_Pygmies among Giants_
“_This is the first time since the Creation that all the world has
been obliged to unite to crush the Devil._”—RUDYARD KIPLING.
Two weeks after the declaration of war Count von Reventlow was
cock-a-hoop regarding the “attitude of reserve” of what he was kind
enough to term the “alleged sea-commanding Fleet of the greatest naval
Power in the world.” “This fleet,” he asserted, “has now been lying idle
for more than a fortnight, so far from the German coast that no cruiser
and no German lightship has been able to discover it, and it is
repeatedly declared officially, ‘German waters are free of the enemy.’”
Whether the Count was aware of the fact or not, British submarines were
watching in the vicinity of the ironclad fortress of Heligoland three
hours after hostilities had begun. Had the High Sea Fleet ventured out
it would have been greeted with anything but an “attitude of reserve,”
as part of it found to its cost on the 28th August, 1914. The initiative
on that splendid occasion was taken by the British, who compelled the
enemy to give battle by means of a delightful little ruse in which
submarines not only played the leading part, but had “supplied the
information on which these operations were based.”
At midnight on the 26th August Commodore Roger Keyes hoisted his broad
pennant on the _Lurcher_, a small T.B.D. of only 765 tons, and
accompanied by the _Firedrake_, of similar displacement, escorted eight
submarines to sea. On the night of the 27th the vessels parted company,
the submarines to take up positions preparatory to the following day’s
work. Destroyer flotillas, the Battle Cruiser Squadron, the First Light
Cruiser Squadron, and the Seventh Cruiser Squadron also left their
various bases and made toward the Bight.
At dawn the _Lurcher_ and the _Firedrake_ carefully searched for U-boats
the area that would be traversed by the battle-cruisers in the
succeeding operations, and then began to spread the net into which it
was hoped the Germans would fall. E 6, E 7, and E 8, travelling awash,
proceeded in the direction of Heligoland, the destroyers following at
some distance. They were “exposing themselves with the object of
inducing the enemy to chase them to the westward.” In this decoy work
the submarines were eminently successful. In the ensuing action they
played no active part. “On approaching Heligoland,” to quote the
Commodore’s dispatch, “the visibility, which had been very good to
seaward, reduced to 5000 to 6000 yards, and this added considerably to
the anxieties and responsibilities of the Commanding Officers of
Submarines, who handled their vessels with coolness and judgment in an
area which was necessarily occupied by friends as well as foes. Low
visibility and calm sea are the most unfavourable conditions under which
Submarines can operate, and no opportunity occurred of closing with the
Enemy’s Cruisers to within torpedo range.” The German U-boats were no
more fortunate. Three of them attacked the Battle Cruiser Squadron
before it was engaged, to be frustrated by rapid manœuvring and the
attention of four destroyers. The use of the helm also saved the _Queen
Mary_ and the _Lowestoft_ during the battle.
The most enthralling incident in the fight centres around E 4, whose
commander witnessed the sinking of the German torpedo-boat U 187 through
his periscope. British destroyers immediately lowered their boats to
pick up survivors. They were rewarded by salvoes from a cruiser.
Lieutenant-Commander Ernest W. Leir prepared to torpedo the vessel, but
before he could do so she had altered course and got out of range.
Having covered the retirement of the destroyers, he went to the rescue
of the boats, which had necessarily been abandoned. The story of what
followed is well told by a lieutenant in a letter to the _Morning Post_.
“The _Defender_,” he writes, “having sunk an enemy, lowered a whaler to
pick up her swimming survivors; before the whaler got back an enemy’s
cruiser came up and chased the _Defender_, and thus she abandoned her
whaler. Imagine their feelings; alone in an open boat without food;
twenty-five miles from the nearest land, and that land the enemy’s
fortress, with nothing but fog and foes around them. Suddenly a whirl
alongside, and up, if you please, pops His Britannic Majesty’s submarine
E 4, opens his conning-tower, takes them all on board, shuts up again,
dives, and brings them home 250 miles! Is not that magnificent? No
novelist would dare face the critics with an episode like that in his
book, except, perhaps, Jules Verne; and all true!”
