IN THE NORTH SEA.

BY LIEUTENANT R.N.

The operation that I am about to describe was not one of primary importance, nor is it likely to be chronicled in the History of the War when that comes to be written; but it was nevertheless an incident of some interest and hazard, and serves to demonstrate the completeness of England’s command of the sea.

It was one day in March 1915 that we left our base and steamed eastward across the North Sea towards the enemy’s coast. We were not a strong force, but we were all fast ships, light cruisers and destroyers, and could show a clean pair of heels to any German big ships that we might meet. It was not expected, however, that the Germans would show themselves outside their ports, for it was less than two months since the Blucher had met her end at the hands of Beatty’s battle-cruisers, and the German squadrons were not prepared as yet, either morally or materially, for another encounter.

Accompanying us, that is escorted by us, were three seaplane carriers, the object of our operations being a repetition of the Christmas Day air raid.

All the way across we had fine calm weather, and our hopes ran high that the conditions would be sufficiently favourable for launching aircraft; for aircraft, and especially seaplanes which are encumbered with heavy air-resisting floats, are still sufficiently in their infancy to require very favourable weather conditions if they are to operate successfully at sea.

At daylight on the following morning we found ourselves some thirty odd miles off the enemy’s coast in a position favourable for launching our attack, and since, coincidently, some wily astrologer, in a fit of verbose optimism, had prophesied a naval battle for this date we had considerable hopes of ‘something doing.’

As day broke a heavy mist lay across our horizon which, spreading outward from the coast, limited visibility to two or three miles. We assured ourselves, however, that as soon as the sun rose the mist would clear, and so for about half an hour the squadron manœuvred to and fro, the while optimist and pessimist, according to their respective fancies, conceived momentary, and usually imaginary, changes in the density of the mist.

The pilots of the seaplanes were rapidly swallowing an early breakfast—it is one of the outstanding disadvantages of war that one has to eat and fight at times altogether repellent to the digestion—or else, with conscientious mechanics, were giving their engines a final test, as the familiar roar of the gnomes echoing from the carriers plainly told us.

But ere long the optimists proved themselves the truer prophets, for by 7 A.M. or so the mist was perceptibly thinner, and the flagship signalled the course which would bring us to our exact destination.

Stationed on each side of us as a submarine screen were divisions of destroyers, whilst the seaplane carriers, hauling out of line, formed up separately with their own destroyer escort.

At about 7.45 the preparatory signal flew from the flagship’s masthead, and with all hands at the guns we stood by, whilst the seaplane carriers prepared to hoist out their machines. But, alas for the aspirations of man, at this very moment a thick bank of fog gathered ahead of us, and in less than five minutes the squadron was enveloped in a ‘pea-soup’ fog, hiding ship from ship as effectively as if a cloud of poison gas had been launched at us.

Flying was definitely off, but only to be replaced by another game, for we were now steaming twenty knots direct at Germany, and it would ill befit the pride of the British Navy if a squadron of her daisiest ships stranded helplessly on the Hun coast.

But here was a problem. Before you turn a squadron the amount of the turn must be indicated to all ships; yet here visual signals were impossible—they would not have been visual in such a fog; syren signals were inadvisable on account of their noisy advertisement, and also the process of sound signalling is very slow; a wireless signal was an alternative, and was the quickest and surest way, but it was a way very liable to inform the enemy as to our whereabouts, for an English wireless call is as different to a German one as a gentleman to a Hun, so that any signal we made would be easily picked up by adjacent enemy stations, and the ‘strength’ of the signals would tell them how close we were.

War, however, is a succession of risks, and since the need demanded, the signal was made. (One hopes it caused a flutter in the German dovecots.)

The leading ships turned a right angle to starboard by two successive turns of four points, the rest of the squadron followed in their wake, and for a few minutes we ran parallel to the coast; the same signals and manœuvre repeated, and we had reversed our original course, and were steaming seawards with our stems to Germany.

How simple it sounds, doesn’t it? but the practical execution of such signals is not so easy in a fog, when the guide you are groping after cannot be seen and is able to show herself only by the bubbles which rise in her wake. Add to this that you have all had to reduce your speed by signal, which means that if you obey the signal a minute too late your excess speed causes you to rush up alongside your next ahead, or if you obey too soon you will drop astern and can no longer pick out those invaluable swirls and bubbles. But, worst danger of all, if one ship misses the signal and holds steadily on her course whilst her consorts ahead and astern and on each side of her turn at right angles, what is going to prevent a collision? ‘Joss,’ and ‘joss’ in large quantities, is the only preventative I can cite, and this was the very element that was absent that day.

