CHAPTER XVII

WAR - BACK TO WORK, 1914 AND 1915

The Shadow of Ireland - Letter to the Times on Submarines - Criticisms by many Naval Officers - The War settles the Controversy - The War Office and the Lack of Big Guns - Lord Roberts' Advice ignored - Ten Months' Delay and Repentance - The Fleet's Gun Equipment - Recall to the Admiralty - Fitting out the Dummy Fleet - The Submarine Problem demands Attention - Visit to the Grand Fleet - The Peril of the Grand Fleet - Lord Fisher's Influence - The Tragedy of the Battle of Jutland - Official Persistence in Error - The Dardanelles Failure - Gunnery Practice in the "Sixties" - Successive Changes in the Target - Valueless Prize Firing - My Suggestions for Improvement - Method adopted on the China Station and its Results - Admiralty Opposition to its Adoption - King Edward's Interest in the Question - New Admiralty Rules adopted - Their Disastrous Effects - Captain Jellicoe's Action - Immediate Improvement.

IN the early part of the year 1914, having nothing to do, and as Ireland was arming for a civil war, I thought I would join the Ulster Field Force, but they had so many military officers ready to serve with them that I was not wanted.

I was disgusted to find that there was a secret plot by which the Navy was to take part in the attack on Ulster. It was terrible to realise that the Royal Navy was to be employed against a section of Irishmen who were loyal to our King and the country, and that the civil war was to take place simply because a certain number of men wanted to remain in Parliament.

The situation was unique. The political party

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in office had two courses open to them : one to go out of office and have no civil war ; the other to remain in office and have a civil war. It seems incredible that two hundred and seventy Englishmen should be ready to embark on all the horrors of war sooner than give up their seats in Parliament, but that is exactly what they decided to do.

This unhappy state of affairs did a great deal of harm both in the Army and the Navy, and contributed in many ways to the unprepared state in which in some respects the Great War found us.

In due course the Navy Estimates for 1914-1915 were published, and as the substance of them revealed that the Admiralty had realised neither the menace that submarines were to this island country nor the necessity of providing measures against them, I sent a letter to the Times on the 4th June, 1914, the gist of which was as follows :

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These were the salient points of my letter. The statements were not mere effects of my imagination; they were facts which every naval officer should have known, and all the young Navy did know of them. But the seniors still regarded the submarine as a toy. Consequently the critics fell heavily on me and treated me as an incompetent agitator.

As I had made a study of submarines for some years, I naturally knew something about them ; it was my profession to know about them, and I should have been professionally ignorant had I not known about them. The criticisms on my letter showed how little the country knew about submarines ; as regards the Press I was not surprised, because all submarine work had been kept secret. What surprised me was that five Admirals rushed into print to tell the world how little they knew.

Admiral Sir E. Fremantle described my letter as a mischievous scare.

Admiral Sir Cyprian Bridge said I had not gone thoroughly into the matter.

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Admiral Bacon was astonished at my publishing views with an authoritativeness which could only be justified by an accuracy of knowledge which it was difficult for him to see that I had at my disposal. He pointed out the great difficulties that there were in navigating a submarine.

Admiral Sir Francis Bridgeman (the late First Sea Lord of the Admiralty) referred to submarines as inaccurate and undeveloped weapons. This was, of course, the view that I knew the Admiralty had taken of submarines, and hence the necessity for me to write to the papers.

Lord Charles Beresford stated that submarines could only operate in the day-time ; that they were highly vulnerable, and that a machine-gun could put them out of action.

It appeared strange to me that these gallant officers should think that I did not know what I was talking about, practically classing me as professionally ignorant. If before writing to the papers they had consulted any midshipman, he could have explained to them that my letter to the Times was not a scare, but a warning ; he could have taught them that submarines were not difficult to navigate ; that torpedoes were not inaccurate if properly handled ; that submarines were not undeveloped weapons ; that a machine-gun could not put a submarine out of action, and that submarines could operate at night-time.

I, as well as most thinking naval officers, naturally knew before the war what submarines could do ; the public have since learned ; so the criticisms on my warning may be interesting. Here are some of them :-

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"Lord Sydenham regards Sir Percy Scott's theory as a 'fantastic dream,' and considers that Sir Percy Scott does not appear to have grasped the logical results of his theories." - Hampshire Telegraph, June 12th, 1914.

"Sir Percy Scott's ideas approach the boundaries of midsummer madness." - Pall Mall Gazette, June 5th, 1914.

"Admiral Sir E. Fremantle describes Sir Percy Scott's eulogy of the submarine as a mischievous scare." - Portsmouth Times, June 12th, 1914.

