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10 December 2014 · 6:44 pm

The Battle of the Falkland Islands 8 December 1914

Vice Admiral Maximilian Graf von Spee’s East Asia Squadron of the armoured cruisers SMS Scharnhorst (flag) and Gneisenau and the light cruisers SMS Dresden, Leipzig and Nürnberg arrived at the Falkland Islands on the morning of 8 December. Their intention was to destroy the local facilities and wireless station

These were the ships that had won the Battle of Coronel on 1 November. The previous entry in this series described the intervening events, including the despatch of the battlecruisers, HMS Invincible (flag of Vice Admiral Sir Doveton Sturdee) and Inflexible to the South Atlantic.

The Falkland Islanders had expected to be attacked by Spee since they learnt of Coronel on 25 November. They had formed a local defence force in case of invasion, whilst Captain Heathcoat Grant had deliberately beached the pre-dreadnought battleship HMS Canopus on mud to protect the harbour. A signal station had been established on Sapper Hill in order to watch for enemy ships and to direct Canopus’ fire. A row of electric mines laid across the entrance to the outer harbour.

However, Sturdee’s force, also including the armoured cruisers HMS Carnarvon (flag of Rear Admiral Sir Archibald Stoddart ), Cornwall and Kent and the light cruisers HMS Bristol and Glasgow had arrived at the Falklands the day before with the intention of coaling before heading for Cape Horn in search of Spee. The Armed Merchant Cruiser HMS Macedonia was also present. Another AMC, HMS Orama, was escorting Sturdee’s colliers to the Falklands.

The Naval Staff Monograph, written in 1921, says that German prisoners later told the British that the only ships that Spee expected to meet were HMS Canopus, Carnarvon, Kent, Cornwall, Glasgow, Bristol, Newcastle and possibly Defence at the Falklands.  This probably does not mean that he expected to encounter all of them.

The 1938 edition of Naval Operations, the British Official History, which was revised after the publication of the German Official History, Der Krieg zur See, 1914-1918, says Canopus, Carnarvon, and possibly Defence, Cornwall, and Glasgow.[1] The Germans could outrun Canopus and had heavier guns than all the others except Defence. Any British ships present would probably be coaling, so vulnerable to attack.

Spee’s plan was that Gneisenau and Nürnberg would carry out the attack, with the rest of his squadron standing off in support. They would enter Port Stanley behind a line of minesweeping boats. Gneisenau would take the Governor on board, whilst Nürnberg would enter the inner harbour and destroy the dockyard and wireless station. If hostile warships were present, they would withdraw to the rest of the squadron.

At 7:50 am the look outs spotted Gneisenau and Nürnberg approaching. Coaling had been slow because the first of Sturdee’s own colliers, had only just arrived at the Falklands to join three that were already there. Only Carnarvon and Glasgow had completed coaling. the battlecruisers and Bristol were coaling and the other three ships had not yet started to do so. Kent, as guardship, had steam at 30 minutes notice and the others were at two hours notice, except Bristol which needed engine repairs, so was at six hours notice.[2]

At 8 am the Germans spotted wireless masts and heavy smoke, which they initially assumed was the British burning their coal stocks. Gneisenau’s gunnery office, Kapitänleutnant Busch, is believed to have reported seeing tripod masts, which would have meant that British dreadnought battlecruisers or battleships were present. However, his report was not believed.[3]

The following account is based on Sturdee’s Despatch, available from this link to ‘The World War I Primary Documents Archive’, unless otherwise footnoted.

8:00 am: The signal from Sapper Hill reached Sturdee. He ordered Kent was to weigh anchor and the squadron to raise steam for full speed.

8:20 am: The signal station reported another column of smoke to the south.

8:45 am: Kent took up station at the harbour entrance.

8:47 am: Canopus reported that the first two ships were eight miles away and that the second column of smoke seemed to come from two ships about 20 miles away.

8:50 am: The signal station reported a further column of smoke to the south. Macedonia was ordered to weigh anchor and await orders.

9:20 am: Canopus opened fire on the two leading enemy ships at 11,000 yards. They turned away. Their masts and smoke were now visible at a range of 17,000 yards from Invincible’s upper bridge. A few minutes later the Germans changed course, as if to close on Kent, but then changed course and increased speed in order to join their consorts, apparently having spotted the battlecruisers.

9:40 am: Glasgow weighed anchor in order to join Kent.

9:45 am: Carnarvon, Inflexible, Invincible and Cornwall weighed anchor and left harbour in that order. The sea was calm, the sun bright, the sky clear and visibility at its maximum. There was a light breeze from the north west. The five German ships became visible once the squadron had passed Cape Pembroke Light.

Canopus missed the German ships, but the size of water splashes from her shells indicated that they were from 12 inch guns. Spee ordered his ships to turn away after Gneisenau reported that there were six enemy warships present.

The Naval Staff Monograph says the Germans saw the six British ships leaving the harbour at 10 am, but identified them as being two pre-dreadnought battleships, three armoured cruisers and a light cruiser and did not realise that could see that the two largest ships were battlecruisers rather than pre-dreadnoughts until 10:20am. The Germans were then heading east at 20 knots, The subsequent battle was so one sided that the Naval Staff Monograph concludes its account at this point by saying that ‘von Spee knew that his hour had come.’[4]

Naval Operations states that the Germans identified the battlecruisers at 9:40 am. Whenever they made the identification, it came as a great shock to them. There had been US newspaper reports that Invincible had been sent south, but Spee was unaware of them.[5]

Spee’s squadron could out run but not out fight pre-dreadnoughts. It could neither out run nor out fight battlecruisers. Withdrawing was the best action if he thought that he faced pre-dreadnoughts, but if he had realised that he faced battlecruisers, his only chance would have been to attack the first ship to leave harbour, Kent, in the hope of sinking her and obstructing the exit of the rest of the British squadron.

By the time that the battlecruisers had been identified, Spee’s only hope was that his doomed armoured cruisers could hold the British off for long enough that his three light cruisers might escape in order to carry out commerce raiding. The following table shows that the British had an overwhelming superiority.

Ship Completed Tonnage Speed (knots) Guns Weight of Broadside (lbs)
Scharnhorst 1907 11,420 23.8 8 x 8.2″ 1,957
6 x 5.9″
Gneisenau 1907 11,420 23.8 8 x 8.2″ 1,957
6 x 5.9″
Nürnberg 1908 3,400 23.0 10 x 4.1″ 176
Leipzig 1906 3,200 23.3 10 x 4.1″ 176
Dresden 1909 3,592 24.5 10 X 4.1″ 176
German Total 33,032 4,442
Invincible 1909 17,373 25.5 8 x 12″ 5,100
16 x 4″
Inflexible 1908 17,373 25.5 8 x 12″ 5,100
16 x 4″
Carnarvon 1905 10,850 22.0 4 x 7.5″ 900
6 x 6″
Cornwall 1903 9,800 22.4 14 x 6″ 900
Kent 1903 9,800 22.4 14 x 6″ 900
Glasgow 1911 4,800 25.3 2 x 6″ 325
10 x 4″
British Total 69,996 13,225

Sources: R. Gray, Conway’s All the World’s Fighting Ships, 1906-1921 (London: Conway Maritime Press, 1985) pp. 24-25, <<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HMS_Carnarvon>&gt; [accessed 8 December 2014], Marder, A. J., From the Dreadnought to Scapa Flow; the Royal Navy in the Fisher Era, 1904-1919. 5 vols. (London: Oxford University Press, 1961-70), vol. ii, p. 109, 122. Cornwall and Kent have been assumed to be identical to their sister Monmouth.

Kent and Leipzig both had reputations as being poor sailors that rarely achieved the designed speeds quoted above. The Germans ships were all in poor condition after four months of cruising.[6] Bristol and Macedonia have been omitted because they did not take part in the main action.

10:20 am: The signal for a general chase was given.

11:15 am: Speed reduced to 20 knots in order to allow the armoured cruisers to close up to the faster battlecruisers and Glasgow.

12:20 pm: Sturdee decided to attack the enemy with the battlecruisers and Glasgow.

12:47 pm: Sturdee signalled ‘Open fire and engage the enemy.’

12:55 pm: Inflexible fired the first shots at a range of 16,500 yards at Leipzig, the closest ship, which was dropping back from the rest of her squadron.

1:20 pm: The range was down to 15,000 yards. The three German light cruisers now turned away to the south west. Sturdee ordered Kent, Glasgow and Cornwall to follow them, whilst the battlecruisers and Carnarvon concentrated on the German armoured cruisers. Thereafter, the battle split into two separate actions.

Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_the_Falkland_Islands#mediaviewer/File:Falklandschlacht.jpg

Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_the_Falkland_Islands#mediaviewer/File:Falklandschlacht.jpg. Originally from Eduard Rothert, Karten und Skizzen zum Weltkrieg, Druck und Verlag von A. Bagel, Düsseldorf, 1916

Naval Operations says that Spee had taken ‘a decision which did him and his service the highest honour.’[7] He would sacrifice himself, his two armoured cruisers and their crews in order to preserve the three light cruisers, which could then raid Allied commerce.

Action with the Armoured Cruisers:

1:25 pm: The Germans turned to port, opening fire five minutes later. Sturdee wanted to keep the range between 13,500 yards (the maximum of the German 8.2 inch guns) and 16,400 yards (the maximum of the British 12 inch guns). Spee wanted to close to less than the 12,000 yard range of his 5.9 inch guns.[8]

1:30 pm: The Germans opened fire. Soon afterwards, Sturdee ordered a turn.

2:00 pm: The range had opened to 16,450 yards.

2:10 pm: The Germans turned away and another chase began.

2:45 pm: The battlecruisers opened fire.

2:53 pm: The Germans turned.

2:55 pm: The Germans opened fire.

Naval Operations says that the German 5.9 inch guns were in range by 2:59 pm, but had little effect at their maximum range. The smoke from the battlecruisers was making gunnery very difficult for both sides, but Gneisenau was listing by 3:10 pm. Five minutes later, Scharnhorst, which was on fire and whose fire was slackening, lost a funnel.[9]

3:30 pm: Scharnhorst turned, apparently to bring her starboard guns into action. She was on fire and steam was coming from her. Around 4:00 pm (the linked file says 4:40 pm but this must be a typo), she listed heavily to port. Her colours were still flying.

4:17 pm: Scharnhorst sank with all hands.

5:08 pm: Gneisenau’s forward funnel fell and her fire slackened.

5:15 pm: A shell from Gneisenau hit Invincible.

5:30 pm: Gneisenau turned towards Invincible. Sturdee ordered ‘Cease fire’, but cancelled it before it had been raised after Gneisenau fired a single gun.

5:40 pm: The three British ships closed on Gneisenau. One of her flags appeared to be hauled down, but another was still flying.

5:50 pm: Sturdee signalled ‘Cease fire.’

6:00 pm: Gneisenau suddenly turned over and sank.

She had been pounded from 4,000 yards before being scuttled on the orders of Kapitän Julius Maerker. He did not survive, but Hans Pochhammer, his second in command, did. Invincible picked 108 men, 14 of whom were found to be dead, Inflexible 62 and Carnarvon 20.[10]

Invincible suffered no significant damage and no casualties, Carnarvon was not hit and Inflexible had one man killed and three wounded.[11]

Action with the Light Cruisers

3:00 pm. Glasgow exchanged shots with Leipzig at 12,000 yards.

The British 6 inch and German 4.1 inch guns could fire at this range, but not the British 4 inch guns. Captain John Luce of Glasgow successfully aimed to entice Leipzig to turn towards his ship, thus delaying her in order to allow the British armoured cruisers to catch up.[12]

3:36 pm: Cornwall ordered Kent to attack Nürnberg, the enemy ship closest to her.

4:00 pm: The weather changed, considerably reducing visibility. This helped Dresden, the fastest German ship, to escape. Only Glasgow was fast enough to catch her, but she was busy with Leipzig.

4:17 pm: Cornwall opened fire on Leipzig.

5:00 pm: Kent, whose engine room crew performed excellently, contrary to her reputation as a poor sailor, was in gun range of Nürnberg.

Robert Massie says that she was faster because the lack of coal on board made her light. Her crew made up for this by feeding as much wood as they could spare. including furniture, ladders, doors and even deck timbers into her furnaces.[13]

6:35 pm: Nürnberg was on fire and ceased fire. Kent closed to 3,300 yards, but re-opened fire after seeing that the German ship was still flying her colours. They were taken down after five minutes according to British reports, which Naval Operations says was ‘no shame’; it notes that the German Official History denies that they were hauled down.[14] At Coronel Nürnberg had been forced to carry on firing at the helpless HMS Monmouth when she refused to strike her colours.

