The Fall of the Island Fortress
At a modest seven knots the battered Royal Sovereign wallowed in tow in the wake of the Barham. It seemed wonderful that she should have survived the ordeal, for in places the massive armour plates had been completely knocked away. Her bows were level with the water, while the whole of her quarter deck had been blown in by a bomb dropped from a German seaplane.
Almost the last shot fired at her by her principal antagonist, the gigantic Breslau, had hit the chase of one of the fifteen-inch guns in the second turret from the bows. The huge mass of metal had fractured, while the muzzle, falling upon the barbette next ahead and slightly below, had prevented both barbettes from being trained. Thus one shot had practically put four fifteen-inch guns out of action.
Wherever a heavy shell had struck against armour the latter had been made nearly red-hot, and for an hour or more after the fight it was almost impossible to place a hand on the heated metal.
[Illustration: "A SEAPLANE CONTRIVED TO DROP A BOMB ON THE ROYAL SOVEREIGN'S DECK">[
The use of aerial craft above the fighting battleships was very limited during the action. Thanks to the preponderance of seaplanes, the British were able to keep the German aircraft well at a distance. The only noteworthy exception was the seaplane which contrived to drop a bomb on the Royal Sovereign's deck. She did not live to repeat the experiment, for a fragment of a German eleven-inch shell, ricochetting from the hood of the Royal Sovereign's after barbette, flew vertically upward for a height of nearly three hundred feet, literally cutting the daring seaplane in halves.
Nor did the submarines prove their vaunted merits. Detected from the British aircraft, these sinister vessels stood very little chance. Even had they come within striking distance it is doubtful whether they would not have damaged friend as well as foe, for in the disorder in the formation of the two fleets, and in the dense haze that enveloped them in less than a minute after the first broadside, it was a difficult matter to distinguish one ship from another.
Had the action taken place at night the submarine would doubtless have played an important part in deciding the battle.