II. H.M. Destroyers “Swift” and “Broke”
1917 found the German public mentally in the position of a man waiting to be hanged. Any distraction was better than the contemplation of the future.
The aim of destroyer raids on Calais and Dover was primarily to afford the German populace this distraction. At the worst it was intended to provide headlines in the newspapers that bore some semblance of naval success, and the determination of the German Government to ensure these headlines, regardless of their relation to facts, can be best seen by a comparison between the British and German official communiqués of such actions.
A merely spectacular performance could usually be bought cheaply enough. The two German destroyer bases within striking distance of the British coast are Zeebrugge and Ostend. The latter is approximately the same distance from Dover as Brighton is. Once clear of their minefields on a chosen night a German force is in the unique position of knowing that every single object encountered afloat is an enemy. Homing merchant traffic and patrolling vessels, manned by seamen whose vigilance has been subjected to the unrelaxed tension of nearly three years’ sea-going under war conditions, can be fired on at sight.
A swift dash through the darkness, with a finger twitching on the trigger of every gun; any spot in thirty-five miles of British coastline decided upon beforehand can be reached in a couple of hours, illumined in ten seconds by star-shell for the few minutes required for a futile bombardment of English soil—and the desired result is achieved.
One disadvantage alone is against Germany, and it is one which may be borne in mind at a time when there is a tendency to regard surface sea-power as an anachronism. A raider disabled outside the protection of German minefields is a raider lost. Nothing can venture to her succour within the areas of the successive Allied commands along the Channel. Where she is crippled there she must lie, and, eventually, be captured. A raiding destroyer force, if caught, must therefore endeavour to escape at all costs.
This is a consideration not without influence in destroyer methods of attack, and the contrast between British and German tactics and traditions was never better demonstrated than on the night of April 20-21st, 1917.
The movements of the German raiding force on the night of April 20th may or may not have been those described in the German communiqué. In neither case have they any bearing upon subsequent events. The British destroyer leaders Swift and Broke, on night patrol in the Channel, were proceeding on a westerly course, when, at 12.40 a.m. the Swift sighted an enemy flotilla, on the port bow, proceeding in the opposite direction at high speed. The night, though calm, was intensely dark, and when first sighted the enemy were within 600 yards range. Simultaneously the fire-gongs on board the German destroyers were heard to ripple down the line and in a blaze of flashes they opened fire.
The Swift instantly replied, and the commanding officer, Commander Ambrose M. Peck, decided without hesitation to ram the leading enemy destroyer. At his order the wheel was wrenched round, and the Swift, with every occupant of her bridge temporarily blinded by flashes, drove straight for the enemy.
Now it must be realised that the operation of ramming one of a line of destroyers, dashing through pitch darkness at between twenty and thirty knots, is an exceedingly delicate one. An initial miscalculation of a few degrees of helm, a few revolutions of the propellers more or less, spell failure. Failure may, and probably does, mean being rammed by the next boat in the enemy line.
The Swift missed, but shot through the line unscathed. She turned like a hawk upon a quarry and, in turning, neatly torpedoed another boat in the line. Again she dashed at the leading boat, which once more eluded her, and, without firing another shot, made off into the darkness at full speed with the Swift in pursuit.
On first sighting the enemy, the Broke, commanded by Commander Edward R. G. R. Evans, C.B., was steaming about three hundred yards astern of Swift. Upon the latter altering course to ram the leader, the Broke launched a torpedo at the second boat in the line, which hit her, and then opened fire with every gun that would bear. The five enemy boats, stoking furiously for full speed, emitted a dull glow from every funnel which lit their upper-works and enabled the captain of Broke to decide upon his tactics. Altering course away from the enemy for a moment to gain impetus for the blow, he swung round to port and rammed the third boat at full speed, fair and square abreast the after funnel.
Locked together thus the two boats fought a desperate and literally hand-to-hand conflict. The Broke swept the enemy’s decks at point-blank range with every gun from four-inch to pom-pom and maxim. Lumps of coal and bowls of cocoa are mentioned among the miscellany of objects that hurtled through the darkness.
