Deeds That Thrill The Empire. Page 810. Volume V
How
Vice-Admiral Sir David Beatty’s Squadron Drove Back A German Raiding
Squadron From The English Coast And Sank The “Blucher”
Of all the mistakes that Germany has made in the course of the war,
perhaps the greatest was her belief that the people of these islands could
be easily terrified and thrown into a state of panic.
The organized airship raids on undefended towns from the most
striking illustration in practice of this miscalculation, but while they
lasted the cruiser raids on the east coast of England were no less
remarkable, as well for their failure as for the strange misunderstanding
of Englishmen from which they sprang.
To see these cruiser raids in their proper perspective it must be
remembered that in the first twelve weeks of the war German submarines met
with a most damaging measure of success in the North Sea.
Between September 5th and October 15th 1914,
they sank the armoured cruisers Aboukir, Houge and Cressy, the first class
cruiser Hawke and the light cruiser Pathfinder, causing us a loss of over
two thousand lives. The
submarine had taken the British Navy more or less by surprise.
Very rapidly however, it adapted itself into the new conditions,
and German submarines prowling round the North Sea not only found their
own dangers vastly increased, but searched in vain for likely victims from
among the heavier divisions of the British Fleet.
The whole scheme of our naval disposition was, in fact, altered,
and the alterations did not suite the Germans all.
Their greatest desire was that our battleships and large cruisers
should slowly patrol the North Sea, or else lie at anchor outside our
harbours, so that the U boats might have simple, easy and profitable
targets for their torpedoes.
With this object in view the enemy detailed a portion of his fleet
to carry the policy of frightfulness to the British coasts, thinking that
if the inhabitants of that region could be sufficiently terrified they
would insist upon the Admiralty detaching a number of battleships for
their local protection, thus providing the targets for which the U boats
were thirsting. The first experiment was made on November 3rd
1914. The previous evening a
squadron of fast German warships, headed by the 22,640-ton battle cruiser
Seyllitz, steamed out of Wilhelmshaven, and, first keeping as close as it
could to the Dutch coast, presently turned due west and appeared dimly in
the distance of Great Yarmouth soon after daylight.
Then they proceeded to “bombard” the town; but it was just
there that the scheme broke down.
Their nearest shells fell no closer to Yarmouth than the beach; and
when a few small British cruisers appeared in sight the Germans made off
so rapidly and in such a disorganized flight that one of the cruisers, the
Yorck, struck a German mine outside Wilhelmshaven and went to the bottom.
As they scuttled home they dropped mines over their sterns, and one
of our submarines, the D 5, struck one and was lost.
Her commanding officer, Lieutenant-Commander Godfrey Herbert, was
saved, and amply avenged the loss of his boat a few months later.
On December 17th the Germans repeated their experiment,
this time with what they would regard as success; for they threw a large
number of shells into Whitby, Scarborough and the Hartlepools, and killed
over a hundred people (nearly all civilians) before they were interrupted
by a powerful British Squadron from the north.
On this occasion the Germans had a very narrow escape.
Indeed, had not a fog rolled in from the sea as they speed
homewards it is just possible that they would have been rounded up and
annihilated. They got back
safely this time; but there is an old saw about a pitcher that went too
often to the well, and the Germans, who by this time were beginning to
boast that they “commanded the North Sea,” were not long in providing
a very up to date illustration of it.
On the early morning of Sunday, January 24th 1915, a
powerful German force of battle cruisers, light cruisers and destroyers
came pelting across the Dogger Bank, bent on shelling more of our seaside
resorts so as to strike terror into our souls.
There was the newly completed Derfflinger, carrying eight 12-inch
guns on her 28,000 tons; the Seydlitz and Moltke, armed with ten 11-inch
apiece; and the Blucher, a sort of semi-Dreadnought, with the fine
sounding armament of twelve 8.2-inch guns.
The light cruisers and destroyers were sent on ahead so as to give
timely warning of any danger.