One of the rear destroyers was the ‘lucky party’ who missed the signal—the first alter course signal by wireless—and she continued on her course, whilst those ahead and outside her altered across her bows.

The aforesaid ‘joss’ might have caused her to cross the line through a gap, but instead there suddenly loomed right ahead of her, out of the dense pall of fog, the blurred silhouette of a light cruiser, and before ever the engines could be reversed or the helm put over she had crashed bows on at twenty knots into the beam of the cruiser.

The comparatively frail bows of the destroyer crumpled under the blow like so much brown paper, and the boat recoiled with fifteen feet of her bow ‘concertina-ed’ in.

Yet never a soul on board of her was hurt. ‘Joss’ certainly made up leeway there, but in the bigger vessel such was not the case. The impact of the blow had lifted a torpedo tube off its mounting and had thrown it inboard against the casings, crushing five unfortunate men, of whom three lost their lives.

In addition the hull of the ship had suffered considerable damage, so that her speed was reduced to a bare ten knots, whilst the destroyer, at first able to steam six knots, could soon make no headway at all.

And all this, mark you, within thirty miles of the German coast in a ‘pea-soup’ fog, so that no sooner had the two ships collided and fallen apart than they were lost to sight of each other and of the remainder of the fleet, who continued their groping course seaward, the majority unaware that aught was amiss.

One destroyer, however, had noted the accident, and altering out from her station stood by her damaged consort and forthwith made preparations to take her in tow; for if one thing was more evident than another, it was the desirability of getting the damaged ships away to seaward before the fog should lift leaving them to be discovered by some inquisitive Hun submarine or aircraft patrol.

A wireless signal—it had to be done—was sent as soon as possible to the flagship from the damaged cruiser, and the squadron turned back on their track to try to locate and assist the damaged craft. But noon came—it was soon after 8 A.M. when the two ships collided—and there was no sign of the destroyer. The fog still hung thick over us all. Four P.M. came and passed and still we searched anxiously to and fro, peering continually into the thick wall of fog, and groping vaguely and blindly after our next ahead, catching a glimpse now and again of her mast or funnels only to lose her completely the next minute, and recommence the chase of her wake, assisted periodically by a fog buoy she veered astern.

From time to time, raucously and rashly, we would make signals on our syren hoping that the cripples would hear us, and periodically we tried wireless signals; but all to no effect, and night came leaving us still anxious for, and out of touch of our destroyer.

The damaged light cruiser was making her own way back to port, and two more destroyers that had lost touch with us during our fog manœuvring were also ordered home, but we should have been much happier for news of our ‘lame duck.’

The Germans still appeared to be unaware of our presence, despite our proximity to their coasts, but at any moment some prowling submarine might find us and give the show away, forcing us to scupper the destroyer lest she should fall into the enemy’s hands.

During the night the ships of our squadron were spread a couple of miles apart, so as to search over a greater area, but dawn on the next day came and still never a sign of our objective. We had received a signal of her estimated position, but neither she nor we were at all sure of our positions—it is not possible to be so in the North Sea amongst the variable currents, especially so in this case after so many alterations of course and speed and when it has not been possible to get a fix from the land or observations of the sun or stars for thirty-six hours. But with the new day the fog drifted away and there was soon a visibility of three or four miles.

Mr. Clerk of the Weather, however, was apparently unsatisfied with the capers he had already led us, and now substituted for the fog a rising wind and sea, so that we had visions of the damaged craft foundering before we might pick her up.

At 9 A.M. the flagship ordered one of the light cruisers to make all preparations for taking the destroyer in tow as soon as met with, but not until 2 P.M., thirty hours after the collision, did we at last sight her. She made a weird sight.

Her crumpled bows, unable to stand the strain of the ship’s motion any longer, had fallen off into the sea, so that from another ship one could look right into her and see her storerooms and other compartments, whilst the muzzle of her foremost gun, at ordinary times twenty feet or so back from her bows, now protruded over the ‘front’ of the ship like a tree outgrowing from a cliff.

