Tag Archives: Naval warfare

Diary entries which mention naval engagements during the war.

31 January 1915; Sunday

January 1915, , ,

At chapel and class as usual. Had Ron Haynes’ class and mine and had some trouble. Mr Mullens on the desk as Dick is unwell. Reverend Arthur Strother preached and was very slow in his delivery. Willie Blaikie went round with us at night. Charlie sang a piece from “St Paul”. There was some trouble about his book and some misunderstanding. The German submarines sunk some British ships in the Irish Sea1.

  1. On 30 January 1915, U-21, the first U-boat in the Irish sea, captured Ben Cruachan (a collier) and two other ships. Ben Cruachan was scuttled some 15 miles north-west of Morecambe Light House using explosive charges set by U-21 crew. See World War 1 at Sea – Royal Navy Vessels Lost and Damaged at Naval-History.net ↩

24 January 1915; Sunday

January 1915, ,

At chapel as usual Got on very well at Sunday School. Rather stormy and didn’t get for walks. Mr Chadwick preaching. Received news last thing of the battle in the North Sea. Battle in North Sea1. The German ship Bluecher2 sunk by our battle cruisers in the North Sea. The Lion, Tiger, Princess Royal, New Zealand and Indomitable with light cruisers and destroyers.

  1. This was the Battle of the Dogger Bank; the German High Seas Fleet (under Admiral Hipper) was to raid the British fishing fleet, but the British discovered this on 23 January, and (especially after the public outrage caused by the raid on Scarborough etc.) the British Grand Fleet (under Admiral Beatty) had to intercept them. The Germans were lucky that their flagship, Seydlitz, did not blow up due to fire; the loss of the Blücher is said to have caused the Kaiser to order that his High Seas Fleet remain in port thereafter – which it largely did, except for Jutland at the end of May 1916. The British flagship, Lion, was badly damaged but not lost. ↩

  2. SMS Blücher was the last armoured cruiser built by the German Empire. She was designed to match what German intelligence incorrectly believed to be the specifications of the British Invincible-class battlecruisers. ↩

4 January 1915; Monday

January 1915, ,

At work again. Felt pretty bad with cold. Father got me a bottle at night at Blackett’s1. Went to Willie Peake’s Party at night. A fair company and we enjoyed ourselves at night. Knocked off about 1 o’clock. I set Poppy Hugill down home. Got to bed about 2 o’clock. A report about some German ships being out of the canal2.

  1. “Blackett’s” (if correctly transcribed): department store in central Sunderland. ↩

  2. “Canal” would be the Kiel Canal (Kaiser-Wilhelm-Kanal until 1948), built 1887 – 1895 from Kiel in the Baltic to Brunsbüttel at the mouth of the Elbe (98km), to facilitate commercial traffic but also for German warships to avoid the unsafe and potentially opposed passage round Denmark, thus facilitating operations in both the Baltic and North Seas. It is said now to be the busiest artificial waterway in the world. ↩

1 January 1915; Friday

January 1915, , , , , ,

[written above printed date -­ ] Posted letter to N.Z.1

Got supper at Mrs Wiseman’s with Ernie and Joe Mummery after the Watch service. Shook hands with several at church, Ernie first and Mr Chadwick next. Went to bed about 2 o’clock. Charlie got up at 7 o’clock. I walked through to Seaham2 and walked back in the afternoon. Took 1¼ hours to go there and 65 minutes to come back. Strong south easterly gale blowing and very wet. I was drenched. All family but Charlie at dinner and tea and supper together. Played a few games, ping pong, etcetera at night and went to go <sic; “bed” intended?> about mid-­‐night. Charlie in shortly after 11 o’clock and had to start again at 8 o’clock in the morning. “Formidable”3 blown up with a loss of about 700 lives in the Channel.

