CHAPTER XIII
THE GREAT NAVAL BATTLE OF THE CARIBBEAN SEA
In a flash my newspaper sense made me realise that this was anextraordinary opportunity. The greatest naval battle in history was aboutto be fought so near us that we might almost hear the big guns booming.It would be worth thousands of pounds to the London _Times_ to have aneye-witness account of this battle, and I resolved to turn the island ofJamaica upside down in search of an aeroplane that would take me out tosea.
The fates were certainly kind to me--or rather the British Consulwas efficient; and before night I had secured the use of a powerfulBurgess-Dunne aeroboat, the property of Vincent Astor; also Mr. Astor'sskilful services as pilot, which he generously offered through hisinterest in naval affairs and because of his desire to give the worldthis first account of a sea battle observed from the sky.
We started the next morning, an hour after sunrise, flying to the northstraight across the island of Jamaica, and then out over the open sea. Ishall never forget the beauty of the scene that we looked down upon--thetropical flowers and verdure of the rugged island, and the calmly smilingpurple waters surrounding it. We flew swiftly through the delicious airat a height of half a mile, and in two hours we had covered a third ofthe distance to Guantanamo and were out of sight of land.
At ten o'clock we turned to the right and steered for a column of smokethat had appeared on the far horizon; and at half-past ten we werecircling over the American fleet as it steamed ahead slowly with firesunder all boilers and everything ready for full speed at an instant'snotice.
As we approached the huge super-dreadnought _Pennsylvania_, flag-ship ofthe American squadron, Mr. Astor unfurled the Stars and Stripes, and wecould hear the crews cheering as they waved back their greetings.
I should explain that we were able to converse easily, above the roar ofour propellers, by talking into telephone head-pieces.
"Look!" cried Astor. "Our ships are beginning a manoeuvre."
The _Pennsylvania_, with red-and-white flags on her foremast, wassignalling to the fleet: "Prepare to engage the enemy." We watchedeagerly as the great ships, stretching away for miles, turned slightly tostarboard and, with quickened engines, advanced in one long line ofbattle.
At half-past eleven another smoke column appeared on our port bow, andwithin half an hour we could make out enemy vessels on either hand.
"They're coming on in two divisions, miles apart," said Astor, studyingthe two smoke columns with his glasses. "We're headed right betweenthem."
We flew ahead rapidly, and presently could clearly discern that thevessels to starboard were large battleships and those to port weredestroyers.
At one o'clock the two fleets were about nineteen thousand yards apartand were jockeying for positions. Suddenly four vessels detachedthemselves from the German battleship line and steamed at high speedacross the head of the American column.
"What's that? What are they doing?" asked Astor.
"Trying to cap our line and torpedo it. Admiral Togo did the same thingagainst the Russians in the Yellow Sea. Admiral Fletcher is swinging hisline to port to block that move."
"How do they know which way to manoeuvre? I don't see any signals."
"It's done by radio from ship to ship. Look! They are forcing us to headmore to port. That gives them the advantage of sunlight. Ah!"
I pointed to the German line, where several puffs of smoke showed thatthey had begun firing. Ten seconds later great geyser splashes rose fromthe sea five hundred yards beyond the _Pennsylvania,_ and then we heardthe dull booming of the discharge. The battle had begun. I glanced at mywatch. It was half-past one.
_Boom! Boom! Boom!_ spoke the big German guns eight miles away; but wealways saw the splashes before we heard the sounds. Sometimes we couldsee the twelve-inch shells curving through the air--big, black, clumsyfellows.
Awe-struck, from our aeroplane, Astor and I looked down upon the Americandreadnoughts as they answered the enemy in kind, a whole line thunderingforth salvos that made the big guns flame out like monster torches, dullred in rolling white clouds of smokeless powder. We could see the tensefaces of those brave men in the fire-control tops.
"See that!" I cried, as a shell struck so close to the _Arizona_, secondin line, that the "spotting" officers on the fire-control platform highon her foremast were drenched with salt water.
I can give here only the main features of this great battle of theCaribbean, which lasted five hours and a quarter and covered a water areaabout thirty miles long and twenty miles wide. My plan of it, drawn withred and black lines to represent movements of rival fleets, is a tangleof loops and curves.
"Do you think there is any chance that it will be a drawn game?" saidAstor, pale with excitement.
"No," I answered. "A battle like this is never a drawn game. It's alwaysa fight to a finish."
Our aeroboat behaved splendidly, in spite of a freshening trade-windbreeze, and we circled lower for a better view of the battle which nowgrew in fierceness as the fleets came to closer quarters. At one time wedropped to within two thousand feet of the sea before Astor rememberedthat our American flag made a tempting target for the German guns andsteered to a higher level.
"They don't seem to fire at us, do they? I suppose they think we aren'tworth bothering with," he laughed.
As a matter of fact, not a single shot was fired at us during the entireengagement.
