An Engagement When Pistol and Cutlass Revived Memories of Notable Sea
Fights of the Past
A friendly ghost of the old grappling and boarding days at sea came to
give the color of romance to one of the encounters between British and
German ships in the latter part of April, 1917. And a touch of ancient
charm is given to the experience in the fact that the hero of the
engagement was a gallant and daring midshipman, for the honors really
fall to Midshipman Donald Gyles of the good ship _Broke_—a British
destroyer.
Appropriately too, it was a dark and calm night. The _Broke_ (whose
commander was Capt. Evans, the antarctic explorer) and the sister
destroyer _Swift_ were steaming leisurely in a westerly course on
patrol duty. Suddenly, quite in the vein of romance, the lookout of the
_Swift_ made out, not more than six hundred yards distant, a flotilla
of six German destroyers. Here was a how-d’ye-do, when you consider
that a distance of a thousand yards is a disagreeably close range in
these days of far-speaking guns. The Germans were the first to fire,
but the _Swift_ lost no time in making reply and also put on steam
in an attempt to ram the foremost enemy destroyer. She failed of her
purpose and ran beyond the enemy line, but turning about she sent a
torpedo into one of the enemy ships and made a second dash at the
leader, which again escaped a ramming and took to flight. The _Swift_
gave chase.
The _Broke_ was giving excellent account of herself meanwhile. She had
torpedoed one of the enemy and then opened fire with every gun. The
other enemy destroyers were frantically working for full speed. The
_Broke_ swung around and rammed one of them square abreast the after
funnel, so that the two boats were locked. Then began the desperate
hand-to-hand conflict reminiscent of ancient days. The _Broke_ raked
the enemy’s decks point blank with fire from big guns, maxims, rifle
and pistol. Two other German destroyers came to the rescue and poured
a furious fire on the _Broke_, killing twelve of the eighteen men of
the gun crew.