Their Lordships Visit
The First Lord of the Admiralty, Sir Eric Geddes, accompanied by Sir Rosslyn Wemyss, who had relieved Lord Jellicoe as First Sea Lord, paid a visit to Vindictive and some of the blockships; it is probable that they were exceedingly struck at the optimism of all concerned.
An incident, illustrating the spirit of the men, may be worth recording. It came to my ears that certain of the engine-room personnel did not propose to remain below whilst the ship was alongside the Mole; as they put it "they intended to land on the Mole for a run round." Of course, that would never do, so the ship's company were informed that, however much their spirits might actuate their intentions, any man who left his post during the action would be summarily dealt with. They knew what that meant. Shortly afterwards some stokers requested to interview their officer. The interview was somewhat as follows: "Me and my mates, sir, understand that we ain't allowed to leave the stokehold and have a go at the Hun," said their spokesman. "Of course not," interposed the officer; "you would be deserting your post in action." "Well, sir," continued the stoker, "we wants to know if we may guard the prisoners in the stokehold." The request was not granted; it spelt too much discomfort for the prisoners.
Soon the first possible date drew near.
In view of the eventual results it may be of interest to recall the fact that on April 19th (three days before we actually started) Admiral von Capelle, Secretary for the German Navy, made a speech in which he said: "Even the greatest pessimist must say that the position of our opponents is deteriorating rapidly, and that any doubt regarding the final success of the U-boat war is unjustified."
I wonder if von Capelle remained an optimist much longer.
Another German of high culture and position had previously said, "Questions of right or wrong, justification or no justification, do not concern us. The chief thing is that we are the stronger, and that if anyone questions this fact we should smite him on the mouth till he grows wiser."
Well, we did question the fact, and not only questioned it, but we put it to the test.