I. H.M.S. “Shark”
H.M.S. Shark, under the command of Commander Loftus W. Jones, went into action about 5.45 p.m. on May 31st, 1916 with a complement of ninety-one officers and men; of that number only six saw June 1st dawn.
In spite of the soul-shaking experience through which they passed, these six men have remembered sufficient details of the action to enable the following record to be pieced together. Many stirring acts of gallantry and self-sacrifice, and much of interest to the relatives and friends of those who were lost, must inevitably be lacking from this narrative. But the evidence shows such supreme human courage and devotion to duty in the face of death, that, incomplete as it is, the story remains one of the most glorious in the annals of the Navy.
At two o’clock on the afternoon of May 31st the Shark and three other destroyers, Acasta, Ophelia, and Christopher, were acting as a submarine screen to the Third Battle Cruiser Squadron, with the light cruisers Chester and Canterbury in company. The force was steaming on a southerly course in advance of the British Battle Fleet, which was engaged in one of its periodical sweeps of the North Sea.
This advance squadron was under the command of Rear-Admiral the Hon. Horace A. L. Hood, C.B., M.V.O., D.S.O., flying his flag in Invincible.
The main Battle Cruiser Fleet and the Fifth Battle Squadron were considerably farther to the southward, and at 2.20 p.m. the light cruisers attached to this force signalled by wireless the first intimation that the enemy’s fleet was at sea. Subsequent reports confirmed this, and acting on the information contained in these intercepted messages, Rear-Admiral Hood ordered the ship’s companies to “Action Stations,” and shaped course to intercept the advancing enemy.
At 3.48 p.m. the Battle Cruiser Fleet and the Fifth Battle Squadron engaged the German Main Fleet and turned north with the object of drawing the enemy towards the British Battle Fleet. It must be remembered that at this point the enemy was presumably in complete ignorance of the approach of the British Main Fleet. The weather was hazy, with very little wind and patches of mist that reduced the visibility to an extent that varied from one to eight miles.
At 4.4 p.m. Rear-Admiral Hood received orders from Admiral Sir John Jellicoe, Commander-in-Chief, to proceed at full speed with his squadron and reinforce the Battle Cruiser Fleet; the Third Battle Cruiser Squadron altered course as necessary, and an hour and a half later the first sounds of firing reached them out of the mists ahead.
The first faint intermittent murmur of sound increased momentarily as the two forces converged, and at 5.40 p.m. the haze on the starboard bow was pierced by flashes of gunfire; a few minutes later a force of German light cruisers and destroyers became visible, heavily engaged with an unseen opponent to the westward.
Fire was immediately opened and Rear-Admiral Hood turned to starboard, bringing the enemy on to the port bow of his squadron. Three light cruisers, a flotilla leader, and ten destroyers were now visible, the latter apparently turning to launch a torpedo attack upon the Third Battle Cruiser Squadron. The four destroyers who had hitherto been disposed in two subdivisions, one on each bow of the Invincible, were thereupon ordered to attack the enemy. Led by Commander Loftus Jones in the Shark, the division swung round, and hurled itself at the German force, opening fire with every gun that would bear.
In the meanwhile the enemy opened a heavy though ill-directed fire on the battle cruisers. A large proportion of the salvos were falling short, and the British destroyers had in consequence to advance through a barrage of fire which surrounded them on all sides with columns of water and bursting shell.
In spite of their numerical superiority, the German destroyers turned away in the face of this determined onslaught, and Commander Loftus Jones, satisfied that the intended torpedo attack on Rear-Admiral Hood’s squadron had been frustrated, and having fired two of his three torpedoes, turned sixteen points to regain his position on the bow of the Invincible. The remaining three destroyers followed in his wake.
Three German battle cruisers had then appeared out of the mist in support of the enemy light cruisers, and the gallant division, with Shark at their head, turned under a concentrated deluge of shells from the entire German force.
A fragment of a projectile struck the Shark’s wheel, shattering it, and wounding the coxswain, Petty Officer Griffin, on the right hand. The captain immediately ordered the after wheel to be manned and followed the coxswain down the ladder to the shell-torn upper-deck to con the ship from aft. The yeoman of signals, Petty Officer Banham, who up to this point had been the third occupant of the bridge, hurried after the captain.
The enemy were now using shrapnel, and the captain was wounded in the thigh and face as he reached the bottom of the ladder. He stumbled aft, endeavouring to staunch the flow of blood with his hands, to find on reaching the engine-room hatchway that a shell had burst inside the engine-room, and the main engines and steering gear were completely disabled. The coxswain had been struck at the same time as the captain, and dropped insensible from a wound in the head. The foremost gun, under the command of Sub-Lieutenant Vance, had been blown away, and only one survivor of its crew lay badly wounded amid the wreckage.
The Shark was then lying with disabled engines helpless under a heavy fire, and Lieutenant-Commander John O. Barren, who commanded the Acasta, and had been second in the line, gallantly brought his destroyer between the Shark and the enemy’s fire, and signalled to ask if he could be of any assistance. The captain of the Shark was then aft, cheering and encouraging the crews of the midship and after guns. The yeoman of signals, who remained at his side, read the signal and reported it to the captain, who replied, “No. Tell him to look after himself and not get sunk over us.”