"The views of Sir Percy Scott depend upon unsupported conjectures, quite natural to a mind deeply imbued with the sense of perfection of modern mechanical contrivances, but dangerous if translated into national policy. His letter interests me greatly because it exactly illustrates the conflict of opinion which may arise between the mechanical engineer and the student of naval war. On the high seas the chances of submarines will be few, as they will require for their existence a parent ship which, on Sir Percy Scott's hypothesis, must disappear." - Lord Sydenham.

" As a romance, or even a prophecy, Sir Percy Scott's forecast is fantastic, but as practical tactics it is so premature as to be almost certainly fatal ; it may safely be relegated to the novel shelf. ' - Manchester Courier, June 6th, 1914.

" Sir Percy Scott's is a very impressive picture. Written by a literary man doing a scientific novel or scare tale, it would pass well enough. But is it what we have the right to expect from a most accomplished naval gunner, and a naval officer of approved capacity? The imaginative, fancy-picture- making spirit of the thing is out of place over Sir Percy Scott's name." - Manchester Guardian, .June 6th, 1914.

Admiral Bacon writes : " It is rather astonishing

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to find Sir Percy Scott rushing into print and publishing views with an authoritativeness which could only be justified by an accuracy of knowledge which it is difficult to see that he has at his disposal." - Times, June 15th, 1914.

" To speak frankly, Sir Percy Scott's letter was a most approved example of the mare's-nest. Lord Sydenham and other writers have shown how perfectly ridiculous it is to treat the submarine as if it were a weapon of precision which could be relied upon to do the kind of things it is expected to do in Sir Percy Scott's futurist idea of naval warfare." - Spectator, June 13th, 1914.

" Mr. Hannon (Secretary of the Navy League) says the statements contained in Sir Percy Scott's letter are premature, ill-advised and calculated to do serious harm to the cause of maintenance of British supremacy at sea." - Globe, June 6th, 1914.

"Is Sir Percy Scott a dreamer of dreams like Admiral Aube ? Or is he a precursor of practical achievements ? Let us not forget that the dreams of to-day are often the realities of to-morrow." - Daily Graphic.

" Sir Percy Scott has conceivably described the actual conditions which will prevail in 1920 or 1930." - Belfast News, June 6th, 1914.

" It may be that in years to come a war will show that Sir Percy Scott was before his time. This is a possibility, if not a probability." - Naval and Military Record, June 10th, 1914.

Lord Charles Beresford writes : " A submarine cannot stay any length of time under water, because it must frequently come into harbour to replenish its electric batteries." - Times, July 7th, 1914.

" Mr. David Hannay throws doubt upon the value of the submarine. Indeed, he seems to regard it as little better than a clever scientific

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toy. Doubtless, he suggests, it has potentialities, but these are at present of a very limited and unproved kind." - Times, June 26th, 1914.

Mr. H. W. Wilson writes : "A submarine cannot in any case do her work without the support of surface ships." - Daily Mail, June 11th, 1914.

" The chances of the submarine in the serious warfare of the future are much smaller than Sir Percy Scott imagines. Sir Percy Scott has given to the submarine credit for qualities which have yet to be proved." - Outlook, July 10th, 1914.

u At the present time submarines cannot communicate with one another, neither do they possess any serious utility at night-time, and in rough weather they may be utterly ignored." - Engineer, June 12th, 1914.

"On the face of Sir Percy Scott's statement, one can only say that the submarine has not yet reached the stage of development that justifies the gallant Admiral's estimate of its value in war." - Daily Graphic, June 5th, 1914.

" The submarine, a slow vessel, is dependent for vision on the sea-plane which has three or four times her speed, and must maintain that speed." - Pall Mall Gazette, September 7th, 1914.

Admiral Sir Francis Bridgeman, First Sea Lord, thus criticises Sir Percy Scott's contentions : " Sir Percy Scott's letter contains nothing that is new to the Admiralty authorities, except that in his statement he advises an immediate reduction in the shipbuilding programme, and recourse to what are at present inaccurate and undeveloped weapons, in place of battleships." - Daily Mail, June 8th, 1914.

Lord Beresford writes : " The submarine can only operate by day and in clear weather, and it is practically useless in misty weather." - Times, July 11th, 1914.

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" Submarines can be shadowed until compelled to rise, and then they are doomed." - Observer, June 7th, 1914.

" Sir Percy Scott himself writes as if the submarine were always invisible, and as if her speed when submerged were the same as her speed on the surface. The submarine is only invisible for a small part of the time ; she can stay below perhaps six hours at a stretch. Once she comes to the surface, she is the most vulnerable of all craft. Moreover, they are but little danger to a fleet under way." - Observer, June 14th, 1914.

Lord Sydenham writes : " On the surface the submarine is a most inferior destroyer, slow, supremely vulnerable and unsuitable for long habitation." - Times, June 6th, 1914.

