Part 2 (1/2)
Thus the _Centaur_, light cruiser, was mined in the Bight of Heligoland. The mine struck her forward, and so damaged her bows that her bulkheads would have given way had she attempted to steam ahead, so she steamed back across the North Sea stern first. The _Centaur_ was mined on yet another occasion, during the great gale of October 1917. The Harwich Force had gone out to look for the enemy--on information received, as the police would say. A terrific westerly gale was encountered by the s.h.i.+ps on their homeward voyage. All lost their topmasts, their wireless thus being put out of action. At noon, while the gale was at its worst, a loud explosion was heard on the _Centaur_--at that time the flags.h.i.+p of the Harwich Force. She had been badly mined aft. It must have been an anxious moment, for in such fearful weather her consorts could not have come to her a.s.sistance had she been totally disabled. One of her two condenser doors had been broken in by the concussion. Fortunately, the other door held, and she was enabled to steam home with one engine.
As an example of the way in which a naval s.h.i.+p can be mined and yet be little the worse for it, may be mentioned the case of a Harwich destroyer which struck a mine off Orfordness in April 1916. The explosion blew her stern off and threw her four-inch gun up into the air. It did not go overboard, but fell back upon her deck. No lives were lost; no one was even hurt. She got back to port, was repaired, and very soon was at work again.
CHAPTER V
ESCORTING SEAPLANES
CHAPTER V
ESCORTING SEAPLANES
The Cuxhaven raid--The Sylt raid--Enemy patrol boats sunk--Loss of the _Medusa_--The flags.h.i.+p rams an enemy destroyer--Saving of the _Landrail_.
The Harwich Force also took its part in the numerous air raids that were made from the close of 1914 onwards on the German mainland and islands. It was perilous work not only for the seaplanes but for the seaplane-carriers and the s.h.i.+ps forming the escort; for, after the seaplanes had been launched and had flown away on their mission of destruction, these s.h.i.+ps had to repair to an appointed rendezvous off the German coast, to there await (often for a long time and sometimes in vain) the return of the seaplanes and pick them up. A description of a few of these air-raid expeditions will ill.u.s.trate this.
It will be remembered that British seaplanes bombed Cuxhaven on Christmas Day, 1914. On Christmas Eve a force consisting of the flags.h.i.+p _Arethusa_, another light cruiser, a flotilla of destroyers, and three seaplane-carrying s.h.i.+ps, carrying the seaplanes, set out from Harwich in a northeast gale. It was a very dark night, and on nearing the further side of the North Sea the s.h.i.+ps picked their way to their destination by the lead, following the line of ten-fathom soundings. At four in the morning they pa.s.sed some outpost vessels, who doubtless detected them and signalled their presence to the enemy, for a great burst of German wireless was immediately observed. At dawn, on reaching the appointed position twelve miles to the north of Heligoland, they found themselves in a flat calm. The seaplanes were hoisted out, rose from the water at once, and flew off in the direction of Cuxhaven--probably to the relief of all concerned. For in the early days of the war our seaplanes were not so reliable as those which we employed later. They not infrequently refused to rise for a considerable time, and floundered about on the sea helplessly, causing a dangerous delay in enemy waters. The flotilla now steamed to an appointed rendezvous on the west side of Heligoland, and there awaited the return of the seaplanes. While they were thus waiting, our s.h.i.+ps were attacked by enemy submarines, two Zeppelins, and two seaplanes.
But no enemy surface craft came up, though it was, of course, expected that the warning given by the outpost vessels would have brought the German s.h.i.+ps out in force. On this occasion all the seaplanes returned safely and were picked up; and at noon the flotilla steamed back, with no casualties to report, to Harwich. The fact remains that the Harwich Force stayed within a radius of twenty miles from Heligoland from 5 a.m. to 12.30 p.m. without any attempt being made by the High Sea Fleet to molest it.
But our air-raiding expeditions did not always enjoy this good fortune. For example, what is known as the Sylt raid was attended with loss of s.h.i.+ps and seaplanes. The objectives of this seaplane attack were the enemy Zeppelin sheds at Tondern, on the Slesvig mainland. It was a raid that might have led to great events, as the British and German battle-cruiser squadrons were both out on the North Sea at the time, the first to cover the raiding s.h.i.+ps, the latter to attack them.
But the great sea battle that might have been fought was not fought because the Germans so willed it, and retired behind the shelter of their minefields before Beatty could get at them.
At an early hour of the morning of March 25, 1916, the Harwich Force, consisting of the light cruisers _Cleopatra_, _Undaunted_, _Penelope_, and _Conquest_ (_Cleopatra_ flying the Commodore's pennant), a number of destroyers, and the seaplane-carrier _Vindex_, arrived off the west coast of Sylt Island. A short time before reaching the spot at which it was proposed to hoist out the seaplanes, the _Cleopatra_, screened by half the destroyer force, and leading the _Vindex_, proceeded in advance, leaving the rest of the force to await her return. When the selected spot was reached, the track of a torpedo was observed to be approaching the _Cleopatra_. It was avoided by turning towards and following its track. The destroyers were now detailed to keep the German submarine down while _Cleopatra_ and _Vindex_ stopped to hoist out the five seaplanes. The morning had been bright, but a dense snowstorm came on shortly after the seaplanes had been hoisted out.
