“LEST WE FORGET”
I. H.M.S. “SHARK”
H.M.S. _Shark_, under the command of Commander Loftus W. Jones, went
into action about 5.45 p.m. on May 31st, 1916 with a complement of
ninety-one officers and men; of that number only six saw June 1st dawn.
In spite of the soul-shaking experience through which they passed, these
six men have remembered sufficient details of the action to enable the
following record to be pieced together. Many stirring acts of gallantry
and self-sacrifice, and much of interest to the relatives and friends of
those who were lost, must inevitably be lacking from this narrative. But
the evidence shows such supreme human courage and devotion to duty in
the face of death, that, incomplete as it is, the story remains one of
the most glorious in the annals of the Navy.
At two o’clock on the afternoon of May 31st the _Shark_ and three other
destroyers, _Acasta_, _Ophelia_, and _Christopher_, were acting as a
submarine screen to the Third Battle Cruiser Squadron, with the light
cruisers _Chester_ and _Canterbury_ in company. The force was steaming
on a southerly course in advance of the British Battle Fleet, which was
engaged in one of its periodical sweeps of the North Sea.
This advance squadron was under the command of Rear-Admiral the Hon.
Horace A. L. Hood, C.B., M.V.O., D.S.O., flying his flag in
_Invincible_.
The main Battle Cruiser Fleet and the Fifth Battle Squadron were
considerably farther to the southward, and at 2.20 p.m. the light
cruisers attached to this force signalled by wireless the first
intimation that the enemy’s fleet was at sea. Subsequent reports
confirmed this, and acting on the information contained in these
intercepted messages, Rear-Admiral Hood ordered the ship’s companies to
“Action Stations,” and shaped course to intercept the advancing enemy.
At 3.48 p.m. the Battle Cruiser Fleet and the Fifth Battle Squadron
engaged the German Main Fleet and turned north with the object of
drawing the enemy towards the British Battle Fleet. It must be
remembered that at this point the enemy was presumably in complete
ignorance of the approach of the British Main Fleet. The weather was
hazy, with very little wind and patches of mist that reduced the
visibility to an extent that varied from one to eight miles.
At 4.4 p.m. Rear-Admiral Hood received orders from Admiral Sir John
Jellicoe, Commander-in-Chief, to proceed at full speed with his squadron
and reinforce the Battle Cruiser Fleet; the Third Battle Cruiser
Squadron altered course as necessary, and an hour and a half later the
first sounds of firing reached them out of the mists ahead.
The first faint intermittent murmur of sound increased momentarily as
the two forces converged, and at 5.40 p.m. the haze on the starboard bow
was pierced by flashes of gunfire; a few minutes later a force of German
light cruisers and destroyers became visible, heavily engaged with an
unseen opponent to the westward.
Fire was immediately opened and Rear-Admiral Hood turned to starboard,
bringing the enemy on to the port bow of his squadron. Three light
cruisers, a flotilla leader, and ten destroyers were now visible, the
latter apparently turning to launch a torpedo attack upon the Third
Battle Cruiser Squadron. The four destroyers who had hitherto been
disposed in two subdivisions, one on each bow of the _Invincible_, were
thereupon ordered to attack the enemy. Led by Commander Loftus Jones in
the _Shark_, the division swung round, and hurled itself at the German
force, opening fire with every gun that would bear.
In the meanwhile the enemy opened a heavy though ill-directed fire on
the battle cruisers. A large proportion of the salvos were falling
short, and the British destroyers had in consequence to advance through
a barrage of fire which surrounded them on all sides with columns of
water and bursting shell.
In spite of their numerical superiority, the German destroyers turned
away in the face of this determined onslaught, and Commander Loftus
Jones, satisfied that the intended torpedo attack on Rear-Admiral Hood’s
squadron had been frustrated, and having fired two of his three
torpedoes, turned sixteen points to regain his position on the bow of
the _Invincible_. The remaining three destroyers followed in his wake.
Three German battle cruisers had then appeared out of the mist in
support of the enemy light cruisers, and the gallant division, with
_Shark_ at their head, turned under a concentrated deluge of shells from
the entire German force.
A fragment of a projectile struck the _Shark’s_ wheel, shattering it,
and wounding the coxswain, Petty Officer Griffin, on the right hand.
The captain immediately ordered the after wheel to be manned and
followed the coxswain down the ladder to the shell-torn upper-deck to
con the ship from aft. The yeoman of signals, Petty Officer Banham, who
up to this point had been the third occupant of the bridge, hurried
after the captain.
The enemy were now using shrapnel, and the captain was wounded in the
thigh and face as he reached the bottom of the ladder. He stumbled aft,
endeavouring to staunch the flow of blood with his hands, to find on
reaching the engine-room hatchway that a shell had burst inside the
engine-room, and the main engines and steering gear were completely
disabled. The coxswain had been struck at the same time as the captain,
and dropped insensible from a wound in the head. The foremost gun, under
the command of Sub-Lieutenant Vance, had been blown away, and only one
survivor of its crew lay badly wounded amid the wreckage.