Lord Charles Beresford writes : " A submarine is highly vulnerable; a machine-gun or well-directed bullets could put it out of action." Times, July 11th, 1914.

Mr. Arnold White writes that " if war is declared our Dreadnoughts would have to be tucked away in some safe harbour, and that the place for the German Dreadnoughts would be in the Kiel Canal with both ends sealed up." - Referee, June 14th, 1914.

"The effects of the torpedo have continually fallen far behind expectation. It is far from being certain that battleships, even when struck, will be destroyed beyond repair." - Observer, June 7th, 1914.

" The basis of the argument held by Sir Percy Scott lies in the statement that 6 submarines and aeroplanes have revolutionised the naval warfare. No fleet can hide from the aeroplane, and the submarine can deliver a deadly attack even in broad daylight.' Each of these points, however, seems to be capable of argument." - Sunday Times.

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BIG GUNS FOR THE ARMY

These criticisms call for no comment. Journalists who wrote in depreciation of what I had suggested were not to blame. They knew no more about submarines than I did about newspaper production. They merely repeated the views of some officers of the Navy. Point by point the War has answered all the criticisms of my letter and fully demonstrated that submarines and aero- planes have revolutionised warfare.

On the 4th August, 1914, war was declared against Germany. I wrote to the Admiralty and offered to serve in any capacity they thought fit. I suggested that I might possibly be of use in assisting to get director firing into our ships, or hastily mounting heavy guns for land service. Their Lordships did not even condescend to acknowledge the receipt of my letter, so I amused myself gardening at Ascot, where I was living.

One day in September, 1914, I met Field-Marshal Earl Roberts, who also lived at Ascot. He pointed out to me how deplorably short we were at the front of long-range guns, and asked me if I could quickly mount some on the same sort of carriage that I made in South Africa. I replied that as, with limited resources in South Africa, we were able to mount one 6-inch gun in 48 hours, we could easily in this country, by dividing the work between our dockyards, mount 100 in a month.

Lord Roberts was so delighted with the idea that he went straight to the War Office to see Lord Kitchener, and after a lapse of a few days he wrote me, enclosing a letter from the Secretary for War. Lord Kitchener, under date September

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15th, 1914, explained the position, adding that he had discussed my suggestions at the War Office with those concerned. He remarked that steps had already been taken to provide 6-inch howitzers carrying a hundred-pound shell, both lyddite and shrapnel, and that arrangements had been made for 6-inch guns on mobile carriages to be sent to the front. While thanking me for my offer, he added that at that time the War Office did not "want any extra guns."

Neither the War Office nor the Admiralty had at that time learned the value of long-range guns. Lord Roberts said: "They will learn by bitter experience," and this was the case. Ten months afterwards, in July, 1915, they found all their guns outranged by the Germans. The War Office then asked me if I could quickly mount eight 6-inch Mark VII. guns, having a range of 20,000 yards. I prepared a design practically on the same lines as that of the 6-inch gun used in South Africa. The work was undertaken by Chatham Dockyard, and in a very short space of time these eight guns were doing useful work against the Germans, their 40� of elevation enabling them to out-range every other gun we had at the front.

In the early stage of the war the state of our Navy as regards gunnery efficiency was deplorable, though two years had elapsed since it had been clearly demonstrated that director firing was the only system of firing which would give us a chance of success in action, and although it was well known that the Germans had some form of director firing in all their ships. When war was declared we had only eight ships fitted to fire their

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THE BATTLE OF CORONEL

heavy guns by director, and not one ship fitted, or being fitted, to fire her 6-inch guns by the same method.

I urged the authorities to do something, but they would not move. I was informed that the First Sea Lord, H.S.H. Prince Louis of Battenberg, ¹ who was responsible to the nation for the efficiency of our Fleet in gunnery, had the matter well in hand.

Almost directly after the war commenced German submarines became very active, sending to the bottom the Pathfinder, Cressy, Rogue, Aboukir, and Hawke, with a loss of about 4000 officers and men drowned. These vessels were patrolling at slow speed off a coast very near to the enemy's submarine base. Why they were sent there no one knows, but that the Admiralty sent them there is revealed in Lord Jellicoe's book. Their destruction was inevitable. The loss was the price the country had to pay for the Admiralty regarding submarines as toys.

On the 1st November, 1914, my old ship the Good Hope, in company with the Monmouth, Glasgow, and Otranto, engaged the German cruisers Scharnhorst, Gneisenau, Leipzig, and Dresden in the Pacific. After a short action the Good Hope and Monmouth were both sunk by the Germans' superior shooting. These ships were caught in bad weather, and as neither of them was fitted with any efficient system of firing their guns in such weather, they were, as predicted in my letter to the Admiralty of 10th December,

¹ Now the Marquis of Milford Haven.

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1911, ¹ annihilated without doing any appreciable damage to the enemy.