Kent was only able to launch two hastily repaired boats. They were on their way to Leipzig when she sank just before 7:30 pm. The British searched until 9:00 pm, but was able to find only twelve men alive, five of whom later died.[15]

Sturdee’s report said that four men were killed and 12 wounded on Kent, but naval-history.net lists five men killed and 11 wounded, with three of the latter later dying.

Most of Kent’s casualties were inflicted by a single shell that struck a gunport. It caused a flash that went down the hoist into the ammunition passage. Without the courage and quick thinking of Royal Marine Sergeant Charles Mayes, this would most likely to have caused an explosion that would have destroyed the ship. Mayes was awarded the Conspicuous Gallantry Medal, second only to the Victoria Cross for man of his rank. Sturdee’s Despatch stated that:

A shell burst and ignited some cordite charges in the casemate ; a flash of flame went down the hoist into the ammunition passage. Sergeant Mayes picked up a charge of cordite and threw it away. He then got hold of a fire hose and flooded the compartment, extinguishing the fire in some empty shell bags which were burning. The extinction of this fire saved a disaster which might have led to the loss of the ship.

However, the Admiralty failed to learn the lessons of this near disaster, with the result that three battlecruisers, including Invincible, blew up at Jutland in 1916.[16]

7:17 pm: Leipzig was on fire and Cornwall and Glasgow ceased fire.

Naval Operations says that ‘[n]o ship could have done better against such odds’ than Leipzig.[17] She was no longer firing, but she was moving through the water, her colours were flying and she Leipzig sea cocks had been opened in order to scuttle her.

According to Massie, the Germans were unable to pull their flag down because of a fire round the mast. They fired two green distress signals at 8:12 pm, which Luce took to be a sign of surrender. The British launched boats at 8:45 pm. Leipzig sank at 9:23 pm. Only 18 of her crew were rescued.[18] Glasgow had five men wounded, one of whom later died. Cornwall suffered no casualties.

In the late morning Bristol and Macedonia were ordered to see in response to a report from a local woman, Mrs Felton, that there were three ships off Port Pleasant. There was a possibility that they might have been transports carrying troops recruited from German residents of South America.[19]

There were actually two, the Baden and Santa Isabel, and they were carrying coal. Captain Basil Fanshawe of Bristol obeyed the letter of Sturdee’s orders and sank them, after taking off their crews. He did not then know that the British had defeated Spee’s squadron. The third collier, the Seydlitz, managed to evade the British and was interned in Argentina in January 1915.[20]

All but one warship and one collier of Spee’s squadron had been sunk. Only 201 German sailors were rescued, and it is not clear from the sources quoted whether or not all of them lived. The ships sunk had total crews of at least 2,140, which may not include Spee’s staff on his flagship.[21]

Spee, the captains of all the ships sunk and his two sons, Otto on Nürnberg and Heinrich on Gneisenau, were amongst the dead. The British lost 6 dead and 19 wounded, with 4 of the wounded later dying.

Sturdee was acclaimed for his victory, except by the First Sea Lord, Admiral Lord Fisher. Sturdee received a baronetcy in January 1916. Fisher, however, had not forgotten that Sturdee had been on the other side in his feud with Admiral Lord Charles Beresford. He initially refused to allow Sturdee to return home until Dresden had been sunk, but this was vetoed by Winston Churchill, the First Lord.

Fisher argued that he should take much of the credit for his decision to send two battlecruisers after Spee, that Sturdee’s poor dispositions had led to the defeat at Coronel and that he had been lucky to encounter Spee at the Falklands. These comments were fair, but his criticisms of Sturdee for taking a long time and using a lot of ammunition to defeat an inferior enemy were not. Sturdee could not risk damage to his battlecruisers solely in order to win more quickly.

Sturdee’s performance in both his roles in 1914 shows that he was a man more suited to sea command than to shore based staff duties.

The British victory at the Falkland Islands removed the main German surface threat to Allied merchant shipping. This meant that a large number of RN warships could now be recalled to home waters, increasing the Grand Fleet’s superiority over the High Seas Fleet.

 

[1]Naval Staff Monograph (Historical)  vol. i. p. 165; J. S. Corbett, H. Newbolt, Naval Operations, 5 vols. (London: HMSO, 1938). vol. i, p. 411

[2] Naval Staff vol. i. p. 163.

[3] Ibid., p. 166.

[4] Ibid.

[5] Corbett, Newbolt, Naval. vol. i, p, 416.

[6] Ibid. vol. i, p. 426.

[7] Ibid. vol. i, p. 419.

[8] A. J. Marder, From the Dreadnought to Scapa Flow; the Royal Navy in the Fisher Era, 1904-1919, 5 vols. (London: Oxford University Press, 1961-70). vol. ii, pp. 122-23.

[9] Corbett, Newbolt, Naval. vol. i, pp. 421-22.

[10] R. K. Massie, Castles of Steel: Britain, Germany, and the Winning of the Great War at Sea (London: Jonathan Cape, 2004), pp. 272-74.

[11] Corbett, Newbolt, Naval. vol. i, pp. 425-26.

[12] Ibid. vol. i, p. 427.

[13] Massie, Castles, p. 277.

[14] Corbett, Newbolt, Naval. vol. i, p. 432 and note 1.

[15] Massie, Castles, p. 278.

[16] G. Bennett, Naval Battles of the First World War (London: Pan, 1983), p. 110.

[17] Corbett, Newbolt, Naval. vol. i, p. 429.

[18] Massie, Castles, pp. 276-77.

[19] P. G. Halpern, A Naval History of World War I (London: UCL Press, 1994), p. 99.

[20] Corbett, Newbolt, Naval, p. 433.

[21] Bennett, Naval Battles, p. 122. 765 on each armoured cruiser, 290 on Leipzig and 320 on Nurnberg.

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8 December 2014 · 2:15 pm

Coronel to the Falkland Islands 1914

Vice Admiral Maximilian von Spee’s East Asia Squadron of the armoured cruisers SMS Scharnhorst (flag)  and Gneisenau and the light cruisers SMS Dresden, Leipzig and Nürnberg defeated Rear Admiral Sir Christopher Craddock’s British squadron at Coronel, off the coast of Chile, on 1 November 1914. The British force was inferior to the German one, but the British were so used to naval superiority that any defeat was a major psychological blow to them and a boost to their enemy.

The existence of Spee’s squadron disrupted British South American trade. It might also appear off South Africa, where a significant proportion of the Boer population was pro-German. A large number of British ships were tied up in escorting convoys and hunting for German raiders.[1]

There had been three German light cruisers outside European waters at the start of the war as well as Spee’s squadron and three out of five German merchant ships armed as auxiliary raiders at the start of the war were still operating at the start of November.[2]

Spee had detached the light cruiser SMS Emden to operate in the Indian Ocean. Her highly successful cruise did not end until 9 November, when she was destroyed by HMS Sydney. SMS Königsberg was blockaded in the Rufiji River in East Africa by November 1914, but still tied up several British cruisers by her presence. SMS Karlsruhe successfully raided Allied shipping off north east Brazil before being destroyed by an accidental explosion on 4 November. However, it was some time before the British learnt of her fate.

However, Spee had problems of his own. The Japanese entry into the war made his principal base of Tsingtao in China, now Qingdao, untenable. British Empire forces, mainly from Australia and New Zealand, captured Germany’s bases and wireless stations on various South Pacific islands. He could obtain coal and intelligence from German agents and diplomats in South America, but he had no means of repairing his ships or replenishing their ammunition.[3] They had suffered little damage at Coronel, but had used 666 out of their 1,456 8.2 inch shells.[4]

He told a former German Navy surgeon, who was then living in Valparaiso, that:

‘You must not forget that I am quite homeless. I cannot reach Germany, we possess no other secure harbour, I must plough the seas of the world, doing as much mischief as I can, till my ammunition is exhausted, or till a foe far superior in power succeeds in catching me.’[5]

The two German armoured cruisers and Nürnberg had entered Valparaiso after Coronel, but left on 4 November. The Admiralty had no knowledge of the whereabouts of the German squadron until 14 November. Dresden and Leipzig had entered Valparaiso the day before, but were not allowed to coal. They left at 1 am on 14 November and were reported to have met the rest of their squadron outside the port.

The Naval Staff Monograph argues the visit of the two light cruisers to Valparaiso, which may have been to allow their crews a chance to visit a port ‘was a mistake…[that] served no purpose of military utility’ and let the Admiralty know that Spee was still off the Chilean coast.[6]

On 21 November Spee’s squadron arrived at St Quintin Bay in Chile, along with seven colliers. It coaled from four of them: the Memphis, Luxor, Ithakotis and Amasis. The other three, the Seydlitz, Baden and St Isabel, carrying 17,000 tons of coal, sailed with the warships when they left St Quntin on 26 November. The squadron needed about 7,000 tons of coal every fortnight. [7]

On 2 December the British three masted barque Drummuir, carrying 2,800 tons of coal, was captured by Leipzig. The German squadron then detoured to Picton Island to transfer the coal to the bunkers of its colliers, which took until 6 December.

That day, Spee called a conference of his captains and senior staff officers. He informed them that he intended to attack the Falkland Islands, destroy its wireless station and dockyard and capture its governor in retaliation for the British capture of the German governor of Samoa. The majority opposed his plan, but he over-ruled them.[8]

The German squadron sailed for the Falklands that afternoon, first scuttling the Drummuir . The three days spent at Picton Island would prove to be a fatal delay for the Germans.

The British, meanwhile, had responded decisively to their defeat at Coronel. Admiral Lord ‘Jackie’ Fisher had been re-appointed First Sea Lord following the resignation of Prince Louis Battenberg on 29 October because of ‘rising agitation in the Press against every one German or of German descent.’[9]

On 4 November, six hours after learning of Coronel, Fisher decided to send two battlecruisers, HMS Inflexible and Invincible, to hunt for Spee’s squadron. Four days later they arrived at Devonport, where they were to take on stores and Invincible was to undergo repairs. The dockyard said that they would take until 13 November, but Fisher said that the ships must sail on 11 November, with dockyard workers on board if necessary. They made this target.

The Royal Navy cruiser squadron in the South Atlantic was commanded by Rear Admiral Sir Archibald Stoddart. The battlecruisers were, however, a Vice Admiral’s command and one was now available.

Fisher had both professional and personal objections to Vice Admiral Sir Doveton Sturdee. the Chief of the War Staff at the Admiralty. Sturdee had been on the side of Admiral Lord Charles Beresford in his feud with Fisher. Additionally, Fisher blamed him for the loss of three cruisers to a single U-boat in September and for poor dispositions that led to Coronel. Fisher said that ‘[n]ever such utter rot as perpetrated by Sturdee in his world-wide dispersal of weak units! Strong nowhere, weak everywhere.’[10]

However, Winston Churchill, the First Lord, trusted Sturdee and did not want it to seem as if he was being fired because of Coronel.[11] Sturdee had declined Fisher’s offer of command of the China Station because he would be based on shore rather than at sea. Churchill then suggested giving him command of the squadron being sent to the South Atlantic. Sturdee was therefore appointed to command in the South Atlantic and Pacific, ’embracing as it did a wider extent of sea than had ever yet been committed to a single admiral.’[12]

Sturdee’s orders were:

‘Your main and most important duty is to search for the German armoured cruisers Scharnhorst and Gneisenau and bring them to action, all other considerations are to be subordinated to this end. It is not intended that you should confine your operations to the limits of your station should the movements of the enemy render it necessary for you to pass beyond them.[13]

As well as the two battlecruisers being sent with Sturdee, another, HMS Princes Royal, was sent to the Caribbean on 12 November. There was a risk that Spee might come through the Panama Canal. The USA allowed three belligerent warships in it and three in US territorial waters at each end at any one time, so Spee’s squadron could have transited it in less than a day.[14] However, the Naval Staff Monograph, written after the war for internal RN use only, says that the main reason for the despatch of Princess Royal was the risk of German cruisers breaking out from Germany into the Atlantic.[15]

The removal of three battlecruisers from the Grand Fleet meant that it was outnumbered five to four by the German High Seas Fleet in that type of ship. Its commander, Admiral Sir John Jellicoe, was concerned that he had too small a margin over the enemy. He did not regard the recently completed ships, the battlecruiser HMS Tiger and the battleships HMS Benbow, Emperor of India and Queen Elizabeth, as being ready for action. However, Paul Halpern praises Fisher as showing ‘considerable nerve and moral courage for he correctly foresaw the need for overwhelming force at the decisive place.’[16]

Sturdee’s squadron sailed south at a slow speed in order to conserve coal. It lost 12 hours searching for the German auxiliary cruiser Kronprinz Wilhelm, which had wrongly been reported to be in the area, and another 12 clearing a wire that had fouled one of Invincible’s propellers during target practice.