The _Shark_ was then lying with disabled engines helpless under a heavy
fire, and Lieutenant-Commander John O. Barren, who commanded the
_Acasta_, and had been second in the line, gallantly brought his
destroyer between the _Shark_ and the enemy’s fire, and signalled to ask
if he could be of any assistance. The captain of the _Shark_ was then
aft, cheering and encouraging the crews of the midship and after guns.
The yeoman of signals, who remained at his side, read the signal and
reported it to the captain, who replied, “No. Tell him to look after
himself and not get sunk over us.”
The yeoman of signals accordingly semaphored Commander Jones’s last
signal to the division under his orders, and the _Acasta_ followed in
the wake of the other two boats which were rejoining the battle
cruisers.
It is probable that at this juncture Rear-Admiral Hood sighted the
British Battle Cruiser Fleet, which he had been ordered to reinforce,
and proceeded to carry out his orders. The Third Battle Cruiser Squadron
vanished into the mist, and the enemy closed in upon the _Shark_, which
lay rolling helplessly in the swell, blazing defiance from her after and
midship guns.
The after gun was almost immediately put out of action and its crew
killed and wounded. Amid a hail of shrapnel bullets and flying splinters
the spare torpedo was hoisted off the rack, and, under the directions of
the captain, was being launched into the tube, when it was struck by a
shell and burst with a violent explosion, causing heavy casualties.
Only one gun, the midship one, now remained in action. The ship was
settling down by the bows and every moment she shuddered with the impact
of a fresh hit. The riven upper-deck was a shambles, and the dead,
mingled with shattered wreckage, were blown hither and thither by the
blast of exploding shell. Projectiles, pitching short, flung great
columns of water into the air, or passed screaming overhead; the
upper-works were riddled by splinters from bursting salvos.
One by one the wounded crawled brokenly into the lee of the casings and
funnels in pitiful attempts to find shelter; among them knelt the
devoted figure of the surgeon (Surgeon-Probationer Robert Walker,
R.N.V.R.), endeavouring single-handed to cope with his gallant, hopeless
task. When last seen he was bandaging a man who had lost a hand when the
torpedo exploded. He was then himself severely wounded, and was
apparently shortly afterwards killed.
The enemy had then closed in to a range of about 1,500 yards; the
survivors of the engine-room staff had come on deck and the captain
ordered the collision-mats to be placed over the shot-holes, and every
attempt to be made to plug them and keep the ship afloat. This was
accordingly done under the direction of Lieutenant Ernest T. Donnell,
the first lieutenant, who appears to have been still unwounded, and
maintained a cheering spirit of indomitable pluck to the last. The
coxswain, who had recovered consciousness, though half-blinded by blood
from his wound, superintended a party who under the captain’s orders
were turning out the boats and endeavouring to launch the rafts. The
boats were smashed by shell-fire while still at the davits, but three
rafts--two regulation life-saving rafts, and an extemporised affair of
four barrels lashed together--were placed in the water.
In the meanwhile the midship gun, under the command of Midshipman T.
Smith, R.N.R., maintained a steady fire. The stock of percussion tubes
threatened to run short at one time, and the gunner, Mr. W. Gale, though
severely wounded, crawled down below and fetched a fresh supply, shortly
after which he was killed. Leading Signalman Hodgetts, who had been
previously working as one of the ammunition supply party, was blown
overboard by the explosion of a shell; a few minutes later his dripping
figure appeared over the rail, and he coolly resumed his work; by some
curious freak of chance he was again blown overboard by the blast of a
shell, but again he clambered back to his place of duty, and his death.
The crew of the midship gun was ultimately reduced to two men, Able
Seaman Howell, the gunlayer, and Able Seaman Hope. The midshipman
trained the gun while Hope loaded and Howell fired. The captain stood
beside the gun giving them the range, heartening the remnant of the crew
by his example of cool courage. Howell, who had been severely wounded,
eventually dropped from loss of blood, and the captain took his place. A
moment later he was himself struck by a shell, which took off his right
leg above the knee.
He lay on the deck in the rear of the gun while the coxswain and a chief
stoker, named Hammell, between them improvised a tourniquet from a piece
of rope and fragment of wood. While they were endeavouring to stop the
bleeding, Commander Loftus Jones, in the words of an eyewitness who
survived, “gentleman and captain as he was,” continued to direct the
firing of the gun.
In all history the unquenchable spirit of man has rarely triumphed so
completely over shattered nerves and body. As his strength ebbed,
Commander Loftus Jones seems to have been overtaken by fear lest the
ship should fall into the hands of the enemy, and seeing the German
destroyers approaching, he gave orders for the _Shark_ to be sunk. A
moment later, however, the gun fired another round; and apparently
realising that the ship was still capable of further resistance, he
countermanded the order, adding “Fight the ship!”