These two ships were sacrificed because the Admiralty would not fit them with efficient means of firing their guns in a sea-way. Had the system with which I had fitted the Good Hope been completed and retained in her, I dare say she might have seen further service and saved the gallant Cradock and his men on this occasion.

During October, after the heavy losses that our Navy had sustained, the feeling of the general public that we ought not to have a Prince of foreign birth at the head of our Navy manifested itself, and Prince Louis of Battenberg resigned his position as First Sea Lord on the 30th October, his place being taken by Admiral of the Fleet Lord Fisher.

On the 3rd November, 1914, the First Lord, Mr. Winston Churchill, sent for me, and informed me that their Lordships had decided to employ me at the Admiralty on special service in connection with the gunnery of the Fleet, and I was appointed " Adviser to their Lordships on matters connected with the gunnery efficiency of the Fleet." I was further directed to investigate the question of attacking the enemy's submarines, and to put forward any suggestions that 1 could in that direction.

Before embarking on either of these duties I was told to design and equip a fleet of dummy battleships, taking ordinary merchant ships and converting them so that, even at short distance, they had the appearance of battleships. Mr. F. Skeens, a very able Admiralty draftsman, prepared

¹ Cf. Chapter XV.

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"THE S.C. SQUADRON"

tracings of the merchant steamers, and tracings to the same scale of types of our battleships. One tracing was put over the other and the necessary transformation quickly decided on. It was much more simple than I anticipated.

The next day Messrs. Harland & Wolff had about 2000 men cutting sixteen fine merchant ships to pieces. How splendidly this firm did their work can be seen from the photographs.

The question of equipping this squadron with officers and men was a difficult one, but I had the good fortune to meet Captain Haddock, C.B., who had given up command of the Olympic. He had been with me in H.M.S. Edinburgh in 1886.

I took Captain Haddock to the Admiralty, and suggested that they should make him into a Commodore, and place him in command of the squadron, with full power to ship the necessary officers and men. This squadron had to be given a name, and I suggested the S.C. Squadron, or the Special Coastal Squadron. "S.C. Squadron" could also mean " Scare Crow Squadron." You could take your choice ! One of these ships was, I believe, sunk by a Hun submarine whose captain, when he found she was only a dummy, went mad and blew his brains out.

The purchase of the ships to form this squadron, and the expense of altering them cost about �1,000,000. How these ships were to be usefully employed was not divulged to me. If some deep scheme existed in which they were to take part, it never matured, for a short time after their alteration, changes having occurred at the Admiralty including the retirement of Lord Fisher,

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those that remained of them were converted back again.

At the beginning of the war, in my opinion we could better afford to lose a battleship than a merchant ship, but that was not the Admiralty opinion. They commandeered them in the most ruthless and reckless manner, sinking them to make breakwaters, and putting them to any use except bringing food to this country. It was further proof that the Admiralty did not believe in the submarine menace ; the warning which I had given them and the nation was still unheeded. It was not until the third year of the war, when four million tons of merchant shipping had been sent to the bottom, that the Admiralty woke up and started to order merchant ships to be built, and even then their orders were so bound up with red tape that the builders could not proceed with alacrity. A shipbuilder told me that in placing an order the Admiralty sent him so many forms to fill in that he had to tell them they could have the ships or the forms, but they could not have both.

With regard to attacking submarines, as the Admiralty before the war regarded them as little more than toys, it was only natural that no progress had been made in the direction of taking measures for destroying them. A committee had certainly been at work for some time, but had evolved nothing.

When I came on the scene, which was about one hundred and twenty days after war was declared, I found that they had not even taken steps to put rams on our trawlers and torpedo boat destroyers, or to give them a weapon to

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MYSTERY OF THE DEPTH CHARGE

attack a submarine if they happened to pass over her. The Badger had rammed one, but her round stem did not do enough damage to sink the submarine, and when she passed over her she had no bomb to throw down at her. To meet the case, I suggested that rams should be put on our torpedo boats, destroyers and trawlers, and that was done. I designed and submitted a bomb which could be thrown down on to a submarine if she was on or near the surface. This suggestion was accepted and rapidly introduced.

The depth charge, which ultimately turned out to be the antidote to the submarine, furnishes a remarkable illustration of Admiralty methods. Who invented it ? It has even been suggested that it was an American. What are the facts ? On the 1st October, 1914, Captain P. H. Colomb submitted the design of a depth charge, actuated by a hydrostatic valve. On the 19th October Admiral Sir Charles Madden made a similar proposal, and suggested a howitzer to " lob " the charges out. Although I was head of the Anti-Submarine Department at the Admiralty, I was left in ignorance of both these proposals - an illustration of bad administration and the extent to which the Admiralty works in watertight compartments, one not knowing what the other is doing. So, on the 16th November, I proposed a depth charge which could be dropped from an aeroplane or surface craft. The idea was so simple that these depth charges could have been supplied in quantities by the end of the year. What happened ? These three valuable suggestions were treated in the usual Admiralty way - efforts were

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made to improve on the idea in order to produce something which would bear the hall mark of the Admiralty, with the result that, instead of having a depth charge and ejecting howitzer at the end of 1914, we did not get them until 1916. It was a serious matter, for I have no doubt that had the depth charge come into use in 1914, as it could have done, it would have saved a loss of about �200,000,000.