Another survivor asserts that while he was in the whaler about two
hundred shells burst within twenty yards without doing the slightest
damage to the company. A lieutenant and nine men of the _Defender_ were
stowed below in E 4, while a German officer, six unwounded men, and
twenty-six others who had sustained injuries of various kinds were
provided with water, biscuit, and a compass, and told to make for land.
A German officer and two A.B.s were taken prisoners of war.
“Lieutenant-Commander Leir’s action,” the Commodore justly remarks, “in
remaining on the surface in the vicinity of the enemy, and in a
visibility that would have placed his vessel within easy gun range of an
enemy appearing out of the mist, was altogether admirable.” The enemy
suffered the loss of three cruisers and a destroyer, and one cruiser and
at least seven torpedo-boats were badly mauled.
Reference has already been made to the running fight in the North Sea on
the 24th of the following January, when Sir David Beatty very
effectively prevented a raid on the North-east Coast, and to the Battle
of Jutland.[22] The former affair, characterized by the Germans as
having been broken off by the British, and in which they sank a
hypothetical battle-cruiser, ended in the loss of the _Blücher_ and
serious damage to two other enemy battle-cruisers. The enemy squadron
escaped because Sir David Beatty had chased them to the verge of “an
area where danger from German submarines and mines prevented further
pursuit.” The Germans were so keen on meeting the hated British that
they sheered off immediately they sighted our ships and laid a straight
course for home. Although the _Lion_ and the destroyer _Meteor_ were
disabled, they reached harbour safely and the necessary repairs were
speedily effected.
These are some of the high lights of a picture which has in it many dark
and sombre shadows. Enemy submarines exacted a heavy toll of the British
Navy. It would be a tedious business to detail the loss of every
man-of-war lost by enemy action. Casualty lists make uncongenial
reading, but it is well to bear in mind that Germany’s campaign was not
entirely devoted to commerce-destroying. I shall therefore deal with
some of the more outstanding triumphs of her attempt to control the
Empire of the Ocean from below before dealing with the victories of her
British rivals in the Realm of the Underseas.
H.M.S. _Pathfinder_ was the first naval vessel to be lost by submarine
action in the Great War. When the news was given to the public, it was
announced that this fast light cruiser of 2700 tons had struck a mine
“about twenty miles off the East Coast,” a geographical expression
conveying the minimum of information. The intimation sent to relatives
of those who lost their lives stated that the ship had been sunk by a
submarine, which was the case. The discrepancy in the two statements was
due to a belief that the _Pathfinder_ had been blown up in the manner
originally described. Subsequent investigation proved this to be
incorrect. It was not contradicted at once because the Admiralty held
that possibly the intelligence might hamper operations for catching the
offender. It must have occurred to many people, however, that a notice
issued shortly after the original _communiqué_, that all aids to
navigation on the East Coast of England and Scotland were liable to be
removed, was more or less connected with the loss of the cruiser and the
presence of enemy submarines. When letters from survivors began to
appear in the newspapers it was clear that a torpedo had caused the loss
of the ship, which foundered twelve miles north of St Abb’s Head,
Berwickshire. The approach of the weapon was observed by some of those
on board, and the order was given for the engines to be stopped and
reversed. It was too late. The explosion took place close to the bridge,
causing the magazine to blow up.
“I saw a flash” says a survivor, “and the ship seemed to lift right out
of the water. Down went the mast and forward funnel and fore part of the
ship, and all the men there must have been blown to atoms.” When the
order to man the boats was given it was found that only one boat was
left whole; it capsized on reaching the water. Nothing could be done to
save the _Pathfinder_, now partly on fire and _in extremis_. The
death-knell of hope rang out sharp and clear: “Every man for himself.”
