The Great War at Sea: 1914-1918

by Richard Hough

  Later, after doubling Cape Horn on 2 December, the weather and visibility improved, revealing a fine four-masted barque. It was flying the British flag, and when it was apprehended and taken in tow by the Leipzig, was found to be carrying 3,000 tons of best coal – more than they had lost in the storm.

  Spee took his squadron up the spectacular and sheltered waters of the Beagle Channel to tranship this precious find of fuel. In midsummer weather, while some of the men went ashore to dig up young Antarctic beeches and shrubs with berries for the forthcoming Christmas festivities, the coal was transferred to the light cruisers. The storm had lost them at least twenty-four hours, and the coaling occupied a further three days: one more entry in the fine arithmetical calculations of fate and coincidence that governed these critical clays of early December 1914.

  After performing with such sturdy reliability when believed to be faulty, the engines of the old Canopus succumbed to continuous maximum revolutions while escaping south from Spee. Her speed dropped from 16 1/2 knots to a crawl while Lieutenant Start and his men made what repairs they could. On 5 November the Canopus limped through the Magellan Straits, past the little township of Punta Arenas observed by the British consul and German agents, and at the low-lying Cape Virgins rendezvoused with the Glasgow.

  At about this time, the battleship picked up a signal from London via Montvideo and Port Stanley. Captain Grant and his men knew nothing of the changes at the top in London, but recognized from this signal that the fighting power of their ship had been much reduced in the judgement of the First Lord. Fisher had evidently convinced Churchill, who called the battleship ‘inexpugnable’, of the real rather than the romanticized ability of the Canopus to deal with Spee. Now Grant was ordered (4 November) to ‘make the best of your way to join Defence near Montevideo’. He was told to ‘avoid being brought to action by superior force’, and ‘if attacked Admiralty is confident ship will in all circumstances be fought to the last…’ Grant’s role had, almost overnight, changed from commander of an impregnable ‘citadel’ to a latter-day Sir Richard Grenville.

  The people of the Falkland Islands were glad enough to see the battleship with the accompanying Glasgow. On the previous day they had been warned that Spee might raid the islands, and their only weapons were three pieces of aged light artillery and a few rifles.

  On 10 November, an additional signal from the Admiralty ordered the Canopus to remain where she was. ‘Moor the ship so that the entrance is commanded by your guns. Extemporize mines outside entrance. Send down your topmasts and be prepared for bombardment from outside the harbour. Stimulate the Governor to organize all local forces and make determined defence. Arrange observation station on shore, by which your fire on ships outside can be directed. Land guns or use boats’ torpedoes to sink a blocking ship before she reaches the Narrows. No objection to your grounding ship to obtain a good berth.’(15)

  Like any experienced, responsible captain, Heathcoat Grant required none of these detailed instructions. He had already camouflaged his ship, grounded her firmly in mud in a concealed position, sent ashore his 12-pounders and set them up in protected batteries, filled old oil barrels with high explosive and strung them across the outer harbour entrance. At last, now no longer a seagoing man o’war, the Canopus had become a citadel in reality. ‘We were determined to give von Spee a taste of his own medicine’, one of her officers boasted.

  Grant also set up observation posts about Port Stanley, each linked by land-line to the battleship; and it was from one of these that, on the morning of 7 December, smoke from a number of ships was sighted. The alarm was sounded, but it did not take more than a few minutes to identify through a glass the distinctive tripod masts of British battle-cruisers – two of them, together with the substantial silhouettes of the three-funnelled armoured cruiser Carnarvon and earlier three funnelled Cornwall and Kent, the familiar outline of the Glasgow and another light cruiser, the Bristol.

  As at Abrolhos Rocks, Admiral Sturdee gave no sign of haste. The men were given shore leave, and he ordered his captains to attend another conference in the Invincible. Intelligence on the whereabouts of Spee was imprecise and scarce when the ships began coaling. One unconfirmed report suggested that Spee had doubled the Horn two weeks ago, another from Valparaiso suggested he was still on the Chilean coast. Sturdee gave it as his opinion that it would be a long and arduous hunt. It would start, he declared. in two or three days when they were ready, and they would work their way up the west coast of South America, in the tracks of the ill-fitted Cradock.

