Tarantula served with the Tigris flotilla in 1916, retaking a former British gunboat that had previously been captured by the Ottoman Empire.

[1] In 1916 Tarantula along with three other gunboats were towed out to join the Royal Navy's Tigris flotilla and under the command of H.G.

Sherbrooke successfully participated in a series of engagements en route to Baghdad.

Suleiman Pak was originally the British Fly-class gunboat HMS Firefly, which the Ottomans had captured in December 1915 after she grounded and a shell through her boiler disabled her.

It was in this capacity that in 1944, she served briefly as Admiral Bruce Fraser's flagship of the British Pacific Fleet.