks the Turkish battleship Messudiyeh in the Dardanelles Straits. Navigating HMS B11, an obsolete submarine built in 1905, through five rows of mines, he successfully navigates his craft back to the Mediterranean, evading gun fire and torpedo boats, after having been submerged for nine hours. The town of Germanton in NSW is renamed Holbrook in his honour.