Stories of the Ships , livre ebook

STORIES OF THE SHIPS
* * *
LEWIS R. FREEMAN
 
*
Stories of the Ships First published in 1919 Epub ISBN 978-1-77658-069-9 Also available: PDF ISBN 978-1-77658-070-5 © 2014 The Floating Press and its licensors. All rights reserved. While every effort has been used to ensure the accuracy and reliability of the information contained in The Floating Press edition of this book, The Floating Press does not assume liability or responsibility for any errors or omissions in this book. The Floating Press does not accept responsibility for loss suffered as a result of reliance upon the accuracy or currency of information contained in this book. Do not use while operating a motor vehicle or heavy equipment. Many suitcases look alike. Visit www.thefloatingpress.com
Contents
*
I - STORIES OF THE SHIPS The Story of the Cornwall The Story of the Sydney II - LIFE IN THE FLEET A Battleship at Sea A North Sea Sweep A Visit to the British Fleet The Health of the Fleet Economy in the Grand Fleet Christmas in a "Happy" Ship In a Balloon Ship Coaling the Grand Fleet The Stokers III - AMERICA ARRIVES The United States Navy "Getting Together" Endnotes
*
DEDICATED TO CAPT. ELLERTON
STORIES OF THE SHIPS
BY
LIEUT LEWIS R. FREEMAN, R.N.V.R.
OFFICIAL PRESS REPRESENTATIVE WITH THE GRAND FLEET
LONDON
JOHN MURRAY, ALBEMARLE STREET, W.
1919
I - STORIES OF THE SHIPS
*
The Story of the Cornwall
*
I. PLYMOUTH TO THE FALKLANDS
Of the countless stories of naval action which I have listened to in thecourse of the months I have spent with the Grand Fleet, I cannot recalla single one which was told as the consequence of being asked for withmalice aforethought. I have never yet found a man of action who wasenamoured of the sound of his own voice raised in the recital of hisown exploits, and if there is one thing more than another calculatedto throw an otherwise not untalkative British Naval Officer into astate of uncommunicativeness, in comparison with which the traditionalsilence of the sphinx or the proverbial close-mouthedness of the clamare alike sheer garrulity, it is to ask him, point blank, to tell you(for instance) how he took his submarine into the Baltic, or what hisdestroyer did at Jutland, or how he fought his cruiser at Dogger Bank,or something similar.
The quiet-voiced but always interesting and often dramatic recitalsof such things as these which I have heard have invariably been ledup to quite incidentally—at dinner, on the bridge or quarter-deck,around the wardroom fire, or through something else that has just beentold. Several times I have found in officers' diaries—little recordsnever meant for other eyes than those of the writers' own friendsor families—which have been turned over to me to verify some pointregarding which I had inquired, laconic references to incidents andevents of great human and even historic interest, and one of the mostamusing and dramatic yarns I have ever listened to was told me in a"kite" balloon—plunging in the forty-mile wind against which it wasbeing towed like a hooked salmon—by a man who had assured me before wewent up that nothing really exciting had ever fallen to his experience.
It was in this way—an anecdote now and then as this or that incidentof the day recalled it to his mind—that Captain — came to tell methe story of the Cornwall during those eventful early months of thewar when he commanded that now famous cruiser. He mentioned her first,I believe, one night in his cabin when, referring to a stormy midwintermonth, most of which had been spent by his Division of the Grand Fleeton some sort of work at sea, I spoke of the "rather strenuous interval"we had experienced.
"If you think life in a battleship of the Grand Fleet strenuous,"laughed the Captain, extending himself comfortably in his armchairbefore the glowing grate, "I wonder what you would have thought of thelife we led in the old Cornwall . Not very far from a hundred andtwenty thousand miles of steaming was her record for the first two yearsof the war, and in that time she ploughed most of the Seven Seas andcoasted in the waters of all but one of the Six Continents. Always onthe lookout for something or other, coaling as we could, provisioning aswe might—let me tell you that coming to the Grand Fleet after that (atleast until a few months had elapsed and the contrast wore off) was likeretiring on a pension in comparison."
He settled himself deeper into the soft upholstery, extended hisfeet nearer the fire, lighted a fresh cigar, and, in the hour whichelapsed before the evening mail came aboard, told me of the work of the Cornwall in those first chaotic weeks of the war which preceded thebattle of the Falklands.