The gaff on the mainmast at which the Ensign was flown had been broken
by a shot, and the flag hung limp against the mast. The mind of the
captain must have turned at the last to that emblem of all he was dying
for so gallantly, for presently he asked faintly what had happened to
the flag. One of the men tending him replied that it had been shot away,
and in great distress he ordered another to be hoisted immediately.
Able Seaman Hope accordingly left the gun, and climbing up, detached the
ensign and handed it down to Midshipman Smith, who bent it on to a fresh
pair of halyards and hoisted it at the yard-arm. The captain, seeing it
once more flying clear, said, “That’s good,” and appeared content.
The end was now drawing very near. The bows of the _Shark_ had sunk
until the foremost funnel was awash, and the waves were lapping over the
waterlogged hull. Seeing that two German destroyers had approached to
within a few hundred yards with the evident intention of administering
the _coup de grâce_, Commander Loftus Jones gave his last order to the
ship’s company, “Save yourselves!”
He was helped into the water by the coxswain and a number of others who
had tended him devotedly after he received his mortal wound, and floated
clear of the ship with the support of a life-belt. The remainder of the
crew, to the number of about a score, swam towards the rafts and pieces
of floating wreckage.
Two torpedoes struck the _Shark_ amidships almost simultaneously. With a
muffled explosion she lurched violently to starboard, flinging overboard
the dead and wounded who still remained on deck. Her stern rose until it
was almost perpendicular and she sank with colours flying, about an hour
and a half after firing her first shot.
Stoker Petty Officer Filleul and Able Seaman Smith succeeded in placing
the captain on the raft of barrels, where they propped him in a sitting
position with the aid of life-belts and buoys. While this was being done
the captain attempted to smile, and shook his head, saying, “It’s no
good, lads.”
Stoker Petty Officer Filleul remained by the captain, and Able Seaman
Smith swam to one of the other rafts on which the coxswain, Petty
Officer Griffin, Chief Stoker Newcombe, Yeoman of Signals Banham, Stoker
Swan, and Able Seamen Hope and Howell had succeeded in crawling. The
three rafts drifted within sight of each other through the long northern
summer twilight.
Shortly after the _Shark_ sank, the British battle cruisers swept past
in pursuit of the enemy. The captain asked if the pursuing ships were
British. Filleul replied that they were, and the captain said, “That’s
good!”
Not long afterwards his head fell forward and his gallant spirit fled.
The second life-saving raft had been so damaged by shell-fire that only
two men could be accommodated upon it. The two most severely wounded
(one of them had lost a leg) were helped on to it by a number of others
who themselves clung to the edge, among them being the first lieutenant.
Able Seaman Smith, on the other raft, realising that the majority were
badly wounded, and being himself only slightly hurt, swam over to render
what assistance he could. The first lieutenant, who had unfailingly
cheered and comforted the stricken little band, presently asked if any
could still sing, and then, without faltering, himself began:
“Nearer, my God, to Thee.”
Those who had the strength joined in as they clung submerged up to
their shoulders in the icy water, almost unrecognisable from the thick
black oil which floated on the surface; and so, one by one, death
overtook them. Able Seaman Smith alone survived more than a couple of
hours.
While it was still light the British Battle Fleet was sighted through
the mists, and the drenched, haggard figures on the other raft cheered
it as it passed five miles away. With indomitable optimism they all
clung to the hope of a speedy rescue, and Able Seaman Howell semaphored
across the waste of water “We are British,” in the hope that it would be
read by one of the distant ships.
The twilight deepened into dusk, and the raft on which Able Seaman Smith
alone survived was lost to sight. The six occupants of the other sat
with the waves washing over them, nursing their wounds and debating the
prospects of being picked up. The yeoman of signals rambled into
delirium at times, and finally said, “I must have a sleep.... Let me get
my head down.”
Able Seaman Hope attempted to dissuade him, but without avail. “I must
sleep,” he insisted pathetically, and as he stretched himself in the
bottom of the raft the ruling instinct of the Service came back through
the mists of death. “Give us a shake if the captain wants anything,” he
said, and his loyal spirit passed to join that of his captain.
Shortly before midnight the distant lights of a steamer were sighted.
Able Seaman Howell then remembered for the first time that he had
fastened a Holmes light with wire on one of the rafts a few days
previously. Steadying himself with difficulty on the pitching raft, he
fumbled along the edge and presently found the little tin cylinder that
was to prove their salvation. With the last remnants of his failing
strength he wrenched the nipple off, and the carbide, ignited with the
water that washed over them, burnt with a bright flare. They waved it
frantically and tried to shout: but the flare had been seen, and
presently out of the darkness loomed the hull of the Danish s.s.
_Vidar_. Her captain brought the ship alongside the raft, and one of her
boats, which had already picked up Able Seaman Smith off his raft,
presently rejoined them.
All survivors have testified to the high courage of Able Seaman Hope.
Throughout the whole ordeal his plucky personality came constantly to
the fore, and he alone retained strength to climb on board the _Vidar_
unaided; on reaching the upper-deck he refused to go below or receive
any attention until the remainder of his shipmates had been hoisted on
board.