On 26 November he rendezvoused with Stoddart’s squadron of the armoured cruisers HMS Carnarvon (flag), Cornwall and Kent, the light cruisers HMS Bristol and Glasgow and the Armed Merchant cruiser HMS Orama at the Abrolhos Rocks off north east Brazil. The armoured cruiser HMS Defence was also present, but she was to proceed to South Africa after transferring her modern wireless equipment to Invincible. It was hoped that this would prevent a repetition of the communications problems that had been an issue with Craddock’s squadron before Coronel.[17]

Sturdee had originally intended to remain at the Abrolhos Rocks until 29 November, transferring stores to Stoddart’s ships, but Captain John Luce of HMS Glasgow persuaded him to sail a day earlier. The British squadron therefore reached the Falkland Islands, where it intended to coal, on 7 December, a day before the Germans. The Germans would have been there first if they had not delayed at Picton Island or if Sturdee had not been persuaded by Luce to leave the Abrolhos Rocks sooner.

The next entry in this series will describe the Battle of the Falkland Islands on 8 December 1914.

[1] Naval Staff Monograph (Historical)  vol. i. ‘Monograph 3: Operations up to the Battle of The Falkland Islands’, pp. 140-41.

[2] Naval Staff Monograph (Historical)  Review of German Cruiser Warfare 1914-1918.

[3] For an analysis of Spee’s strategic options see P. Overlack, ‘The Force of Circumstance: Graf Spee’s Options for the East Asian Cruiser Squadron in 1914’, The Journal of Military History 60, no. 4 (1996), pp. 657-82.

[4] A. J. Marder, From the Dreadnought to Scapa Flow; the Royal Navy in the Fisher Era, 1904-1919, 5 vols. (London: Oxford University Press, 1961-70). vol. ii, p. 118.

[5] Quoted in Naval Staff vol. i. p. 154.

[6] Ibid., p. 148.

[7] Ibid., pp. 153-54.

[8] J. S. Corbett, H. Newbolt, Naval Operations, 5 vols. (London: HMSO, 1938). vol. i, p. 414.

[9] Ibid. vol. i, p. 246.

[10] Quoted in Marder, From. vol. ii, p. 120

[11] G. Bennett, Naval Battles of the First World War (London: Pan, 1983), p. 90; P. G. Halpern, A Naval History of World War I (London: UCL Press, 1994), p. 94; R. K. Massie, Castles of Steel: Britain, Germany, and the Winning of the Great War at Sea (London: Jonathan Cape, 2004), p. 248.

[12] Corbett, Newbolt, Naval. vol. i, p. 365.

[13] Naval Staff vol. i. pp. 155-56.

[14] Halpern, Naval, p. 96.

[15] Naval Staff vol. i. p. 144.

[16] Halpern, Naval, p. 94.

[17] Corbett, Newbolt, Naval, p. 409.

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12 November 2014 · 1:11 pm

The Cruise of SMS Emden

On 14 August 1914 Vice Admiral Maximilian von Spee detached Fregattenkapitän Karl von Müller’s light cruiser SMS Emden (3,664 tons, 23.5 knots, 10 x 4.1 inch and 8 x 2 inch guns, 2 x 17.7 inch torpedo tubes) and the supply ship Markomannia from his East Asia Squadron to operate in the Indian Ocean.[1] Spee wrote in his war diary that:

A single light cruiser, which consumes far less coal and can, if necessary, coal from captured steamships, will be able to maintain herself longer than the whole Squadron in the Indian Ocean, and as there are great prizes to be won there (Indian, East Asiatic and Australian shipping), it seems advisable to despatch our fastest light cruiser, the Emden, with our best collier. She can subsequently proceed to the African coast, or should Holland remain neutral, to the Netherland East Indies.[2]

However, the Dutch decided to ‘rigorously enforce their neutrality.’[3] On 27 August the Dutch coast defence ship Tromp ordered Emden to stay out of Dutch territorial waters. She had earlier sent away a German collier that had stayed too long in Dutch waters. This meant that the Germans had to abandon their pre-war plan that supply ships should wait for orders in neutral waters. Emden’s coal bunkers had a capacity of 790 tons. She might carry up to 1,000 tons, but her combat efficiency and the crew’s living conditions would be adversely affected by the need to store coal wherever space could be found. At her most economical cruising speed of 12 knots she consumed 60 tons of coal an hour. At the maximum speed that she managed on trials of 23.85 knots she used 371 tons per hour. Thus, with a normal coal load, she had an endurance of just over 13 days and a range of just under 3,800 miles at 12 knots. She could maintain full speed for about 50 hours and 1200 miles.[4] Müller used the following tactics when attempting to capture a merchantman: The commerce raider should not show its colours until the last moment; it should raise the signals “Stop” and Do not use your wireless” along with its ensign; as little use as was possible should be made of searchlights; and the raider should take up a position that made it impossible for it to be rammed by the merchant ship. He also recommended that cruisers employed as commerce raiders should have larger than normal crews in order to be able to provide prize crews for colliers and guards for prisoners. Secrecy was vital for a commerce raider, but the disappearance of merchant ships and reports from neutral ships would mean that the enemy would discover the cruiser’s operating area. Consequently, delaying landing prisoners at ports would help preserve secrecy only if the cruiser had not stopped any neutral ships or if it was operating a long way from enemy signal stations or ports.[5] Emden’s appearance on the Colombo to Calcutta route in the Bay of Bengal surprised the British. They had returned to peacetime procedures, as they had not realised that Spee had detached one of his cruisers. Consequently, her early victims assumed that she was a British cruiser. Müller encouraged this by having a fake fourth funnel rigged. British light cruisers had two or four funnels, whereas Emden had three.[6] Emden coaled at Simular Island off Sumatra on 5 September, narrowly missing the armoured cruiser HMS Hampshire, which had searched there the day before.

On 10 September, Emden stopped a neutral ship, the Greek Pontoporos, whose cargo of coal was British, making her a legitimate target. Müller kept her as a collier. Emden had captured five British ships by 13 September. One, the Kabinga, had a US cargo, so was retained as a prison ship. The other four were sunk. The next ship intercepted by Emden was another neutral, the Italian Loredano. Her master, Captain Giacopolo, refused to take Emden’s prisoners on board on the grounds that his ship had insufficient provisions. Müller allowed her to go. She did not have a wireless, but the next day met and warned the City of Rangoon, a new ship carrying a cargo worth £600,000, which did have a wireless.[7] This led to a suspension of trade, which meant that several ships that would probably have been caught by Emden remained in Calcutta: she was then very close to that port. She did, however, capture and sink another merchantman that had already sailed. Müller now decided to change his area of operations. He first sent the Kabinga to Calcutta (now Kolkata), with his prisoners, before heading for the coast of Burma (now Myanmar). On the way, Emden captured and sunk another British ship, transferring her crew to a Norwegian ship on 16 September Müller’s next move, after coaling, was to attack Madras (now Chennai) after dark on 22 September. Some damage was caused to the steamer Chupra and to the town, but the main damage caused by the attack was the destruction of 425,000 gallons of oil in the Burmah Oil Company’s tanks. It also led to an interruption of trade in the Bay of Bengal at 2 am on 23 September, only 18 hours after the previous suspension had been lifted, and to alarm in Madras and the surrounding area. Five people were killed and a dozen wounded.[8] Between 25 and 27 September Emden took six prizes in the area of Ceylon (now Sri Lanka). Three were in ballast, but the Admiralty collier Buresk carried 6,000 tons of Welsh steam coal, the best coal in the world for naval use. Buresk was retained as a collier, four of the ships were sunk and the sixth sent to Colombo with the prisoners.[9] Emden then coaled in the Maldives, before arriving at Diego Garcia on 9 October to carry out repairs. Diego Garcia is still British territory and is now a major US base, but it was then so remote that its inhabitants had not learnt of the war. However, on 12 October the light cruiser HMS Yarmouth sank the Markomannia and removed the Pontoporos from German control. Müller next took his ship back to Ceylon, capturing seven merchantmen from 16 to 19 October. Five were sunk and another sent to port with the prisoners. The sixth, the Exford, was retained as she was another Admiralty collier carrying 6,000 tons of Welsh tons.[10] On 21 October Emden passed within 10-20 miles of Hampshire and the armed merchant cruiser HMS Empress of Asia, but the ships did not see each other because of poor visibility. At 5:00 am on 28 October, Emden entered Penang, which had no fixed defences, but was defended by three French destroyers and a torpedo boat. The Russian protected cruiser Zhemchug was also present (3,103 tons, 24.5 knots, 8 x 4.7 inch and 4 x 1.9 inch guns, 4 x 18 inch torpedo tubes): she was smaller than Emden, but not hugely outclassed.[11] Emden was initially assumed to be a British cruiser and did not raise German colours until she was three quarters of a mile from the Zhemchug. Emden then fired a torpedo at her, closed to 800 yards and opened fire.

The Allied ships were caught unprepared. Emden sailed passed the French ships, turned and fired another torpedo into the Zhemchug, which sank 15 minutes after the start of the action. 91 of her crew of 340 were killed and 108 wounded. Emden tried to capture the steamer Glenturret, which was waiting for a pilot and was flying a flag that indicated that she was carrying explosives. However, the French destroyer Mousquet then returned from patrol. She was quickly overwhelmed by Emden and sank in seven minutes. The Germans picked up the French survivors, but then left, as the other French destroyers had now been alerted. Müller learnt from his prisoners that he had lost Pontoporos before he put them onto a merchant ship that he captured soon after leaving Penang. On 1 November a large convoy carrying Australian and New Zealand troops to Egypt left King George Sound, Albany, Western Australia. It was escorted by the Japanese battlecruiser Ibuki (14,636 tons, 21.5 knots, 4 x 12 inch, 8 x 8 inch, 14 x 4.7 inch and 4 x 3.1 inch guns, 3 x 18 inch torpedo tubes), the British armoured cruiser HMS Minotaur (14,600 tons, 23.1 knots, 4 x 9.2 inch, 10 x 7.5 inch and 16 x 12 pounder guns, 5 x 18 inch torpedo tubes) and the Australian light cruisers HMAS Melbourne and Sydney (each 5,400 tons, 25.5 knots, 8 x 6 inch and 4 x 3 pounder guns, 2 x 21 inch torpedo tubes).[12] On 8 November Minotaur received an order to join the Cape Squadron in South Africa in place of the pre-dreadnought battleship HMS Goliath, which had suffered mechanical problems. The Admiralty by then knew that Spee’s squadron was in the south Pacific, so the only threats to the Australasian Convoy were Emden and Königsberg. That day Emden and Buresk were meeting Exford 40 miles north of the Cocos Islands. The next day Emden appeared at Direction Island, landing about 50 men under Kapitänleutenant Hellmuth von Mücke to destroy the wireless station.[13] However, the fourth funnel had been poorly rigged, so the wireless station personnel realised that Emden was German and sent a warning. The convoy was 55 miles north of the Cocos just before 7:00 am when it received the warning. Captain M. L. Silver of Melbourne, the escort commander, was not allowed to detach his own ship, and decided that his must retain his most powerful one, Ibuki, in case the two German cruisers combined to attack the convoy. He therefore sent Sydney to the Cocos. On the morning of 9 November Emden saw smoke, which was assumed to be the Buresk. However, it soon became clear that it came from a four funnelled cruiser. She was Sydney, One of Emden’s officers assumed initially that she was either HMS Newcastle or Yarmouth, which both operated in the area. He later wrote that he was ‘pleased’ about this, which is rather puzzling.[14] Yarmouth was as strong as Sydney and Newcastle outgunned Emden, though not overwhelmingly (4,800 tons, 25 knots, 2 x 6 inch, 10 x 4 inch guns, 4 x 3 pounder guns, 2 x 18 inch torpedo tubes). Müller thought that she was Newcastle.[15] Müller ordered his ship to raise steam. There was not time to recover the landing party, and Emden left the lagoon entrance at 9:17 am. Müller wanted space in which to manoeuvre. Emden opened fire at 9:40 am at a range of 9.500 yards and soon scored hits, but her 4.1 inch guns could do little damage at that range.[16] Sydney initially over estimated the range, so did not hit until her 12th round.[17] Her actual speed advantage was more like 4 knots than the theoretical 2 knots, so her captain, John Glossop, was able to keep his ship out of the Emden’s effective range whilst causing heavy damage to the German cruiser. Early in the action, Emden lost her forward funnel and her steering gear, forcing her to steer with her engines. Sydney closed to 5,500 yards in order to launch a torpedo, which missed. She then opened the range. Müller tried a torpedo attack but could not get close enough By 10:20 am Emden had lost all three funnels and both her fire control positions. She was holed both fore and aft and the amount of smoke coming from her led Sydney to think briefly that she had sunk. The unequal action continued until 11:20 am, when it became obvious that Emden was sinking. She ran herself aground on the reef of North Keeling Island. Sydney then headed off in pursuit of Buresk. A prize crew boarded her, but the Germans had already opened her scuttles, and she was sinking. Sydney then returned to North Keeling Island and at 4:00 pm started firing on Emden, which was still flying her ensign because the lines that were used to raise and lower it had been shot away. Müller ordered his crew to abandon ship, but many were drowned as they tried to swim ashore. Sydney ceased fire after a white flag was shown and Seaman Werner climbed the mast to lower the ensign.[18] This was the Royal Australian Navy’s first victory over a warship. Müller was unhappy that Sydney fired on a helpless ship.[19] However, there were plenty of examples of both sides in this war carrying on firing on enemy ships until they struck their colours, including SMS Nürnberg on HMS Monmouth at Coronel eight days before.[20] Sydney then returned to Direction Island with the intention of capturing the landing party, first picking up the survivors of Emden who were in the water. When she reached the station, the landing party had sailed away in the proprietor’s schooner, Ayesha. The schooner became SMS Ayesha and managed to reach Arabia, then part of the Ottoman Empire. One man died of typhus and others were killed in skirmishes with Bedouin tribesmen. The 49 survivors travelled by the Hejaz Railway to Constantinople, where on 23 May 1915 they were welcomed by the German commander of the Ottoman fleet, Admiral Wilhelm Souchon. They were the only men from Germany’s two German and six light cruisers outside European waters at the outbreak of war to reach friendly territory with colours flying. [21] On 10 November Sydney returned to North Keeling Island to rescue Emden’s survivors. 134 of her crew had been killed in the battle and four of the 66 wounded prisoners died of their wounds. 145 men were captured unwounded. Sydney had four men killed and 122 wounded.[22] More of Emden’s crew were captured when Sydney boarded Buresk and when HMS Himalaya re-captured the Exford in December. Sydney lost four men killed and 12 wounded. Müller was much admired by both sides. Winston Churchill, the First Lord of the Admiralty, ordered that:

