Tag Archives: Naval warfare

Diary entries which mention naval engagements during the war.

28 November 1914; Saturday

November 1914, ,

Worked until 3.30. Had dinner hour1  work, George and I. Went to the Training Centre at night and Joe went with me. Afterwards went for walk with Willie Whittaker and went up the Durham Road. Bought paper and it had in rumour of 2 German ships being sunk in the Baltic. The Herta & Kaiser Wilhelm der Grosse , battle ship. [Following words encircled: -­ ] Not true2.

  1. Could “hour” be “ower”, = “over [at]”? It would be the only bit of Sunderland dialect in the Diary. ↩

  2. It is not known which paper published this rumour, but ALL was clearly right to discount it. The sinking of the Kaiser Wilhelm der Grosse had happened (though not in the Baltic) on 26 August and was noted by ALL in his diary entry for the following day. There is no record of any ship named Herta at this time although there was an SMS Hertha which survived the war and was scrapped in 1920. ↩

14 November 1914; Saturday

November 1914, , , ,

Finished about 2 o’clock. A remarkable amount of work. Belgian Flag Day. I purchased one in the office at work and Charlie and I were tannered1 again up the town and I had to get them too. Walked up to the Workhouse Field and saw the Athletes2 drilling. Everybody in the town wearing Belgian flags. Went to the lecture at Trinity3 at night, and afterwards went to Roker out with† Willie and Mr Peake. The cars4 not working from Roker to the lower end of Roker Avenue. Fern. Motte called at the office. Bought a pair of new boots at the Store. The “Niger”5 a small gunboat had been sunk by a German submarine off Deal. No lives lost.

  1. “tannered”: the transcription seems to be correct, and if so probably means that ALL and Charlie had again been caught by a seller of flags, for which the going rate was a “tanner”, meaning 6 old pence, equivalent to 2½p.” ↩

  2. Athletes: the Athletes’ Force? See 6 November. ↩

  3. “Trinity”: possibly Holy Trinity Church, Bishopwearmouth. ↩

  4. Cars: tram-cars. ↩

  5. HMS Niger: built as torpedo gunboat, converted to minesweeper; sunk by U-12. This was the first Allied casualty from submarines based in Belgian ports. ↩

10 November 1914; Tuesday

November 1914, ,

Busy at work. Stayed at home until late trying to complete Willie Wanless’s song. Went to the practice late. Came round by myself. Read a bit at home.

Received news that the “Emden” had been destroyed near Cocos Islands by H.M.A.S.”Sydney”1. Also that the Koenigsberg2 had been entrapped on the East African Coast by the Chatham.

  1. “Emden”, a light cruiser (4.1” guns; coal-­fired, the last non-­turbine German warship), had been a successful raider in Eastern waters, latterly with a dummy fourth funnel to masquerade as HMS Yarmouth; however she reached Direction Island without it, and was spotted by the Telegraph Superintendent; HMAS Sydney, with 6” guns, answered his call. ↩

  2. “Koenigsberg”, similar to Emden but even older: successful Indian Ocean raider, traced by HMS Chatham through her collier in mid‐October, besieged and repeatedly attacked in Rujiji Delta (S. of Dar-­es­‐Salaam, then German E. Africa, now Tanzania) by RN cruisers, until scuttled under heavy attack in July 1915. ↩

5 November 1914; Thursday

November 1914, , ,

Very busy at work. Received news of a naval engagement off Valparaiso in which the cruiser Monmouth was reported to have been sunk and the cruiser Good Hope badly damaged if not sunk1. German losses are reported small. The German Cruiser Yorck2 lost on a mission in the Coral Sea. Probably one of their own mines. Affairs on land progressing favourably. Had hair cut.

Russian Victory in Galicia.

  1. “Naval engagement…”: The Battle of Coronel, which took place on 1 November and which ALL subsequently also noted in his diary entry for that day. Both vessels mentioned were in fact sunk; Good Hope was Rear-Admiral Sir Christopher Cradock‘s flagship. ↩

  2. SMS Yorck was returning from the raid on Yarmouth of 3 November, made a navigational error in heavy fog and accidentally sailed into a German minefield. ↩

3 November 1914; Tuesday

November 1914, , , , ,

Pretty busy at work. Went up to the Garrison Field at night with Joe to join the scouts†, but they were out so we went to Green Street Hall and watched the Athletes’ Force drilling. Went to the choir practice late. Played one ping pong game and lost. Came up late with Charlie and Joe Edwards†. Received news that some German ships have been off Lowestoft1 and dropped mines which sank a Submarine2 and fired on a steamer Halcyon3.