The _Vidar_ cruised in the vicinity for upwards of two hours in the hope
of picking up further survivors, and Stoker Petty Officer Filleul was
seen floating on the water and rescued as he was losing consciousness.
No further traces of the _Shark’s_ crew were found, however, and the
_Vidar_ shaped course for Hull. On the passage Chief Stoker Newcombe,
who had been wounded at the commencement of the action, succumbed to
exhaustion in spite of every endeavour to save his life.
His Majesty the King, in recognition of the valour of the captain,
officers, and men of the _Shark_, granted Commander Loftus W. Jones the
only posthumous honour that can be awarded in either Service, the
Victoria Cross. The six survivors, each of whom had played his part with
the utmost gallantry, were decorated with the Distinguished Service
Medal.
A few weeks after the action the fishermen of the little village of
Fiskebackskie on the coast of Sweden, found washed ashore the body of
Commander Loftus W. Jones, V.C. It was buried in the village churchyard
on June 24th, with every token of sympathy and reverence.
II. H.M. DESTROYERS “SWIFT” AND “BROKE”
1917 found the German public mentally in the position of a man waiting
to be hanged. Any distraction was better than the contemplation of the
future.
The aim of destroyer raids on Calais and Dover was primarily to afford
the German populace this distraction. At the worst it was intended to
provide headlines in the newspapers that bore some semblance of naval
success, and the determination of the German Government to ensure these
headlines, regardless of their relation to facts, can be best seen by a
comparison between the British and German official _communiqués_ of such
actions.
A merely spectacular performance could usually be bought cheaply enough.
The two German destroyer bases within striking distance of the British
coast are Zeebrugge and Ostend. The latter is approximately the same
distance from Dover as Brighton is. Once clear of their minefields on a
chosen night a German force is in the unique position of knowing that
every single object encountered afloat is an enemy. Homing merchant
traffic and patrolling vessels, manned by seamen whose vigilance has
been subjected to the unrelaxed tension of nearly three years’ sea-going
under war conditions, can be fired on at sight.
A swift dash through the darkness, with a finger twitching on the
trigger of every gun; any spot in thirty-five miles of British coastline
decided upon beforehand can be reached in a couple of hours, illumined
in ten seconds by star-shell for the few minutes required for a futile
bombardment of English soil--and the desired result is achieved.
One disadvantage alone is against Germany, and it is one which may be
borne in mind at a time when there is a tendency to regard surface
sea-power as an anachronism. A raider disabled outside the protection of
German minefields is a raider lost. Nothing can venture to her succour
within the areas of the successive Allied commands along the Channel.
Where she is crippled there she must lie, and, eventually, be captured.
A raiding destroyer force, if caught, must therefore endeavour to escape
at all costs.
This is a consideration not without influence in destroyer methods of
attack, and the contrast between British and German tactics and
traditions was never better demonstrated than on the night of April
20-21st, 1917.
The movements of the German raiding force on the night of April 20th may
or may not have been those described in the German _communiqué_. In
neither case have they any bearing upon subsequent events. The British
destroyer leaders _Swift_ and _Broke_, on night patrol in the Channel,
were proceeding on a westerly course, when, at 12.40 a.m. the _Swift_
sighted an enemy flotilla, on the port bow, proceeding in the opposite
direction at high speed. The night, though calm, was intensely dark, and
when first sighted the enemy were within 600 yards range. Simultaneously
the fire-gongs on board the German destroyers were heard to ripple down
the line and in a blaze of flashes they opened fire.
The _Swift_ instantly replied, and the commanding officer, Commander
Ambrose M. Peck, decided without hesitation to ram the leading enemy
destroyer. At his order the wheel was wrenched round, and the _Swift_,
with every occupant of her bridge temporarily blinded by flashes, drove
straight for the enemy.
Now it must be realised that the operation of ramming one of a line of
destroyers, dashing through pitch darkness at between twenty and thirty
knots, is an exceedingly delicate one. An initial miscalculation of a
few degrees of helm, a few revolutions of the propellers more or less,
spell failure. Failure may, and probably does, mean being rammed by the
next boat in the enemy line.
The _Swift_ missed, but shot through the line unscathed. She turned like
a hawk upon a quarry and, in turning, neatly torpedoed another boat in
the line. Again she dashed at the leading boat, which once more eluded
her, and, without firing another shot, made off into the darkness at
full speed with the _Swift_ in pursuit.
On first sighting the enemy, the _Broke_, commanded by Commander Edward
R. G. R. Evans, C.B., was steaming about three hundred yards astern of
_Swift_. Upon the latter altering course to ram the leader, the _Broke_
launched a torpedo at the second boat in the line, which hit her, and
then opened fire with every gun that would bear. The five enemy boats,
stoking furiously for full speed, emitted a dull glow from every funnel
which lit their upper-works and enabled the captain of _Broke_ to decide
upon his tactics. Altering course away from the enemy for a moment to
gain impetus for the blow, he swung round to port and rammed the third
boat at full speed, fair and square abreast the after funnel.