We were very short of fast surface boats - the submarine's greatest enemy. In connection with this shortage rather a peculiar thing happened. On the 30th June, 1914, that is just before the outbreak of war, one of the guests at a dinner party asked what was the antidote for submarine. In my reply I mentioned that very fast surface boats carrying a gun would be useful. Exactly one year after this, on the 30th June, 1915, this gentleman brought me a good design of a very fast (40 knots) hydroplane motor boat, 60 feet long. I took the design to the Admiralty, and they promptly turned it down. One year after this they ordered a few hydroplane 40-feet long motor boats. They were not of much use. A year afterwards, in April 1917, they ordered a large number of similar boats of 55 feet in length. Two years' waste of time, and we were at war !

I next had to turn to a much more difficult problem, the gunnery of the Fleet. I went up to Scapa Flow in the Orkneys (13th November, 1914), and had a long interview with Sir John Jellicoe. The Grand Fleet was assembled in this harbour for strategic reasons, and also to keep the ships as far away as possible from the German submarines.

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GERMAN SPIES HANGED

The Commander-in-Chief discussed with me the terrible state of affairs, the salient point of which was that for strategic reasons he was obliged to keep the Grand Fleet at Scapa, that German aeroplanes had been over the harbour, and must be quite conversant with the anchorage of the Fleet and the unprotected approaches, that he was doing all he could to make the anchorage safe, but that the measures were not complete and that any night submarines might come in and send the Grand Fleet to the bottom. When I said " Good night " to Lord Jellicoe, I added, " Shall we be here in the morning ? " His laconic reply was, " I wonder."

Why the Fleet was not destroyed, I cannot imagine. Either the German submarines lacked pluck, or possibly as the Commander-in-Chief of the Grand Fleet suggests in his book, the German mind could not believe that we could be such fools as to place our Fleet in a position where it was open to submarine or destroyer attack. If this was in the German mind, why was he not enterprising enough to use it ?

A story is told that a German airman, having reported that they could see no defences at Scapa, two spies were sent, and at that time it was very easy for them to get over. They reported that there was no protection. The Germans promptly shot them, as they considered they were lying. They then sent two more ; they were not going to take any risks, so they reported that our Fleet was as safe as theirs was in the Kiel Canal. Perhaps this is why the Germans did not win, as they could have won, in 1914. If the Germans had

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had half a dozen men of the stamp of our submarine commanders, we should now be a German colony. This knowledge will be the bitterest pill that the Germans have ever had to swallow.

And before I leave this subject of the unpreparedness of the Grand Fleet in some respects for war, I must revert to the criticism of Lord Jellicoe for not pursuing the German Navy after the battle of Jutland and fighting them on the night 31st May - 1st June. Lord Jellicoe had a very good reason for not doing so. The British Fleet was not properly equipped for fighting an action at night. The German Fleet was. Consequently, to fight them at night would have only been to court disaster. Lord Jellicoe's business was to preserve the Grand Fleet, the main defence of the Empire, as well as of the Allied cause, not to risk its existence. I have been asked why the Grand Fleet was not so well prepared to fight a night action as the German Navy. My answer is, "Ask the Admiralty." The German Fleet went back, only to come out again when they crossed the North Sea like a flock of sheep to surrender. The German sailors were made in Kiel Harbour. This harbour is like the Serpentine - and a sailor cannot be trained on the Serpentine, and that is what was the matter with the German Navy.

It was very gratifying to find the Grand Fleet all cheery in spite of the dangers that confronted it - drilling night and day at their guns, and doing everything possible to improve the efficiency of themselves and of their weapons. It was the weapons that I had been sent up to inquire about, and the conditions made me very anxious. Only

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CONFERENCE WITH FIRST LORD

eight ships of the whole Fleet had their main armament fitted for director firing, and all work on the other ships had been suspended on the outbreak of war. Practically a hundred days had been lost, and, to make matters worse, none of the necessary electric cables and fittings had been ordered. Fitting the secondary armament with director firing had not been contemplated.

Such a state of things seems incredible. One would have thought that, although their Lordships paid no attention to my warning in 1911, the moment war was known to be inevitable they would have bestirred themselves and ordered all the material necessary to put the Fleet in a state of gunnery efficiency. But practically nothing had been done.

