THE HELIGOLAND FIGHT

Dominion, Volume 8, Issue 2292, 28 October 1914, Page 6

THE HELIGOLAND FIGHT

DESTROYERS' CHARGE AT TOP SPEED CUNS OF THE BATTLE CRUISERS. The following account of the naval engagement off Heligoland on August 28 is contained in a letter of a naval lieutenant who took part in it:— "As to our. fight oif Heligoland, 1 must be guarded in my statements, even uncensored. But I think I can say that the papers aro magnifying' what ivas really but an affair of outposts. We destroyers went in and lured the enemv out, and had lots of excitement. Tho big fellows then ceme up and did eome excellent target practice, and we wore very glad to see them come; but tht-y ought not to consider we had a fight, because it was a massacre, not a fight. It was superb goneralship having overwhelming forces on the spot, buD there was really nothing for them to do except shoot tho enemy, even as Pa shoots pheasants. For us who put up tho quarry in its lair there was no doubt more to do than 'shoot the enemy,' for iu our case the shooting was passive and uot active only! For th.it very reason the fight did us ot tho destroyers more good than it did our big fellows, for my humble opinion, based on limited observation, is that no ship is really herself until she lias been under fire. Tho second time she goeß into action you may judge her character; she is not likely to do normally ivell the first time. ■. AVe all need to be stiffened and then given a week or two to' take it all in. After that wo are 'sot.' A ship will always do better her second action. To see the old Fearless charging: around tho field of fight (it was her second ongagemeiit), seeking fresh foes, was most inspiriting. Till the big brothers came up she was absolutely ell in all to us, and eho has no bigger guns-.than we have. I also learn that there is all the difference in tho world between a four inch gun in a cruiser and a four inch gun in a destroyer. I would regard a cruiser armed with a three-inch as about a match for a destroyer with a fourinch ; but then I havo personally only looked at it from the destroyer point of view. But it mns be moro unpleasan to havo half a dozen shots plumped accurately and together at-you with a •well-arranged 'fire control , ' guiding them, watching their fall and applying corrections to the • range scientifically and dispassionately, rather than to have isolated shots banged off from a vibrating, pulsing destroyer, turning this way and that,' with no ono to look where tho shot falls, oxcept perhaps the captain, who has a lot of other things to attend to. AVo have no epare personnel ■ and no range finder, and no masts .to look. down, from, and no destroyer to-day will ever engage a cmiser, oven of the lightest, by tho daylight, save at a very great disadvantage, and with very great risk to herself.' Cruisers'' Heart-to-heart Talk. "Have you ever Tioticed a dog rush in on a flock of sheep and scatter them ? He goes for the nearest and barks, and it goes so much faster than the flock

ithat it bunches up with its companions; the dog then barka at another, and iho sheep spread out fanwise, so that all round in front of the dog there is a semi-circle of sheep and behind him none. That was much what we did at 7 a.m., the 28th. The sheep were the German torpedo craft, -who fell back just on the limits of range and tried to lure us within fire of the Heligoland forte. Pas si bete! but a cruiser came out and engaged our Aiethusa; they had a real he'ari>to-heart talk while we looked on, and a few of ua tried to shoot at the enemy, too, though it was beyond our distance. We were getting nearer and nearer Heligoland at the time: there was a thick mist, and I expected every minute to find tho forts on the island bombarding us); eo Aretlvnsa presently drew off, after landing at feast one good shell on the enemy. Seeing our papers admit it, so may I; our fellows got a quite nasty 'tummy'ache. Tho enemy gave every bit as good as he got there. We then reformed, but a strong destroyer belonging to the submarines got cliased, and Arethusa. and Fearlesß went back to look after her, and wo presently heard a hot action astern. So the captain who was .in command of the flotilla turned us round and wo went back to help, but they had driven the enomy off, and on pur arrival told us to form up on the Arethusa. When we had partly formed and were very much bunchod together, a fine target, suddenly out of the 'everywhere' arrived five or six shells not 150 yards away. Wo gazed at when they came, and again fivo or six stabs of fire piercod the mist, and wo mado out a four-funnelled cruiser of the Breslau class. • Thoso fivo stab s wore hero guns going' off, of course Wo waited fifteen seconds, cind the shots and tho noiso of tho guns arrived pretty well simultaneously, fifty yards away. Her next ealvo went ovor us, and 1 personally ducked as they wliirrcd overhead liko a covey of fast partridges. You would havo supposed Hie captain had dono this sort of thing all his life; ho gives me the impression of a Nelson officer who has lived in a, state of suspended animation sincu, but yofc lias kept pace with the timos, and is nowise perturbed-at finding Jiiw t'ligiito a d.TOtroyor. He wont ijs§ ?#??i! *]$.?;? *? 9JSSS -ft* $JiS MS.

salvo to string the buncli out and thus | offer less target, and the Commodor from the Arothusa. made a signal to us to attack with torpedoes." Like a Hussar Attack. "So we swung round at right angles and charged full speed at the enemy, like a Hussar attack. AA'o got away at the eijart magnificently, and led tho field so that all the enemy's firing was aimed at us for tho next ten minutes. _ AVhon wo go so close that the debris of their shells fell on board, we altered course, and so throw, them out in their reckoning of our speed, and they had all their work to do over again. You follow that with a destroyer coming at you at 30 knots it means that the range is decreasing at tho rate of about 150 yards per ten seconds. AA'hen you Bee that your last shot fell, say, 100 yards ' short, you put up 100 extra yards on your sights, but this takes five seconds to do. ... AVhen you have in this way discovered his speed you put that correction in automatically; a cruiser can do this, a destroyer has not the room for tho complicated apparatus involved. . . . ■Humanly speaking, therefore, the captain, by twisting and turning at tho psychological moment, saved us; actually I feel we are in God's keeping these days. After ten minutes we got near enough to fire our torpedo, and then turned ■back to Arethuea. Nest our follower arrived just where we had been, and fired his torpedo, and, of course, tho enemy fired at 'him, instead of at us — what a- blessed relief 1 It was like coming out of a really hot and oppressive orohid-house into the cool air of a summer garden. . A 'hot' firo is properly descriptive; it seems actually to be hot!