Officers and crew jumped overboard and made for anything floatable that
had been flung adrift by the explosion or thrown out by the men
themselves when the last dread order had been given. Wonderful work was
done by a lieutenant and a chief petty officer. Both of them powerful
swimmers, they paddled about collecting wreckage, and pushing it toward
those in need of help. One of the most miraculous escapes was that of
Staff-Surgeon T. A. Smyth, who got jammed beneath a gun, was carried
down with the ship, and escaped with a few bruises.
The dramatic swiftness attending the loss of the _Aboukir_, the _Hogue_,
and the _Cressy_ accentuated the ruthless nature of the sea campaign in
the public mind. The three armoured cruisers were struck down within an
hour by the same submarine. They were patrolling in company, and two of
them were lost while going to the assistance of the _Aboukir_, which was
believed to have struck a mine.
Sixty officers and over 1400 men, many of them reservists, perished as a
sequel to Otto Weddigen’s prowess and their own humanity, or more than
the total British losses at the battles of the Glorious First of June,
St Vincent, the Nile, and Trafalgar. From a naval point of view the loss
of the ships was unimportant. One is apt to forget that men-of-war have
often a floating population equal to many a place in the United Kingdom
which prides itself on being called a town. If several hundred
inhabitants of such a spot were wiped out in a few minutes it would be
regarded as a terrible happening. The tragedy of the affair would come
home to us because a similar thing might occur where we live. Yet often
enough a naval disaster arouses nothing more than scant sympathy and a
mere comment. During the Great War those at sea in our big ships faced
such disasters every hour of every day and every night.
Fortunately the _Aboukir_, the _Hogue_, and the _Cressy_ did not
constitute the “British North Sea Fleet,” as ultra-patriotic German
newspapers inferred. According to his own statement, the commander of
U 9 was eighteen nautical miles to the north-west of the Hook of Holland
when he first sighted the cruisers, time 6.10 a.m. The vessels were
proceeding slowly in line ahead, and the first torpedo struck the
_Aboukir_, which was the middle ship. The reverberations of the
explosion could be felt in the submarine, for “the shot had gone
straight and true.” The _Aboukir’s_ consorts closed on her, intent on
offering assistance, but, as Weddigen points out, this was playing his
game. They were torpedoed in rapid succession. “I had scarcely to move
out of my position, which was a great aid, since it helped to keep me
from detection.” One shot from the _Cressy_, he adds, “came unpleasantly
near to us.” The commander pays a generous tribute to his foes: “They
were brave, true to their country’s sea traditions.” In one thing only
was he unsuccessful. The cruisers were unattended by a covering force of
destroyers, but while U 9 was returning to her lair he came across some
of these vessels. By exposing his periscope at intervals Weddigen hoped
to entice them into a zone where capture or destruction by German
warships was probable. Although the destroyers failed to put an end to
his career, he likewise failed to get the flies into the spider’s
parlour.
The Admiralty held that the commanders of the _Hogue_ and the _Cressy_
committed a pardonable error of judgment, and noted that “the conditions
which prevail when one vessel of a squadron is injured in a mine-field
or is exposed to submarine attack are analogous to those which occur in
an action, and that the rule of leaving disabled ships to their own
resources is applicable, so far at any rate as large vessels are
concerned.”
The _Hawke_, a cruiser of 7350 tons, with an armament of two 9.2–in.,
ten 6–in., twelve 6–pdr., and five 3–pdr. guns, plus two 18–in.
submerged torpedo-tubes, was characterized by some of those in the
Service as an unlucky ship. She had collided with the White Star liner
_Olympic_ when that vessel was on her maiden voyage, an incident deemed
quite sufficient to justify sinister prophecies of an untimely end. On
that occasion she lost her ram, which was replaced by a straight stem.
On the 15th October, 1914, when the war was only a little over two
months old, she was torpedoed by U 29, with the loss of some three
hundred officers and men. Her enemies were subsequently decorated with
the Iron Cross at the hands of the Crown Princess.
