The Hunters and the Hunted

by Bryan Perrett

  The circumstances that brought these two men and their squadrons together were curiously similar. Glasgow had called at Valparaiso and Spee saw an opportunity to destroy her. Likewise, Cradock was hunting a German light cruiser that had been reported in the area. During the afternoon of 1 November the two squadrons were converging on each other off Coronel, the Germans from the north and the British from the south. Cradock, having decided to leave the battleship Canopus behind to escort two colliers, possessed the Good Hope, Monmouth, Glasgow and the armed merchant cruiser Otranto. Spee had Scharnhorst, Gneisenau and Leipzig immediately available, but Nurnberg and Dresden, some distance to the north, were ordered to join immediately. Likewise, each squadron having sighted the other’s smoke, Cradock swung his line east towards the enemy, then south. By 18.00 the opposing squadrons were running on approximately parallel lines.

  Many have questioned why Cradock chose to force a battle on Spee when he had a seriously inferior force. For a few moments he had a slight tactical advantage in that the setting sun illuminated the German ships and blinded their gunners. Then, the sun set, leaving the British ships silhouetted against its afterglow. Their opponents, however, were difficult to spot against the dark background of the land to the east. Unfortunately, Cradock considered himself to be a prisoner of tradition. Ever since the days of Sir Richard Grenville the Royal Navy had never shirked a fight against odds and rather than surrender many of its ships had preferred to go down with their colours flying than surrender. The latter had never been considered mandatory and it was considered to be no disgrace for a captain to surrender his ship provided that she no longer possessed the means to fight.

  At 17.00, with a heavy sea running and the range at 12,300 yards, Spee ordered his ships to open fire. Good Hope’s 9.2-inch gun was put out of action by Scharnhorst’s third salvo, while a shell from Gneisenau blew the roof off Monmouth’s forward 6-inch turret. A heavy internal explosion then blew the wreckage of the turret itself overboard and started a blaze on the forecastle. Leipzig and Glasgow were also firing at each other, but the former’s guns were not yet within range while it was difficult for the latter to spot her own fall of shot. Otranto, unable to contribute to the battle, pulled out of the British line to starboard.

  By 19.10 the outcome of the battle was no longer in doubt although fighting continued. For a while, Good Hope’s one remaining 9.2-inch was the only British gun capable of reaching the enemy, but Cradock doggedly closed the range between the opposing ships. By 19.35 this was down to 5,500 yards, enabling Good Hope and Monmouth to make some reply with their 6-inch guns. It was of little use, being a contest between reservists who had been allowed only four practice rounds per gun with which to retrain after being recalled to the service, and the finest gunners in the Imperial German Navy. Both ships had been subjected an unending rain of shells. At 19.57 Good Hope was blown apart by an explosion that sent flames roaring to a height of 200 feet; at 20.00 the shattered hull went down, taking all aboard with it.

  By 20.15 Monmouth was down by the bows, making serious quantities of water, listing to port and with an internal fire glowing through her after portholes. Glasgow had seemed to bear a charmed life in the face of the combined enemy fire but there was nothing she could do for the stricken Monmouth and, realising the importance of reporting what had taken place, she escaped into the western darkness. She did not realise it, but she was pursued for a while by the Nurnberg and Dresden.

  At about 21.00 Captain von Schonberg put Nurnberg on a west-south-westerly course towards distant column of smoke rising skywards on the port bow. As the origin of the smoke came into view he snapped on a searchlight revealing Monmouth, badly battered and listing heavily to port but still moving slowly and with her White Ensign still flying. Schonberg opened fire at 1,000 yards range, closing to 600 yards. Because of Monmouth’s list her port guns were actually pointing at the water and clearly incapable of returning fire. Schonberg ceased firing, not wishing to further inflict death or injury on a defenceless enemy. However, Monmouth was seen to be turning slowly towards Nurnberg as though to ram or engage with her starboard guns and across the water her officers could be heard shouting for men from the damage control parties to assist in manning the latter. In addition, her White Ensign was still flying defiantly and obvious that whoever was commanding her had no intention of surrendering. Nurnberg therefore opened fire again, punching shells into the unprotected parts of Monmouth’s hull. Her list grew ever greater so that her starboard guns were pointing skywards and finally she capsized and went to the bottom with her colours still flying. The rescue of survivors would have been attempted had it been possible to launch boats in the heavy seas running, but it was not; furthermore, in the cold heaving waters a man’s life could be measured in minutes.

