Stories of the Ships

by Lewis R. Freeman

"The first intimation we had" (he resumed) "of the sinking of Admiral Craddock's fleet came in the form of a wireless from the Defence asking if I had heard of the disaster at Coronel. Details which came in the course of the next day or two brought home to us the astonishing change in the whole situation which the appearance of Von Spee in South American waters had wrought. The blow fell like a bolt from the blue.

"As rapidly as possible the various British warships in the South Atlantic rendezvoused off Montevideo to discuss a plan of action. What the next move of the victorious Von Spee would be we could only surmise. German prisoners picked up after the Falklands battle said his ultimate plan—after seizing Port Stanley for a base, and undergoing such a refit there as was practicable with the means at his disposal—was to scatter his ships as commerce raiders all over the Atlantic, cutting, if possible, the main sea arteries of England to North America. The Germans figured, according to these prisoners, that the suspension of the North Atlantic traffic for even a month (no impossible thing for five speedy cruisers in the light of the delays to sailings caused by the Emden and Karlsruhe working alone) would practically paralyse England's war efforts and reduce her military effort in France to almost negligible proportions. I am much more inclined to believe that this—rather than escorting a fleet of German merchantmen, bearing German reservists from Argentina, Uruguay, and Southern Brazil, to South-West Africa from Buenos Aires and Montevideo—was the real plan of Von Spee.

However, it was the immediate rather than the ultimate plans of the Germans that was our chief—in fact, our only—concern. Whether Von Spee intended heading for the North Atlantic later or South Africa, or up the Thames—the only way he could clear the road to any of these objectives was by first destroying such British warships as still remained in South American waters. It was these ships which had hurried to get together off Montevideo, in order to make the path of the enemy as thorny and full of pitfalls as possible.

"They had no illusions respecting what the immediate future held for them, that little group of cruiser captains that gathered in the Admiral's cabin of the Defence to formulate a plan of action. We knew nothing at that time of what had been decided upon at the Admiralty; indeed, we were quite in agreement that it would be deemed inexpedient to send any battle cruisers away from the North Sea, where they might be imperatively needed any day, on a voyage to the South Atlantic that might easily resolve itself into a months'-long wild-goose chase. Our plans, therefore, were laid entirely on the assumption that we should have to do the best we could with the ships already available.

"There was not a man of us who was not keen on the chance of a fight at even the prohibitive odds under which it appeared inevitable that the one ahead of us must be fought, but the prospects of success were anything but alluring. Every day that passed had brought reports revealing the completeness of the enemy's victory at Coronel, and all of these were more than confirmed when the Glasgow—whose captain had had the good sense to retire from a battle in which there was no longer a chance for him to be of any use—came in and joined us.

"It would be easy to suggest conditions under which one naval force, faced by another as much stronger than itself as the Germans were than the British at this time, would be justified in avoiding an action. The present was not such an occasion, however; in fact, I don't think it ever occurred to any of us to bring up a discussion of that phase of the question at all. This, briefly, was the way the matter presented itself to us: The measure of the power of the Germans to inflict harm to the Allies was their supply of shells. These gone—always provided no new supply reached them—the menace, even though the ships were yet unsunk, was practically at an end. We knew that they had already used up a considerable quantity of their munition in a foolish bombardment of the little tropical port of Papeete, in the French Societies, and we knew that a very large amount had been expended at Coronel. They still probably had enough, we figured, to see them through many months of commerce raiding if only they could avoid another general action against warships, and such an action, even if it was a losing one from our standpoint, it was our manifest rôle to provoke, and at the earliest possible moment.

"This point decided, about all that remained to be considered was how to make the most effective disposition of such ships as we had at our disposal when once the enemy was in sight. We knew just what ships we would have to meet. We also knew, practically to a gun, how they were armed. Moreover, with Coronel as an object lesson, we knew how well those ships were handled, and with what deadly effectiveness those guns were served. Now that it is all ancient history, I think there is no reason why I should not tell you how we arranged that our ships should 'take partners' for the little 'sea-dance' they were expecting to shake their heels at.

"The Defence—an armoured cruiser of the Minotaur type, subsequently sunk at Jutland—was to tackle the Scharnhorst, Von Spee's flagship. The former was the only ship we had that was anywhere nearly a match for either of the larger German cruisers. She exceeded them in displacement by several thousand tons, and her four nine-point-twos and ten seven-point-fives had a comfortable margin of metal over that fired from the Scharnhorst's eight eight-point-twos and six five-point-nines. In a fair duel with either of the larger Germans, I think there is little doubt she would have had the best of it. In the battle we expected to go into, however, there could be no certainty that she was going to be able to give her undivided attention to the vis-à-vis we had picked for her during a sufficient interval to finish up the job.

"The Carnarvon and the Cornwall were to be given the formidable task of keeping the Gneisenau so busy that she could not help her sister fight the Defence. Our combined displacement was about equal to that of our prospective opponent, but the four seven-point-fives and twenty six-inch (all we had between us) could hardly have prevented her pounding us to pieces with her eight-point-twos, in the event that she elected to use her speed to keep beyond the effective range of our lighter guns. By dashing into close range we might have had a chance with her, or, again there was the possibility we might lead her a dance that would take her out of the way long enough to give the Defence time to finish polishing off the Scharnhorst, in which event the former might have been able to intervene in our favour.

"Small as would have been our chance of carrying through our part of the programme successfully, the Gneisenau was the one opponent I desired above all the others, on account of the way I knew it would buck up the ship's company to feel that they were having a whack at the ship that sunk the Monmouth. There were a good many men in the Monmouth who had gone to her from the Cornwall, and our men never tired cursing the Hun for letting their mates drown at Coronel without making any effort to save them. They had something to say on that score when their turn came at the Falklands.