H.M.S. _Theseus_, a vessel of the same class which was patrolling with
the _Hawke_ in northern waters at the time, was attacked first, but
managed to escape. The submarine then aimed at the _Hawke_, hitting her
amidships on the starboard side aft of the fore funnel, and probably
blowing up the magazine, as in the case of the _Pathfinder_. She settled
very rapidly, “at God knows what angle,” according to an eye-witness.
She had nearly a hundred watertight doors, but even they can buckle and
jam, and are not explosive-proof. When the order was given to abandon
ship a few of the crew managed to get into one of the boats, while about
forty others scrambled on to a raft. Commander Bernhard Pratt-Barlow was
of the company. “There are too many on this raft,” he remarked, “I will
swim to another.” He dived in, but was never seen again. It was merely
prolonging the agony for most of those who remained. Before night many
of the poor fellows had succumbed to exposure and the bitter cold. After
being on the raft for twenty-three hours the survivors were picked up by
a destroyer, and after recovery proceeded to Portsmouth for a new kit.
The last seven words epitomize the splendid spirit of the British Navy.
The _Hermes_, an old cruiser used as a sea-plane-carrying ship, was sunk
in the Straits of Dover in October 1914, while returning from Dunkirk.
She was the victim of two torpedoes fired by a U-boat. The sea was
choppy, which may account for the submarine’s escape, for she was not
seen. As the _Hermes_ was near the warships engaged in bombarding the
Dunes in support of the Belgians, it is more than likely that the enemy
vessel had been hopeful of catching larger fry, an expectation which did
not materialize. One sailor who endeavoured to make himself more or less
comfortable on an upturned table was asked if he was training for the
next Derby, while two fellows in similar straits informed their friends
in the water that they were Oxford and Cambridge. The _Hermes_ must have
been what is called a ‘matey’ ship. The majority of her company were
saved.
Another loss to the Navy in 1914 was the _Niger_, a torpedo gunboat
built in 1892 and sister ship to the _Speedy_, mined on the 3rd
September.
The little vessel of 810 tons was torpedoed while on patrol duty by the
first U-boat which succeeded in dealing destruction in the Downs.
Despite a high wind and a heavy sea, all the officers and seventy-seven
men were saved, thanks in no small measure to the efforts of three Deal
boats and the fact that many of the bluejackets were wearing life-saving
collars. The submarine was seen approaching from the direction of South
Sand Head Lightship, but as the _Niger_ was anchored she was an easy
prey. At the moment of impact the wireless operator was actually sending
the S O S signal. When the explosion occurred Lieutenant-Commander A. T.
Muir was on the navigation bridge, which, despite severe injuries, he
vacated only after every other person had left the sinking vessel.
The gunboat was struck abaft the foremast. Although the bow was soon
under water, she kept afloat for quite twenty minutes, probably because
orders had been given for the watertight doors to be closed. One poor
fellow was lugged through one of the portholes; another scrambled aboard
after he had been rescued, hauled down the flag, and returned to the
boat.
The torpedoing of the _Formidable_ was an inauspicious omen for 1915.
This, the fourth ship to bear the name of one of Hawke’s prizes in the
battle of Quiberon Bay, was a pre-Dreadnought of 15,000 tons, armed with
four 12–in. and twelve 6–in. guns, twenty-six smaller weapons, and four
submerged torpedo-tubes. She was encountering a south-west gale in the
Channel at 2.20 a.m. on New Year’s Day when a torpedo struck her abaft
the starboard magazine and abreast of No. 1 stokehold. The _Formidable_
was the first victim of a submarine attack in the darkness of night.
While boats were being got away, and chairs, tables, and other floating
articles thrown overboard for use as life-savers, a torpedo exploded on
her port side. Captain Loxley, puffing at a cigarette, gave orders from
the bridge as coolly and collectedly as though the _Formidable_ was
making her way to Portsmouth Harbour on an even keel in the piping times
of peace. “Into the water with you! She’s going!” he sang out.