Locked together thus the two boats fought a desperate and literally
hand-to-hand conflict. The _Broke_ swept the enemy’s decks at
point-blank range with every gun from four-inch to pom-pom and maxim.
Lumps of coal and bowls of cocoa are mentioned among the miscellany of
objects that hurtled through the darkness.
In the meanwhile the remaining two destroyers in the German line poured
a devastating fire upon the _Broke_. The foremost guns’ crews were
reduced from eighteen men to six, but Midshipman Donald A. Gyles,
R.N.R., in charge of the forecastle, though wounded in the eye, kept all
foremost guns in action, himself assisting the depleted crews to load.
While he was thus employed, a number of frenzied Germans swarmed up over
the _Broke’s_ forecastle out of the rammed destroyer, and finding
themselves amid the blinding flashes of the forecastle guns, swept aft
in a shouting mob. The midshipman, amid the dead and wounded of his
guns’ crews and half-blinded by blood, met the rush singlehanded with an
automatic revolver; he was grappled by a gigantic German who attempted
to wrest the weapon from him.
Cutlasses and rifles with fixed bayonets being among the equipment of
the foremost guns’ crews in anticipation of just such events as were now
taking place, the German was promptly bayoneted by Able Seaman Ingleson.
The remainder of the invaders, with the exception of two who lay down
and feigned death, were driven over the side. The two exceptions were
subsequently made prisoners and taken below.
Of the original five German destroyers, there were now two remaining in
the line. Two minutes after ramming, the _Broke_ succeeded in wrenching
herself free from her sinking adversary, and turned to ram the last boat
in the line. She failed in this achievement, but as she swung round
succeeded in hitting this boat’s consort on the stem with a torpedo.
Hotly engaged with these two fleeing destroyers, the _Broke_ then
attempted to follow _Swift_ in the direction in which she was last seen;
a shell, however, struck _Broke_ in the boiler-room, disabling her main
engines. The enemy were then lost to sight in the darkness.
Still carrying considerable way, _Broke_ altered course and headed in
the direction of a destroyer heavily on fire, whose crew, on sighting
the _Broke_, sent up loud shouts for mercy. She was burning fiercely,
and, regardless of the danger from her magazines exploding, _Broke_
steered towards her, still moving slowly through the water. The shouts
and cries of ‘Save! Save!’ were redoubled, when she unexpectedly opened
fire.
_Broke_ being then out of control and unable to manœuvre or extricate
herself, silenced the treachery with four rounds and then, to ensure her
own safety, fired a torpedo and hit her amidships.
In the meanwhile the _Swift_ had continued her pursuit of the leading
boat until injuries she had received in the earlier phases of the
action, though in themselves slight, prevented her from maintaining full
speed. She thereupon abandoned the chase and turned in search of a fresh
quarry. The outline of a stationary destroyer was presently sighted in
the darkness ahead, and as she drew near a confused noise of voices
resolved itself into more distinct and evidently organised sounds, as
from a large number of men shouting together in time.
Warily, and somewhat perplexed by the uproar, the _Swift_ approached
with her guns trained on the stranger. This presently resolved itself
into the sinking German destroyer that had been rammed by _Broke_, whose
crew were bellowing in unison:
“WE SURRENDER! WE SURRENDER!’
With a not unreasonable suspicion of treachery, the _Swift_ awaited
developments. Apparently realising their breath would be wanted for more
energetic measures, the crew of the German destroyer presently stopped
shouting. She heeled slowly over, while her ship’s company hastily took
to the water, and sank stern first.
As no other enemy appeared to be in sight, and the action, which had
lasted approximately five minutes, appeared to be over, the _Swift_
switched on searchlights and lowered boats to rescue the swimmers.
_Swift_ and _Broke_ then proceeded to exchange details of the “bag” by
the medium of a flashing lamp and (_Broke’s_ circuits having been cut)
an electric torch. Their respective ship’s companies having given vent
to some pardonable exhilaration by cheering each other out of the
darkness till they were hoarse, both British destroyers anchored and
patiently awaited the dawn.
The British casualties were comparatively light, and the spirit of the
wounded is epitomised by the conduct of the _Broke’s_ coxswain, Able
Seaman William G. Rowles; this man, though hit four times by shrapnel,
remained at the wheel throughout the action, and finally only betrayed
the fact that he was wounded by reporting to his captain, “I’m going off
now, sir,” and fainting.
A number of wounded presented themselves at the sick-bay for the first
time on the day following the action. Their excuses for this delay were
various, but that of a stoker with a piece of shrapnel still in his head
is perhaps the most ingenuous:
“I was too busy, sir,” he explained to the surgeon. “Along of clearing
up that rubbish on the stoker’s mess-deck.”
