After four years of war for the Grand Fleet, and after we have been a part of it for the last year, there came the debacle, the last scene of the great drama. Not as we had all expected, as the successful termination of a great sea battle, but as an ignominious surrender without firing a gun. Surely, no more complete victory was ever won, nor a more disgraceful and humiliating end could have come to a powerful and much vaunted fleet than that which came to the German High Seas Fleet. Let me try to describe it.
The Commander-in-Chief of the Grand Fleet demanded and received what actually amounted to an unconditional surrender of the whole German Navy. Under his orders the enemy's ships were disarmed, ammunition landed, torpedo warheads sent ashore, breech-blocks and fire-control instruments removed, and every offensive utility rendered innocuous. Then, with reduced crews, under the command of a German admiral, in one lone column, the heavy battleships leading, the Hun fleet sailed for a designated rendezvous, to arrive at a specified time, just outside of the Firth of Forth in Scotland, where the Grand Fleet lay at anchor.
Before daylight the Grand Fleet was under way and proceeded to sea, heading east, in two long columns, six miles apart, our American battleship force being in the middle of the northern line. A light British cruiser was directed to meet the Germans, who were heading west, and conduct them in between our two columns.
Let me diverge for a moment and recall to any one who has been in China or the Philippines the viciousness of and antipathy which the domesticated carabao has for a white man. How ready they are to attack, while any native child can, with perfect safety and impunity, go up to the most savage of them, take him by the nose, and lead him where he pleases. I was reminded of this when a little British cruiser rounded to ahead of the much-vaunted German High Seas Fleet, and hoisted the signal, "Follow me," and led them down between our columns, where our battle flags were mast-headed, turrets trained toward the enemy, crews at battle stations, and all in readiness for any act of treachery that might be attempted.
At a pre-arranged signal our forces swung symmetrically through 180 degrees, and, still paralleling the enveloped Germans, conducted them into a designated anchorage in the entrance of the Firth of Forth. Then came a signal from the Commander-in-Chief to the surrendered fleet: "At sundown lower your colors and do not hoist them again without permission." Surely no greater humiliation could have befallen them after their frequent and taunting boasts and threats.
There is little else to be told. After an inspection by British and American officers to gain assurance that the ships were disarmed, they were sent in groups, under guard, to Scapa Flow, in the cold, dreary, bleak, God-forsaken harbor in the Orkneys where the Grand Fleet had spent many a dreary month and year, waiting like ferocious dogs in leash, watching and waiting, to pounce on the German Fleet, should the opportunity ever occur. Here the Germans lay at anchor in long, symmetrical lines, helpless, innocuous, harmless; their sting and bite removed, their national colors lowered for good and all as a token of submission to the masters. They were corralled like wild and cruel beasts that had been hobbled, guarded by a single division of battleships.
Our mission had been successfully accomplished; the German fleet is a thing of the past; the seas are safe and free to our own and our Allies' ships. The value of sea power could have no better demonstration.
The British and Americans who served together at Scapa Flow and in the North Sea were bound together by the strongest ties. Admiral Rodman and all our officers and men felt they were serving with brothers, and our British allies felt the same way toward our own forces.
On their departure, Admiral Sir David Beatty, the British commander-in-chief, in an address on board the flagship New York, paid this high tribute to the officers and men of the American battleships which served with the Grand Fleet:
There is not much that I have to say, but what I do say I hope you will understand comes from the heart, not only my heart, but the hearts of your comrades of the Grand Fleet.