[Illustration: The British Cruiser Curacoa, Admiral Tyrwhitt's flagship, leading out one column of British cruisers at the surrender of the German navy. Overhead is a captive or "kite" balloon. As used in naval work, it is attached to an anchored or moving ship by a small steel cable, by which it is regulated for purposes of observation. The tubular surfaces which give the balloon the appearance of an elephant's head are not filled with hydrogen gas, but are inflated by the winds at high altitudes, thus keeping the balloon relatively steady like a kite with a long tail. The stationary balloon is such a good target for anti-aircraft guns that the observers are supplied with parachutes, the type of which appears on page 341.]
Later, notices were posted giving the hour when they were to meet the Germans and requiring every precaution to be taken against treachery.
"At 9:40 the Battle Fleet will meet the German fleet. Immediate readiness for action is to be assumed."
They would not trust the people to whom solemn treaties were but scraps of paper, and whose necessity made any act however treacherous appear to them to be a right one.
The Allied fleets were anchored on the night of November 20 in the Firth of Forth above and below its famous bridge. The United States was represented by the New York, the Florida, the Arkansas, and the Wyoming, and France by a cruiser and two destroyers. Ships from Canada, New Zealand, and Australia were also in line. There were nearly four hundred warships in the Allied fleet, including sixty dreadnoughts, fifty cruisers, and over two hundred destroyers.
At four o'clock on the morning of Friday, November 21, the great Battle Fleet weighed anchor and one by one steamed out to sea. It was, even in the darkness, a wonderful and thrilling sight, an exhibition of sea power never before seen in the history of mankind.
Picture that scene in the gray darkness before the dawn. Mile after mile of mighty dreadnoughts and swift cruisers and destroyers weighing their anchors one by one until four hundred mighty engines of war slipped almost silently from their places, each leaving a trail of black smoke behind. As you imagine the scene as it would appear to the eye, can you realize its significance and what it all meant? Do the people of the United States fully understand that but for England's magnificent fleet their great coast cities would have been bombarded or obliged to pay a ransom; and that without the Grand Fleet the war would have been lost to selfish autocracy? Let us never forget England's service.
The German line, each ship flying the German naval flag at the main top, consisted of thirteen of the dreadnought or superdreadnought class, seven light cruisers, and fifty destroyers, and was over twenty miles in length. Each column of the Allied fleet was almost twice as long as this. Over them flew a British naval airplane.
The surrendered ships, guarded on both sides, steamed on towards the anchorage selected for them near May Island at the entrance to the Firth of Forth; and reached there about two o'clock in the afternoon. Admiral Beatty from his flagship, the Queen Elizabeth, issued the following signal to the fleet: "The German flag will be hauled down at sunset today. It will not be hoisted again without permission."