‘The captain, officers and crew of the Emden have earned the most honourable treatment possible under the rules of war. If there are no incidents that would preclude otherwise, the captain and his officers may retain their daggers.’[23]

This was equivalent to allowing army officers to keep their swords, but the daggers had been lost with the ship. The Official History of the RN in WWI praised Müller for his ‘skill, resource and boldness…and for the chivalry and humanity with which his duty had been discharged.’[24] Emden was one of only two German warships in WWI whose entire crew were awarded the Iron Cross Second Class, the other being the submarine U9. Müller was awarded Germany’s highest decoration, the Pour le Mérite, popularly known as the Blue Max, in 1918. By then, the British had allowed him to go first to the Netherlands and then back to Germany on the grounds of poor health. He had previously been awarded the Iron Cross First Class, but this medal had become more common since 1914, so a higher award was by 1918 thought to be more appropriate. Emden was the most successful of the German cruisers employed as commerce raiders. She destroyed 16 merchantmen with a total tonnage of 82,938 tons, and also sank two Allied warships. This was not greatly superior to the 76,609 tons of merchant shipping destroyed by Karlsruhe, but Emden caused far more disruption to British trade. Karlsruhe operated off the north east coast of Brazil and did not cost the British much more than the value of the ships that she sank. Emden caused trade in the Bay of Bengal to be suspended from 14 September to 2 October, apart from brief periods on 22-23 September and 1 October. An average of one Japanese battlecruiser, four armoured cruisers, four light cruisers and two armed merchant cruisers were searching for Emden at any one time.[25] The final word on Müller and Emden should go to the German Official History:

‘Müller delivered his blows where they would have the greatest political and economic effect. His sudden appearance and disappearance at the scene of operations and a correct appreciation of the enemy’s counter moves enabled him not only to achieve success in each individual operation, but also to render his capture difficult. It was not luck, but the capacity for forming an accurate estimate of the situation from the scanty information obtainable from prizes and intercepted wireless, that were responsible for his achievements in spite of all the enemy’s endeavours to catch him. Far from keeping to any fixed scheme, Captain Von Müller instantly dropped a predetermined course of action when circumstances rendered a change of plan desirable.’[26]

[1] Technical details of warships are from R. Gray, Conway’s All the World’s Fighting Ships, 1906-1921 (London: Conway Maritime Press, 1985). unless otherwise stated. [2] Naval Staff Monograph (Historical)  Review of German Cruiser Warfare 1914-1918. p. 4. [3] P. G. Halpern, A Naval History of World War I (London: UCL Press, 1994), p. 74. [4] Gray, Conway’s 1906-1921, p. 157; R. K. Lochner, The Last Gentleman-of-War : The Raider Exploits of the Cruiser Emden, trans., T. Lindauer, H. Lindauer (Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 1988), p. 307.,  where the coal consumption is stated to be 60 tons a day at 12 knots. An alternative of 48 tons a day is given on p. 16, but the higher figure is the same as used by Gray. [5] German Cruiser Warfare. p. 7. [6] Lochner, Last Gentleman, p. 73. [7] C. E. Fayle, Seaborne Trade., 3 vols. (London: HMSO, 1920). vol. i, p. 207. [8] Ibid., pp. 209-11. [9] Ibid., p. 213. [10] J. S. Corbett, H. Newbolt, Naval Operations, 5 vols. (London: HMSO, 1938). vol. i, p. 334. [11] See Wikipedia entry linked to ship’s name in text above. <<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russian_cruiser_Zhemchug>&gt;. Accessed 10 November 2014. [12] P. H. Silverstone, Directory of the World’s Capital Ships (London: Ian Allan, 1984), p. 182. [13] UK National Archives, Kew, ADM 137/10221, ‘S.M.S. Emden: Later Papers’. ‘Account by Officer ex S.M.S. EMDEN of SYDNEY-EMDEN Action 9/11/14’, p. 272 says the landing party was 53 men, with a total of about 60 including boat crews; Lochner, Last Gentleman. says 50, p. 213. [14] ADM 137/1021, p. 273. [15] A. W. Jose, The Official History of Australia in the War of 1914-1918, vol. ix, the Royal Australian Navy, 1914-1918, Ninth ed. (Sydney: Angus and Robertson, 1941), p. 195. [16] Corbett, Newbolt, Naval. vol. i, p. 382. [17] ADM 137/1021, p. 273. [18] Lochner, Last Gentleman, pp. 184-85. [19] Jose, R.A.N., pp. 200-1. [20] Ibid., pp. 188-89. [21] Lochner, Last Gentleman, pp. 279-80. [22] Corbett, Newbolt, Naval, p. 384. [23] Quoted in Lochner, Last Gentleman, p. 207. [24] Corbett, Newbolt, Naval. vol. i, p. 385. [25] German Cruiser Warfare. p. 8. [26] Quoted in Ibid.

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4 November 2014 · 11:44 pm

The Cruise of SMS Karlsruhe

In July 1914 the new German light cruiser SMS Karlsruhe was in the Caribbean in order to relieve SMS Dresden as the warship protecting German interests in Mexico, where a revolution was in progress. Her first task after the outbreak of war was to rendezvous with the liner Kronprinz Wilhelm in order to transfer guns, stores and men to her. The liner would then operate against Allied trade as an auxiliary cruiser.

At 11 am on 6 August the transfer had almost been completed when the British armoured cruiser HMS Suffolk appeared. The two German ships headed off; Suffolk pursued Karlsruhe, but was unable to catch the faster German ship. Kronprinz Wilhelm had received two 88mm guns, but only a third of the intended ammunition.

The high speed chase used up a lot of Karlsruhe’s coal, so her captain, Fregattenkapitän Erich Köhler, decided to head for Newport News in order to coal. However, at 8:30 pm in moonlight his ship spotted the British light cruiser HMS Bristol, which had already seen the German cruiser. An indecisive long range engagement followed, but Karlsruhe was out of sight by 10:30 pm.

Köhler was unable to get in touch with the supply ship Neckar, so decided to head for the Hamburg-Amerika line’s coal depot at St Thomas in the Virgin Islands. However, Karlsruhe did not have enough coal to get there, so diverted to Puerto Rico, narrowly missing the British armoured cruiser HMS Berwick during the night. She reached Puerto Rico with her bunkers almost empty.[1]

The US authorities allowed Karlsruhe to coal, but only 800 tons were available. Köhler, concerned that his ship was being pursued by more powerful British ships, accepted what was available before sailing to the Dutch island of Curacoa for more coal.

Once Karlsruhe’s coal bunkers were full, Köhler headed for the north east coast of Brazil, which he correctly anticipated would be a safer and more lucrative area for commerce raiding. He joined up with the supply ship Patagonia en route.

Karlsruhe began operations off Brazil on 30 August. She was able to coal five times from supplies obtained from neutral ports by her supply ships or captured from British ships. She always coaled off Lavadeira Reef, which Köhler ‘considered the only suitable anchorage in that area.’[2]

Karlsruhe captured 16 British merchantmen plus one Dutch ship that was carrying a British cargo with a total tonnage of 76,609 tons. Their value was estimated by British insurers as being well in excess of £1 million.[3]

She retained some as supply ships, scuttling the rest. The large number of prisoners taken became a problem, so on 18 October the supply ship Crefeld was sent to neutral Tenerife with 419 prisoners. The British Official History of Seaborne Trade during the war comments that some of the prisoners later complained about their treatment, ‘but it is generally admitted that the Germans did as well as was possible in the circumstances.’[4]

The Crefeld was due to reach Tenerife on 22 October. The prisoners would probably report Karlsruhe’s coaling base, and she had been observed by neutral ships, so Köhler decided to leave the Brazilian coast on 24 October and return to the West Indies. He intended to attack Barbados, destroying shipping in its harbour and interrupting British trade communications in the Caribbean.[5]

Karlsruhe made the last and largest of her 17 captures on the way, the 10,328 ton liner Vandyck on 26 October. She carried 200 passengers and a large amount of stores. Late the same day, Karlsruhe stopped the British merchantman Royal Sceptre, but released her after her master persuaded the boarding officer, falsely, that her cargo was neutral.

On 4 November Karlsruhe suffered an accidental internal explosion. 262 of her crew, including Köhler, were killed, but other 146 were rescued by two of her supply ships. One of these, the Hoffnung, formerly the British Indrani, was then scuttled. The survivors managed to get back to Germany a month later via Norway on the other, the Rio Negro.

Karlsruhe was the second most successful of the five German light cruisers employed as commerce raiders, after SMS Emden. At least 26 cruisers and armed merchant cruisers took part in the search for her at different times. There were 12 cruisers and 3 armed merchant cruisers looking for her at the end of August.[6]

The British learnt of her move away from Brazil when the prisoners from Vandyck and other prizes reached port on 2 November. However, they knew nothing of her destruction, so continued to search for her for some time. The battlecruiser HMS Princess Royal joined the search in mid-December, and reports about Karlsruhe’s alleged movements continued to be received during February and March 1915.

Kronprinz Wilhelm took 15 prizes, with a total tonnage of 60,522 tons, before 11 April 1915, when the poor state both the ship and her crew’s health forced her to enter Hampton Roads, where she was interned. She was comfortably the most successful of the five German merchant ships commissioned as commerce raiders in 1914.[7]

[1] Naval Staff Monograph (Historical) ‘Review of German Cruiser Warfare 1914-1918’, p. 10. says that it was estimated that 4 tons would be left; J. S. Corbett, H. Newbolt, Naval Operations, 5 vols. (London: HMSO, 1938). vol. i, p. 50, says 12 tons were left.

[2] German Cruiser Warfare, pp. 1, 10.

[3] C. E. Fayle, Seaborne Trade, 3 vols. (London: HMSO, 1920). vol. i, p. 331.

[4] Ibid. p. 261, footnote 1.

[5] Ibid., p. 330.

[6] German Cruiser Warfare, p. 12.

[7] Ibid., pp. 1, 12.

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3 November 2014 · 5:53 pm

The Battle of Coronel 1 November 1914

In 1914 Germany controlled the Chinese port of Tsingtao, now Qingdao, on a similar basis to British control of Hong Kong. Vice Admiral Maximilian von Spee’s East Asia Squadron of two armoured and three light cruisers was based at Tsingtao, but none of its ships were there when war began between Britain and Germany.

The light cruiser SMS Emden had been in Tsingtao, but sailed on 31 July. Another light cruiser, SMS Leipzig, was on the west coast of Mexico, protecting German interests during the Mexican Revolution. The third, SMS Nürnberg, was on her way to relieve Leipzig. The two armoured cruisers, Spee’s flagship SMS Scharnhorst and SMS Gneisenau, were on a cruise through German Pacific islands.

