Great North Sea Naval Battle.

Kaipara and Waitemata Echo, 8 June 1916, Page 3

Great North Sea Naval Battle.

- —_—•'-» . ENTIRE GERMAN FLEET AGAINST INFERIOR BRITISH SQUADRON. Germans See Big Bull Dogs Coming. CUT AND RUN AWAY. GLOOM . CHANGES TO ELATION. LOSSES ALMOST EQUAL. QUEEN MARY BRITAIN'S GREATEST LOSS. TWO ADMIRALS AND HUNDREDS DROWNED.

Preliminary news, of anything but a cheerful nature, reached the Dominion on Saturday, of a great naval battle having taken place on Wednesday afternoon and evening on the coast of Denmark. But since then many particulars have been received, both of British facts and German lies.

Latest accounts of the battle in the North Sea show that although the British losses were heavy, the result can be accounted a British victory, for the Germans were prevented from carrying out the definite purpose upon which they left port, while the catalogue of their losses shows that they counter-balance the British losses. Further, the Grand Fleet is at sea holding the ocean highroads and exits to the North Sea, and the Germans are bottled-up again behind their forts.

The first messages received in England cast a gloom over the people, as they did in the Dominion, but the lkter reports were far more re-assuring, and made it clear that British supremacy on the sea is unchallenged and unchallengeable. The battle cleared up a number of points. It dissipated the'myth of the German 17-inch guns, it proved that Zeppelins are of less value than was believed to the enemy's fleet, and it proved that the gun is still the dominating factor as against the torpedo.

In accordance with its usual custom, .the British Admiralty announced the full extent of its losses, while the Germans sought to hide their own, thus their losses cannot be stated so definitely. Our losses were those stated on Saturday, while the Germans' are heavier than was at first communicated, the comparative table of admitted losses being as follows :—

BRITISH Tons Queen Mary, battle-cruiser ... 27,000 Indefatigable, battle-cruiser ~. 18,750 Invincible, battle-cruiser •-, 17,250 Defence, amoured cruiser ••- 14,600 Black Prince, armoured cruiser ~, 13,550 Warrior, armoured cruiser ... 13,550 Eight destroyers. GERMAN Tons. Westfalen, battleship 18,600 Pomraern, battleship ... .... 13,040 Frauenlob, light cruiser ~. ... 2,567 Wiesbaden, ligbt cruiser, about... 3,000 Elbing, light cruiser, about ... 3,000 Unknown number of destroyers. One submarine. Admiral Jellicoe further suggests that their losses included the battle-crusier Derfflinger or the Lutzow, two battleships of the Kaiser class, one light cruiser, six destroyers, and one 'submarine. The High Sea Fleet in full battle-array came up with the British cruisers in the mist, while their " bulldogs " were still out of range, and it is this which accounts for the loss of our big cruisers. But they took heavy toll of the Germans before they

went down, and when the ships of the line loomed near the enemy scuttled back to port as fast as his semi-crippled fleet could run, scattering mines en route to delay pursuit.