III. THE DRIFTER PATROL, DOVER
Another German destroyer raid into the English Channel on the night of
February 14th-15th, 1918, had for its objective the destruction of the
Auxiliary Patrol Forces on outpost duty. This much was evident from the
deliberate and systematic manner in which, once touch was established in
the inky darkness, the attack was carried out. A large force was chosen
for the enterprise, comprising ten at least of Germany’s largest and
fastest destroyers; that these succeeded in sinking seven armed fishing
vessels and returning to their base without being intercepted by the
British patrols proper can only be ascribed to accurate foreknowledge of
the disposition of these forces (information readily supplied by aerial
reconnaissance), and the luck of the Devil who favours his own.
The raiding tactics of German destroyers have already been described in
detail. It will be admitted that they provide the enemy with an initial
advantage of which he might reasonably be expected to make the most.
Indeed the wonder is not so much that they were not intercepted in the
inky darkness of a thousand square miles, but that they did not make
more of their opportunity.
On the night in question one of the Drifter Patrol had sighted a
submarine on the surface, attempting to break through the vigilant
cordon of patrol craft. Off went the drifter in jubilant pursuit,
signalling to her consorts to join the hunt, and the remainder joined
her like a pack of basset-hounds on the trail of an otter. The enemy
destroyers, casting about in the darkness, sighted the “Tally-ho!”
rocket and swept down upon the drifters, intent upon their own business,
from at least four quarters simultaneously. The Germans appear to have
worked in pairs; the leading boat of each couple switched on a blinding
searchlight for the few seconds necessary to get an accurate range, and
then the whole force slowed down to carry out the deliberate work of
destruction. In the words of one of the survivors, “It was awfu’--juist
slaughter.” The speaker made the statement without heat or reproach; he
was a fisherman, as were most of his brethren, wont to accept both
calamity and fortune without emotion. “Girt ole black things ...” he
added, and shook his grizzled head so that the sunlight winked on his
gold earrings.
[Illustration]
The enemy closed in nearly all cases to within fifty yards of their
victims, poured two salvos of high-explosive shell into each, and passed
on. They had no time for fancy shooting and there were few misses. It is
to be hoped they found the gruesome work to their taste.
In one case a German destroyer misjudged her distance and came so close
to her victim that she was unable to depress her guns sufficiently to
bring them to bear on the little target. She fired as she rolled
instead, and the drifter _Cloverbank_ turned on the instant into a
splintered shambles, buried in clouds of steam and rocketing sparks.
Only one man survived the first salvo, Deckhand Plane, R.N.R. (Trawler
Section). He blundered forward to the gun through the flames and fumes
of bursting shell, and finding it loaded, returned the fire at
point-blank range, single-handed, half-blinded, stupefied by smoke and
din.
It was brave work, but all round him in the darkness amid the flames of
guns and blazing ships and all the savagery of that onslaught, the
Drifter Patrol was taking its gruel not a whit less gallantly. The
survivors launched their splintered dinghies, carrying their wounded
with them, and paddled clear of the blazing wrecks that a few minutes
before had been ship and home. The two enginemen of the _Violet May_,
Engineman Ewing and Engineman Noble, succeeded in launching their boat,
and lowered into it the mate, mortally wounded, and a wounded deckhand.
The remainder of the crew lay inextricably entangled in the blazing
wreckage, dead. The survivors paddled clear, waited till the enemy had
passed on, and then closed their little ship again. The fire had hold of
her forward, steam was pouring from her wrecked engine-room, and the
ammunition was exploding broadcast about her decks. “A doot she’s
sinkin’,” said Ewing stoutly. Noble said nothing: he was not given
overmuch to speech, but he made the painter fast and proceeded to climb
inboard again. Ewing followed and between they fought and overcame the
fire. “Dinna leave me, Jamie,” cried the mate piteously; “Dinna leave me
in the little boat.” “Na, na,” was the reply. “We’ll na leave ye,” and
presently they brought their wounded back on board and took them below
again. The mate was laid on his bunk and Ewing fetched his shirts from
his bag and tore them up into bandages. “An’ them his dress shirts,”
murmured Noble. It was his first and last contribution to the narrative.
They took turn and turn about to tend the wounded, plug the shot-holes,
and quench the smouldering embers of the fire, reverently dragging the
wreckage from off their dead, and comforting the dying mate in the soft,
almost tender accents of the Celt.
“’Tis nae guid,” said the mate at last. “Dinna fash about me, lads. A’ll
gang nae mair on patrol,” and so died. But they saved their little ship,
and she lies in a corner of the basin at her base, a mass of twisted
metal and charred woodwork, to testify to the courage of the British
fisherman in war.
The night’s work counted for a _German_ victory, and had it not been for
the pitiful _braggadocio_ of the German official _communiqué_, one would
have been tempted to leave it at that. True that seven little fishing
craft with a gun in each bow would never make port again, _but seven
more took their places before the sun was over the horizon on the morrow
of the affair_. Three score or so of British seamen had finished their
life’s trick and passed to their long watch below. But England and the
Channel Patrol have the story of their passing: the pity is that it must
here be so brief.