  Although Glasgow and Otranto escaped to fight another day, the Battle of Coronel was the Royal Navy’s first major defeat for a century. Admiral Cradock and over 1,500 of his men had lost their lives and two cruisers had been sunk. Victory, goes the saying, has many fathers, but defeat is an orphan. The Admiralty and Cradock himself both share a degree of responsibility for what had happened, but the truth went much deeper than that. The continuous advance of technology had ensured that naval warfare had changed beyond recognition. No longer was it a matter of laying alongside an enemy and pounding away until he surrendered. The side with the most powerful long-range guns, the stoutest armour, the greatest speed and the most thorough training would, given approximate parity in other areas, always emerge the victor. In contrast to the disaster that had overtaken Cradock’s squadron, Spee’s ships had sustained just five hits that had inflicted minimal damage, thanks to the poor quality of the British shells. Personnel casualties in the East Asia Squadron amounted to three men slightly wounded.

  After the battle Spee took Scharnhorst, Gneisenau and Nurnberg into Valparaiso, while Leipzig and Dresden were sent to Mas a Fuera. This reflected the application of the neutrality laws which permitted only three warships of a belligerent power to be present in a neutral harbour at any one time, and Spee’s choice suggests that he was rewarding the crews of those ships that had played the most significant part in the battle with a run ashore. The city’s German community was overjoyed by their victory and gave them a hero’s welcome. The German ambassador to Chile, a Herr von Erckherdt, provided Spee with mixed news. On the one hand, he believed that he could guarantee the East Asia Squadron’s coal supply; on the other, intelligence had been received that two Japanese cruisers were heading for American waters. During the next few days the ambassador also passed on to Spee a series of signals received from Berlin. The general tone was that he should try to break through and reach home and at one stage it was suggested that the High Seas Fleet might render assistance. Spee not only knew that this was optimistic nonsense, but was aware that the number of alternatives open to him was shrinking rapidly. He could not retrace his steps across the Pacific, nor could he take a northerly route to the Panama Canal because of the continued concentration of Allied warships in the area. That left only the Atlantic route, which would involve rounding the Horn, and nothing was more certain than that following its defeat at Coronel the Royal Navy would send reinforcement into the South Atlantic. If that happened, he was in no condition to fight a prolonged action as Coronel had left Scharnhorst and Gneisenau with just 50 per cent of their ammunition while his light cruisers were slightly better off with 60 per cent. As Geoffrey Bennett recounts in his book Coronel and the Falklands, he was able to unburden himself to an old acquaintance, a retired German Navy doctor who had made his home in Valparaiso:

  ‘I am quite homeless. I cannot reach Germany; we possess no other secure harbour; I must plough the seas of the world doing as much mischief as I can, till my ammunition is exhausted, or till a foe far superior in power succeeds in catching me.’ Forced to spend some time in the German Club he was irritated by a rowdy civilian who proposed the toast ‘Damnation to the British Navy.’ Having seen that Navy fight and die
when confronted by hopeless odds he replied coldly, ‘I drink to the memory of a gallant and honourable foe.’

  Shortly after he left Valparaiso to join Dresden and Leipzig at Mas a Fuera. While there he made up his mind to round the Horn into the Atlantic but sent them on a brief visit to Valparaiso to scotch a current rumour that they had been sunk at Coronel. In fact the interpretation placed on their visit by British intelligence was that the entire East Asia Squadron was still somewhere off the Chilean coast. On 15 November Scharnhorst, Gneisenau and Nurnberg began moving south, accompanied by two supply ships, the Baden and the Santa Isabella. Dresden and Leipzig rejoined on three days later, having a captured and sunk the 3,600-ton freighter North Wales on 16 November. For the moment Prinz Eitel Friedrich would remain in the general area, transmitting a string of dummy signals that might suggest to the Japanese to the north that Spee’s ships were still in the area.