I had a conference with the First Lord (Mr. Winston Churchill) and the First Sea Lord (Lord Fisher), and pointed out to them the serious state of affairs, and how badly we should fare if the German Fleet came out. ¹ They realised the position and approved of practically all the ships being fitted with director firing, including vessels of the Warrior and Defence class ; and some small cruisers of the Cordelia class ; and further, they agreed that I could arrange it without being held up by the ordinary Admiralty red tape. I took their approval to Sir James Marshall, the Director of Dockyard Work, and to the late Mr. Forcy, the Director of Stores ; without any letter-writing they acted on it at once. Drillers were sent up to the Fleet to commence the wiring,

¹ Fortunately for the country the German Fleet did not come out until eighteen months afterwards.

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and the necessary cables and fittings were ordered. The Wolseley Motor Car Company ceased making motors to make director instruments. Consequently the fitting of the ships went on rapidly, and had the " push " been maintained our whole Fleet would have been equipped by the end of 1915.

In May, 1915, unfortunately for the nation, Lord Fisher left the Admiralty and all the " push " ceased. I no longer had any influence ; the authorities went back to their apathetic way of doing things ; time, even in warfare, was not considered of any importance by them.

The result of this was that at the Battle of Jutland, fought on the 31st May, 1916, the Commander-in-Chief had only six ships of his Fleet completely fitted with director firing - that is main as well as secondary armament ; he had several ships with their primary armament not fitted ; he had not a single cruiser in the Fleet fitted for director firing, - he had no Zeppelins as eyes for his Fleet ; his guns were out-ranged by those of the Germans. He had to use projectiles inferior to those used by the Germans ; and in firing at night he was utterly outclassed by the enemy.

In one portion of the Fleet I had a very personal interest - the cruisers of the Warrior, Black Prince, and Defence classes. They had a mixed armament of 9.2-inch and 7.5-inch guns, and consequently were very difficult ships to fight unless they had director firing. Lord Fisher had approved of this class of ship being fitted with director firing in November, 1914, but the Admiralty did

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"NOT A DOG'S CHANCE"

not place the order until April, 1915. It was their Lordships' intention to place the order in January, 1915, which was far too late ; but the papers were mislaid, which caused a delay of three months.

The Germans in the Jutland Battle sent these three ships to the bottom, and I lost my elder son, a midshipman, sixteen years of age. A week before he went into action he said to me : " Father, if we have a scrap, our gunnery lieutenant says we shall not have a dog's chance, as our extemporised director which we have rigged up is not reliable, and the Germans can out-range our guns. We have only got 15� of elevation ; the Germans have got 30�. They will be pumping shell into us and our guns won't reach them by a couple of miles."

My midshipman son was quite correct ; they had not a dog's chance. All our guns were out-ranged by the Germans. This superiority of range was conceded by our own Board of Admiralty to the German nation. In 1905 I paid a visit to Kiel, as I have already mentioned, and on my return to London, informed the Admiralty that the Germans were giving their guns 30� of elevation. The Director of Naval Ordnance at that time, Sir John Jellicoe, was in favour of increasing our elevation, but, as I have already explained, the Director of Naval Ordnance was only Director in name. He was not a Lord of the Admiralty and had no power, so nothing was done. We continued to give our guns only 13�� of elevation. Four years afterwards, in 1909, we increased the elevation in new ships to 15�. In 1911 we increased it to 20�, and

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in 1915, a year after war was declared, the Admiralty did what they ought to have done ten years before, that is they decided that in all new ships the guns should be capable of firing at 30� of elevation. Finally, in 1917 they increased the elevation in some ships to 40�.

My readers may not be quite conversant with the term " elevation," and the importance of it, so I will explain. Within certain limits the higher you point a gun up, the further the shot will go, For example, if you fire a 12-inch gun at 15� elevation, the shot goes 16,000 yards ; if you fire at 30� the shot goes 24,000. Therefore, a ship that can fire her guns at 30� has 8,000 yards more range than a ship that can only fire her guns up to 15� elevation. They both have the same guns ; the increase in range is simply due to the platform in the one case allowing the gun to be raised to an angle of 30� instead of to only 15�.

