Serial JELLICOE OF SCAPA

Dominion, Volume 29, Issue 301, 16 September 1936, Page 13

Serial JELLICOE OF SCAPA

V—His Work as Controller of The British Navy

By

ADMIRAL SIR REGINALD BACON

(Copyright.)

After the various festivities and official functions at Quebec had ended, bir John left for England to take up his post as Controller of the Navy and Third Sea Lord. , The following is an account by Lord Jellicoe of his stewardship as Controller of the Navy:— “My years of office as Controller were difficult It was a period during which the size of capital ships of themselves, and the calibre of the guns constituting their main armament was steadily increasing. “Whatever arguments may be usea by some critics against the introduction of the Dreadnought type of ship by Lord Fisher, it was obviously essential that British ships of this type should be at least as powerful as those belonging to other nations, in the same way that British ships of earlier type were more powerful. “Hence, as Germany followed us in constructing Dreadnoughts, and her ships equalled, or in some cases’ exceeded, our vessels of similar date in displacement, so we were forced to design ships of a larger size. “It may be as well to state here that the only true criterion of power in a capital ship, or indeed in a ship of any class, is size of displacement, provided, of course, that one may conclude that the designers of ships in different countries are of more or less equal skill. “Some people (of whom Mr. Winston Churchill, when First Lord of the Admiralty, was one) were in the habit Of stating that British ships were of greater power than German ships, because the calibre of the guns was larger, apart altogether from the size of the ships. “But, of course, if in ships of equal displacement British guns were of greater calibre than German guns, more weight being thus expended _ in gun armament, it was obvious that* in some other direction the German ships possessed advantages; and the advantage they did possess was that of far greater protection both in the way of armour above and below water, and in more complete water-tight sub-dlvi-slons below water as protection against torpedo or mine attack.

“This more complete subdivision and under-water protection in German capital ships was facilitated by the greater beam of the ships as compared with that of our own, our vessels being limited in beam by the width of existing docks and the difficulty of persuading our Government to construct new and wider docks. » ♦ * ‘

“Any naval officer who inspected the German ships salved from Scapa Flow when in dock at Rosyth (as I did) could see clearly the immense under-water protection of these ships due to their great beam and wonderfully complete water-tight subdivision. I certainly—as Second Sea Lord before the war—pointed out to Mr. Churchill the fallacy of his arguments,

“It was difficult to ascertain the particulars of the German ships under construction during the years (1908-1911) of my service as Controller. ' More especially did this apply to the German battle-cruisers. “Our vessels of this class built or building consisted of the Invincible class with a displacement of 17,250 tons, and the New Zealand class displacing 18,800 tons. The design of the next ship came under discussion in 1909, and it was at first proposed to built vessels of much the same size as the New Zealand. “Such information as was obtainable from our Intelligence Department was to the effect that the Germans were not exceeding this size. “But secret information reached me from another private source that the hor.Se-power of the projected German ships very largely exceeded that of our earlier battle-cruisers, so the presumption was that the new German vessels must be far larger and more powerful than was anticipated. I accordingly had the design of our new ship (the Lion) altered, her size, armament and horse-power being greatly increased, with a displacement of 26,350 tons. “It was fortunate that this was done, as it turned out that the corresponding German ship, the Moltke, displaced 22,640 tons, whilst the next ship to her, the Seydlitz, displaced 24,610 tons. “My efforts were then devoted to providing our new capital ships with better armour protection than that given to the ships of the Dreadnought, Superb, St Vincent and Hercules classes, where the main armour belt was only 10 t_o 11 inches thick and the upper belt 8 inches thick, which was only carried up to the main deck, the protection of the other parts of the ship being on a similar small scale. In the Orion and King George V. classes the main belt was 12 inches thick and the upper belt 9 inches, the side armour being carried to the upper deck. “Our battle-cruisers, too, of the Invincible and Australia class were very insufficiently protected, with the result as seen at the Battle of Jutland. “Whilst the loss of the Indefatigable and the explosion in the after turret of the Lion were probably due to flash conveyed to the magazines owing to exposure of charges in the ammunition hoists, that of the Queen Mary and Invincible was probably due to the penetration of side or turret armour. “In the Orion class of battleships and the Lion class of battle-cruisers 13.5 in. guns were mounted. The guns were of considerably lower muzzle velocity than the 12in. guns in the preceding capital ships. This enables much greater accuracy to be obtained. The projectiles weighed 12501 b. as compared with 8501 b. for the 12in. In later capital ships mounting 13.5 in. guns the weight of the projectiles was increased to 14001 b. “In order to determine the effectiveness against armoured ships of the shell supplied for the various guns I arranged for extensive Bring trials to be carried out in 1910 against the old battleship Edinburgh, which had been specially prepared by the addition of modern armour plates. “As a result of these trials, before the end of my term of office as Controller, the Ordnance Board were asked on October 18, 1910, to endeavour to produce an armour-piercing shell which would perforate armour at oblique impact and go on in a fit state for bursting. “I found on joining the Admiralty that they had decided to slow down work on the Rosyth. Although I felt it was very necessary to push on with the work, so as to provide us with adequate accommodation on the east coast, in view of the German menace, I could not get this decision altered. “Being anxious about dock accommodation for our battleships, I went into the question of floating docks, with the most helpful aid of Commander D. J. Munro, R.N., then serving at Sheerness Dockyard, and Admiral Nelson Omuianney, Admiral Superintendent at Chatham Yard, who were both great

believers in docks of this nature. The Admiralty Civilian Departments were strongly opposed to the idea. “Whilst the matter was being investigated, I happened to visit Germany to attend the Kiel Regatta, and on my way passed through Hamburg, where there were several large floating docks in use. I visited the largest of these, discussed their use with such people as I met, and was strengthened in my conviction that docks of this nature were very desirable, particularly in war, • since they could be > taken to any suitable fleet base. “As all our existing dock accommodation was nt the vicinity of the English Channel, It was obvious that, with a fleet operating in the North Sea, the question of having, dock accommodation on the East coast pending the completion of the Rosyth dockyard, might be a matter of very great importance. I succeeded in obtaining approval for the construction of two such docks of a size capable of taking our largest battleships. They were moored respectively in the Medway and at Portsmouth. “It was fortuante that this action was taken, as after the outbreak of war one of the docks was towed to Invergordon, and used continually for docking the battleships of the Grand “The royal yacht, Hohenzollem, with the Kaiser and Admiral von Tirpitz on board, arrived shortly after we reached Kiel. I paid my respects to his Majesty, who also showed me much civility, including an invitation to race with him In his yacht; the Meteor, a raee which I enjoyed. “While on board the Meteor with his Majesty the Kaiser our conversation turned to the question of the beam of battleships and the matter of dock accommodation for ships of considerable beam.

“I told his Majesty that I thought that the German Navy were lucky in that they could design ships of greater beam than we could, and thus get Increased under-water protection against mines and torpedoes, whereas we were limited in this respect by the width of our docks and the reluctance of the Government to construct new ones. He remarked that he had adopted the wiser course of first constructing wide docks and afterward building his ships.” Leaving the Admiralty on December 20, 1910, Jellicoe took np the command of the Atlantic Fleet. (To be continued.)