The men’s living spaces right forward had retired to the bottom of the North Sea, and the waves were rolling in, unhindered, against the capstan engine, anchor chain lockers, and foremost mess decks. Yet the ship was still seaworthy, for a transverse bulkhead, which stretches across the ship and runs from the foc’sle deck right down to the keel, was keeping her watertight and preventing other compartments from being flooded—no small advertisement for the efficient work of our Corps of Naval Constructors.

The large area of this bulkhead, however, made it impossible to tow the ship bows first, for the pressure against it under such conditions would be tremendous and too much even for the efficiency of her construction.

The only alternative, therefore, was to tow her stern first. We knew this would be a fairly difficult operation, for she had already been twice in tow of the destroyer that had originally stood by her and each time the strain of the tow had parted the wires.

It was after an hour and a half’s work, by about 3 P.M., that we managed to get our wires into her, for it is no easy task in a seaway when one cannot have a boat, but must steam past as close to the other ship as safety will permit, towing astern of you a small hawser with a cask at the end, which the ship to be towed endeavours to pick up.

Then if she gets it you attach to the small hawser a larger hemp hawser, and to that the big wire by which you will tow, one end of which she hauls in and makes fast to herself, whilst you have the other end secured to your stern, and off you go. At least so you should in theory, but in this case we had secured the wire but two or three minutes when a wave lifted us up and simultaneously swung the destroyer’s stern off in an opposite direction, throwing a heavy strain on the wire which forthwith parted; so we had to start again.

This time we used the very largest wire we had, which was correspondingly more difficult to handle and harder to get to the destroyer, and not until 6 P.M., just as the light started to fail, were we able to get it to the destroyer. And all this time, you must remember, we made a sitting target for a submarine.

The remainder of the squadron were steaming round and round us acting as far as they could as a submarine screen, and individually, I don’t doubt, cursing us heartily for the length of time we were taking. But no enemy craft found us (such opportunities will be missed by fleets which operate in canals), and as twilight settled in we steamed slowly ahead, with rising hopes that this time the tow might hold and that we might succeed in getting her in.

Steaming at revolutions ordinarily sufficient to give us eight knots we made good four to five.

The sea was gradually getting up all the time, and the destroyer was towing crabwise through the water, not dead astern of us so as to give a straight haul, but out on our quarter which put variable strains and jerks on her and on the wire; more especially on the latter at the ‘nip’—that part where the wire led into the two ships, and where the bend due to her not being dead astern of us, came in.

The wind too was on our beam, and the seas rolling on swept the destroyer’s stern away from us causing our wire, a second later, to bring it back with a sudden jerk. Still for half an hour or so all went well, and the remainder of the squadron closed around us, zigzagging to and fro, as we all shaped course for home.

But fate, as you will guess, had no intention of giving up the game so easily, and at 6.45 P.M. our wire broke at the ‘nip.’ The ‘I-told-you-so’s’ were in evidence.

We had now no other wire strong enough to tow by, and so, to the disappointment of us all, another cruiser was detailed to take on the job. Disappointing as it was to us, it must have been far more than that to the destroyer. For thirty-six hours she had lain helpless, with alternate fears of being captured or of breaking up, and that after a sudden collision which would have been sufficient to shake the nerves of many. Four times had she hauled in towing wires, and on each occasion they had parted soon afterwards. Pitched and tossed about in the North Sea swell, tired and wet and with a good deal of their kit gone under, I should think that many of her crew were in that state of mind which is called ‘fed up.’ And now she had to start the game again.

But, profiting by our experience of how great the strain was under the particular conditions, the new cruiser took special precautions, the which I will not detail lest the Bosches benefit. By very clever seamanship and after over three hours’ hard work, mostly in the dark, the destroyer was again in tow, this time more securely; and so we started again on our journey home.

There is not really much more worth relating, for the wind, sea, a couple of snowstorms, our anxious lookout at daylight next morning to see if any enemy were about, and our precautions against submarine attack—these are everyday war events, and make dull reading.

Suffice it to say that our command of the sea was a sufficiently real factor to allow the cripple to be towed home unmolested a few hundred miles, and we came to our base as if no enemy fleet were within a thousand miles—who can accuse the Teuton of no sense of humour when he designated the water we steamed over the ‘German Ocean’?

So, comparatively tamely, concluded a trip which had at one time promised unusual excitement, but which anyhow gave us for four days some interest out of the ordinary, besides to some a fair measure of anxiety.

But wouldn’t Old Tirpitz be peevish if he knew of the chance he had missed?

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