I must say a word here regarding an adroit German manoeuvre early in thebattle by which the invaders turned an apparent inferiority in submarinesinto a distinct advantage. The American fleet had thirty submarines(these had been towed painfully around South America) while the Germanshad only five, but these five were large and speedy, built to travel withthe fleet under their own power and not fall behind. The thirty Americansubmarines, on the other hand, could not make over twelve knots an hour.Consequently, when the German line suddenly quickened its pace totwenty-five knots, Admiral Fletcher had to choose between abandoning hisunderwater craft and allowing his fleet to be capped by the enemy; thatis, exposed to a raking fire with great danger from torpedoes. He decidedto abandon his submarines (all but one that had the necessary speed) andthus he lost whatever assistance these vessels might have rendered, andwas obliged to fight with a single submarine against five, instead ofwith thirty against five.
When I explained this manoeuvre to Mr. Astor he asked the naturalquestion why Admiral Fletcher had not foreseen this unfortunate issue andleft his burdensome submarines at Panama. I pointed out that these thirtyvessels had cost half a million dollars apiece and it was the admiral'sduty to take care of them. It naturally was not his fault if Congress hadfailed to give him submarines that were large enough and swift enough forefficient fighting with the fleet.
Meantime the battle was booming on in two widely separated areas, thebattleships in one, the destroyers in the other.
Mr. Astor had held the wheel for five hours and, at my suggestion, heretired to the comfortable little cabin and lay down for fifteen minutes,leaving the aeroboat to soar in great slow circles under its admirableautomatic controls over the main battle area. When he returned he broughthot coffee in a silver thermos bottle and some sandwiches, and we atethese with keen relish, in spite of the battle beneath us.
The dreadnoughts had now closed in to eight thousand yards and the battlewas at the height of its fury, making a continuous roar, and forming fivemiles of flaming tongues in a double line, darting out their messages ofhate and death.
As the afternoon wore on the wind strengthened from the northeast and Irealised the disadvantage of the American ships indicated by AdmiralAllyn, namely, that, being light of coal, they rode high in the sea androlled heavily. Unfortunately, the Germans had thirty battleships toseventeen and this disparity was presently increased when the flotilla ofGerman destroyers, about eighty, after vanquishing their opponents,swarmed against the hardpressed American line, attacking from the portquarter under the lead of the four battle-cruisers so that the valiantseve
nteen were practically surrounded.
In this storm of shells every ship was struck again and again and thehuge Pennsylvania, at the head of the column, seemed to be the target ofthe whole German column. About three o'clock, as the flagship rolled farover to port and exposed her starboard side, a twelve-inch shell caughther below the armoured belt and smashed through into the engine-room,where it exploded with terrific violence. The flagship immediately fellbehind, helpless, and Admiral Fletcher, badly wounded and realising thathis vessel was doomed, signalled to Admiral Mayo, on the _Arizona_,second in line, to assume command of the fleet.
"Look!" cried Astor, suddenly, pointing to two black spots in the seaabout a thousand yards away.
"Periscopes," said I.
At the same moment we saw two white trails swiftly moving along thesurface and converging on the _Pennsylvania_ with deadly precision.
"Torpedoes! They're going to finish her!" murmured Astor, his handsclenched tight, his eyes sick with pain.
There was a smothered explosion, then a thick column of water shot highinto the air, and a moment later there came another explosion as thesecond torpedo found its target.
And now the great super-dreadnought _Pennsylvania_ was sinking into theCaribbean with Admiral Fletcher aboard and seventeen hundred men. Shelisted more and more, and, suddenly, sinking lower at the bows, shesubmerged her great shoulders in the ocean and rolled her vast bulkslowly to starboard until her dark keel line rose above the surface witha green Niagara pouring over it.
For a long time the _Pennsylvania_ lay awash while the battle thunderedabout her and scores of blue-jackets clambered over her rails from herperpendicular decks and clung to her slippery sides. We could hear themsinging "Nancy Lee" as the waves broke over them.
"Are we afraid to die?" shouted one of the men, and I thrilled at theanswering chorus of voices, "No!"
Just before the final plunge we turned away. It was too horrible, andAstor swung the aeroplane in a great curve so that we might not see thelast agonies of those brave men. When we looked back the flagship haddisappeared.
As we circled again over the spot where the _Pennsylvania_ went down wewere able to make out a few men clinging to fragments of wreckage andcalling for help.
"Do you see them? Do you hear them?" cried Astor, his face like chalk."We must save one of them. She'll carry three if we throw over some ofour oil."
This explains why we did not see the end of the battle of the Caribbeanand the complete destruction of the American fleet. We threw overboard ahundred pounds of oil and started back to Kingston with a crippled engineand a half-drowned lieutenant of the _Pennsylvania_ stretched on thecabin floor. How we saved him is a miracle. One of our wings buckled whenwe struck the water and I got a nasty clip from the propeller as Idragged the man aboard; but, somehow, we did the thing and got home hourslater with one of the few survivors of Admiral Fletcher's ill-fatedexpedition.
I have no idea how I wrote my story that night; my head was throbbingwith pain and I was so weak I could scarcely hold my pencil, but somehow,I cabled two columns to the London _Times_, and it went around the worldas the first description of a naval battle seen from an aeroplane. I didnot know until afterwards how much the Germans suffered. They really lostabout half their battleships, but the Americans lost everything.
Conquest of America: A Romance of Disaster and Victory, U.S.A., 1921 A.D. Page 16