Great Britain. Royal Navy - With the battle cruisers

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Text originally published in 1921 under the same title.

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WITH THE BATTLE CRUISERS

By

FILSON YOUNG

(Late Lieutenant R.N.V.R.)

Contents

THOSE WHO DIED

AND THOSE WHO LIVE

FOR ENGLAND

Thou wast made glorious in the midst of the Seas

THIS book is not a chapter of naval history. It is, however, a study of naval life in war from which the material for a chapter in naval history may some day be derived. The Navy and its life must remain to a great extent terra incognita to the public that owes so much to it; and it is as much due to the public as to the Navy that an explorer like myself should give some account of his adventures.

Although the book covers so short a period of the North Sea warfare the period is vital in that it embraces the discovery of nearly all our naval shortcomings, and the initiation of the means taken to overcome them. The point of viewthat of the spearhead of the British Naval forcesnecessarily includes a wide angle of outlook, in which the detail of things must diminish in proportion as they recede from the view-point. But just as one full and intimate picture of the life of one ship for one month would give the reader a more human insight into the Navy than a general survey of the whole Fleet for four years, so the narrative of an eye-witness whose place was for six months on the very point of that bright spearhead should have a value apart from, and supplementary to, the official and technical histories which are being compiled. My aim in this narrative has been to draw as few conclusions myself, and to present as much material from which others may draw them, as is humanly possible.

As the Admiralty in its wisdom has refused me access to documents by which I might verify my facts, the sources from which that material is drawn are limited to (1) my own observation and memory, which are trained for such a purpose; (2) the few notes and records of fact, valueless to an enemy but important to us, that I have been able to preserve; and (3) the published works of officers high in English and German commands. No one but myself is responsible either for my facts or my deductions; but having waited for five years after leaving the Navy and for two years after the end of the war before putting pen to paper, I shall not, I hope, be accused of rushing into print with a hasty or ill-considered record of my impressions.

My book is written primarily for the public and not for the Naval Officer; but I know him well enough to be sure that he, who will best understand the difficulties encountered in writing this book, will most generously forgive its defects. In my brief temporary membership of the band of brothers I came to hold the brotherhood as permanent.

FILSON YOUNG.

LONDON, March, 1921.

One of Lord Fishers Postscripts

Admiral Beatty on the Bridge (1913)

Facsimile Letter from Lord Fisher (1)

Facsimile Letter from Lord Fisher (2)

A Useful Afterthought

H.M.S. New Zealand in Harbour

The Intelligence Office, and the Secretary

Third Cruiser Squadron

H.M.S. Tiger at Sea

H.M.S. Iron Duke at Scapa

Submarine Look-out

The Admirals Back

Rear-Admiral H. B. Pelly

Rear-Admiral Sir Lionel Halsey, G.C.V.O., K.C.M.G., C.B.

DaybreakDecember 16, 1914

Rear-Admiral Von Hipper

Derfflinger

Von der Tann

Blcher

H.M.S. Princess Royal

H.M.S. Queen Mary

H.M.S. Tiger

The Anchorage

The Second Battle Cruiser Squadron

Physical Drill at Sea

Turning Together

H.M.S. Invincible

H.M.S. Indomitable

H.M.S. Inflexible

Rear-Admiral F. W. Kennedy

5 Blue (H.M.S. Queen Mary)

Compass Platform, Signal Bridge, and Searchlight Platform of Lion

Working Cables

Rear-Admiral Sir Alfred E. M. Chatfield, K.C.M.G., C.B., C.V.O.

Admiral Von Hippers Flagship, the Seydlitz

Armour Plate on Lions Port Side, driven in by Shell Fire

Vice-Admiral Sir O. de B. Brock, K.G.B., K.C.M.G., K.C.V.O.

Admiral Beattys Dining Cabin after the Dogger Bank Battle

After the Battle

The Sinking of the Blcher

SunsetH.M.S. Queen Mary

Safe in Port: H.M.S. Lion with Repair Ship Assistance

135 Guns

Where an Unexploded Shell passed through Lions Upper Deck, Starboard Side

H.M.S. Lion at Sea

H.M.S. Princess Royal

H.M.S. Lion

H.M.A.S. Australia

H.M.S. New Zealand

H.M.S. Indefatigable

The late Captain Cecil Prowse

Tiger Raising Steam

H.M.A.S. Australia

Admiral of the Fleet Earl Beatty, O.M., G.C.B., G.C.V.O., D.S.O., D.C.L.

The Scarborough Raid

The Dogger Bank Battle

The Lions Lair

WITH THE BATTLE CRUISERS

OF the half-great men, or great half-men, of our time, in whom lack of scruple in the pursuit of large ends is held to be a positive virtue, Lord Fisher was probably as near the whole man as any; and this story may as well begin with him, since it was through talking with him that I came in the years before the war to understand where the centres of effort and of resistance would be when the hurricane fell upon Europe. No man of our time, with the possible exception of Lord Haldane, has been so inaccurately measured as Lord Fisher; by the Navy, because they saw in his methods a grave disloyalty to certain deeply cherished standards; by the public, because he has been chiefly presented to them by a Press which, according to its spectacles, saw in him either an angel or a villain. He was neither. He was a simple and guileful man, cast in a very unusual mould, of which the only other product I have seen was that minor masterpiece of simplicity and cunning, the late President Kruger. Both were essentially simple men, and the element of greatness in both rested on that. Both were inspired by a profound patriotismthe one for the smallest, the other for the greatest, of modern States; in both the simplicity of character was expressed in a brain convoluted and patterned with the oblique philosophy of the Old Testament; both were strong and fearless, and both were unscrupulous in their methods of attaining great ends. Kruger with his theory of the tortoise putting out its head, Fisher with his obsession (expounded to me on one of the blackest days of the war) of the armadillo attracting the antsas applied to a battle cruiser in the Atlantic and enemy cruisershere was the same kind of simple guile, dangerously attractive to the unprofessional, above all to the literary, mind. Both were tried in the test of war, and both had to look for justice beyond the judgment of their contemporaries. Beyond that point it is not worth while here to pursue the comparison; but the few others living who had personal experience of the two men may find it interesting and illuminating.