“Good-bye, lads. Every man for himself, and may God help you all!” He
went down with his vessel and as goodly a company of sea-dogs as ever
trod the deck of a British battleship. Over five hundred officers and
men were coffined in the _Formidable_ or drowned in attempting to get
away.[23] The loss of this useful, if obsolescent, vessel was severely
criticized by Admiral Lord Charles Beresford.[24] He commented on the
fact that the squadron of which the battleship was a unit had started
from port with destroyers and afterward sent them back, also that the
ship had slackened speed in an area known to be infested with
submarines.
Although it was announced that the battleship _Russell_ struck a mine in
the Mediterranean, the Germans claimed that she was sunk by one of their
U-boats. This was the second pre-Dreadnought and the third flagship to
pay the price of Admiralty during the war. The _Russell_, named after
one of six famous admirals, was commissioned in 1903, and completed her
career on the 27th April, 1916. She carried four 12–in., twelve 6–in.,
ten 12–pdr., and two 3–pdr. guns, and four torpedo-tubes. Although
Rear-Admiral S. R. Fremantle, M.V.O., the captain, twenty-four other
officers, and 676 men were saved, over 100 of her complement were
reported as missing.
Of the five capital ships lost by Britain in the Dardanelles campaign,
the _Ocean_ and the _Irresistible_ were lost by mines or torpedoed from
the shore, the _Goliath_ was torpedoed in a destroyer attack, and the
_Triumph_ and the _Majestic_ were submarined. On the 22nd May, 1915, the
periscope of a U-boat was sighted from the battleship _Prince George_. A
couple of rounds made the submersible take cover. That was the first
occasion on which enemy underwater craft had put in an appearance in the
vicinity of the Gallipoli peninsula. Three days later the _Swiftsure_
was on the verge of being attacked, but her gunners proved too
wide-awake and drove off the enemy. A little later the submarine
discharged a torpedo at the _Vengeance_, and missed. On the 26th the
enemy was seen again, escaped, and plugged two or three torpedoes into
the _Triumph_, lying stationary off the now famous, or infamous, Gaba
Tepe. Her nets were down, but the weapons went through them with almost
as much ease as a circus clown jumps through a hoop covered with
tissue-paper. Henceforth devotees of this form of protection had little
to say. The battleship disappeared in fifteen minutes, fortunately
without a heavy roll of casualties. Three officers and fifty-three of
her considerable company were lost. Like the _Swiftsure_, her sister
ship, the _Triumph_ was built for the Chilian Government and purchased
by Britain.
An enemy submarine exacted another toll on the following day, when the
_Majestic_, one of the oldest battleships on active service, was sunk
while supporting the troops against an attack by the Turks. Within four
minutes of the explosion, says a member of the French Expeditionary
Force who witnessed the catastrophe, the _Majestic_ turned completely
over and went down. “It was a terrible moment,” he adds, “but it was
also sublime when 600 men, facing death mute and strong, were thrown
into the sea, covered and caught in the torpedo nets, which ensnared
them like an immense cast-net among the gigantic eddies and the profound
sobs of their dear annihilated battleship. I shall never forget that
infernal instant when submarines, aeroplanes, cannons, and quick-firing
guns dealt death around me. And yet this vision only lasted the space of
a flash of lightning, for we too looked death in the face, and in our
own ship’s boats we took part in the finest rescue that the palette of
an artist ever represented.”
So the French have forgiven us for Nelson and Trafalgar!
The last battleship to be sunk by a U-boat in the World War was H.M.S.
_Britannia_, lost near Gibraltar on the 9th November, 1918. Two
explosions occurred, killing some forty of the crew. An hour and a half
later, while she was still afloat, the periscope of a submersible was
spotted. The guns of the stricken leviathan were trained and fired, with
what success is uncertain. Then two destroyers dropped depth charges
where the enemy was seen to submerge. If her ugly sides ever rose again
they certainly did not do so in the vicinity of the _Britannia_. Shortly
afterward the battleship turned turtle in deep water.