Dardanelles forts bombarded by French & British ships4.

  1. “Lowestoft”: Wikipedia notes a Raid on Yarmouth, about 10 miles north of Lowestoft on the Norfolk coast. This raid took place on 3 November 1914. ↩

  2. “Submarine”: The submarine was the HMS D5, sunk by a German mine laid by SMS Stralsund. ↩

  3. “Halcyon”: Yarmouth coast was patrolled by the minesweeper HMS Halcyon and the old destroyers HMS Lively and Leopard. Halcyon had spotted two German cruisers, which she challenged.  ↩

  4. “Dardanelles forts bombarded…”: On 3 November 1914, Churchill ordered the first British attack on the Dardanelles following the opening of hostilities between Ottoman and Russian empires. This attack actually took place before a formal declaration of war had been made by Britain against the Ottoman Empire. ↩

1 November 1914; Sunday

November 1914, , ,

At chapel and School as usual. Mr Chadwick preaching. Managed pretty well at School. Stormy day. Sacrament at night. Had only short walks. Received news of the loss of the Hermes1 off Dover. Sunk by a submarine.

Germans sink “Good Hope” & “Monmouth”2 off Valparaiso.

  1. HMS Hermes: cruiser, the first RN vessel to be fitted for carrying and launching seaplanes; she had delivered some to Dover on 30 October, and while returning to the Solent next day was torpedoed by U-27 off Ruylingen Bank, in the Straits of Dover. ↩

  2. HMS Good Hope and Monmouth: heavy cruisers sunk at the Battle of Coronel, W. of Valparaiso; there followed (8 December) the Battle of the Falkland Islands (a British victory). See 5 November for news of these events reaching ALL. ↩

25 October 1914; Sunday

October 1914, , , , ,

At chapel and School as usual. Managed pretty well in School. 2 new scholars. Wet afternoon and night and no walks. Marmie and Joe and Dorothy to tea at Willie and Lily’s. Got news that the Badger1 had rammed a German submarine off the Dutch coast.

  1. HMS Badger: a torpedo boat – only 990 tons – and this was said to be the first successful attack by an Allied ship on a German submarine (the U-19): Wikipedia says that this ramming occurred on 24 October. ↩

17 October 1914; Saturday

October 1914, , ,

Very slack at work. Finished at 1 o’clock. Walked up town in the afternoon with Father and then went to Porteous and Got last tooth out. Went up town again at night and saw them bring in some wounded. About 100 wounded arrive & more taken to the infirmary and Children’s Hospital. All the district military divisions† and ambulance men were engaged and a lot of soldiers and policemen kept back a large crowd who cheered loudly the first arrivals.

News last thing that 4 German destroyers had been sunk off the Dutch Coast1. Capt. Fox got his own back2.

  1. This was the Battle off Texel, a naval battle off the coast of the Dutch island of Texel where a British squadron consisting of one light cruiser and four destroyers on a routine patrol encountered the remnants of the German 7th Half Flotilla of torpedo boats, which was en route to the British coast on a mission to lay minefields. The British forces attacked and sank the entire German flotilla of four torpedo boats. ↩

  2. Captain Cecil Fox led the British squadron in HMS Undaunted. ↩

16 October 1914; Friday

October 1914, , ,

Busy at work. Directors’ meeting. I had a few letters and managed them all right. Very late for dinner.

Got news that the “Hawke”1 had been sunk by a submarine off Scotland with heavy loss of life. Went up town at night to see Belgian wounded come in, but none arrived. Wrote to Ernie.

  1. HMS Hawke was an old cruiser (launched 1891), on patrol in the North Sea with sister ship Theseus, at which submarine U9 aimed a torpedo, which missed Theseus and hit Hawke; 524 out of 594 crew were lost. In 1911 Hawke had had the distinction of having her bow sheared off in a collision in the Solent with RMS Olympic, sister ship of the Titanic, slightly smaller but at that date still the largest liner afloat. ↩

6 October 1914; Tuesday

October 1914, , ,

Got up about 7.30. Drilled again. Not much to do at work. Further news about Allies check. Russian Victory in East Prussia. German destroyer sunk by Submarine E91 off the mouth of the Ems.

Belgian King2 & ministers leave Antwerp. Garrison retires to inner ring of forts.

  1. The destroyer was the S116. It was the E9 which sank the Hela (see 13 September); she was scuttled off Helsinki on 3 April 1918 to avoid capture, and was salvaged for breaking up (in Finland) in 1953. ↩

  2. “Belgian King”: Albert I of Belgium ↩