Stuart Heaver - The Coal Black Sea

This book is dedicated to the memory of my grandmother:
Lily Louisa May Heaver (ne Potter).

I would that with sleepy, soft embraces

The sea would fold mewould find me rest,

In luminous shades of her secret places,

In depths where her marvels are manifest;

So the earth beneath her should not discover

my hidden couchnor the heaven above her

As a strong love shielding a weary lover,

I would have her shield me with her shining breast.

Adam Lindsay Gordon (1870)

Cover illustrations: Front: A watercolour of HMS Cressy and the Broad Fourteens disaster, produced in 1920. (Courtesy of Chatham Historic Dockyard) Back: Winston Churchill in 1911, the year he was appointed First Lord of the Admiralty. (GRANGER/Alamy Stock Photo)

First published 2022

The History Press

97 St Georges Place, Cheltenham,

Gloucestershire, GL 50 3 QB

www.thehistorypress.co.uk

Stuart Heaver, 2022

The right of Stuart Heaver to be identified as the Author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without the permission in writing from the Publishers.

British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data.

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

ISBN 978 1 8039 9087 3

Typesetting and origination by The History Press

Printed and bound in Great Britain by TJ Books Limited, Padstow, Cornwall.

eBook converted by Geethik Technologies

CONTENTS

FOREWORD

BY ADMIRAL SIR GEORGE ZAMBELLAS, GCB DSC DL

Stuart Heaver, himself a former Royal Navy officer, has triumphed with The Coal Black Sea .

If ever there was a catastrophe waiting to happen, amid the inherent and structural inefficiencies of the pre-First World War Royal Navy, with its undisciplined mix of politics, personalities, ageing technology and technical naivety, this was it. And HMS Cressy , and her sister cruisers, fell foul of that horrid mess.

Stuart Heaver brings this complex story alive, and painfully so in the case of the officers and men of HMS Cressy as they battle with the boredom and ordinariness of pre-war life at sea, until the reality and practical horror of the German submarine threat is unleashed upon them, and their sister cruisers. With almost nothing with which to fight back, the vulnerability of these great warships and their crews is brutally exposed to the horror of the freezing North Sea.

All around this graphic and personalised account, masterfully captured by the author, are the ebb and flow of naval and national politics, and particularly the character and ambition of Winston Churchill. And the politics continue into the aftermath, as spin and reputation are themselves positioned for survival.

The Coal Black Sea is, ultimately, a factually accurate account about a family the naval family from the most senior to the most junior, and the collective failure to understand the nature of contemporary threats. Perhaps nothing changes. It is sobering, and a great read.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

If I had known how arduous and protracted the journey would be to complete this book, I would probably have never taken the first few steps. An idea first conceived in a pretty English village in Suffolk during the summer of 2014 took several unexpected turns before the final manuscript was submitted from a quarantine hotel in Hong Kong in autumn 2021.

Before a long-postponed trip to my grandmothers childhood home of Westleton, Suffolk, I contacted my cousin, David Heaver, and he suggested I might like to have a look at the village war memorial while I was there.

Emerging into the summer sunshine after lunch at the Crown Inn, I crossed the road to the memorial sacred to the memory of 18 brave men of Westleton who gave their lives for their country in the great War, 1914-1918. I quickly recognised a familiar name on the short list etched into the stone tablet:

Potter William J. Seaman Gunner HMS Cressy

Will Potter was my paternal grandmothers elder brother but, despite my service in the Royal Navy, no one in the family had ever mentioned that my great-uncle lost his life at sea in the First World War.

Further down the same list was another name:

Spindler David. Stoker HMS Cressy

It occurred to me that two men from this small village had lost their lives on the same ship, on the same day, in an incident I had never heard of. I didnt know it at the time, but this was the start of an eight-year journalistic journey to uncover the truth about what happened to Potter, Spindler and their shipmates in the southern North Sea on 22 September 1914.

Writing this book was often a solitary business but it could never have been completed without the support and industry of others.

Firstly, David Heaver, whose casual suggestion had initiated my interest in the events leading to the loss of HMS Cressy , became an invaluable proofreader of several versions of the copy and remained steadfast in his support throughout.

I would like to acknowledge the role of Henk van der Linden, who was instrumental in telling the story of HMS Aboukir, Cressy and Hogue and founding the Live Bait Squadron Society, a network for the families of descendants of those who served that day. It was Henk who organised the centenary commemoration of the event at Chatham Historic Dockyard on 22 September 2014, which I attended. This book is intended to be a continuation of the journey that he initiated.

Gerry Bartlett was an enthusiastic advocate from day one and has been a trusted friend and mentor since he recruited me into SSAFA, the Armed Forces charity, as a case worker and press officer. Without Gerrys support I would not have become a professional writer and his experience as a veteran Fleet Street reporter and his background as a Major in the TA were priceless.

Gavin Greenwood is also due a special debt of gratitude. Gavin is an experienced writer/editor with a military background and a passion for naval history. His contributions, tactful suggestions and edits improved my copy no end. I am embarrassed to admit that some of my favourite turns of phrase in the book were his suggestions.

Paul Harrison and Mick Atha PhD read through early versions and former Royal Navy submariner (and my old shipmate) Commander Tony Dolton kindly scrutinised the sections about submarine warfare.

I would like to thank Anna West, the cousin I didnt know I had (Will Potter was her uncle). She contacted me via the Ancestry website in 2019 and provided invaluable background detail and some timely encouragement on more than one occasion.

David Whittle and his dedicated colleagues at the Harwich Society opened up their museums and archives for me during the Covid-19 restrictions in the summer of 2020. Roger Jones and the dedicated team of volunteers at the HMS Ganges Museum in Shotley gave me unrestricted access to their library and supplied tea and biscuits for my wife while she waited patiently for me.

Thank you to Admiral Sir George Zambellas for writing the Foreword. Sir George was First Sea Lord in 2014 and presided at the commemorative event at Chatham Historic Dockyard. We both joined Cunningham Division, BRNC Dartmouth, on the same day in September 1980.

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