At Hong Kong the Royal Navy had the armoured cruisers HMS Minotaur, which was slightly superior to either of Spee’s armoured cruisers, and HMS Hampshire, which was inferior to Spee’s ships, two light cruisers, eight destroyers and three submarines. The pre-dreadnought battleship HMS Triumph had been in reserve at the start of the war, but was quickly recommissioned. There were insufficient sailors available to fully crew her, but two officers, six signallers and 100 other men of the Duke of Cornwall Light Infantry volunteered for sea service. This gave the British a narrow margin over Spee in Chinese waters.

Further south, the battlecruiser HMAS Australia gave the British Empire naval forces a big superiority In Australasian waters. There were also a number of old French ships in Asia.

However, the major question for Spee was whether or not Japan would enter the war. It issued an ultimatum to Germany on 15 August demanding that Germany withdraw its ships from Chinese and Japanese waters and hand Tsingtao over to Japan. It declared war eight days later. A naval blockade of Tsingtao by a largely Japanese force that included a small British contingent began on 27 August. A land siege began on 31 October; the heavily outnumbered defenders surrendered on 7 November.

This meant that the German pre-war plan for Spee’s squadron to conduct commerce warfare, supplied from Tsingtao, was no longer feasible. By 12 August he had gathered Emden, Nürnberg, the two armoured cruisers and a number of supply ships at Pagan in the Marianas. The strength of the enemy and his lack of bases and coal supplies meant that his squadron could not operate in Indian, East Asian or Australasian waters. The high coal consumption of his armoured cruisers was a particular problem.

Spee did, however, detach Emden and the supply ship Markomannia, to operate in the Indian Ocean. One fast ship could raid commerce and obtain its coal supplies from prizes. The highly successful cruise of Fregattenkapitän Karl von Müller’s Emden will be the subject of a later post.

Spee also sent two armed merchantmen, Prinz Eitel Friedrich and Cormoran, south to raid commerce. The former captured and sank 11 merchantmen with a total displacement of 33,423 tons before coal supply problems forced her to accept internment at Newport News on 11 March 1915.[1]

Cormoran entered the US territory of Guam on 14 December 1914 with her coal bunkers almost empty. She was not allowed to re-coal, so could not leave, and was scuttled on 7 April 1917 after the USA declared war on Germany.

Spee’s squadron moved slowly in order to conserve coal, avoiding contact with Allied forces. He sent Nürnberg to Honolulu on 22 August in order coal and to send and pick up mail and to send orders to German agents in South America to obtain coal and other supplies for the squadron.

The capture and destruction of German wireless stations in the Pacific by Australian and New Zealand forces made it hard for Spee to communicate with Germany and its agents. He also wanted to maintain radio silence as much as possible.

On 12 October Scharnhorst, Gneisenau and Nürnberg were at Easter Island, a remote Chilean possession where they could coal in security. The light cruiser SMS Dresden, which had been stationed in the Caribbean before the war, was already there. Two days later they were joined by Leipzig; her appearance off San Francisco on 11 August and erroneous rumours that she was accompanied by Nürnberg ‘paralysed the movements of [British] shipping from Vancouver to Panama.’[2] However, she was forced to lie low after the Japanese entered the war, since the armoured cruiser IMS Idzumo had been off Mexico, protecting Japanese interests.

On 3 September Rear Admiral Sir Christopher Cradock, until then commanding the 4th Cruiser Squadron in the West Indies, had been appointed to command the South American Station. He had his flagship the armoured cruiser HMS Good Hope, the County or Monmouth class armoured cruisers HMS Monmouth and Cornwall, the Town class light cruisers HMS Bristol and Glasgow and the armed merchant cruisers HMS Carmania, Macedonia and Otranto. He lost Carmania on 14 September because of damage that she sustained when sinking the German commerce raider SMS Cap Trafalgar.

The armoured cruiser HMS Defence, then in the Mediterranean, was ordered to head to Gibraltar on 10 September and then to South America after engine room defects had been corrected. A telegram of 14 September told Cradock that Defence was joining him, although she had not set off, and that the pre-dreadnought battleship HMS Canopus was on her way. Spee’s two armoured cruisers were likely to appear at the Magellan Straits. He was told that:

 ‘Until Defence joins keep at least Canopus and one County class with your flagship. As soon as you have superior force search the Magellan Straits with squadron, being ready to return and cover the River Plate, or, according to information, search north as far as Valparaiso, break up the German trade and destroy the German cruisers.’[3]

However, two days later he was told the German armoured cruisers had been seen at Samoa on 14 September and had left heading north west. He was now told that ‘[c]ruisers need not now be concentrated’ and ‘the German trade on the west coast of America was to be attacked at once.’[4]

On 14 October the Admiralty informed Cradock that it had accepted his proposal that he should concentrate Good Hope, Monmouth, Canopus, Glasgow and Otranto and that a second cruiser squadron should be formed on the east coast of South America. It would be commanded by Rear Admiral Archibald Stoddart and would consist of his flagship the County class armoured cruiser HMS Carnarvon, her sister HMS Cornwall, the light cruiser HMS Bristol and the armed merchant cruisers HMS Macedonia and Orama. HMS Defence would join Stoddart’s squadron when she arrived.

According to the Naval Staff Monograph on Coronel, a detailed report prepared by RN staff officers after the war for internal use only:

It was apparently intended that [Cradock’s] squadron, with the exception of the Glasgow, should concentrate and presumably remain at the Falkland Islands, but the actual instructions sent on October 14th did not emphasise this and certainly did not debar him from going to the west.[5]

The British Official History argues that the formation of a new squadron on the east coast and a mention of combined operations made Cradock assume that his orders of 5 October were still in effect, so he should ‘concentrate all his squadron on the west coast “to search and protect trade” in co-operation with his colleague.’[6] HMS Kent, another County class cruiser, was sent to join Cradock, but he does not seem to have been informed of this, and she was diverted elsewhere, so never joined his command.

The Admiralty had made a ‘fairly accurate’ estimate of Spee’s movements.[7] Cradock left the Falkland Islands in Good Hope on 22 October to rendezvous with Monmouth, Glasgow and Otranto at a secret coaling base in south west America. He left Canopus to convoy colliers because he believed that her speed was only 12 knots. However, she was actually capable of 16.5 knots, but her ‘Engineer Commander…was ill mentally…and made false reports on the state of the machinery.’[8]

On 26 October Cradock ordered Defence to join him, but the Admiralty countermanded this the next day, ordering her to join Stoddart. Winston Churchill, the First Lord of the Admiralty, claimed that this telegram did not reach Stoddart and a note for the Cabinet said that it is ‘not certain that this message reached Good Hope.’ However, Paymaster Lloyd Hirst of Glasgow, whose ship did receive it, wrote that it is ‘practically certain’ that it reached Cradock just before the battle.[9]

Glasgow went to the port of Coronel in south west Chile to send and receive messages on 31 October. By the time that they reached the Admiralty Lord Fisher had been re-appointed First Sea Lord following the resignation of Prince Louis of Battenberg on 29 October because of ‘rising agitation in the Press against every one German or of German descent.’[10] Fisher ordered Defence to join Cradock and sent a signal making it ‘clear that he was not to act without the Canopus.’[11] It never reached Cradock.

Cradock’s ships had picked up radio traffic from Leipzig, so were searching for her. Spee had used only her wireless in order to hide the presence of his other ships.[12] Spee was aware that Glasgow had been in Coronel, so was searching for her.

At 4:20 pm on 1 November the British ships were in a line 15 miles apart when Glasgow sighted smoke.[13] Shortly afterwards she could see two four funnelled cruisers [i.e. and a three funnelled cruiser. They were Scharnhorst, Gneisenau and a light cruiser. She informed Cradock, whose ship was then of sight, by wireless.

Good Hope came into view at 5:00 pm, and at 5:47 pm Cradock formed his ships into line of battle and closed the range.

Spee acted more cautiously, later writing that he ‘had manoeuvred so that the sun in the west would not disturb me.’[14] Captain John Luce of Glasgow commented that:

 ‘The sun was now setting immediately behind us, as viewed from the enemy, and as long as it remained above the horizon, all the advantage was with use, but the range was too great to be effective.

…

Shortly before 7:00 pm, the sun set, entirely changing the conditions of visibility, and whereas in the failing light it was difficult for us to see the enemy, our ships became clearly silhouetted against the afterglow, as viewed from them’[15]

Even without this tactical advantage, the odds in the battle hugely favoured the Germans. Their crews had served on their ships for years and were well trained. Many German sailors were conscripts, but Spee’s men were all long service volunteers because of the time that their ships spent away from Germany. The crews of both British armoured cruisers had been assigned to their ships at the outbreak of war and neither ship had had much opportunity for gunnery practice.

Many histories of the war at sea state that Good Hope and Monmouth both had crews largely consisting of reservists.[16] However, the Naval Staff Monograph makes no mention of Monmouth’s crew being mostly reservists, whilst stating that HMS Good Hope:

‘which was the only [British] ship carrying heavy guns, was a third fleet ship which had been commissioned for mobilisation, then paid off and commissioned with a fresh crew consisting largely of Royal Naval Reserve men, coastguards, and men of the Royal Fleet Reserve.’[17]

On 23 December 1915 Commander Carlyon Bellairs MP in the House of Commons asked the First Lord of the Admiralty, Arthur J. Balfour, if it was true that both ships had crews largely made up of reservists and whether or not their guns were fit for action. Balfour replied that:

These vessels were not commissioned entirely with reserve ratings. Each of them had on board not less than the authorised proportion of active service ratings; and, in fact, His Majesty’s ship Monmouth had a crew composed almost entirely of active service men. No guns in these ships had been retubed: they were all serviceable.[18]

It appears that a fact about Good Hope‘s crew has at some point been exaggerated to refer to both ships and has then been repeated.

The following table shows that Cradock’s squadron was clearly outgunned. The final column omits some guns on the two British armoured cruisers that could not be used in bad weather and two ships that took little part in the battle. Otranto was not intended to fight warships and Nürnberg was some distance from the rest of the German squadron. She arrived after the battle was decided, though in time to finish off the crippled Monmouth.

Ship Completed Tonnage Speed (knots) Guns Weight of Broadside (lbs) Broadside Usable at Coronel (lbs)
Scharnhorst 1907 11,420 23.8 8 x 8.2″ 1,957 1,957
6 x 5.9″
Gneisenau 1907 11,420 23.8 8 x 8.2″ 1,957 1,957
6 x 5.9″
Nürnberg 1908 3,400 23.0 10 x 4.1″ 176 –
Leipzig 1906 3,200 23.3 10 x 4.1″ 176 176
Dresden 1909 3,592 24.5 10 X 4.1″ 176 176
German Total 4,442 4,266
Good Hope 1902 14,100 23.0 2 x 9.2″ 1,560 1,160
16 x 6″
Monmouth 1903 9,800 22.4 14 x 6″ 900 600
Glasgow 1911 4,800 25.3 2 x 6″ 325 325
10 x 4″
Otranto 17.0 4 x 4.7″ 90 –
British Total 2,875 2,085
Source: Marder, A. J., From the Dreadnought to Scapa Flow; the Royal Navy in the Fisher Era, 1904-1919. 5 vols. (London: Oxford University Press, 1961-70), vol. ii, p. 109.

Spee noted in his after action report that the heavy seas made things very difficult for the gunners:

‘With the head wind and sea, the ships laboured heavily, particularly the light cruisers on both sides. Spotting and range-finding suffered greatly from the seas, which came over the forecastle and conning tower, and the heavy swell obscured the target from the 15-prs on the middle decks, so that they never saw stern of their adversary at all, and the bow only now and then. On the other hand , the guns of the large cruisers could all be used, and shot well.’[19]

The high seas were bad for both sides, but even worse for the British, as the design of their two armoured cruisers meant that they could not fire their main deck 6 inch guns in heavy seas. The German guns that had difficulty firing were smaller ones, not listed in the table above.

The Germans opened fire at about 7:05 pm at a range of 12,000 yards. Scharnhorst fired at Good Hope and Gneisenau at Monmouth. Leipzig and Dresden both fired at Glasgow, since Otranto had moved out of range. Luce ordered his guns to fire independently as the roll of his ships slowed the rate of firing and firing salvos would have slowed it even further, but the Germans used salvo firing.

The Germans quickly found the range. The third salvo hit Good Hope, apparently putting her forward 9.2 inch gun out of action and starting a fire. Monmouth was soon also on fire. At some point, she headed off to starboard and became separated from Good Hope. Glasgow could not then follow Good Hope, as she would then have masked Monmouth’s fire. At least one of the British armoured cruisers was on fire at any one time.