The yeoman of signals accordingly semaphored Commander Jones’s last signal to the division under his orders, and the Acasta followed in the wake of the other two boats which were rejoining the battle cruisers.
It is probable that at this juncture Rear-Admiral Hood sighted the British Battle Cruiser Fleet, which he had been ordered to reinforce, and proceeded to carry out his orders. The Third Battle Cruiser Squadron vanished into the mist, and the enemy closed in upon the Shark, which lay rolling helplessly in the swell, blazing defiance from her after and midship guns.
The after gun was almost immediately put out of action and its crew killed and wounded. Amid a hail of shrapnel bullets and flying splinters the spare torpedo was hoisted off the rack, and, under the directions of the captain, was being launched into the tube, when it was struck by a shell and burst with a violent explosion, causing heavy casualties.
Only one gun, the midship one, now remained in action. The ship was settling down by the bows and every moment she shuddered with the impact of a fresh hit. The riven upper-deck was a shambles, and the dead, mingled with shattered wreckage, were blown hither and thither by the blast of exploding shell. Projectiles, pitching short, flung great columns of water into the air, or passed screaming overhead; the upper-works were riddled by splinters from bursting salvos.
One by one the wounded crawled brokenly into the lee of the casings and funnels in pitiful attempts to find shelter; among them knelt the devoted figure of the surgeon (Surgeon-Probationer Robert Walker, R.N.V.R.), endeavouring single-handed to cope with his gallant, hopeless task. When last seen he was bandaging a man who had lost a hand when the torpedo exploded. He was then himself severely wounded, and was apparently shortly afterwards killed.
The enemy had then closed in to a range of about 1,500 yards; the survivors of the engine-room staff had come on deck and the captain ordered the collision-mats to be placed over the shot-holes, and every attempt to be made to plug them and keep the ship afloat. This was accordingly done under the direction of Lieutenant Ernest T. Donnell, the first lieutenant, who appears to have been still unwounded, and maintained a cheering spirit of indomitable pluck to the last. The coxswain, who had recovered consciousness, though half-blinded by blood from his wound, superintended a party who under the captain’s orders were turning out the boats and endeavouring to launch the rafts. The boats were smashed by shell-fire while still at the davits, but three rafts—two regulation life-saving rafts, and an extemporised affair of four barrels lashed together—were placed in the water.
In the meanwhile the midship gun, under the command of Midshipman T. Smith, R.N.R., maintained a steady fire. The stock of percussion tubes threatened to run short at one time, and the gunner, Mr. W. Gale, though severely wounded, crawled down below and fetched a fresh supply, shortly after which he was killed. Leading Signalman Hodgetts, who had been previously working as one of the ammunition supply party, was blown overboard by the explosion of a shell; a few minutes later his dripping figure appeared over the rail, and he coolly resumed his work; by some curious freak of chance he was again blown overboard by the blast of a shell, but again he clambered back to his place of duty, and his death.
The crew of the midship gun was ultimately reduced to two men, Able Seaman Howell, the gunlayer, and Able Seaman Hope. The midshipman trained the gun while Hope loaded and Howell fired. The captain stood beside the gun giving them the range, heartening the remnant of the crew by his example of cool courage. Howell, who had been severely wounded, eventually dropped from loss of blood, and the captain took his place. A moment later he was himself struck by a shell, which took off his right leg above the knee.
He lay on the deck in the rear of the gun while the coxswain and a chief stoker, named Hammell, between them improvised a tourniquet from a piece of rope and fragment of wood. While they were endeavouring to stop the bleeding, Commander Loftus Jones, in the words of an eyewitness who survived, “gentleman and captain as he was,” continued to direct the firing of the gun.
In all history the unquenchable spirit of man has rarely triumphed so completely over shattered nerves and body. As his strength ebbed, Commander Loftus Jones seems to have been overtaken by fear lest the ship should fall into the hands of the enemy, and seeing the German destroyers approaching, he gave orders for the Shark to be sunk. A moment later, however, the gun fired another round; and apparently realising that the ship was still capable of further resistance, he countermanded the order, adding “Fight the ship!”
The gaff on the mainmast at which the Ensign was flown had been broken by a shot, and the flag hung limp against the mast. The mind of the captain must have turned at the last to that emblem of all he was dying for so gallantly, for presently he asked faintly what had happened to the flag. One of the men tending him replied that it had been shot away, and in great distress he ordered another to be hoisted immediately.
Able Seaman Hope accordingly left the gun, and climbing up, detached the ensign and handed it down to Midshipman Smith, who bent it on to a fresh pair of halyards and hoisted it at the yard-arm. The captain, seeing it once more flying clear, said, “That’s good,” and appeared content.
The end was now drawing very near. The bows of the Shark had sunk until the foremost funnel was awash, and the waves were lapping over the waterlogged hull. Seeing that two German destroyers had approached to within a few hundred yards with the evident intention of administering the coup de grâce, Commander Loftus Jones gave his last order to the ship’s company, “Save yourselves!”