  Dawn breaks early in the 50s latitude in midsummer. By 5 a.m. on 8 December it was already a rare clear day, the first for weeks. The civilian look-out on duty on the summit of a small rise outside Port Stanley happened to be a Swede, and thus the honour of first sighting and reporting hostile ships fell upon a neutral. It was just after 7.30 a.m. when he saw through his telescope a smudge of smoke on the south-western horizon. A few minutes later, when he could make out the shape of the ships causing the smoke, he raised the telephone and reported to the Canopus, almost accurately, ‘A four-funnel and a two-funnel man o’war in sight steering northwards.’

  Cape Horn and its islands has been the pivotal point of countless mariners’ fortunes over the centuries. For Magellan, after the miseries of becalming, of storm and mutiny in the Atlantic, the Pacific was mar del Pacifico. For Admiral von Spee good fortune had sailed with him for thousands of miles in the Pacific, culminating in the triumph of Coronel. Now in South Atlantic waters, fate turned as sharply as the passage round Kipling’s ‘Blind Horn’s hate’.

  In his last meeting with his captains, everyone except Spee himself and his Chief of Staff argued for making best speed for the Plate estuary, injuring British trade and then steaming north-east for home. They had ample coal, there was 25,000 tons awaiting them at Pernambuco, a further 15,000 tons would be available from New York after 20 January. And surely, ran the argument, the High Seas Fleet would come to their aid directly or as a division when they approached home waters – surely, after what they had accomplished. Spee argued for a raid on the Falkland Islands, smashing the radio station and harbour installations, setting fire to the coal store, destroying any auxiliary vessels and colliers. The moral effect would be even greater than the material damage and the loss of facilities. Spee discounted his subordinates’ argument that they should preserve their remaining ammunition for the almost inevitable clash before they reached Germany – they had used up almost half their supplies sinking the Monmouth and Good Hope.

  ‘We will sail at noon’, Spee concluded the proceedings. It was 6 December. They were almost the same distance from Port Stanley as Sturdee coming down from the north. The German Admiralty had known for some time that battle-cruisers had been detached from the Grand Fleet to hunt down Spee. Devonport was thick with German informers, in every pub it was known that tropical kit had been issued to the men of the Invincible and Inflexible for southern climes. Cruising down the Atlantic, the battle-cruisers had chattered to one another en clair. After Coronel, what else could the battle-cruisers’ mission be?

  The Germans had no difficulty in despatching by cable the critical news to Valparaiso, and from there wireless operators of the German mission made every effort to pass it on to Spee. Their efforts were fruitless and no reply was heard. The massive mountains of the Cape Horn area had temporarily cut off the Admiral from the rest of the world. All that was picked up by the Scharnhorst’s wireless operators when the ether was clear of interference came from Punta Arenas. The German consul there assured Spee that, at last report, there were no men o’war at the Falklands.

  In accordance with Spee’s plan, the Gneisnau and Nürnberg were detached at 5 a.m. to reconnoitre and then carry out the bombardment. Three hours later, Captain Maerker of the Gneisnau and his Commander, Hans Pochhammer, could dearly make out details of their target and the wireless masts on a hill. The Gneisenau’s turret guns swung to bear. ‘The sea was calm,’ Pochhammer recorded, ‘
the sky was of azure blue… Then right ahead of us, where the Pembroke lighthouse, built on a low, thrusting tongue of land, marked the entrance, a slender column of smoke appeared…’(16)

  The smoke rapidly increased in volume and density. It must be the coal stores being burnt in order that it would not fall into their hands, Pochhammer concluded. Later the Gneisenau’s look-out reported masts in Port Stanley harbour, many masts; and, after a few more minutes, he made out through the black smoke the dread sight of twin tripod British Navy-style masts. A few minutes later two almost instantaneous cracks sounded out, and there appeared in the smooth water, uncomfortably close, the tall spouts of exploding heavy shells.

