The Dramatic Sinking of Three British Cruisers by U-boat in the Early
Days of the War
Early on the morning of September 22, 1914, three 12,000-ton armored
cruisers of the British Navy—the _Aboukir_, the _Cressy_, and the
_Hogue_—were torpedoed in the North Sea and sunk by a German submarine,
with a loss of 1,433 men. The news startled the whole world. It was
as if three Goliaths, imposing, formidable, on parade in panoply,
challenging the stoutest, had succumbed impotently to the assault of
the diminutive David—for it was a solitary submarine that sank the
naval giants in less than an hour. So adroit, rapid and precise had
been the maneuvers of the submarine that the officers of the attacked
warships were of the belief that there were several of the invisible
devil-boats, and that the guns of the _Cressy_ sank one of them. Nor
did they become the wiser until Captain Lieutenant Otto Weddigen,
commander of _U-9_, made report of his exploit on his return to
Wilhelmshaven, whence he had set forth for the enterprise. Conditions,
be it said, were entirely favorable to him, for the sea was calm, and
the weather clear. The three cruisers, unsuspicious, were steaming
along in close formation, patrolling the silent sea, and they gave him
a famous victory—the destruction of the first warships by the U-boat.
There follow three separate accounts of the event as related by three
different sources, the first being that of an officer of the _Cressy_,
published in the _Manchester Guardian_.
[Illustration:
© _Press Photo Syndicate._