Around 7:45 pm Good Hope lost way. About five minutes later she suffered ‘an immense explosion…the flames reached a height of at least 200 feet and all who saw it on board [Glasgow] had not doubt she could not recover from this shock.’[20] Good Hope then ceased fire.

Monmouth turned away to starboard, followed by Glasgow. It was now dark, and they were soon out of sight of the enemy. However, Monmouth was continuing to turn to starboard, steering north east and taking her closer to the Germans. Luce received no reply to a signal at 8:20 pm. The moon had now risen above the clouds, and Glasgow could see the Germans., although Luce thought that they could not see her.

Luce could not see how he could help the stricken Monmouth, and said that ‘with the utmost reluctance to leaving her, I felt obliged to do so.’[21] Glasgow headed west north west at full speed, which put the Germans astern of her, and was out of sight of them by 8:50 pm. She saw firing about 12 miles away 30 minutes later.

Luce’s intention was to find Canopus and warn her of what had happened. Otranto also escaped. The action had taken place beyond the range of her guns, and she was a large ship, whose presence in the British line would have done nothing except help the Germans to find their range. After zigzagging for a period, she withdrew.

The firing that Glasgow had seen came from Nürnberg and was directed at the helpless Monmouth. The German ship stopped firing for a period in order to give the British ship a chance to surrender, but she did not do so, giving the Germans, in the words of the British Official History, ‘no choice…but to give her the only end that she would accept.’[22] The heavy seas made it impossible for the Germans to rescue any survivors.

The Germans had sunk two British armoured cruisers with the loss of all their 1,570 men. Glasgow was hit five times, but only four of crew were wounded, all slightly. Only three Germans were wounded. Naval History.net lists all the British dead. It can be seem that few of Monmouth’s crew were reservists of the Royal Fleet Reserve (RFR), Royal Naval Reserve (RNR) or Coast Guard. A significant proportion of Good Hope’s crew were reservists, but not the 90% sometimes claimed.

The unanswered questions are: what would have happened if Cradock’s force had included either HMS Defence or Canopus?; and why did he seek out the enemy when his squadron was so clearly out classed?

Defence was the last British armoured cruiser built, so was newer and more powerful than Spee’s two armoured cruisers: 14,600 tons, speed of 23 knots and armed with four 9.2 inch and ten 7.5 inch guns. The British would then have had an advantage in firepower, but not by so overwhelming a margin as to guarantee victory if the German gunnery or tactics were better.

Canopus, as was often the case for a battleship of her day was no bigger than an armoured cruiser, but had larger guns: 12,950 tons, designed for 18 knots but only capable of 16.5 in 1914 and armed with four 12 inch and twelve 6 inch guns. Her 12 inch guns had a range of 14,000 yards, only 500 more than the 8.2 inch guns of Spee’s armoured cruisers.[23] Again, the Germans might still have won despite her presence.

Another possibility is that Spee might not have accepted battle with a force including a battleship. He wrote after the battle that he believed that the British:

 ‘have her another ship like Monmouth; also it seems, a battleship of the Queen type, with 12-inch guns. Against the last-named we can hardly do anything; if they had kept their forces together we should, I suppose, have got the worst of it.’[24]

The Queen class were larger (15,000 tons) than Canopus, but had a similar armament.

There are three theories about Cradock’s decision to seek battle. One, propounded by Luce is that he ‘was constitutionally incapable of refusing or even postponing action, if there was the slightest chance of success.’[25] Rear Admiral Sir Robert Arbuthnot said when he heard the news of Coronel that Cradock ‘always hoped he would be killed in battle or break his neck in the hunting field.’[26]

Another, put forward by Glasgow’s navigator Lieutenant Commander P. B. Portman, is that the Admiralty:

 ‘as good as told him that he was skulking at Stanley…If we hadn’t attacked that night, we might never have seen [Spee] again, and then the Admiralty would have blamed him for not fighting.’[27]

Cradock is known to have written to another admiral that ‘I will take care I do not suffer the fate of poor Troubridge’, who was then facing court martial for not having attacked SMS Goeben.[28]

The final, and most common, theory is that Cradock realised that realised that his squadron had no chance against Spee’s, but thought that that by damaging the Germans and force them to use up ammunition a long way from any base he could ensure that they would be beaten in the next action. If so, he partly succeeded: the Germans suffered little damage, but Scharnhorst used 422 8.2 inch shells and Gneisenau 244 out of a total of 728 carried on each ship.[29]

Subscribers to this theory include Admiral Sir Reginald Bacon, Balfour in his eulogy when unveiling Cradock’s memorial at York Minster, Sir Julian Corbett who quotes Balfour’s eulogy in the Official History of the RN in WWI, Churchill, Hirst and David Lloyd George.[30] It was also put forward in a film called The Battles of Coronel and the Falkland Islands made in 1927 that has been  recently restored and re-released.

Whatever Cradock’s motivation, the blame for the defeat should rest with the Admiralty. It knew the strength of Spee’s squadron and that it was heading for South America. However, it ignored the military principle of concentration, establishing two weak squadrons in the area instead of combining Cradock and Stoddart’s forces into a single squadron capable of defeating Spee.

Spee had won a victory, but he knew that the British would seek revenge. At a dinner held in his honour by the German residents of Valparaiso he refused to drink a toast to the ‘[d]amnation of the British Navy’, instead saying that ‘I drink to the memory of a gallant and honourable foe.’ On being offered a bouquet of flowers, he said that ‘[t]hey will do nicely for my grave.’[31]

 

 

[1] P. G. Halpern, A Naval History of World War I (London: UCL Press, 1994), p. 82.

[2] C. E. Fayle, Seaborne Trade., 3 vols. (London: HMSO, 1920). vol. i, p. 165.

[3] Naval Staff Monograph (Historical)  vol. i. ‘1. Coronel’, p. 19

[4] Ibid., p. 20.

[5] Ibid., p. 28.

[6] J. S. Corbett, H. Newbolt, Naval Operations, 5 vols. (London: HMSO, 1938). vol. i, p. 318.

[7] Ibid. vol. i, p. 319.

[8] A. J. Marder, From the Dreadnought to Scapa Flow; the Royal Navy in the Fisher Era, 1904-1919, 5 vols. (London: Oxford University Press, 1961-70). vol. ii, note 8, p. 107.

[9] Ibid. vol. ii, p. 108.

[10] Corbett, Newbolt, Naval. vol. i, p. 246.

[11] Ibid. vol. i, p. 344.

[12] Halpern, Naval, p. 93.

[13] Times and ranges are from NA, ADM 137/1022, ‘Coronel Action, 1 November 1914’. ‘HMS Glasgow – Reports of Coronel Action, 1/11/14’, Captain John Luce, pp. 15-27.

[14] Quoted in Corbett, Newbolt, Naval. vol. i, p. 349.

[15] ADM 137/1022, pp. 20-21.

[16] G. Bennett, Naval Battles of the First World War (London: Pan, 1983), pp. 71-72; G. A. H. Gordon, The Rules of the Game: Jutland and British Naval Command (London: John Murray, 1996), p. 291; Halpern, Naval, p. 92; R. A. Hough, The Great War at Sea, 1914-1918 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1983), p. 90; R. K. Massie, Castles of Steel: Britain, Germany, and the Winning of the Great War at Sea (London: Jonathan Cape, 2004), pp. 203-4. pp. 203-4. Massie gives his source as being a book by an officer of HMS Glasgow, Lloyd Hirst, Coronel and After (London: Peter Davies, 1934), p. 15

[17] Naval Staff vol. i.

[18] <<http://hansard.millbanksystems.com/written_answers/1915/dec/23/loss-of-hms-good-hope-and-monmouth>&gt; Accessed 30 October 2014.

[19] ADM 137/1022. Naval Engarment off Coronel on 1st November 1914′, September 1915: Graf von Spee’s despatch, Weser Zeitung, 2 July 1915, p. 361.

[20] Ibid.  ‘HMS Glasgow – Report of Coronel Action, 1/1/14’, Captain John Luce, p. 20.

[21] Ibid., p. 21.

[22] Corbett, Newbolt, Naval. vol. i, p. 354.

[23] Marder, From. vol. ii, p. 106.

[24] ADM 137/1022. ‘Naval Engagement off Coronel on 1st November 1914’ September 1915: Letter of 2 November 1914, Kieler Neuste Nachrichten, 20 April 1915, p. 358.

[25] Quoted in Marder, From. vol. ii, p. 110.

[26] Quoted in Ibid. vol. ii, p. 115.

[27] ADM 137/1022. ‘Letter to Miss Ella Margaret Mary Haggard, 10 November 1914’, p. 369

[28] Quoted in Marder, From. vol. ii, p. 111.

[29] Ibid. vol. ii, p. 118.

[30] Corbett, Newbolt, Naval. vol. i, pp. 356-57; Marder, From. vol. ii, p. 111.

[31] Quotations in this paragraph are from Massie, Castles, p. 237.

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27 October 2014 · 11:14 pm

The Sinking of HMS Audacious 27 October 1914

In mid October 1914 the Germans decided to take advantage of a period of dark nights to mine the Grand Fleet’s bases. The minelayer SMS Nautilius, accompanied by the light cruiser SMS Kolberg, left port on 16 October, followed the next day by SMS Berlin, a 17,000 ton Norddeutscher Lloyd line converted into a minelayer. She was commanded by Kapitän Hans Pfundheller.

Nautilus and Kolberg headed for the Firth of Forth, but picked up wireless traffic and observed smoke when about 100 miles from May Island. Assuming wrongly that they had been discovered, they turned for home.

Berlin’s orders were to head for the Firth of Clyde. If possible, she was mine the approaches to Glasgow between Garroch Head and Fairland Head in the Firth. If this was not feasible, she should mine the entrance to the Firth between Pladda and Fairland Head.

The Germans expected that Berlin would have to pass through the British blockade patrols, but in fact they ‘could not have chosen a more favourable moment for the attempt to send a minelayer through the blockade line.’[1]

The threat from U-boats had led to the withdrawal of the Grand Fleet from the North Sea and its cruiser squadrons were to the north west of the Shetlands when she headed northward between the Shetlands and Norway. She then passed between Iceland and the Faeroes, where there were gaps in the blockade line because of a shortage of ships.

Once in the Irish Sea, Berlin picked up wireless traffic that indicated that she was near two British forces. Pfundheller had been told before his ship sailed that the entrance to the Irish Sea was not closely patrolled, but this was clearly wrong. He therefore decided that he could not enter the Firth of Clyde. Instead, he decided to lay his 200 mines north of Tory Island.

Berlin began to lay her mines at 11:35 pm on 22 October, finishing at 00:10 am the next day. She was only 30 miles away from the Grand Fleet at Lough Swilly, but its anti-submarine destroyers patrolled only inside the Lough. She then headed into the North Atlantic before passing between Greenland and Iceland on 30 October.

Pfundheller had been ordered to raid the Iceland fishing fleets, but the weather was too bad for them to be at sea, so he headed north to carry out his third task, the raiding of trade between Archangel and Britain. However, bad weather made commerce raiding impossible because boats could not be lowered in order to inspect merchant ships.

By 15 November, Berlin was short of coal, her boilers were defective and a bright moon made it likely that the British would find her. Pfundheller’s orders permitted him to allow his ship to be interned in a neutral port if there was no other practicable option open to him. At 9 am on 15 November, Berlin entered Trondheim in Norway. She was interned 24 hours later.

Despite this inauspicious end, Berlin’s cruise proved to be very successful. At 2:15 pm on 26 October, the merchantman Manchester Commerce struck one of her mines and sunk. The 30 survivors of her 44 man crew were picked up by the trawler City of London at 2:30 am on 27 October.

The trawler then made for Carnlough on the north east coast of Ireland to report the sinking. Her time of arrival is unknown, but was probably just after 10 am, since she was capable of 8 knots and had a 60 mile journey. The news was transmitted by the local police at 10:46 am to a coastguard war signal station and reached the Admiralty at 11:35 am. However, Admiral Sir John Jellicoe, the commander of the Grand Fleet, did not receive it until 2 pm.[2]

At 5 pm on 26 October the eight Orion and King George V class dreadnoughts of the 5th Battle Squadron, commanded by Vice Admiral Sir George Warrender, left Lough Swilly to carry out practice firing. At 8:50 am HMS Audacious struck a mine, about a mile from where the Manchester Commerce had been sunk. It was at first assumed that she had been torpedoed by a U-boat, so the other battleships followed the orders issued after U9 had sunk three British cruisers in the Broad Fourteens and moved away. At 11:09 am, the dreadnought HMS Monarch reported that she had sighted a U-boat, although none were in the area. The light cruiser HMS Liverpool stayed with Audacious.

