When Captain Stirling had located the enemy’s battle squadron he reported the fact by wireless, but the signal was, unfortunately, not received by any ship, owing, presumably, to the strong interference caused by German wireless signalling at the time.
The destroyers of the 9th, 10th, and 13th Flotillas took station astern the Battle Fleet in company with the Champion (Captain Farie), leader of the 13th Flotilla; the Fearless, leader of the 9th Flotilla, had not been able to maintain touch with her flotilla. Many of the destroyers of these flotillas lost touch with the Champion during the night, and the flotillas became somewhat scattered.
At 12.30 A.M. a large vessel, taken at first for one of our own ships, crossed the rear of the flotilla at high speed, passing close to the Petard and Turbulent. She rammed the Turbulent and opened a heavy fire on both the Turbulent and Petard; the Turbulent sank and the Petard was damaged.
At 2.35 A.M. the destroyer Moresby, of the 13th Flotilla, sighted four battleships of the “Deutschland” class, and attacked, firing one torpedo; an explosion was subsequently heard.
It was impossible to state with certainty which of our destroyers were actually successful in their attacks. The enemy, of course, denied that any marked success was obtained by our attacks, but information obtained after the action made it certain that at least four battleships of the “Dreadnought” type were hit by torpedoes, in addition to the pre-Dreadnought battleship Pommern, which was admitted to have been sunk by a torpedo, as was the light cruiser Rostock.
Although the credit for the successful attacks cannot be attributed to particular destroyers, the work of the flotillas as a whole, and particularly of the 4th and 12th Flotillas, was characterised by the splendid dash, skill and gallantry for which our destroyers had been conspicuous throughout the War. They were most ably led and achieved magnificent work under very difficult conditions.
There is no doubt at all that the German organisation for night action was of a remarkably high standard. In the first place, the use of star shell, at that time unfamiliar to us, was of the greatest use to them in locating our destroyers without revealing their own positions; and, secondly, their searchlights were not only very powerful (much more so than ours), but their method of controlling them and bringing guns and searchlights rapidly on to any vessel sighted was excellent. It also appeared that some system of director-firing was fitted to the guns of their secondary armament.
The increased offensive power given by these devices did not, however, prevent our destroyers from inflicting great damage on the enemy during their night attacks, although they led to the loss of some valuable destroyers and still more valuable lives. Captain Wintour, leader of the 4th Flotilla, an officer of wide experience of destroyer work and a fine leader, was a very heavy loss, and other splendid officers perished with their gallant crews. Our destroyer service has, indeed, every reason to be exceedingly proud of the achievements of the flotillas, both during the day action of May 31st and during the night following that action.
Gunfire and under-water explosions were heard at intervals during the night, and, curiously enough, the under-water explosions, four or five in number, were quite clearly recorded on a barograph in the Malaya, a ship well placed for the purpose, as she was in the rear. There is little doubt that these records showed the explosion of our torpedoes against enemy ships.
From the Battle Fleet it was evident shortly after dark that our destroyers were in action. Star shells were fired with great frequency by the enemy, and they produced a very brilliant illumination, leaving the enemy ships in complete darkness and not revealing their positions.