BIG GUN FIRE.

Press, Volume LI, Issue 15238, 27 March 1915, Page 12

BIG GUN FIRE.

ITS TERRIBLE EFFECTS. A NEW STORY FROM H.M.S. INVINCIBLE. The following letter describing the battle of tho Falkland Mauds as seen from H.M.S. Invincible was Written by Midshipman John Esmond© to his father. Sir Thomas Eamonde, M.P. It has been forwarded to the "Manchester Guardian" by Sir Thomas Esmondo:— PORT STANLEY (Falkland Islands). My dear Father, —At the time of writing I am right down in the South Atlantic. We havo had a most pleasant voyage, hardly a rough day. On crossing tlie lino I was rated "a son of Neptune" with the usual interesting ceremony, and I have a certificate to that effect. We came hero , whence wo sallied out to meet- the Germans, who, though they caught us coaling in harbour, Were unable to seize their advantage. Fsend you a very rough account of the action of .December Bth. We fought, with a short lull, from 12.55 to 6 p.m. ...

Tho stokers worked like mad down below. AYe use our. preciou 3 oil now that wo havo got the enemy at last. The funnels belched out dense black smoke and flames, and wo up-anchored and rushed out. Just before *ye upanchored wo heard the Canopus open firo on tho Scharnhorst. The Scharnhorst fired eight shots. All fell a long way short, and the Canopus fired six 12in shells, all of which missed also. Tho Germans then retired a bit. In tho meantime we were tearing out, rammiug anything that got in the way. We cut two small boats in half —happily there was no one in them. Once out of the harbour we formed up as follows: — Bristol : Invincible. Kent : Inflexible. Carnarvon. Cornwall : Glasgow. THE CHASE BEGINS. On our starboard bow we could see the enemy. They looked quit© close. We increased Speed slowly. Wo were rapidly catching the Germans, and could see them manoeuvring and signalling to one another. I havo heard from ono of their survivors that when Admiral yon fcJpeo saw that we wero the Invincible and Inflexible instead of tho inferior force he had hoped to bully he gave all the men in his squadron one hour for prayers, which was used by a large proportion of them to. get drunk.

At 11..5 I. managed to get some bread and cheese to eat, and then ran back to the turret,. From the top of my turret (A turret) I watched the Germans trying manoeuvre after manoeuvre, ali to no purpose, as they were countered by our movements, directed by tlie Admiral. At 12.55 tho Inflexible fired tho first shot. .. . At 12..9 we fired our first shot. Wo fired at tho Leipzig and nearly.hit hor Wo wont on firing and finally caused her to drop out ot tho line. But. now we had a moro serious quarry in sight, and we engaged the enemy's flagship, the Scharnhorst. In the first bout we were about equal. She hit us three times and we did about tho same to her. But we equalled her. and, as was shown later, utterly out-manoeuvred and out-gunned and out-matched her. After the.first bout .there was a short lull, and I climbed unon the top_ of the turret to have a look round, "suddenly wo altered course and mado for tho enemy. I now noticed wo were closing, and when their first ealvo went off I was still on th* top of the turret. I could see all the shells coming at us, and I felt that they were all coming straight at mc. However, they nil misled, except one, which hit the side of the ship near the wardroom, and made a great green flash and sent splinters flying all round. I hopped below armour quickly and started' working again. We were nearing the Scharnhorst, and began firing for all we wero worth. Wo hit again and again. First onr left guns font hor hie cmtie spinning over the side. Then our right gun blew her funnel to atoms, and then another shot from the left gun pent her bridge and part of the forecastle skyhigh.

INVINCIBLE'S TURRET HIT

, We were not escaping iree, however. Shots wero hitting us repeatedly, and tho spray from the splashes of their shells was hiding the. Scharnhorst from us. Suddenly a great livid flame pushed'through'.the gun ports, and splinters flew all round, and we felt the 130 or 200 tons of the turret going up in the air. We thought we would go over the •side and get drowned like rats in a