Early in the year 1915 it was decided to build some monitors, carrying guns of 15-inch, 14-inch, and 9.2-inch calibre. As these vessels were for bombardment purposes, it was essential that their guns should be capable of firing at a high elevation, so as to obtain a long range. This essential had unfortunately been overlooked by the Gunnery Department. I called Lord Fisher's attention to it, and offered to increase their elevation from 13�� to 30�, without delaying the ships, provided that I could break through all Admiralty ideas. There was to be no paper work, and no red-tape. He agreed to this. I rang up Messrs. Armstrong, Whitworth & Co., of Newcastle-on-Tyne, discussed the subject with them, and got them to send me

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METHODS OF EFFICIENCY

a drawing by the night mail. In the morning I showed it to Lord Fisher ; he approved the proposal and I wired to Newcastle, directing Armstrong to proceed with the alteration. The whole operation took twenty-two hours. There was, of course, nothing wonderful about it ; it merely illustrated how all work during the war should have been done. Lord Fisher was very pleased with the celerity with which it was carried out, but the paper brigade at the Admiralty did not like their ordinary red-tape ideas being over-ridden, and wrote to the Armstrong firm, informing them that I was only acting in an advisory capacity to the Admiralty, and Admiralty approval should be obtained in accordance with the usual practice. If this business had been attempted with the usual Admiralty practice it would have taken a month to get the paper work through, and probably it would not have been done at all.

What a curse to the nation red-tapism was during the War ! I received a letter containing a shocking example of it. At Malta there were three of our submarines eager to go out and sink the Goeben and Breslau. They were not allowed to do so because they had been sent to Malta for " defence purpose." How could they have better defended Malta than by sinking these two ships ? It would not have been surprising had the officers turned a blind eye to their orders, and gone out and sunk them.

On the 13th January, 1915, I was sent for by the First Lord (Mr. Winston Churchill) and he told me that H.M.S. Queen Elizabeth was going out to the Dardanelles, that the Navy was going

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to smash all the forts and go through to Constantinople, and that I could go in command.

I could not accept the offer as I knew it was an impossible task for the inefficient ships then in the Mediterranean to perform. What was done is now a matter of history ; practically everything that we could do wrong we did. Our casualties were :-

For our legislators the Dardanelles will probably be the blackest page in the War's history ; for our seamen and soldiers it will be one of the brightest. They landed under conditions which no other troops in the world would have faced, and displayed bravery unequalled in any other theatre of war.

The landing in the Dardanelles and the subsequent retirement we can for ever be proud of; our nation must ever be ashamed of the authorities responsible for the plan of attack.

As I have referred to inefficient ships in the Mediterranean, it may be convenient at this point to summarize the general course of gunnery practice during my period of service in the Royal Navy. In 1866 when I joined the Navy the allowance of practice ammunition was eight rounds per gun per quarter. This ammunition was supposed to be expended at a cask carrying a flag, some one aloft judging where the misses went. Points were

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awarded and prizes given. Many ships avoided carrying out this firing. In some cases the practice ammunition was thrown overboard, and I know of one case where the powder was sold and paint bought with the proceeds.

In 1881 the cask was done away with, and a triangular canvas target substituted for it. The ship firing steamed round on the sides of a square. Hits could not be counted, as a shot hitting one side of the target made a hole in the opposite side also. Moreover, the target generally fell down when it was hit.

In 1885 it was decided to have a target on which hits could be counted, and to award prizes for hits only, whether ricochet or not. The target, 15 feet high and 40 feet long, was moored, and the ship steamed by it on a marked-out base, at a range varying from 1600 to 1400 yards.

In 1892 the dimensions of the target were altered to 16 feet 9 inches high and 20 feet long, the other conditions remaining the same. The target had three masts, and if one was struck the whole canvas generally came down. In such an event the instructions were that the target was to be repaired before going on, but the order was seldom obeyed as it caused delay. Ships generally went on and fired at any part of the target left visible.

Every ship was supposed to carry out this prize firing once a year, but a large percentage evaded it, and there was no reliance on the results sent in by the ships that actually carried it out. The Admiralty return of the results of prize firing was generally not issued until late in the following

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year, which was too late for any one to take an interest in it, and the ships were not arranged in order of merit.

In 1899, when in H.M.S. Scylla, I made an attempt to rectify this state of affairs by modifying the target, appointing independent umpires, and introducing competition. The Commander-in- Chief, Sir John Hopkins (as recorded in an earlier chapter), approved of the suggestion, but there was too much opposition to allow of any change being made.

In 1901, in China, I made another attempt, and it was warmly supported by the Commander-in-Chief, Sir Edward Seymour, his flag-captain, Captain Warrender, ¹ Captain Jellicoe, and many other officers. The target was altered so as to allow of a new sail being used for each gun, and a second target was moored ready for use. Rules were drawn out to insure uniformity. Independent umpires were on board the firing ship, and competition was instituted by awarding points per hit. A return was made out showing all the ships on the station in their order of merit of firing.

The firing of the ships on the China Station immediately improved by leaps and bounds, and the Commander-in-Chief sent a full report to the Admiralty, with a suggestion that this method of carrying out Prize Firing should be generally adopted. The Admiralty, however, strongly objected to the proposed alterations, declined to introduce competition, and strenuously opposed publishing the ships in order of merit.

In 1902, as I record elsewhere, I had the

¹ The late Admiral Sir George Warrender, Bart.