In the meanwhile the remaining two destroyers in the German line poured a devastating fire upon the Broke. The foremost guns’ crews were reduced from eighteen men to six, but Midshipman Donald A. Gyles, R.N.R., in charge of the forecastle, though wounded in the eye, kept all foremost guns in action, himself assisting the depleted crews to load.
While he was thus employed, a number of frenzied Germans swarmed up over the Broke’s forecastle out of the rammed destroyer, and finding themselves amid the blinding flashes of the forecastle guns, swept aft in a shouting mob. The midshipman, amid the dead and wounded of his guns’ crews and half-blinded by blood, met the rush singlehanded with an automatic revolver; he was grappled by a gigantic German who attempted to wrest the weapon from him.
Cutlasses and rifles with fixed bayonets being among the equipment of the foremost guns’ crews in anticipation of just such events as were now taking place, the German was promptly bayoneted by Able Seaman Ingleson. The remainder of the invaders, with the exception of two who lay down and feigned death, were driven over the side. The two exceptions were subsequently made prisoners and taken below.
Of the original five German destroyers, there were now two remaining in the line. Two minutes after ramming, the Broke succeeded in wrenching herself free from her sinking adversary, and turned to ram the last boat in the line. She failed in this achievement, but as she swung round succeeded in hitting this boat’s consort on the stem with a torpedo.
Hotly engaged with these two fleeing destroyers, the Broke then attempted to follow Swift in the direction in which she was last seen; a shell, however, struck Broke in the boiler-room, disabling her main engines. The enemy were then lost to sight in the darkness.
Still carrying considerable way, Broke altered course and headed in the direction of a destroyer heavily on fire, whose crew, on sighting the Broke, sent up loud shouts for mercy. She was burning fiercely, and, regardless of the danger from her magazines exploding, Broke steered towards her, still moving slowly through the water. The shouts and cries of ‘Save! Save!’ were redoubled, when she unexpectedly opened fire.
Broke being then out of control and unable to manœuvre or extricate herself, silenced the treachery with four rounds and then, to ensure her own safety, fired a torpedo and hit her amidships.
In the meanwhile the Swift had continued her pursuit of the leading boat until injuries she had received in the earlier phases of the action, though in themselves slight, prevented her from maintaining full speed. She thereupon abandoned the chase and turned in search of a fresh quarry. The outline of a stationary destroyer was presently sighted in the darkness ahead, and as she drew near a confused noise of voices resolved itself into more distinct and evidently organised sounds, as from a large number of men shouting together in time.
Warily, and somewhat perplexed by the uproar, the Swift approached with her guns trained on the stranger. This presently resolved itself into the sinking German destroyer that had been rammed by Broke, whose crew were bellowing in unison:
“We Surrender! We Surrender!’
With a not unreasonable suspicion of treachery, the Swift awaited developments. Apparently realising their breath would be wanted for more energetic measures, the crew of the German destroyer presently stopped shouting. She heeled slowly over, while her ship’s company hastily took to the water, and sank stern first.
As no other enemy appeared to be in sight, and the action, which had lasted approximately five minutes, appeared to be over, the Swift switched on searchlights and lowered boats to rescue the swimmers.
Swift and Broke then proceeded to exchange details of the “bag” by the medium of a flashing lamp and (Broke’s circuits having been cut) an electric torch. Their respective ship’s companies having given vent to some pardonable exhilaration by cheering each other out of the darkness till they were hoarse, both British destroyers anchored and patiently awaited the dawn.
The British casualties were comparatively light, and the spirit of the wounded is epitomised by the conduct of the Broke’s coxswain, Able Seaman William G. Rowles; this man, though hit four times by shrapnel, remained at the wheel throughout the action, and finally only betrayed the fact that he was wounded by reporting to his captain, “I’m going off now, sir,” and fainting.
A number of wounded presented themselves at the sick-bay for the first time on the day following the action. Their excuses for this delay were various, but that of a stoker with a piece of shrapnel still in his head is perhaps the most ingenuous:
“I was too busy, sir,” he explained to the surgeon. “Along of clearing up that rubbish on the stoker’s mess-deck.”