  On 21 November the squadron halted for several days in St Quentin Bay where Spee received a signal to the effect that the Kaiser had honoured him with the Iron Cross First and Second Class while 300 Iron Crosses were to be distributed to the squadron’s officers and men as appropriate. After coaling from three Chilean colliers that were operating illegally, the squadron possessed sufficient fuel to last well up the east coast of South America. Almost four weeks after Coronel, Spee set out for the Horn, little realising that his delay in doing so was the first of two fatal mistakes that would destroy his command.

  CHAPTER 5

  Death in Southern Seas

  While the population of Germany rejoiced at Spee’s victory off Coronel, regarding it as revenge for the humiliation of the High Seas Fleet in the Heligoland Bight some months earlier, in the United Kingdom the shock engendered by the defeat was made all the sharper by the recent, albeit none too successful, bombardment of Yarmouth on the East Anglian coast. Public and press alike formed an opinion that something was seriously amiss at the Admiralty and such was the vitriolic nature of criticism that the First Sea Lord, Admiral Prince Louis of Battenberg, felt that he had no alternative but to resign. Within the Royal Navy he was highly respected and regarded as being the best man for the job, but as the ultimate responsibility was his, given that the contemporary code of personal honour differed greatly from that considered to be acceptable today, he was placed in an impossible situation. This was aggravated by his family name having retained its German origins, a fact seized upon by those who hinted that his heart may not have been in the current struggle, a suggestion which was as far from the truth as it was possible to get. Despite this, it was considered advisable that the family should change its surname to Mountbatten.

  Prince Louis’ successor was Admiral Lord John Fisher, who was brought out of retirement. Fisher is universally regarded as the father of the modern Royal Navy. It was he who introduced the dreadnought battleship and the battle cruiser, and he who was responsible for changing the Navy’s basic fuel from coal to oil. Unfortunately, he was also a man who made enemies easily and he was a bad enemy to have, being quite capable of using underhand methods to defeat a perceived opponent. During Queen Victoria’s day he conducted a bitter and frequently public feud with Admiral Lord Charles Beresford. At one period an officer named Doveton Sturdee had been appointed Beresford’s Chief of Staff. Fisher had asked him to report secretly to him whatever Beresford was doing. Quite properly, Sturdee had declined and Fisher had never forgiven him. Now a Vice Admiral, Sturdee had served as Battenberg’s Chief of Staff and he was willing to serve under Fisher in that capacity also. Fisher’s intense dislike boiled over immediately. He promptly informed Churchill that he was ‘not prepared to tolerate that damned fool as Chief of Staff at the Admiralty for one day longer.’

  At length, Churchill managed to calm him down. Sturdee could not be dismissed without some suspicion arising that he was involved in the Coronel debacle. The First Lord pointed out that Sturdee was anything but a fool and that he was particularly noted for his grasp of tactics. The immediate priority was to destroy Spee’s squadron before it could break out into the Atlantic. To that effect Stoddart’s cruisers were being reinforced with two battle cruisers as this would place Spee at the same disadvantage that Cradock had been faced with at Coronel. Sturdee, Churchill insisted, was the man for the job. Finally, Fisher agreed, accepting that this was the best solution for everyone involved.

  Initial reluctance to deprive the Grand Fleet of two such powerful units was muted by the urgency of a situation that demanded Spee’s immediate elimination. Sturdee, undoubtedly pleased to exchange the hothouse which the Admiralty had become for the fresher atmosphere of a sea command, hoisted his flag in Captain P.T.H. Beamish’s Invincible on 9 November. Two days later, accompanied by Inflexible, the latter under the command of Captain R.F. Phillimore, she sailed from Devonport and headed south. On 11 November the two battle cruisers reached St Vincent, where they spent twenty-four hours coaling before continuing their journey.

  In the meantime, in the immediate aftermath of Coronel, Glasgow and Otranto had successfully broken contact with the enemy and were heading separately for the Horn to reach Port Stanley with the object of reaching the Falkland Islands in the South Atlantic. Aboard the battleship Canopus, Captain Grant received a signal from the Glasgow to the effect that Good Hope and Monmouth had been lost with all hands. He decided that in the circumstances his best course of action was to remain in the area until the remnant of Cradock’s squadron had reached safety, holding off Spee’s ships if they attempted to pursue. As we know, they did not and on 6 November Canopus was joined by Glasgow in Lomas Bay where word was received that Otranto had rounded the Horn safely.

