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OPERATIONS OF
December 16, 1914.
At 12.30 Admiral Beatty had received a signal from Sir George Warrender at the moment of the second contact with the German light cruisers, ‘Enemy cruisers and destroyers in sight.’ He therefore concluded that the German battle cruisers had slipped past him to the Southward, and acting in addition on the sound principle of keeping between the enemy and the enemy’s home at all costs, he too whipped round and steamed back on his course, i.e., Eastward, for three-quarters of an hour. At 1.15, hearing that the enemy battle cruisers had turned North, he too turned North; but contact was never re-established. Von Hipper succeeded in escaping round the Northern flank of our squadrons. His light cruisers, so thick was the weather, made their way through the 3rd Cruiser Squadron, passing for a few moments actually in sight of Warrender’s battleships.
Thus ended this heart-shaking game of Blind Man’s Buff.
It remains only to mention the action of our British submarines. By 3.30 Commodore Keyes had collected four of his boats from their station submerged off Terschelling, and in accordance with Admiralty orders was making for the Heligoland Bight. Eventually he succeeded in placing three boats on the Southern side of Heligoland and one on the Northern. This solitary boat, under Commander Nasmith, on the morning of the 17th found itself in the middle of Von Hipper’s squadron and flotillas returning from their raid and fired two torpedoes at battle cruisers under very difficult conditions and without effect.
Such was the episode of the Scarborough and Hartlepool raids. All that we could tell the public was contained in the following communiqué which was issued in the morning papers of December 17.
Admiralty, December 16, 9.20 p.m.
This morning a German cruiser force made a demonstration upon the Yorkshire coast, in the course of which they shelled Hartlepool, Whitby, and Scarborough.
A number of their fastest ships were employed for this purpose, and they remained about an hour on the coast. They were engaged by the patrol vessels on the spot.