"We were at Plymouth when the war began," said he, "and our first workwas in connexion with protecting and 'shepherding' safely to portseveral British ships carrying bullion which were still on the highseas. It was a baffling sort of a job, especially as there were two orthree German raiders loose in the North Atlantic, the favourite ruseof each of which was to represent itself as a British cruiser engagedin the same benevolent work the Cornwall was on. Warned of these'wolves-in-shepherds'-clothing,' the merchantmen we sought to protectwere afraid to reveal their whereabouts by wireless, the consequencebeing that our first forerunning efforts to safeguard the seas resolvedthemselves into a sort of marine combination of 'Blind-Man's Buff' and'Hide-and-Seek,' played pretty well all over the Atlantic. All the shipswith especially valuable cargoes got safely to port ultimately, thoughnone of them, that I recall, directly under the wing of the Cornwall .It was our first taste of the 'So-near-and-yet-so-far' kind of lifethat is the inevitable lot of the cruiser which essays the dual rôle of'Commerce Protector' and 'Raider Chaser.'
"After a few hours at 'Gib,' we were next sent across to Casa Blanca,where the appearance of the Cornwall was about the first tangibleevidence that French Africa had of the fact that England was reallycoming into the war in earnest. There was a good deal of unrest inMorocco at the time, for the Germans were even then at work upon theirinsidious propaganda among the Moslems of all the colonies of theAllies. The 'buzz' in the bazaars that the appearance of a Britishwarship started must have served a very useful purpose at this criticaljuncture in carrying to the Arabs of the interior word that France wasnot going to have to stand alone against Germany. Our reception by boththe French and native population of Casa Blanca was most enthusiastic,and during all of our stay a cheering procession followed in the wake ofevery party of officers or men who went ashore.
"Leaving Casa Blanca, we were sent back to the Atlantic to search forcommerce destroyers, ultimately working south by the Canaries and CapeVerde Islands to South American waters, where the Karlsruhe was thenat the zenith of her activities. The chase of this enterprising andelusive raider, whose career was finally brought to an inglorious end byher going aground on a West Indian Island, kept the Cornwall —alongwith a number of other British cruisers—steadily on the move, untilthe ominous and painful news of the destruction of Craddock's fleet offCoronel suddenly brought us face to face with the fact that there wassoon going to be bigger game than a lone pirate to be stalked.
"We never had the luck to sight even so much as the smoke ofthe Karlsruhe , although—as I only learned too late to takeadvantage of the information—the Cornwall was within an houror two's steaming of her on one occasion. I did think we had heronce, though—a jolly amusing incident it was, too. I was gettinguncomfortably short of food at the time—a very common experience in the'here-to-day-and-gone-to-morrow' sort of life we were leading;—so thatwhen the welcome news reached me by wireless one morning that a Britishship—Buenos Aires to New York with frozen beef—was due to pass throughthe waters we were then patrolling, I lost no time in heading over tointercept her on the chance of doing a bit of marketing.
"We picked her up promptly as reckoned, but, while she was still hulldown on the horizon, her skipper began to signal frantically, ' I ambeing chased by the "Karlsruhe"! ' Here was luck indeed. I ordered'Action Stations' to be sounded, and the course of the ship to bealtered toward the point where I figured the smoke of the pursuingpirate would begin to smudge the sky-line as she came swooping downupon her prey. Sighting nothing after holding on this course for awhile, I came to the conclusion that the raider must be hidden by theimpenetrable smoke-pall with which the flying beef-ship had maskeda wide arc of the western horizon, and headed up in that direction,begging the fugitive in the meantime to give me the bearing of herpursuer as accurately as possible.
"Her only reply to this, however, was to belch out 'smoke-screen'faster than ever and continue rending the empyrean ether with renewed' I am being chased by the "Karlsruhe"! ' In vain I assured her thatwe were the H.M.S. Cornwall , and would take the greatest delight inseeing that the chase was put an end to, if she would only tell us fromwhich direction the Karlsruhe was coming, and cease to throw out abituminous blanket for the enemy to hide behind. Blacker and blackerrolled the smoke, heavier and heavier piled the screen to leeward, andstill more frantically shrilled the appeals for help. At the end of mypatience at actions which it now began to dawn upon me looked more thana little suspicious, I headed the Cornwall straight after the runawayand soon reduced the interval separating us sufficiently to reach herwith 'Visual.' She brought up sharp at my 'Stop instantly!' and aquarter of an hour later my boarding party was clambering over her side.
"'Where's the Karlsruhe ?' I shouted impatiently to the BoardingOfficer as his boat came back alongside again. I knew something of theaccuracy of Germ