"After the destroyers came the Fearless, and she stayed on the scene, and soon .we found she was engaging a three funneler, the Mainz. So off we started again to go for the Mainz, tho situation being, I take it, that crippled Arethusa was too 'tummy'-aching to do anything but bo defended by us, her children. Scarcely, however, had we started (I did not feel the least like another gruelling) when from out tho mist and across our front in furious pursuit .camo the First Cruieer Squad-' rou, the Town class, Birmingham, etc., each unit a match for three Mainz, and as wo looked and reduced speed they opened fire, and the clear bung, hang of their guns was just a cooling drink I To eee a real big four funneler spouting flame, whicli flame denoted shells starting and those shells not aimed at us but for us, was the most cheerful thing possible. Even as Kiplihg'e infantryman under heavy firb criee 'The Guns, thank Gawd, the Guns,' when his own artillery had. come into action over his head, so did I fool as those Big Brothers' came careening across." . What Might Have Been. "Once we were in safety 1 hated it; we had just been having our own im-. agination stimulated on tho subject of ehelk striking us, and now a few min'»tos later to seo another ship not threemiles away reduced to a piteous mass of unrecognisability, wreathed in black fumes from which flared out angry gouts of fire, like A r osuvius in eruption as an unending stream of hundred-pound shells burst on board; it just pointed tho moral and showed us what might havo been! The Mainz was immensely gallant. Tho last I saw of her absolutely wrecked, bolow

THE CRY OF THE BELGIAN CHILDREN What did we know of War, its rights and wrongs P Wβ heard it named hut gavo it not a thought. Gaily we sa.ng our patriotio songs, And with imaginary Germans fought, Wβ manned our forte of mud against attack, And, childlike, revelled in tho dust and grime, Driving our fanoied foes with fury back, . Guarding our homes. Kaiser, was this a crimeP Nearer It drew, but little did we care ; AVhen Father left we watched him march away, Envied his uniform and martial air, Then marched ourselves to meet tho foe, in play. ,only the look of grief on Mother's face . ' Caused vague unrest within our hearts to stir, And, clumsily, with kiss and fond embrace .We did our very best to oomfort her. 'And then It came, and with it Terror tense And Fire and Blood, blighting with its foul breath' 'All that we knew of love and innocence; Teaching us Pain and Death, and worse than Death. Mother and sister butohered 'neath our'eyes, Crimes that .our minds, thank God, could never guess. Screening his firing line our childhood dies ■ To meet the War Lord's call for ('frightfillness."Kaiser, when soon or late your hour shall come, And at God's Throne you, suppliant, bend the knee, Think yon those prattling voices will be dumb AVhich now are silenced by your dread decree P iWhen boastful pride is turned.to abject dread AVhat bid for mercy will, you make, what pleaP Facing the righeous wrath of Him, Who said: "Suffer the little ones to oome to Me." • . A. R. Hamilton, in the "Daily Mail.'^

and aloft, her whole midships a fuming inferno. She had one gun forward and one aft still spitting forth fury and defiance, "like a wild cat mad with vounds,' Our own four-funneled friend recommenced at this juncture with a couple of salvoes, but rather half-heartedly; and we really did not care a d , for there straight ahead of us in lordly procession, liko elephants walking through a pack of 'pidogs,, came the Lion, Queen Mary, Invincible, and New Zealand, our battlecruisers. Great and grim and uncouth as some antedulivian monsters, how solid they looked, how utterly earthquaking! "Wβ pointed out our latest aggressor to them, whom they could not see from whoro they -were, and they passed down tho field of battlo with tho little destroyers on their left and the destroyed on their right, and we went weet whilo they went east, and turned north between poor four funnels and her homo,, and just a little later we heard the; thunder of their guns for a apace, then all silence, andwq knew. Then wireless—'Lion to all Ships and Destroyers; Retire'" Saved by a Submarine. ."That was all. Remains only littlo details, only one of which I will tell you. The most romantic, dramatic, and piquant episode that modern war can ever show. The Dofender. having sunk an enemy, lowered a whaler to pick up her swimming survivors; before the whaler got back an enemy's cruiser came up and chased the Defender, and thus she abandoned the whaler. Imagine their feelings; alono in an open boat without food, 25 miles from tho nearest land, and that land tho oncmy's fortress, with nothing but fog and foes around them. Suddenly a swirl alongside and up, if you please, pops his Britannic Majesty's submarine E4, opens his conning tower, taken thoni all on board, shut up again, dives, and brings thorn home 250 miles I Is not that magnificent? No novel would dare face tho critics with an episode liko that in it, except, perhaps, Jules Verne; and all truo!" Your eyes A new discovery for re> moving cataacts, films, white specks, without operations. Send for testimonialn and nnrtkulitrp, lYoo. B. W. Hall, HurhaUsl, Ch.rJßtsiurch.;-_