He was helped into the water by the coxswain and a number of others who had tended him devotedly after he received his mortal wound, and floated clear of the ship with the support of a life-belt. The remainder of the crew, to the number of about a score, swam towards the rafts and pieces of floating wreckage.
Two torpedoes struck the Shark amidships almost simultaneously. With a muffled explosion she lurched violently to starboard, flinging overboard the dead and wounded who still remained on deck. Her stern rose until it was almost perpendicular and she sank with colours flying, about an hour and a half after firing her first shot.
Stoker Petty Officer Filleul and Able Seaman Smith succeeded in placing the captain on the raft of barrels, where they propped him in a sitting position with the aid of life-belts and buoys. While this was being done the captain attempted to smile, and shook his head, saying, “It’s no good, lads.”
Stoker Petty Officer Filleul remained by the captain, and Able Seaman Smith swam to one of the other rafts on which the coxswain, Petty Officer Griffin, Chief Stoker Newcombe, Yeoman of Signals Banham, Stoker Swan, and Able Seamen Hope and Howell had succeeded in crawling. The three rafts drifted within sight of each other through the long northern summer twilight.
Shortly after the Shark sank, the British battle cruisers swept past in pursuit of the enemy. The captain asked if the pursuing ships were British. Filleul replied that they were, and the captain said, “That’s good!”
Not long afterwards his head fell forward and his gallant spirit fled.
The second life-saving raft had been so damaged by shell-fire that only two men could be accommodated upon it. The two most severely wounded (one of them had lost a leg) were helped on to it by a number of others who themselves clung to the edge, among them being the first lieutenant. Able Seaman Smith, on the other raft, realising that the majority were badly wounded, and being himself only slightly hurt, swam over to render what assistance he could. The first lieutenant, who had unfailingly cheered and comforted the stricken little band, presently asked if any could still sing, and then, without faltering, himself began:
“Nearer, my God, to Thee.”
Those who had the strength joined in as they clung submerged up to their shoulders in the icy water, almost unrecognisable from the thick black oil which floated on the surface; and so, one by one, death overtook them. Able Seaman Smith alone survived more than a couple of hours.
While it was still light the British Battle Fleet was sighted through the mists, and the drenched, haggard figures on the other raft cheered it as it passed five miles away. With indomitable optimism they all clung to the hope of a speedy rescue, and Able Seaman Howell semaphored across the waste of water “We are British,” in the hope that it would be read by one of the distant ships.
The twilight deepened into dusk, and the raft on which Able Seaman Smith alone survived was lost to sight. The six occupants of the other sat with the waves washing over them, nursing their wounds and debating the prospects of being picked up. The yeoman of signals rambled into delirium at times, and finally said, “I must have a sleep.... Let me get my head down.”
Able Seaman Hope attempted to dissuade him, but without avail. “I must sleep,” he insisted pathetically, and as he stretched himself in the bottom of the raft the ruling instinct of the Service came back through the mists of death. “Give us a shake if the captain wants anything,” he said, and his loyal spirit passed to join that of his captain.
Shortly before midnight the distant lights of a steamer were sighted. Able Seaman Howell then remembered for the first time that he had fastened a Holmes light with wire on one of the rafts a few days previously. Steadying himself with difficulty on the pitching raft, he fumbled along the edge and presently found the little tin cylinder that was to prove their salvation. With the last remnants of his failing strength he wrenched the nipple off, and the carbide, ignited with the water that washed over them, burnt with a bright flare. They waved it frantically and tried to shout: but the flare had been seen, and presently out of the darkness loomed the hull of the Danish s.s. Vidar. Her captain brought the ship alongside the raft, and one of her boats, which had already picked up Able Seaman Smith off his raft, presently rejoined them.
All survivors have testified to the high courage of Able Seaman Hope. Throughout the whole ordeal his plucky personality came constantly to the fore, and he alone retained strength to climb on board the Vidar unaided; on reaching the upper-deck he refused to go below or receive any attention until the remainder of his shipmates had been hoisted on board.
The Vidar cruised in the vicinity for upwards of two hours in the hope of picking up further survivors, and Stoker Petty Officer Filleul was seen floating on the water and rescued as he was losing consciousness. No further traces of the Shark’s crew were found, however, and the Vidar shaped course for Hull. On the passage Chief Stoker Newcombe, who had been wounded at the commencement of the action, succumbed to exhaustion in spite of every endeavour to save his life.
His Majesty the King, in recognition of the valour of the captain, officers, and men of the Shark, granted Commander Loftus W. Jones the only posthumous honour that can be awarded in either Service, the Victoria Cross. The six survivors, each of whom had played his part with the utmost gallantry, were decorated with the Distinguished Service Medal.
A few weeks after the action the fishermen of the little village of Fiskebackskie on the coast of Sweden, found washed ashore the body of Commander Loftus W. Jones, V.C. It was buried in the village churchyard on June 24th, with every token of sympathy and reverence.