Now it so happened that Vice-Admiral Sir David Beatty was making a
patrol cruise off our coast with a force of a similar composition to the
German, and disposed in much the same way.
This is to say, the light cruisers and the destroyers were out
ahead, while the main squadron comprised the Lion (Captain A. E. M.
Chatfield), Beatty’s flagship; the Princess Royal (Captain O de B Brock)
Tiger (CaptainH. B. Pelly); New Zealand (Captain Lionel Halsey), flagship
of Rear-Admiral Sir Archibald Moore; and Indomitable (Captain F. W.
Kennedy). The two last named
vessels carried eight 12-inch guns cach, but the other three equipped with
eight 13.5-inch.
Shorlty before half past seven in the morning, when daylight was
just breaking, the lookout in the Lion sighted the flash of guns, and a
few minutes later a message was passed to the flagship to the effect that
the Aurora (Captain W. S. Nicholson), a sister ship to the famous Arethusa,
was in action with the advanced guard of the German fleet.
It required but a moment for Sir David Beatty to give his orders;
indeed, as he himself reported, the various ships already knew so well
what was expected of them that his orders were being carried out before he
could give them. The light
cruisers sped away to support the Aurora and to observe and report the
movement and strength of the enemy, the while the battle cruisers worked
up from their cruising speed to the highest rate of which they were
capable. The battle that
followed was essentially the business of the great armoured ships, but
invaluable help was rendered to our leviathans by the fast little light
cruisers, which hung on the rear of the fast fleeing foe and hampered his
movements, while all the time transmitting valuable information to the
battle cruisers that were working up to top speed some miles astern.
As in every other action of the war, out engine room staffs
performed wonderfully. The
Lion, tiger and Princess royal were all designed for twenty-eight knots,
but the New Zealand and Indomitable had been built for only twenty-five;
yet in an incredibly short space of time the whole squadron was going
“hell for leather” after the flying Germans at over their speed
contract. The day was
magnificently clear, and just before nine o’clock the Lion, the leading
ship in the British line, sighted the rearmost of the German cruisers at a
distance of twenty thousand yards, or over eleven miles.
A trial shot was fired from the force turret, but it fell short.
That was at eight minutes before nine, and single rounds were tried
at intervals until at last seeing a shot strike home rewarded the gunners. It was not a very long last, either, for the Lion scored her
first hit at nine minutes past nine, seventeen minutes from the firing of
the first trial round.
Still rushing along at top speed, and more or less in line ahead,
with the German squadron similarly disposed a little on the starboard, or
right of them, our ships began rapidly to overhaul the enemy.
The last ship in his lane was the unfortunate Blucher, the slowest,
smallest and most weakly armed of all the German ships, which was
callously left by her consorts to absolutely certain destruction.
Had her friends attempted to help her they would certainly have
been destroyed as well; but considerations of that sort do not enter into
the mind of a British seaman when a comrade is in distress.
Bit by bit the Blucher fell behind; bit by bit she was knocked to
pieces as the Lion shelled her, passed on to the next ahead, and left the
following ship-the Tiger to give the Blucher a round or two as she sped
by. So the German ship, gallantly fighting to the last against
impossible odds, was hammered by all the British ships in turn; and when
our battle cruisers had all passed on to continue the running fight with
the other German ships, the Arethusa found little more than a battered
wreck to finish off with a couple of torpedoes.
The Germans in the Blucher went to their death most heroically.
The Tiger, with one well placed shot, had sent the forward turret
with its two heavy guns hurtling over the side; nearly all the other gun
positions were smashed; and the ship herself lay an inert and helpless
mass gradually canting over as the water poured through the holes in her
side. Yet, when the Arethusa
came up, the survivors of the crew were drawn up on the sloping decks,
standing rigidly to attention, their flag still flying, and as the great
ship heeled over until at last her keel came out of the water, a party of
officers linked arms and walked calmly down the ship’s side into the
sea. The German sailor may
not be much of a seaman in the old sense, but this was not the only time
when he showed the world that he knows how to die.