  Those heavy shells had not been fired from the Invincible or Inflexible, nor did they come from the 7.5-inch guns of the Carnarvon nor the 6-inch of the other armoured cruisers. They were fired by the Canopus from her mud patch, and very creditable shooting it was, too, for raw reservists with a live target for the first time. Captain Grant and the Canopus’s gunnery officer, Lieutenant-Commander Philip Hordern, had had plenty of time to prepare for this moment and had taken full advantage of it with calibration tests and competitive practice ‘shoots’ between the forward and after turrets, the fall of shot checked at the observer posts. The gun crews had been scheduled to demonstrate their skills to the C.-in-C. that morning, and so keen had been the crew of the after turret to save time and get a start on their rivals that they had ‘crept up privily by night’ and loaded up with non-exploding practice projectiles. Now there was no time to replace the 850-pound shells. When their 12-inch guns elevated until they were on their ‘stops’ for maximum range, this gun crew was hoist with its own petard. But their shooting was brilliant. This second salvo struck the water just before the bows of the Gneisenau, one of them ricocheting and hitting the base of the first funnel.

  Captain Maerker’s shock was no less for thinking he had been hit by a ‘dud’. First the tripod masts and now accurate 12-inch gunfire. After reporting these uncomfortable facts to Spee, he was ordered to rejoin the squadron at maximum speed. Maerker was shocked beyond measure, and also puzzled. Spee would certainly have been warned if British dreadnought battleships or battle-cruisers had been sent to hunt him down. Then he recalled that the Japanese had recently adopted the British-style masts, the only Navy to do so, and at once concluded that these must be Japanese ships – the Kawachi or Settsu, or the Kurama – all armed with 12-inch guns and known to be searching fix them. Spee’s only chance was to outpace these Japanese battleships or armoured cruisers and seek again the concealment offered by the innumerable Chilean islands.’(17)

  Chaos and confusion reigned in Port Stanley harbour. It had begun with the failure to transmit the Swedish spotter’s news from the Canopus. There was no land-line between the grounded battleship and Sturdee’s flagship, and the Canopus’s situation precluded visual signalling. Besides, everyone was busy coaling. The Invincible had a collier alongside and both she and her sister battle-cruiser lay in a pall of dense coal dust – the dust that Captain Maerker had mistaken for burning coal stocks. Two of the armoured cruisers were either coaling or undergoing repair. The Kent had steam up and could leave harbour within an hour, but no less time. The Glasgow had providentially coaled and was anchored so that she was in visual contact with the Canopus and the Invincible.

  The Glasgow’s officer of the watch attempted to pass on the news of Spee’s arrival to Admiral Sturdee, but the coal dust was impenetrable by a standard signal lamp. When Luce heard of the dilemma he snapped, ‘Well, for God’s sake do something about it – fire a gun, send a boat, don’t stand there like a stuffed dummy.’(18) By firing a saluting gun and training a 24-inch searchlight in the direction of the flagship’s bridge, the message at last got through. A lieutenant raced down to Sturdee’s quarters, found him shaving, and informed him that the enemy was in sight. The Admiral was not in the least rattled. ‘I gave orders to raise steam for full speed and go down to a good breakfast.’(19)

  The news reached the Admiralty at 5 p.m. Churchill was at his desk. The signal ran: ‘Admiral Spee arrived in daylight with all his ships and is now in action with Admiral Sturdee’s whole fleet, which was coaling.’

  ‘We had had so many unpleasant surprises that these last words sent a shiver up my spine’, wrote Churchill. ‘Had we been taken by surprise and, in spite of all our superiority, mauled, unready at anchor? “Can it mean that?” I said to the Chief of the Staff. “I hope not", was all he said.’(20)

  Churchill had every reason to be anxious, and Sturdee should have had every reason to be rattled. The squadron’s position was a desperately dangerous one. If Spee had not lost his nerve, or if he had thought more swiftly and shrewdly (or was it only his Cape Horn luck again?), he could have brought both his armoured cruisers into comfortable range and shelled Sturdee at leisure. Even a young cadet in the Canopus could see that. With justifiable pride in the performance of his ship, he wrote home, ‘If we hadn’t driven them away until the Fleet got out they would have come across the mouth of the harbour and swept the ships inside with 8″ shell, probably sunk the Cornwall and blocked the entrance.’(21)

  Be that as it may, Sturdee recorded that Spee ‘came at a very convenient time’. It took two hours for the battle-cruisers to get up steam, clear the colliers, clear the decks of coal and complete the numerous and complex preparations for getting these big ships to sea. It was after 10 a.m. when Sturdee’s ships, the Carnarvon and Inflexible, the Invincible and Cornwall, steamed out in line in that order.

