The Heroic Record of the British Navy: A Short History of the Naval War, 1914-1918

by Archibald Hurd; Sir H. H. Bashford

Probably, from an offensive standpoint, of less value, under modern conditions, than was generally supposed, the possession of Heligoland, as a fortified outpost, was, if only psychologically, one of Germany's greatest assets. Of rocky formation and rising, at its highest point, to about 200 feet, it was not only a useful observation post but a fortress of the utmost strength. With wide views extending to the mouth of the Elbe and the coast of the neighbouring estuaries, it also protected a roadstead capable of sheltering and concealing a fleet of considerable strength; and, in addition, it possessed a wireless station of the greatest strategical importance.

From an early period, indeed, the peculiar advantages of the island had been obvious to many observers. In the seventeenth century, it had been used as a convenient station by the traders in contraband between France and Hamburg, and, for the same purposes, toward the end of the eighteenth and at the beginning of the nineteenth centuries, by British smugglers. During the Danish blockade of the German ports in the Schleswig-Holstein War of 1848, its advantages had become so manifest to the then British Governor that he made a special report about it to the Colonial Office. "Possessing pilots of all the surrounding coasts and rivers and with its roadstead sufficient for a steam fleet," it would in an emergency, he had pointed out, "amply repay the small cost of its retention in time of peace." Other considerations had supervened, however, and, in 1890, after having been in British possession for more than eighty years, Heligoland had been ceded to Germany, to become, in due course, the keystone of her naval defenses.

Such then was the Bight of Heligoland, commanded at its centre by the rocky island itself; flanked on each side by the sentinel islands of the Frisian and Schleswig coasts; and with its tributary river-mouths each an intricate meshwork of shallow and treacherous sandbanks. Subject to fogs, and responding to its prevalent winds with short steep seas of peculiar violence, it had been mined and protected since the outbreak of war with every means that ingenuity could suggest. As for the island itself, from which all women and civilians, with the exception of five nurses, had been removed, new guns had been mounted there, houses pulled down, and trees felled to assist the gunners; and it is only when this is remembered that some idea becomes possible of all that was involved in those first patrols, and in the affair of outposts, as one officer has described it, afterward to be known as the Battle of the Bight.

This was brought about as the result of the detailed information afforded by our scouting submarines, who had obtained an accurate knowledge of the procedure of the enemy's day and night patrols, and had reported that they could always collect a large force of destroyers round them whenever they showed themselves in the Bight. From this it became evident that a force, approaching at dawn from the direction of Horn Reef, would have every prospect of being able to cut off the enemy's returning night patrols; and an operation was accordingly decided upon, of which the following were the broad outlines. On the morning of August 28, 1914, the day appointed for the action, some submarines, with a couple of destroyers in attendance, were to penetrate into the Bight and expose themselves to the enemy, and were then to lure them, if possible, into contact with other forces that would be waiting. In close proximity, therefore, to the submarines it was arranged for two light cruisers, the Arethusa and Fearless, to rendezvous with two flotillas of destroyers, while, behind these, were to lie ambushed out at sea the Light Cruiser and Battle-Cruiser Squadrons. The general design, with full details as to the meeting-places, was communicated to each of the responsible commanders and, in absolute secrecy, from their various bases, the forces to be engaged put to sea.

Of these the first were the submarines under Commodore Roger Keyes, who accompanied them on board the destroyer Lurcher, with the Firedrake in attendance—those stout little vessels that had already made themselves familiar, during the passage of the armies, with the proposed scene of action. Setting out at midnight on August 26th, they escorted the eight submarines chosen for this hazardous duty, D2, D8, E4, E5, E6, E7, E8, and E9; and, while these were kept in the background throughout the next day, the Lurcher and Firedrake acted as their scouts. To the perils in store for them, in the way of detection, the fine weather and calm sea naturally added; but, at nightfall of August 27th, each submarine crept to its appointed station in close proximity to the German coast.

Meanwhile, at five in the morning of the same day, the Arethusa, under Commodore Tyrwhitt, had set out in her turn, with two flotillas of destroyers, meeting the Fearless at sea during the afternoon; and, farther north, at the same early hour, Vice-Admiral Beatty, in the Lion, had departed with the First Battle-Cruiser and First Light Cruiser Squadrons to be at hand in case of necessity. By the evening of August 27th, therefore, all were in their places; the submarines were feeling their way into the heart of the Bight; and the excitement of all engaged, during those hushed hours of darkness, can be readily imagined and perhaps envied. The night passed uneventfully, however, and, upon the flotillas and squadrons at sea, the day broke clear and sunny, but with a good deal of mist—in some places almost amounting to fog—veiling the entrance of the Bight and the neighbourhood of Heligoland.

The time was now come for the first open movement to be made; and, while the Lurcher and Firedrake began to search the waters, through which the battle-cruisers were to come, for possible hostile submarines, three of our own, E6, E7, and E8, designedly exposing themselves, proceeded toward Heligoland. Finding the sea clear, Commodore Keyes with the Lurcher and Firedrake then followed up the three submarines; and there we may leave them for the moment, turning our attention to the forces assembled in their rear under Commodore Tyrwhitt.

These consisted, as we have seen, of the Light Cruiser Arethusa, flying Commodore Tyrwhitt's broad pennant, the Light Cruiser Fearless, under Captain W. F. Blunt, and most of the destroyers of the First and Third Flotillas, and, at daybreak, they, too, began to push their way into the misty Bight. Nor had they long to wait for the enemy. Though the visibility was poor, seldom at first extending to more than three miles, and though the fighting in consequence afterward became confused, the general strategical plan soon proved itself to have been sound. Issuing apparently from berths between the Frisian Islands and the coast-line, a patrol of German destroyers, setting out toward Heligoland, suddenly discovered our forces on the east, or Bight, side of them. Previous to this, at about ten minutes to seven, a solitary German destroyer had already been sighted and chased, but now, for forty minutes, from twenty minutes past seven, a general action ensued—the Arethusa and Third Flotilla engaging the German destroyers, and steering northwest to cut them off from Heligoland.

So far the presence of the Arethusa, whose armament has already been described, had given us the advantage in this particular attack; but, just before eight o'clock, two German cruisers loomed out of the mist, one with four funnels and one with two. Whether these had come from Heligoland or had followed up the destroyer-patrol was not apparent, but they immediately joined action, and, for a quarter of an hour, the little Arethusa found herself being bombarded by both of them as well as by various destroyers.

Firing with every gun, the Arethusa, then only forty-eight hours out of the builders' hands, was already in as tight a corner as she could have asked for and beginning to suffer pretty heavily.