trap. However, we camo ao.n -a-"* i witn a crash that shook the turret dreadfully, and continued tiring as hard as ever. Nothing in the turret i was out of order at all. The range con- ' tinned to com© down, and the whistles . of tho shells that flew over "s grow i into a regular shriek. J Down came tho range—ll.ooo, 10,000, 9000, B_oo. "»Ve wero hitting the Scharnhorst nearly every time. One . beauty from our right gun got one of their turrets fair and square," and sent lit whizzing over the side. Suddenly outright gun misfired —we had got a 1 jam, and one Sj,trn was out of action. Tho breach had" caught against one ot the cages and would neither open nor , j shut, AYe opened up the trap hatch, , j and I jumped out and down the ladder i ! with two men to try and find a crow- . ! bar. • Tho 12in guns were firing all ! around us. and our left gun was doing ! work for two now that the right was jammed. The German shells were whistling unpleasantly close, and there were splinters flying all over the place. END OP THE SCHARNHORCT. Tho Scharnhonst was tiring heavily, but 1 could sco she was in a bad way. She was down by the bows and badly on fire amidships. I got the crowbar and brought it in, but wanted a hack saw as well, so I jumped out again, and just as I was coming back 1 saw tho Scharnhorst's ensign dip (never knew whether it camo down or not, because just then one of our lyddite shells hit her and there was a dense cloud of smoke all over her). When it cleared she was on her side, and her propellers were lashing thp water round into foam. Then she capsized altogether and went to the bottom 1 So the German flagship that had shown so little mercy to the defenceless Monmouth, a month uefore sank with Admiral yon Snee and 900 German sailors, not a many being saved. To save any was impossible. "We then turned to the Gneisenau, and fought on for nearly two hours. The Germans had fought well and were done. She had a heavy list to port and was burning furiously. The first funnel wn s down and she was in an absolute shambles, her turrets in splinters and her guns twisted into corkscrews. Sho looked a 6ad sight. It is not certain whether she hauled down her flag or not. I think she did. She slowly heeled over to port and then capsized just ahead of us. A DREADFUL SIGHT. You could see her side. It looked like a huge whale's back. Tnen -he sank, and you could see wretched men caught one. after another and sucked down in the vortex. When we came near we could see that the water was all yellow where sho had sunk, and there was a dreadful smell of lyddite in the air. It was absolutely dreadful, with all those wretched .Germans drowning aud sending up pitiful cries for kelp which we could not give because most of our boats were in splinters. I hope I shall never have to go through it again. There were a lot of men "floating when we saw the ship go down, but when wo reached the spot half of them were drowned.' It was awful to see them in the water just alongside trying to hold on to the slippery sides of the ship, and then shoping off and going down, fighting hard for life, but going down and down till they were lost to sight. One grew sick seeing men in their death, struggles. Some of-them had gxms and. legs blown off, and it was absolutely sickening seeing them sink, leaving behind a red trail of blood. We got out all the boats wo could, and so did the InflffiUble. and we managed to save some 300 men, including their captain—a tall man. with a black beard. Somo of them had their heads quite turned when they were picked np, and tried to kill their rescuers or jumped into tho sea again and drowned themselves. One officer tried to shoot us with an automatic pistol, but it was wrenched from his hand, and we escaped. This is a leaf from a German officer a note-book (just before the Gneieenau •wink): — "..TO, hit, hit. .'■-.' "5.12, hit. "5.14. hit, hit, hit again. "5.20, after-turret gone. . "5.40, hit, hit; on firo everywhere. "5.41, hit, hit; burning everywhere and sinkiug. "5.45. hit; men lying everywhere. "5.46, hit, hit. It ends just before the ship sank. The officer is on board here now.

THE KENT BURNS HER BOATS

Tho Kent, a 21-knot cruiser,; was ordered to chase the Nurnberg, a 26-knot ship, and also a much more modern one than tho Kent. She had only a few hundred tons of coal on board to catch tho Nurnberg with. The old Kent sot off, and they worked up to 22, moro than she had ever done on. trials. Then tho word was passed up that there was hardly any coal left. ""Well," said the captain, "have a go at tho boats." So they broke up all the boats and smeared them with oil and put them in the furnaces. Then in went all the armchairs from the wardrooms and then tho chests from the officers' cabins. They next burnt tho ladders and all— every bit of wood was sent to the stokehold. Tlie result was that the Kent's speed became 24 knots, and she caught the Nurnberg, and after a stiff fight, in which several men were killed, the Nurnberg was sunk. This ship had a hot time of it, as we were fired on by the Scharnhorst .-.nd the Gneisenau, so that wo had only six 12in guns to fight twelve B.3in and six Gin guns. We got twenty B.3in sliolls. on hoard and several 6in shells. There is one B.3in which did not explode, and we have cot him whole. He weighs 2801b or 3001b without the ar-mour-piercing cap. The action was a very hard one— five hours' t=olid firing. The guns were nearly red-hot to finish with. I escaped all damage except a trivial burn on one of my fingers by a splinter. It is all healed np now. It must have been a regular inferno en the German ships, with heaps of dead men and fragments of them all over the decks, and the officers, whose heads had been turned, shooting the and themselves with their automatic pistols. The nri.«*onen. we have look back on it as a kind of nis-h-fhare. Among the prisoners is an Irishman. Ho had been working on a tramo running from Newcastle to Kiel, and when tho .war "broke out. he had "~»en sent out m an Italian shoto the Gnei*-ennn with some others. "After the Ball is Over" you artliable to catch a chill. Fortify yourself with "NAZOL." A few drops on lump sugar taken inwardly, or a little •sniffed up the nose will make you Proof against cold. IO