However, the weather cleared for a while, and all the seaplanes had got away by 5.30 a.m. But further snowstorms that followed made the flying conditions very difficult, and the seaplanes lost their bearings while searching for their objective.
The _Cleopatra_, the _Vindex_, and the escorting destroyers now rejoined the remainder of the force at the appointed rendezvous, and awaited the return of the seaplanes. At 7 a.m. the first seaplane returned and was hoisted in, and a little later a second was picked up--the only two of the five that ever did come back.
As the time appointed for the return of the seaplanes had pa.s.sed, and there were no signs of the others, the force proceeded in search of the three missing ones, the cruisers penetrating the channel inside the Horn Reef, while the destroyers were ordered to the south-east to spread out and get in as near as possible to the German coast, so that they might protect against enemy attack and pick up any damaged seaplanes that might arrive. The search was fruitless, but it led to various incidents.
The destroyers steamed in near enough to bombard the coast. Close under the sh.o.r.e, near the German harbour of List, they engaged enemy patrol vessels and aircraft. They sank two of the patrol boats (armed trawlers) and brought down a seaplane. While our boats were picking up survivors, some of these patrol boats threw out such dense clouds of smoke to screen themselves that, in the obscurity thereby caused, a collision took place between two of the British destroyers, the _Laverock_ ramming the _Medusa_ and holing her badly in the engine-room. The _Laverock_, despite her injuries, was able to proceed under her own steam, but the _Medusa_ was wholly disabled.
In the meanwhile, urgent wireless messages from the Admiralty were received ordering the Commodore to withdraw. To remain longer on the coast with a crippled s.h.i.+p in tow would be to invite the attack of a superior enemy force; in fact, it was known that strong forces were already putting to sea from the German bases; so at 11 a.m. the Commodore ordered the entire force to withdraw to the westward. The flotilla-leader _Lightfoot_ took the _Medusa_ in tow.
At the beginning of the homeward voyage the enemy seaplanes circled round the s.h.i.+ps, but were kept off by our high-angle guns. One plucky German airman, however, despite the shrapnel that was bursting all round him, made a most determined attack. He dropped about eight bombs and very nearly hit the _Conquest_. But the ever-increasing strength of the wind, and the signs of worse weather coming, at last made the German airmen turn to seek shelter on their own land.
The flotilla soon found itself steaming in the teeth of a strong south-west gale, violent rain-squalls alternating with snow-blizzards, and a high sea running. Progress was slow, for the speed of the flotilla was necessarily limited to that at which their crippled consort could be towed, and that speed, as the wind ever hardened, was gradually reduced from ten to only six knots.
At 4 p.m. the flotilla sighted ahead of it, steaming to the southward, the s.h.i.+ps of Sir D. Beatty's squadron of cruisers that had been sent to support it. The delay caused by the wait for the seaplanes that did not return and by the crippled state of the _Medusa_ had brought about a dangerous situation. The mission of the battle cruisers had been to cruise to the south-west and prevent the enemy from attacking the Harwich Force while the seaplane raid was in progress, and, at the conclusion of the raid, to cover the withdrawal of that force, by following it to the westward at a certain distance astern. Had all gone well, the battle cruisers should have had the Harwich Force well to the westward of them by 9 a.m., whereas it was only appearing in sight towards sundown. It was a serious matter to risk our valuable battle cruisers in covering the slow retirement, at night, through enemy waters, of a force r.e.t.a.r.ded by its lame ducks. It was known that a large number of the enemy's torpedo craft were out to intercept our forces, and these would find easy targets in our big s.h.i.+ps. But it had to be done, and the battle cruisers covered the pa.s.sing of the Harwich Force through the danger zone.
To return to the Harwich Force. Shortly after the battle cruisers had been sighted, the Commodore altered the course to the north, thus considerably lessening the chance of our s.h.i.+ps getting in touch with the enemy who were coming out of Wilhelmshaven or some other German base to the southward.
This alteration of course brought the wind and sea on the _Medusa's_ quarter, causing her to override repeatedly, and so put a great strain on the towing hawser each time that it tautened out. No hawser could stand this long, and it promptly parted. Further attempts were made, but it became obvious that to tow the _Medusa_ home would not be possible. It was therefore decided to abandon her, and the order was given to take the crew off her and then to sink her. That this was a difficult and dangerous operation to carry out with so tremendous a sea running, and on so dark a night, needs no explanation. But it was done, and that, too, without the loss of a man, Lieutenant-Commander Butler, who was in command of the destroyer _La.s.soo_, got his s.h.i.+p alongside the _Medusa_. In order to effect his purpose he had to ram the _Medusa_ in the forecastle, and to continue steaming ahead so as to preserve contact with her until he had taken all her crew on board his own s.h.i.+p. It was a piece of magnificent seamans.h.i.+p, and Lieutenant-Commander Butler well earned the D.S.O. which was conferred on him.
So as to minimise the possibility of friend being mistaken for foe in so dark and stormy a night, with no s.h.i.+ps showing lights, the destroyers were sent on in advance, while the light cruisers proceeded in line ahead, _Cleopatra_, the flags.h.i.+p, leading; the speed, now that the _Medusa_ had been abandoned, being increased to fifteen knots. A northerly course was still steered by the force, but the _Lightfoot_ and _La.s.soo_, with the crew of the abandoned _Medusa_, were ordered to steam direct to Harwich.