Audacious had struck one of Berlin’s mines, which had flooded her port engine room, causing the port engine to stop, though she was able to make about 9 knots for Lough Swilly using the starboard one. However, the very rough sea meant she was at risk of capsizing. Berlin’s mines had been set deep, meaning that they would not be hit by small ships, but would strike a battleship where its underwater protection was weakest.

Jellicoe sent all available destroyers and tugs, the collier Thornhill, the supply ship Assistance and the fleet messenger Cambria to give assistance. Vice Admiral Sir Lewis Bayly was on Cambria to direct operations. Jellicoe could not risk a larger ship whilst it was believed that Audacious had been torpedoed. However, the White Star liner Olympic, captained by Commodore Herbert Haddock RNR arrived in response to the distress signal.

All but 250 of Audacious’ crew were taken off, although the bad sea, exacerbated by the rolling of Audacious, made boat work very difficult.

At 2 pm, the destroyer HMS Fury, captained by Lieutenant-Commander Charles Sumner, managed to take a low line from Olympic to Audacious. However, it was impossible to steer the dreadnought and the line parted. Fury tried to pass tow lines from Liverpool and Thornhill, but was unsuccessful.

By 5 pm it was getting dark, and Audacious was rolling heavily. Her crew was reduced to a small party of volunteers, but at 6 pm it was decided to abandon her for the night because the risk of her capsizing was so high. By then, Jellicoe had learnt of the fate of the Manchester Commerce, so realised that Audacious had been mined, not torpedoed. He sent the pre-dreadnought battleship HMS Exmouth to take her in tow. However, Audacious had been abandoned by the time that Exmouth arrived.

At 9 pm, Audacious capsized and blew up. The only casualty was Petty Officer William Burgess of HMS Liverpool, who was killed by a large amour plate that was thrown 800 yards to his ship.

The British decided not to announce the loss of Audacious, something described by the Official History as being ‘so contrary to all British tradition and sentiment, that the Admiralty would not decide without reference to the Cabinet.’[3]

Jellicoe requested that the loss be kept quiet because of the poor military situation. Operations on the Belgian coast were at a crisis point, and it was possible that the German fleet might attack British warships supporting land forces. The Cabinet was more concerned with the impact on the Ottoman Empire, which the Allies still hoped to keep neutral.

It was accepted that the news could be kept quiet for only a week to 10 days. American passengers on board the Olympic had seen Audacious in severe difficulties and heard her explode. Some had taken photos of her listing and low in the water. Her departure was delayed for three days, but US newspapers reported the loss of Audacious. In the event, the Germans did not learn the news until 19 November.

Britain did not acknowledge the loss of Audacious until after the war, even though all neutral countries realised that she had been sunk. She was even kept in official lists of ships’ movements and activities. This led many neutrals to distrust British government statements, which would ‘have disastrous repercussions after the Battle of Jutland in 1916.’[4]

Audacious was the first dreadnought to be sunk and the only British dreadnought battleship to be sunk by enemy action in WWI, although one was later lost to an accidental explosion and three British battlecruisers were sunk at Jutland in 1916.

 

[1] Naval Staff Monograph (Historical)  vol. xi, Home Waters part ii, September and October 1914. p. 126.

[2] Ibid. pp. 129-31 and notes 1-7 on p. 130.

[3] J. S. Corbett, H. Newbolt, Naval Operations, 5 vols. (London: HMSO, 1938). vol. i, p. 241.

[4] J. Goldrick, The King’s Ships Were at Sea: The War in the North Sea, August 1914-February 1915 (Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 1984), p. 142.

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17 October 2014 · 4:34 pm

The Battle of Texel Island 17 October 1914

On 17 October, the 1st Division of the Royal Navy’s 3rd Flotilla was sent to relieve a routine patrol in the Broad Fourteens. It consisted of the new light cruiser HMS Undaunted (Captain Cecil Fox), the flotilla leader, and the Laforey class destroyers HMS Lance, Lennox, Legion and Loyal.

At about 1:40 pm, when about 50 miles south west of Texel Island,  Undaunted spotted the smoke of four ships about eight miles away and approaching. Ten minutes later, they were identified as German torpedo boats in line abreast. The British closed and the Germans turned away both at full speed.

However, the British destroyers were new vessels capable of 29 knots and Undaunted 28.5 knots. The German ships, S115, S117, S118 and S119 of the 7th Half Flotilla, were of the 1898 type and completed in 1903. They had been designed for 26 or 27 knots, but a Naval Staff Monograph, written post war for internal RN use, quotes the German Official Naval History as saying that they were capable of only 19 knots.[1]

The Germans were heavily outgunned, so stood little chance unless they got inside torpedo range: two 50 mm (1.97 inch) guns and three 45 cm (17.7 inch) torpedo tubes versus three 4 inch guns and four 21 inch torpedo tubes in the British destroyers and Undaunted’s two 6 inch and six 4 inch guns and four 21 inch torpedo tubes.

Undaunted opened fire at 8,000 yards range at 2:05 pm, but soon ceased fire as the Germans were zigzagging, making it hard to hit at that range. The Germans had been on a mine laying mission, and started to throw their mines overboard. The Naval Staff Monograph suggests that the British mistook the splashes for the launch of torpedoes.[2]

A general action began once the range was done to 2,500 yards. Legion and Loyal concentrated on the western most German, S117, which sank at 3:17 pm according to Fox’s report (3:14 according to his ship’s signal log).[3] Lance and Lennox concentrated on the eastern most German ship, S115, which was out of action by 4 pm, but did not sink for another half hour.

S118 struggled to keep up with the other German ships because of a leaking condenser. She therefore turned towards Undaunted. Korvettenkapitän Georg Thiele, the Half Flotilla commander, realising that his force had no chance of escaping, took S119 after her in the hope of torpedoing Undaunted.

Several German torpedoes were launched, but Fox kept his ship out of their range. All four German ships were sunk, although their skilful manoeuvring meant that the British used a lot of ammunition.

Fox’s report indicates that the second German ship sank at 3:30 pm and the third at 3:55 pm. Only 35 Germans survived, of whom 33 were picked up by the British and two by a neutral fishing boat the next day. 223 Germans were killed including one who died of wounds after being rescued by the British. British casualties were five wounded and their ships suffered little damage.

This was a one sided action, but it boosted British morale after the sinking of HMS Hawke by U9 two days before. More importantly, on 30 November a British fishing vessel trawled up a chest that had been thrown overboard by Thiele’s S119. It contained code books, including one used by admirals and the commanders of squadrons and flotillas.

[1] Naval Staff Monograph (Historical)  vol. xi, Home Waters part ii, September and October 1914. p. 118. This document and others in the same series can be freely downloaded from this link to the Royal Australian Navy’s website.

[2] Ibid., p. 119.

[3] This account is largely based on Ibid. pp. 118-19, which in turn is based on Fox’s report and the logs of his ships.

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22 September 2014 · 2:56 pm

U9 Sinks Three British Cruisers 22 September 1914

An improved version of this post is available by clicking on this link to The Dreadnought Project.

It uses the Naval Staff Monographs, written between the two world wars by Royal Navy staff officers for internal RN use, which I was unaware of at the time that wrote the initial version.

 

 

In the first month and a half of WWI British and German submarines both sank an enemy light cruiser. Some British admirals, such as Sir John Jellicoe, the commander of the Grand Fleet, realised the threat that submarines posed to surface ships and acted accordingly. Others failed to recognise it.

At the start of the war, the Royal Navy’s Southern Force under Rear Admiral Arthur Christian was ordered ‘to keep the area south of the 54th parallel [which runs a little south of the Dogger Bank and Helgoland] clear of enemy torpedo craft and minelayers.’[1]

Christian flew his flag in the armoured cruiser HMS Euryalus and had under his command the light cruiser HMS Amethyst, the armoured cruisers HMS Bacchante, Cressy, Aboukir and Hogue of Rear Admiral Henry Campbell’s 7th Cruiser Squadron, the 8th Submarine Flotilla and the 1st and 3rd Destroyer Flotillas. The armoured cruisers were all old ships of the Bacchante class: some sources call them the Cressy class, but contemporary RN papers refer to them as the Bacchantes. They were unreliable, with no more than three of the five usually being available.

The Southern Force, operating from Harwich, conducted patrols in two areas. The force off Dogger Bank, covering the southern approaches to the North Sea, was generally stronger than the one in the Broad Fourteens, watching the eastern entrance to the English Channel. However, the latter was sometimes increased according to circumstances, such when the British Expeditionary Force crossed the Channel.

Commodore Roger Keyes, commanding the Harwich submarines, told the Admiralty on 12 August that the Bacchantes should be withdrawn. He feared that they were vulnerable to an attack by ‘two or three well-trained German cruisers…Why give the Germans the smallest chance of a cheap victory and an improved morale[?]’[2] However, even the Commodore for Submarines worried about an attack by surface ships, not U-boats.

On 17 September Keyes, supported by Commodore Reginald Tyrwhitt, commander of the Harwich destroyers, had the opportunity to put his views to Winston Churchill, the First Lord of the Admiral. He pointed out to Churchill that the Grand Fleet nicknamed the 7th Cruiser Squadron ‘the live bait squadron.’[3]

Churchill sent a memo to Prince Louis Battenberg, the First Sea Lord, on 18 September strongly recommending that the old armoured cruisers should be withdrawn from this patrol:

‘The risk to such ships is not justified by any services they can render. The narrow seas, being the nearest point to the enemy, should be kept by a small number of good modern ships.’[4]

Battenberg, who had not liked the idea of the Bacchantes patrolling up and down the North Sea, agreed. However, Vice Admiral Sir Doveton Sturdee, the Vice Chief of the Naval Staff told Keyes that ‘[w]e’ve always maintained a squadron on the Broad Fourteens.’[5]

Sturdee was also concerned by the possibility of a German attack on the cross-Channel supply line. He admitted that the Bacchantes were not really suitable for their role, but argued that they were better than nothing until the new Arethusa class light cruisers were ready. HMS Arethusa was under repair after being damaged at the Battle of Helgoland Bight and her seven sisters had not yet been completed.

On 19 September Sturdee persuaded Battenberg to authorise a telegram concentrating the Bacchantes in the South: ‘The Dogger Bank patrol need not be continued. Weather too bad for destroyers to go to sea. Arrange for cruisers to watch Broad Fourteens.’[6] Churchill later said that he did not see it.

There were then four of the armoured cruisers on patrol, Campbell’s flagship Bacchante being in dock for repairs. Euryalus, Christian’s flagship, was added to the Cruiser Squadron in order to keep its numbers up, but Christian’s command responsibilities were wider, and Campbell should have transferred his flag to one of his other cruisers. James Goldrick comments that Christian ‘should not have allowed Campbell, nor should the latter have been willing, to remain in harbour.’[7]

At 6:00 am on 20 September Euryalus had to return to port for coaling and because her wireless aerials had been damaged by the bad weather. Christian would normally have transferred by boat to one of the other cruisers, but the high seas made this impossible. In Campbell’s absence command of the squadron fell to Captain John Drummond of Aboukir.

Christian sent Drummond an ambiguous signal, which did not make it clear that it was Drummond who was responsible for summoning the destroyers when the weather improved. By midnight on 21 September the wind had died down on the Broad Fourteens, but it was still strong in Harwich, so the destroyers were not sent out until 5:00 am on 22 September.

The Bacchantes‘ coal consumption was very high if they made 13 or more knots. Consequently they were sailing at barely 10 knots and not zigzagging on the morning of 22 September. They were in line abreast, two miles apart.

Richard Hough says that one reason for not zigzagging was that their captains thought ‘that seas a destroyer could not endure were equally impossible for a submarine.’[8] If true, this was a bad mistake, as the seas had been rough when U21 sank HMS Pathfinder and when E9 sank SMS Hela. At least one of the captains should have understood submarine operations; Captain Robert Johnson of HMS Cressy, although not a submariner, had commanded a submarine flotilla for three years before the war.[9]

Just before 6:30 am on 22 September Aboukir suffered a major explosion. Drummond assumed that she had hit a mine and signalled so to the rest of the squadron. In fact, she had been struck by a single torpedo fired by U9, commanded by Kapitänleutnant Otto Weddigen.

U9 was an early German submarine, carrying only four 17.7 inch torpedo tubes and just six torpedoes. She was capable of only 8 knots submerged. On the surface her Körting paraffin engines gave off a lot of smoke and sparks and gave her a speed of only 14 knots. She could make 8 knots submerged.