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honour of an audience with H.M. King Edward VII. His Majesty questioned me about the very bad shooting of the Navy, and inquired the reason for it. I explained that it was due to six causes:-

1. Lack of attention to the subject on the part of the Admiralty, which produced lack of interest in it on the part of the officers and men.
2. That officers' promotion depended upon the cleanliness of the paint work and not upon the battle-worthiness of the ship.
3. That the Admirals as a rule took no interest in target practice ; their custom was to go on shore when it took place. ¹
4. That the Fleet was supplied with such bad gun sights that it was impossible to make good shooting with them ; the only ships that had made good shooting had used gun sights of a non-Admiralty pattern.
5. That there was no competition, and without competition the Englishman would do nothing. I pointed out that, only a few years ago, if a man-of- war got in forty tons of coal an hour it was considered very good, but that since Lord Walter

¹ The attitude of many Admirals to gunnery - since a ship existed only to hit first, hit hard, and keep on hitting - reminds me of a story which is not inappropriate. I once heard of a bluejacket, wounded in the foot, who asked a comrade to carry him to the sick bay. He picked him up and carried him along on his back. On the way a splinter carried away the head of the wounded bluejacket. The rescuer deposited the injured man on the floor of the sick bay. The surprised doctor exclaimed, "What have you brought him here for ? he has no head ! "

" Well," was the astonished reply, " Old Bill was always a ----- liar ; he said it was his foot." If the war had come before the gunnery of the Fleet was improved, the nation would have had reason to ask, " What is the good of a Navy which cannot shoot? "

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Kerr (the then First Lord of the Admiralty) had introduced competition it had gone up to 200 tons an hour.

6. That the only reason why the Admiralty wanted the results kept confidential was because they were so bad.

His Majesty fully recognised the value of introducing competition, and caused a letter to be written to Lord Selborne pointing out that two returns could be made out with the squadrons and ships in order of merit, one being confidential, giving the actual hits, and the other public, giving points only. The returns for 1903 were made out in this manner.

In 1903 new rules were proposed by the Admiralty for the 1904 firing. They embraced an increase in the range which precluded the layer from seeing whether he was hitting the target. I respectfully protested, and pointed out that as hits at the proposed range could not be seen it would eliminate all skill and convert the competition into a pure matter of luck.

The matter was so serious that I personally interviewed Lord Selborne, Admiral Sir William May, and the Director of Naval Ordnance, and begged them not to spoil the heavy-gun firing as they had spoiled the light-gun firing in 1902. I failed to move them.

In this year, so fatal to gunnery progress, it was also decided to give a medal to the best man in each ship, provided he made over a certain number of hits. I again protested and pointed out that in accordance with the new rules two men would fire at the same canvas, and that on inspection

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after firing the number of holes in the target might show that one of the two men who fired had earned the King's Medal, but it would be impossible to say which of the two. My representations were without effect. The range was increased and by a stroke of irony the name was changed from Prize Firing to the Gun Layers' Competition.

In 1904 the so-called Gun Layers' Competition was carried out, with, of course, a disastrous result. The officers and men realised that they could not see whether they were hitting or not, and that the only thing to do was to fire quickly and trust to luck. With an increase in the expenditure of ammunition the percentage of hits to rounds fired was reduced. Forty-three ships evaded carrying out the practice. Any excuse was accepted, and the Admirals were generally the worst offenders. Difficulties arose in awarding the King's Medal, and in some cases it was tossed for - a most undignified proceeding.

Fortunately for the country, Captain Jellicoe, early in 1905, became Director of Naval Ordnance, and steps were immediately taken to rescue naval gunnery from the chaos into which it had fallen. This appointment had a great deal to do with our winning the war.

As regards the Gun Layers' Competition, the rules drawn up in China were taken out of the waste-paper basket and promulgated to the Fleet ; the distance of the target was reduced so that the men could see their hits ; and to meet the medal difficulty one man fired instead of two.

The annual return was made out with all the ships of the Fleet arranged in order of merit, and

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was published on the 31st December. No ships in 1905 evaded the carrying out of their firing, and the results in 1905, in comparison with 1904, were :-

In 1904, 42.9 per cent, of hits to rounds per gun.

In 1905, 56.6 " " " " "

This progress was fairly satisfactory, but there were a great many ships that did badly, and attention was called to it by holding forty Courts of Enquiry.

In 1906 the percentage of hits to rounds fired went up to 71.1 per cent., and in 1907 it rose to 79.1 per cent.

As a result of this improvement in the gunnery of the Fleet, H.M. King Edward VII. invested Captain Jellicoe (who, as stated, was then Director of Naval Ordnance) and myself with the insignia of Knight Commander of the Victorian Order. Punch published a very good cartoon dealing with this.

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