  ‘It was a perfect day,’ wrote the Inflexible’s captain, ‘very rare in these latitudes, and it was a beautiful sight, the compact line of 5 Germans in line abreast, and the British ships coming round the point and all the flags (we had 5 ensigns flying to make sure all should not be shot away) with the sun on them.’

  The Glasgow was already ahead, and could observe that the Gneisenau and Nürnberg had now nearly caught up with Spee. The Kent was ahead, too, but she waited for Sturdee’s ships and then joined them for the long chase.

  Captain Maerker was now able to identify for sure the two big ships which had emerged and were already streaming thick clouds of black smoke as they built up speed. They were not Japanese. The spacing of the three funnels together with the tripod masts told him indisputably that these were British battle-cruisers – ships with a speed of around 26 knots. After the Gneisenau’s long cruise without an engine refit and cleaning of her bottom, she could no longer make more than 18 knots, probably still enough to evade those big ships if they had been Japanese. But the simplest calculation told him that only the miracle arrival of Antarctic fog could save them. It was ‘a very bitter pill for us to swallow,’ wrote Lieutenant-Commander Busche, ‘… this meant a life and death struggle, or rather a fight ending in honourable death.’(22)

  The sea remained calm, the sky clear, the two big British ships sliced through the water after their prey at speeds up to 26 knots. Only the following wind was disadvantageous to the spotters, threatening to obscure the targets with their own smoke, blacker and fouler than ever now that oil was being sprayed onto the coal in the furnaces to gain utmost power. The armoured cruisers were falling astern, the Bristol, last to leave, trying to catch up, only the Glasgow able to hold this pace and keep up her reporting – as good and as dangerous as that of the Gloucester pursuing Souchon.

  At a little over nine land miles – 16,500 yards – the Inflexible fired the first shots. They fell short. Firing continued intermittently, almost desultorily, from both big ships. It was sloppy work, but at length splashes straddled the trailing Leipzig. Then at 1.20 p.m. Spee made the courageous and correct decision to split his forces, to turn and fight with his two big ships, leaving the light cruisers to scatter. They might, perhaps, be capable of outpacing the British armoured cruisers, two of them sister ships to the Monmouth and the third almost as old.

  In the Glasgow doubts were expressed that the Invincible and Inflexible were ever going to sink the
Gneisenau and Scharnhorst. ‘We were all dismayed at the battle cruisers’ gunnery’, wrote Lieutenant Harold Hickling. ‘An occasional shot would fall close to the target while others would be far short or over.’ He remarked to another officer, ‘At this rate it looks as if Sturdee and not von Spee is going to be sunk.’(23)

  ‘It’s certainly damn bad shooting’, the officer agreed. There were other reasons for the poor shooting than weak gunnery. The smoke remained a problem throughout the action, making it necessary for the battle-cruisers to form quarter-line. And Sturdee was anxious to keep outside the range of the German 8.2-inch guns and inside the range of his 12-inch guns, which allowed a margin of only about 2,000 yards. He quite rightly recognized the importance of returning his valued battle-cruisers to the Grand Fleet unharmed and with the least delay.

  Spee was manoeuvring with great skill, attempting to close the range first down to 14,000 yards when his heavy guns became effective, and then to around 10,000 yards when his numerous 5.9-inch guns could open fire.

  For a time in the early part of the action, now on an easterly heading and then north-easterly, Spee was able to fire eight heavy guns from both his ships. By contrast with British shooting, ‘The German firing was magnificent to watch’, observed one British officer. ‘Perfect ripple salvoes all along their sides. A brown-coloured puff with a centre of flame marking each gun as it fired… They straddled us time after time.’(24)

  The first hit on the Invincible led Sturdee to turn away two points to open the range. The smoke problem had also now become so serious that he was forced to put over the helm sharply in order to clear the air for his range-takers and spotters. When the battle-cruisers emerged from their own smoke-screen it was not at first noticed that their protagonists had also made a sharp turn, to the due south, and were now far out of range again. The Gneisenau and Scharnhorst were still unharmed, and by making efforts in the engine-rooms as valiant as the Goeben’s stokers, they sped south with renewed hope that they might escape into bad weather before their pursuers could catch them again. Already there were signs that the weather might close in.