We had just had breakfast on the _Bluecher_ when a fast British scout
cruiser hovered for a moment on the far-distant horizon and then
disappeared. We knew at once that our location was being reported by
wireless to the nearest British patrol ships. Orders were signalled at
once through the German fleet to turn away from the British shore and
steer for home. It was Sunday morning.
About nine o'clock columns of smoke could be seen on the far horizon
behind us. The enemy were after us--but not yet could we see them.
Suddenly from the blue sky above a shell fell near us, with a moaning,
groaning whine. 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 in front of us, beside and behind us.
Finally the observers at the masthead were able to make out through
their telescopes the tops of the masts of a ship, but our hull was
buried out of sight, and yet those British gunners in their turrets,
who could not see even the tops of our masts, were rapidly getting the
distance and range of the _Bluecher_ from the fire-control officers far
up in their own mast tops.
At this moment was beginning a naval battle the like of which had
never occurred before in the history of sea power, for never before
have ships of such size and speed, with guns of such great range and
punishing power, been engaged. This battle, which began between ships
more than ten miles apart which could not see each other, continued to
increase in fierceness of action until the British pursuers, who had
worked themselves up to the astonishing speed of thirty-four miles an
hour, began to overtake us and rake us at point blank range. Although
the _Bluecher_ was protected by six-inch plates of armor and six-inch
plates on her turrets, we knew that we were doomed. We were at the
mercy of five British battle cruisers, faster in speed, heavier in
armament and more powerful in guns.
What happened to the _Bluecher_ that Sunday morning is a story
unparalleled by anything in the previous history of the world. The
_Bluecher_ received every imaginable form of projectile, and as a
final kick its end was hastened by a torpedo from the British cruiser
_Arethusa_.
A curious fact is that our most frightful punishment came in the
early stages of the engagement when the British ships were eight or
ten miles away from us. This extraordinary occurrence was due to the
British thirteen-and-a-half-inch shells that were fired at such a
high elevation that they came down upon as from the sky, piercing our
unprotected decks and penetrating on through to the bottom of the ship,
where they exploded in the very vitals of the _Bluecher_, doing the
maximum amount of damage and destruction.
The British ships, as I have said, were away on the horizon, more than
ten miles distant, when they started to fire. Shots came slowly at
first. They fell ahead and over, raising vast columns of water; now
they fell astern and short. The British guns were finding the range.
Those deadly water spouts crept nearer and nearer. The men on deck
watched them with a strange fascination.
Soon one pitched close to the ship, and a vast watery pillar, a hundred
metres high, one of them affirmed, fell lashing on the deck. The range
had been found. _Dann aber ging's los!_ Now the shells came thick and
fast, with a horrible droning hum. At once they did terrible execution.
The electric plant was soon destroyed, and the ship plunged in a
darkness that could be felt. "You could not see your hand before your
nose," said one.
Down below decks there were horror and confusion, mingled with gasping
shouts and moans as the shells plunged through the decks. It was only
later, when the range shortened, that their trajectory flattened and
they tore holes in the ship's sides and raked her decks. At first they
came dropping from the sky.
This was because the British ships were firing from a great distance
and must aim high in the air in order that their shells should reach us
ten miles away. Thus it was that the shells falling from above on our
decks found our most vulnerable spot--for our decks were not protected
by steel armor as were our armor-belted sides.
The shells penetrated the decks. They bored their way even to the
stokehold. The coal in the bunkers was set on fire. Since the bunkers
were half empty the fire burned merrily.
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. The terrific air pressure
resulting from explosion in a confined space left a deep impression on
the minds of all of us on the _Bluecher_. The air, it would seem, roars
through every opening and tears its way through every weak spot. All
loose or insecure fittings are transformed into moving instruments of
destruction.
Open doors bang to--and jam--and closed iron doors bend outward like
tin plates, and through it all the bodies of men are whirled about like
dead leaves in a Winter blast, to be battered to death against the
iron walls. In one of the engine rooms--it was the room where the high
velocity engines for ventilation and forced draughts were at work--men
were picked up by that terrible Luftdruck like the whirl drift at a
street corner and tossed to a horrible death amid the machinery. There
were other horrors too fearful to recount.