It was a rather pathetic gathering that mourned its dead that Sunday
morning in the grey church by the quayside at Dover, with the painted
sunlight streaming down through the stained-glass windows, lighting the
weather-beaten faces of skippers and deckhands, trimmers and enginemen
of the Trawler Reserve. There was, moreover, in their solemn faces a
trace of faint hurt bewilderment, like that on the face of a child that
has bumped its head in the dark.
They were only fishermen, for all their brass buttons and blue uniforms
and plentiful display of D.S.C.’s and D.S.M.’s; simple folk accustomed
to judge life by its tangible results. They were not concerned with
strategy or the might-have-been. They had been accustomed to look to
their big brothers, the destroyers, in the simple faith of children when
there was trouble, and for once it seemed they had looked in vain. They
had had a drubbing, and they took it according to the tradition of
British seamen; but the puzzled, grieving look remained.
The captain of the Drifter Patrol marched them away from the church and
talked to them, standing on a drum of paint in the more familiar
environment of coils of wire, floats, nets, mine-cases, and all the grim
impedimenta of their calling. It was in no sense of the word a speech,
but it was a very moving little address. “Never fear,” he concluded;
“we’ll take tea with the Hun before you’re all much older, or I’ll eat
my hat.” It takes a brave man to prophesy concerning war these days, but
the men of the Drifter Patrol stumped back to their little craft
comforted, and, as events transpired, he was right.
In the dark hour preceding dawn on March 21st (five weeks later) the
British destroyers _Botha_ (Commander Roger L’E. M. Rede, R.N.) and
_Morris_ (Lieutenant-Commander Percy R. P. Percival, R.N.), and the
three French destroyers _Mehl_, _Magon_, and _Bouclier_, were on patrol
in the eastern waters of the Channel, when a sudden outburst of firing
was heard to the northward. Vivid flashes of gunfire out to sea made it
plain that the enemy was engaged upon a futile bombardment of the
crumbling bathing-sheds of deserted French watering-places.
The Allied force promptly made for the flashes at full speed, led by
_Botha_; star shell fired in an endeavour to light up the enemy and
obtain their range however merely had the effect of quelling the
bombardment and scattering the raiders, who were never seen again.
The patrolling force then proceeded to search to the northwestward in
the hope of intercepting any divisions of the enemy who had ventured
more into mid-channel; star shells were fired at intervals, for the
night was misty, and presently one of these bursting ahead revealed the
shadowy outline of a force of enemy destroyers and torpedo boats
sneaking off through the darkness in the direction of their base.
The _Botha_ challenged, and an unfamiliar reply winked at them out of
the night; the next instant British and French were pouring a heavy fire
into the enemy. For a few minutes a grim little fight ensued. The Allies
rapidly overhauled the raiders, and set the darkness ablaze with flashes
of gunfire and blazing wreckage flying broadcast from shell bursting on
impact. A running fight between torpedo craft is like a battle between
scorpions; whichever gets a sting home first rarely has need to strike
again. None of the German torpedoes found their mark, but the _Morris_,
emerging from a smoke screen flung out by the fleeing enemy, cut off a
German destroyer of a large type and torpedoed her at 500 yards range.
She blew up and sank almost immediately, heeling over amid clouds of
steam and vanishing stern first.
In the meanwhile, _Botha’s_ main steampipe had been severed by a stray
shell and she immediately commenced to lose her way through the water.
Her commander, realising that if he was to finish his “cup of tea with
the Hun” he must needs drink it quickly, fired both torpedoes at the
leading boats, and, putting his helm hard over, rammed the fourth boat
in the line cleanly amidships. His speed had dropped considerably, but
it sufficed to drive the knife-edged bows of the _Botha_ clean through,
cutting the enemy completely in half.
_Botha_ then swung round and attempted to repeat the coup on the next
astern; the Hun succeeded in eluding the _Botha’s_ crippled onslaught,
but fell a victim to the French destroyers. She lay disabled and ablaze,
and they closed and pounded the flaming wreck with torpedo and gun fire
as a man grinds a dead snake under his heel.
_Morris_ by this time had relinquished the pursuit, having lost the
quarry in the smoke and mist; she returned to the scene of action, and
took her lame sister in tow while the French destroyers circled round in
the grey dawn picking up prisoners. From statements made by these, it
appears that no less than eighteen torpedo craft had sallied forth for
the raid. They were unhesitatingly attacked and rather badly mauled by
two British and three French destroyers and fled (as one of the British
officers picturesquely described it) like scalded dogs.
The adventures of the remaining fifteen were by no means terminated when
they quitted French waters, leaving three of their number behind. A
squadron of the R.N.A.S. bombing machines proceeding up the coast on
business sighted the homing German flotillas and fell upon them--or
rather, suffered their bombs to do so. They reported having completely
thrown the enemy into disorder and scattered them in all directions. A
squadron of enemy sea-planes that had gone out at dawn to look for the
wanderers then encountered the escort fighters of the bombing machines,
and in a very short time had their numbers reduced by four. Of these,
three were accounted for by one British pilot.