  1. The letter to N.Z. was probably sent to ALL’s cousin, Hilda Tate Linfoot. See Hilda disambiguation page. ↩

  2. Seaham [Harbour]: small colliery town and sea-­port 4 miles S. of Sunderland. ↩

  3. HMS Formidable, built 1904, was a battleship stationed at Sheerness to guard against possible German invasion. On 31 December she was on gunnery practice off the Isle of Wight, and was hit during the night by two torpedoes from submarine U24. 547 officers and men were lost out of 780. ↩

26 December 1914; Saturday

December 1914, , ,

Slept in until about 10 o’clock. Went up town with Charlie. Bought a little clockwork Zeppelin. Ernie, Hilda and the baby in to tea. I went up the town after calling at Whittakers. We had a walk through the town and then went up Durham Road way. Didn’t leave the town until about 10 o’clock. A big crowd of soldiers in town. Report to hand that the Invincible & Inflexible were the British ships in the South Atlantic fight1.

  1. Possibly a reference to the events recorded on 9th December? ↩

25 December 1914; Friday

December 1914, , , ,

[Christmas day – see footnote1.]

Had walk round town with Father before dinner. Had roast pork and onions for dinner. Ernie came in for dinner and stayed a short while. I set him up to the station. We were rather too soon and walked about town talking. Played the piano and played a few games amongst ourselves at night. Went to bed about mid night. British Air Raid on Cuxhaven 2 by 7 aviators. 4 machines lost but all the men safe.

  1. While ALL routinely included brief notes on War events in his diary entries, often writing them on the date they had happened and not necessarily on the date he became aware of them, he never made any reference to the ‘Christmas truce‘. Histories of WW1 which mention a truce generally say that any such events, with or without impromptu games of football or exchanges of gifts, were localised, informal and strongly deprecated by Army commanders. ALL’s silence may be interpreted either as confirming that censorship of news about truces, if not complete, was fairly successful, or as suggesting that if anything was known about them, it was not considered significant in Britain at the time. The former seems the more likely explanation. ↩

  2. The Cuxhaven Raid was a British ship-based air-raid on the German naval forces at Cuxhaven on Christmas Day, 1914. ↩

14 December 1914; Monday

December 1914, , ,

Pretty busy at work. Stayed back a short time at night and completed stock sheets. Played piano at night for Charlie and tried some new songs through. Got on pretty well. Finer day, but still stormy. Received news that submarine B.11 had blown up Turkish ship “Messudiyeh”1 in the Dardanelles. Lieutenant Commander Norman D Holbrook2. He passed under 5 chains of mines to do it.

  1. “Messudiyeh”: Actually the Ottoman ironclad Mesudiye, correctly noted to have been sunk by HMS B11 ↩

  2. Norman D Holbrook: ALL’s shorthand appears to have Lt. “Commander”, but he was only a Lieutenant; awarded first naval VC of WW1 for this. ↩

9 December 1914; Wednesday

December 1914, ,

Busy all day. Working overtime at night taking stock. Had tea at work. Went for walk round town last thing. Stormy night. Bought Echo with account of the Fight of Falkland Islands on Nov. 8th. German Cruisers “Scharnhorst”, Gneisenau, Leipzig sunk. Dresden and Nürnberg being pursued. Admiral Sturdee in Command.1

  1. See 1 November entry on the Battle of Coronel, at which Admiral Graf Spee had been in command (the 1930s ‘pocket battleship’ Graf Spee, scuttled in the comparatively nearby River Plate after the 1939 battle of that name, was named in his memory); Spee, with 5 cruisers and 3 auxiliaries, moved from the S. Pacific to continue commerce‐raiding in the S. Atlantic (and detached the Emden for similar duties in the Indian ocean; see 10 November entry), and attempted to attack Port Stanley; Vice-Admiral Sturdee had arrived there the day before with 2 battle-cruisers and 5 other, mostly heavier cruisers. 6 of the 8 German ships (including Nürnberg) were sunk, only the Dresden and the auxiliary Seydlitz escaping; no British ships were lost; German losses were 2,200 (including Spee and his two sons), and 215 prisoners; British losses were 18 killed and 19 wounded. ↩