Drummond soon realised that his ship had been torpedoed by a U-boat and ordered the other two cruisers away. However, Captain Wilmot Nicholson of Hogue thought that his ship would be safe if she kept to the side of Aboukir that had not been hit. Hogue stopped about a mile from Aboukir in order to launch her boats.

However, Weddigen had re-positioned his boat. At 6:55, as Aboukir sank, he fired two torpedoes into Hogue from only 300 yards away. U9’s bows rose out of the water, and Hogue fired on her, without scoring any hits. The cruiser sank within 10 minutes.

Cressy was also stationary, launching her boats. A periscope was spotted and Johnson ordered his ship to make full speed in order to ram the U-boat. At 7:20 Weddigen fired his two stern torpedoes at her; one missed and the other hit, but did not cause serious damage. He then closed to 500 yards and at 7:30 fired his last torpedo into Cressy, which sank 15 minutes later.

The first rescue ship to arrive was the Dutch steamer Flora, which picked up 286 men, many badly wounded and took them to Ymuiden. Another Dutch ship, the Titan, which rescued 147 men, and two British trawlers, the Coriander and J. G. C., were still picking up survivors when Tyrwhitt’s force of the light cruiser HMS Lowestoft and eight destroyers arrived between 10:30 and 10:45. The civilian ships could not have been sure whether or not they were in a minefield.

A total of 60 officers and 777 men were saved and 62 officers and 1,397 died. The Dutch repatriated to Britain the survivors taken initially to the Netherlands. Casualties on Cressy were particularly high because her boats were full of survivors from the other two cruisers when she was sunk. Many of the crews were middle-aged reservists recalled at the start of the war. Each cruiser also had nine cadets from the Royal Naval College at Dartmouth on board, most of them under the age of 15.

The website Naval-History.net lists the casualties and survivors for all three cruisers. The men listed as being either RFR (Royal Fleet Reserve) or RNR (Royal Naval Reserve) were reservists. Men who were rescued but later died of wounds are listed as having died on the dates of their deaths rather than the date of the sinkings. Captain Johnson of Cressy was amongst the dead, but Drummond and Nicholson both survived.

The Admiralty issued orders that armoured ship should zigzag, make at least 13 knots and not stop in waters where enemy submarines might be present. It said:

 ‘that if one ship is torpedoed by submarine or strikes mine. disabled ship must be left to her fate and other large ships clear out of dangerous area calling up minor vessels to render assistance.’[10]

The Court of Inquiry said that Drummond ‘should have zigzagged his course as much as possible. Johnson and Nicholson were guilty of ‘an error of judgment’ in stopping their ships. However, Battenberg thought that they ‘were placed in a cruel position, once they found themselves in waters swarming with drowning men.’[11]

Christian told Jellicoe that ‘certainly Cressy need not have been sacrificed and probably not Hogue if they had only dashed up within say a mile to windward, out all boats and away again.’[12]

Campbell, Christian and Drummond were all placed on half pay, but the two admirals were later given new employment. The Court of Inquiry’s criticism was mainly directed at the Admiralty, meaning Battenberg and Sturdee. Later, when they had left the Admiralty, the Third and Fourth Sea Lords, who had little involvement in operational matters, agreed with this, as did Admiral of the Fleet Sir Arthur Wilson, a former First Sea Lord.

Much of the public criticism fell on Churchill, who was prone to interfere in operational decisions. In fact, on this occasion he had recommended that the Bacchantes should be withdrawn from this patrol, but had not interfered in order to make sure that this was done.

Admiral Sir Bertram Ramsay, who in WWII organised the naval parts of the evacuation from Dunkirk in 1940 and the invasion of Normandy in 1944, was a Lieutenant in 1914. He wrote in his diary that it ‘just shows how utterly without imagination the majority of our senior officers are.’[13]

The action showed the potency of submarines to both sides, although some in Britain thought that more than one U-boat must have taken part. The Times wrote on 25 September that:

‘It is well-known that German submarines operate in flotillas of six boats. If it is true that only one, U9, returned to harbour, we may assume that the others are lost.’[14]

The Kaiser awarded Weddigen the Iron Cross First Class and every other member of U9’s crew the Iron Cross Second Class. The action cancelled out the moral advantage that the RN had gained from its victory at Helgoland Bight on 28 August 1914. U9 and the light cruiser SMS Emden were the only German ships to be awarded the Iron Cross during the war.

[1] Quoted in J. S. Corbett, H. Newbolt, Naval Operations, 5 vols. (London: HMSO, 1938). vol. i, p. 171.

[2] Quoted in R. K. Massie, Castles of Steel: Britain, Germany, and the Winning of the Great War at Sea (London: Jonathan Cape, 2004), p. 129.

[3] Quoted in Ibid.

[4] Quoted in A. J. Marder, From the Dreadnought to Scapa Flow; the Royal Navy in the Fisher Era, 1904-1919, 5 vols. (London: Oxford University Press, 1961-70). vol. ii, p. 56

[5] Ibid. vol. ii, p. 57, footnote 27. Marder’s source was Admiral Sir William James, who was told the story by Keyes.

[6] Ibid.

[7] J. Goldrick, The King’s Ships Were at Sea: The War in the North Sea, August 1914-February 1915 (Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 1984), p. 127.

[8] R. A. Hough, The Great War at Sea, 1914-1918 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1983), p. 62.

[9] Goldrick, The King’s Ships, p. 126.

[10] Quoted in Ibid., p. 133.

[11] Quotes in this paragraph from Marder, From. vol. ii, p. 55.

[12] Quoted in Goldrick, The King’s Ships, p. 133.

[13] Quoted in G. A. H. Gordon, The Rules of the Game: Jutland and British Naval Command (London: John Murray, 1996), p. 390.

[14] Quoted in Massie, Castles, p. 137.

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20 September 2014 · 11:52 am

SMS Königsberg Sinks HMS Pegasus 20 September 1914

At the outbreak of WWI the German light cruiser SMS Königsberg was based at Dar-es-Salaam in German East Africa, now Tanzania. She was armed with 10 105mm(4.1 inch) guns and was designed for 24 knots, making her significantly faster than the three old cruisers on the British Cape Station; HMS Astraea (20 knots, two 6 inch and eight 4.7 inch guns), Hyacinth (19 knots, 11 6 inch guns) and Pegasus (21 knots, eight 4 inch guns).

On 31 July Fregattenkapitän Max Loof took Königsberg to sea in compliance with his orders to attack enemy shipping at the entrance to the Red Sea. Pegasus saw her leaving port, but could not keep up with her. Neither could Hyacinth, which encountered her in the dark two hours later.

HMS Astraea bombarded Dar-es-Salaam on 8 August in order to destroy its wireless station. The Germans, fearing invasion, scuttled a floating dock across the harbour entrance, trapping the liner Tabora and the collier König inside, and preventing Königsberg from entering.

Königsberg was bedevilled throughout her career by difficulties in obtaining coal. The Hague Convention entitled warships  to refuel at neutral ports.  A ship could visit each port only once every three months, but could take on enough fuel to return to the nearest port in her home country. This meant that a German ship could entirely replenish her coal supplies on each visit.

However, the British bought all the coal supplies in Portuguese East Africa, the only neutral source available to Königsberg. This left her having to coal from small German colliers or from captured ships. However, she managed to take only one merchant ship, the liner City of Winchester, which she captured on 6 August and sank a week later.

The British Official History says that she ‘must have had a narrow escape from the Dartmouth‘, a modern light cruiser armed with eight 6 inch guns and capable of 25 knots, around the time that she captured the City of Winchester.[1]  She then overhauled her engines in the secluded Rufiji Delta, and the British heard nothing about her until 20 September.

Pegasus was then at Zanzibar, repairing problems with her machinery. At 5:25 am the armed tug Helmuth, a captured German vessel that was guarding the entrance to the harbour, challenged a ship that was heading for an entrance forbidden to merchant ships. The ship, which was Königsberg, raised the German ensign and increased speed. Helmuth failed to warn Pegasus.

Königsberg opened fire at 9,000 yards, immediately straddling Pegasus. The British ship fired back, but her shots fell short. After eight minutes all the guns of her broadside facing Königsberg were out of action. The German ship ceased fire for about five minutes, but then began firing again, before leaving half an hour after opening fire. She sank Helmuth on her way out

Pegasus was then still afloat, but capsized after an unsuccessful attempt to beach her. Naval-History.net lists 34 men killed and 58 wounded, four of whom later died. Königsberg also destroyed what turned out to be a dummy wireless station. However, she made no attempt to sink or capture the collier Banffshire, which carried several thousand tons of coal, or to damage the lighthouse or cable.

[1] J. S. Corbett, H. Newbolt, Naval Operations, 5 vols. (London: HMSO, 1938). vol. i, p. 155.

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14 September 2014 · 5:40 pm

HMS Carmania Sinks SMS Cap Trafalgar 14 September 1914

The Cap Trafalgar was a new, large and luxurious liner that in April 1914 was brought into service by the Hamburg-Sud Amerika Line for service between Germany and the River Plate.

At the outbreak of war she was at Buenos Aires, where the German navy requisitioned her as an auxiliary cruiser. After coaling at Montevideo she sailed for the remote Brazilian island of Trinidade, 500 miles off the mainland. There, she met the old gunboat SMS Eber, which transferred her armament of two 105mm (4.1 inch) guns and six one pounders, their ammunition and some of her crew to Cap Trafalgar, which was to raid merchant shipping under the command of Korvettenkapitän Wirth.

Cap Trafalgar’s first commerce raiding cruise was a failure. According the British Official Histories, the quantity of wireless signals from British cruisers had discouraged her from approaching the main trade routes.[1] On 13 September she returned to Trinidade in order to coal from two colliers.

The next day, HMS Carmania, a Cunard liner that had been armed for trade protection duties, visited Trinidade, which the British suspected might be used by German commerce raiders to coal. Carmania and Cap Trafalgar were of similar size, about 19,000 tons, but the British ship had a much bigger armament: eight 4.7 inch guns. Both were designed for 18 knots, but Robert Massie says that the British ship could make only 16 knots.[2]

The National Maritime Museum at Greenwich in London owns a painting of the action, which is reproduced on its website. The caption says that Cap Trafalgar had been modified and painted to resemble Carmania.

The German ships set sail once they saw Carmania approaching. They seemed initially to be fleeing, but Cap Trafalgar then turned towards the enemy. Julian Corbett speculates in the Royal Navy’s Official History that Wirth may have realised that his opponent was another armed liner rather than a warship.[3]

Neither ship had the fire control systems or ammunition hoists of a modern warship, so the action was fought in the style of Nelson’s day, with ammunition being brought to the guns by hand and the guns firing as the target bore.

Carmania’s captain, Noel Grant, ordered a warning shot to be fired at 12:10 pm at 8,500 yards range. Carmania began to fire her port guns at 7,500 yards, with Cap Trafalgar replying. At 4,500 yards the British switched to firing salvoes, the second and third of which hit the German ship on her waterline. The Germans scored a significant number of hits, but most of them were high, hitting Carmania’s masts, funnels, ventilators and bridge.

At 3,500 yards the German one pounders were in range and the barrels of the elderly British guns were red hot. Grant turned his ship in order the fire with the starboard guns.

Both ships were now on fire and Cap Trafalgar was listing. Wirth tried to use his ship’s superior speed to escape and succeeded in getting outside Carmania’s 9,000 yard gun range by 1:30. However, Cap Trafalgar was too badly damaged to escape, and she sank with colours flying at 1:45. Wirth went down with her.

Carmania had been hit 79 times. Many were high but five holes were on the waterline, and she was one fire, leaving her in no position to rescue Cap Trafalgar’s survivors. Nine of her crew had been killed and 26 wounded. Grant also feared that smoke that could be seen to the north might come from a German cruiser that Cap Trafalgar had been radioing. In fact it was from one of her colliers, the Eleonore Woermann, which picked up the German survivors.

The only source consulted to give German casualties is Wikipedia, which says that 279 Germans were rescued and between 16 and 51 were killed. Conway’s says that Cap Trafalgar’s crew was 319, implying a number at the top of that range.[4]

 

[1] J. S. Corbett, H. Newbolt, Naval Operations, 5 vols. (London: HMSO, 1938). vol. i, p. 307; C. E. Fayle, Seaborne Trade., 3 vols. (London: HMSO, 1920). vol. i, p. 223.

[2] R. K. Massie, Castles of Steel: Britain, Germany, and the Winning of the Great War at Sea (London: Jonathan Cape, 2004), p. 206.

[3] Corbett, Newbolt, Naval. vol. i, p. 307.

[4] R. Gray, Conway’s All the World’s Fighting Ships, 1906-1921 (London: Conway Maritime Press, 1985), p. 184.

 

 

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