It must have been with feelings of more than ordinary relief that the
German torpedo force sighted the long grey mole of Ostend Harbour
through the morning mist. But even then their nerves had yet another
ordeal to face. Something rushed across the face of the water in a cloud
of spray apparently from nowhere, a sinister unseen thing travelling at
incredible speed. A torpedo struck the stern of one of the German
destroyers, and the cloud of spray tore away through a hail of shell
and bullets, unscathed, and vanished in the mist.
IV. H.M.S. “MARY ROSE”
H.M.S. _Mary Rose_ left a Norwegian port in charge of a west-bound
convoy of merchant ships in the afternoon of October 16th, 1917. At dawn
on the 17th, from her position ten or twelve miles ahead of the convoy,
flashes of gunfire were sighted astern. The captain of the _Mary Rose_,
Lieutenant-Commander Charles Fox, who was on the bridge at the time,
remarked that he supposed it was a submarine shelling the convoy, and
promptly turned his ship to investigate; all hands were called to action
stations. _Mary Rose_ had increased to full speed, and in a short time
three light cruisers were sighted coming towards them at high speed out
of the morning mist; _Mary Rose_ promptly challenged, and receiving no
reply, opened fire with every gun that would bear at a range of about
four miles. The German light cruisers appeared to have been nonplussed
by this determined single-handed onslaught, as they did not return the
fire until the range had closed to three miles. They then opened fire,
and the _Mary Rose_ held gallantly on through a barrage of bursting
shell until only a mile separated her from the enemy. Up to this point
the German marksmanship was poor, but as the British destroyer turned to
bring her torpedo tubes to bear, a salvo struck her, bursting in the
engine-room, and leaving her disabled, a log on the water. All guns,
with the exception of the after one, were out of action, and their crews
killed or wounded, but the after gun continued in action under the
directions of Sub-Lieutenant Marsh, R.N.V.R., as long as the gun would
bear. The captain came down from the wrecked bridge and passed aft,
encouraging and cheering his deafened men. He stopped beside the wrecked
remains of the midship gun and shouted to the survivors of its crew:
“God bless my heart, lads, get her going again, we’re not done yet!”
The enemy were now pouring a concentrated fire into the motionless
vessel. One of the boilers, struck by a shell, exploded, and through the
inferno of escaping steam, smoke, and the vapour of bursting shell, came
that familiar, cheery voice: “We’re not done yet.”
As the German light cruisers sped past, two able seamen (Able Seaman
French and Able Seaman Bailey), who alone survived among the torpedo
tubes’ crews, on their own initiative laid and fired the remaining
torpedo. Able Seaman French was killed immediately, and Able Seaman
Bailey badly wounded. Realising that the enemy had passed ahead, and
that the 4-inch gun could no longer be brought to bear on them, the
captain set about destroying his ciphers. The First Lieutenant
(Lieutenant Bavin), seeing one of the light cruisers returning towards
them, called the gunner and bade him sink the ship. The captain then
gave the order, “Abandon ship.” All the boats had been shattered by
shell fire at their davits, but the survivors launched a Carley raft and
paddled clear of the ship. The German light cruiser detailed to
administer the _coup de grâce_ then approached to within 300 yards and
poured a succession of salvos into the already riddled hull. The _Mary
Rose_ sank at 7.15 a.m. with colours flying. The captain, first
lieutenant, and gunner were lost with the ship, but the handful of
survivors, in charge of Sub-Lieutenant J. R. D. Freeman, on the Carley
raft, fell in some hours later with a lifeboat belonging to one of the
ships of the convoy. Sailing and rowing, they made the Norwegian coast
some forty-eight hours later, and were tended with the utmost kindness
by the Norwegian authorities. All survivors unite in testifying to the
cheerful courage of the senior surviving officer, Sub-Lieutenant
Freeman, throughout the last phase of this ordeal. Able Seaman Bailey,
who, despite severe shrapnel wounds in the leg, persisted in taking his
turn at the oar, is also specially mentioned for an invincible
light-heartedness throughout.
The distinguished naval critics with whose assistance we are wont to
belittle the achievements of our Navy, will have doubtless much to say
about this action. From the point of view of tactics, it lies open to
unquestionable criticism. Unhappily (since he was killed), there is no
record of what was in the mind of the captain of the _Mary Rose_ when he
made that single-handed dash in the face of such preposterous odds. The
convoy which was in his charge lay ahead of him, and, as he apparently
supposed, was being attacked by the gunfire of a hostile submarine.
When, on rushing to the rescue, he realised that it was to meet not a
submarine, but three of Germany’s newest and fastest light cruisers, it
is conceivable that the original intention of rescue was not supplanted
in his mind by considerations of higher strategy. He held on
unflinchingly, and he died, leaving to the annals of his service an
episode not less glorious than that in which Sir Richard Greville
perished.