  When Otranto reached Port Stanley it was decided that she could not contribute much to the defence of the Falklands base and she was despatched to patrol to the north. Glasgow’s arrival involved some diplomatic sleight of hand that resulted in the light cruiser having her battle damage repaired in a Rio de Janeiro floating dock over a five-day period at Brazilian expense, despite vigorous protests from the German residents. For the moment, therefore, the defence of Port Stanley depended upon Captain Grant’s Canopus. The old battleship was beached so that her four turret-mounted 12-inch guns could fire over the low southern headland and also cover the harbour mouth. Simultaneously, her secondary armament, consisting of twelve 6-inch guns, was taken ashore and dug into emplacements where they would be manned by the ship’s Marines and local volunteers raised by the Governor.

  Once her repairs had been completed Glasgow joined Rear Admiral Stoddart’s cruiser squadron. This now consisted of the armoured cruiser Carnarvon (flag, Defence having been despatched to South Africa), under the command of Captain H.L. d’E. Skipwith; the armoured cruisers Kent (Captain J.D. Allen) and Cornwall (Captain W.M. Ellerton), sister ships to the ill-fated Monmouth; and the light cruisers Bristol (Captain B.H. Fanshaw) and Glasgow; plus the armed merchant cruiser Macedonia. On 26 November the two British battle cruisers joined the squadron off Abrolhos Rocks and Sturdee assumed command of the combined force with Stoddart as his deputy. Luce requested an interview with Sturdee, recommending that they should proceed as quickly as possible to the Falklands. The admiral accepted his point but was determined to fight the coming battle with sufficient fuel in his bunkers and adequately trained gun crews. Having left Albrohos on 3 December, he proceeded south at just 10 knots, well below his ships’ average cruising speed. He also spent a day at gunnery practice, involving an unforeseen delay of twelve hours when divers had to clear the target towing wire which had fouled one of Invincible’s propellers. It was not until 7 December that the Falklanders were able to heave a sigh of relief as they watched the long line of battle cruisers and cruisers close the coast of East Falkland and enter Port Stanley harbour.

  Despite the fact that she had not been sighted for over a month, the Karlsruhe was still believed to be active in the general area of the West Indies, while the armed merchant cruiser Kronprinz Wilhelm was still at large in the Atlantic. Even together
, however, they were only capable of inflicting a fraction of the damage that lay within the power of Spee’s East Asia Squadron. The problem was that no one knew quite where Spee was or where he was heading. As a professional he would not have been unduly surprised to learn that thirty Allied warships, British, Australian, French and Japanese, were scouring the world’s oceans for him. In fact, his squadron had reached Port Santa Elena and remained there until 6 December, topping up its colliers from a captured British barque, the Drummuir.

  Prior to sailing on 6 December, Spee held a Captains’ conference. He had already made the decision to round the Horn and the question under discussion now was what to do next. The Berlin Admiralty had issued general orders that he should pursue cruiser warfare, that is, preying upon the enemy’s commerce, but sinking unarmed merchantmen did not suit his temperament at all. His instinct was to damage or destroy his opponents’ ability to fight at all. Intelligence reports suggested that that there was no British naval activity in the area of the Falkland Islands and, naturally being unaware that this situation would change with twenty-four hours, he based his plans on this. He therefore proposed destroying the islands’ radio station and coal stocks and, for good measure, kidnapping the Governor in retaliation for the British imprisonment of the captured German Governor of Samoa. The attack would be made by the Gneisenau and the Nurnberg, with the remainder of the squadron providing distant cover.

  The idea received a lukewarm response, being supported only by Spee’s Chief of Staff and Schonberg of the Nurnberg. It was opposed by the captains of the Gneisenau, Dresden and Leipzig and, perhaps understandably, Schultz of the Scharnhorst does not seem to have expressed an opinion either way. Those objecting to the plan pointed out that the results of the attack did not justify revealing the squadron’s presence. They doubted the value of the intelligence regarding the Royal Navy’s absence from the Falklands and pointed out that if the islands were bypassed far to the south the squadron would preserve the secrecy surrounding its presence. The squadron could then proceed north up the Atlantic and swing west into the busy shipping lanes of the Plate, where havoc could be caused before it disappeared for a second time. Spee would have none of it and insisted that the attack should proceed. The die had now been cast irrevocably and shortly after the squadron weighed anchor.