Awful in the extreme were the experiences the Blucher went through.
One of her survivors speaking for the action, said; “About nine
o’clock columns of smoke could be seen on the horizon far behind us.
Suddenly from the blue sky above a shell fell near us.
We could see no ship. From
somewhere below the horizon had come this shot.
Nowhere visible were there any warships of the enemy, which our
gunners could find for a target. Still
out of the skies above us more shells continued to fall of us, beside us,
and behind us.
“Shots came slowly at first, and a vast watery pillar, a hundred
feet high, fell lashing on the deck.
The range had been found. Now
the shells came thick and fast, with a horrible, droning hum.
The electric plant was soon destroyed, and the ship plunged into a
darkness that could be felt. The
shells penetrated the decks. They
bored their way even to the stokehold.
The coal in the bunkers was set on fire.
In the engine room a shell licked up the oil and sprayed it around
in flames of blue and green, scarring its victims and blazing where it
fell. Men huddled together in dark compartments, but the shells
sought them out, and there Death had a rich harvest.
We were the first under five in the action, and we were the last
under fire. Practically every
British ship poured projectiles into us.
I have never seen such gunnery, and there has never been the like
of it before in the history of the world.
Our decks were swept by shot, our guns were smashed, and the guns
crews wiped out.”
As soon as the
Blucher was seen to be sinking our destroyers stood by and lowered their
boats to pick up survivors; and then came a truly typical German touch.
From the direction of Heligoland three or four German aircraft
appeared on the scene and began dropping bombs.
None of them hit our ships, but under circumstances they could
hardly be expected to stay and risk themselves by picking up enemy seaman,
so that the only result of the interference of the aircraft was to
increase the Blucher’s death roll.
It appeared afterwards that the German airmen really though the
Blucher was an English cruiser sunk by their own ships, and for a long
time the German Admiralty insisted that the Tiger had been sent to the
bottom.
While all this was going on our battle cruisers were still pursuing
the flying Germans. Soon
after eleven o’clock a shell struck the Lion in the forepart, and by
damaging her steam pipes, put her out of action.
In response to orders Lieutenant-Commander Cyril Callaghan took his
destroyers, the Attack, alongside the wounded ship and the youthful Sir
David Beatty, springing nimbly on board, was quickly transferred to the
Princess Royal, all this, however meant delay, and much may happen in a
short time when a battle is being fought at thirty two miles an hour.
The Seydlitz and Derfflinger were by this time heavily on fire,
and the former was well down by the stern; but the fight was now
running into the waters that were infested by German mines and submarines,
many of which had already been successfully dodged by our ships, and
Rear-Admiral Moore, on whom the command had devolved, deemed it advisable
to follow the enemy no further.
So the action was broke off, and our ships gathered together for
the return journey. The
Lion’s machinery was useless, and she had to be towed home by the
Indomitable- a splendid piece of work; and there has been no such sight in
naval warfare as when these two ships were convoyed back across the North
Sea by a swarm of destroyers and light cruisers to ward off submarines
that might try to take advantage of such a promising opportunity.
Besides the Lion, the only ships hit were the Tiger and the
destroyer Meteor, which was struck in the stokehold, and had four men
killed, by the last shot the Blucher fired.
It has been said that the action might have been more decisive if
it had been pursued with more determination in its last stages; but it was
decisive enough for the Germans, who lost the 15,550-ton blucher, built at
a cost of £1,450,000, and had two other ships badly damaged.
Also, it put a heavy damper upon the baby killing raids on the east
coast. Our own loss amounted
to fourteen killed and twenty-eight wounded.
Captain Brock, of the Princess Royal, was made a C.B., while
Commander C. A. Fountains, of the Lion, was specially promoted to Captain. Lieutenant F. T. Peters of the Meteor was awarded the D.S.O.,
and three D.S.C.’s and thirty-one D.S.M.’s were also awarded.
