WIPED OUT

Evening Post, Volume CXIII, Issue 10, 13 January 1932, Page 7

WIPED OUT

YON SPEE'S: SHIPS

THE FALKLAND BATTLE

HOW IT WAS FOUGHT

With the dawn of Sth December, 1314, German warships stood in to the Falkland Islands—and to death. They belonged to Count yon Spec's pirateer squadron, tho little fleet that had destroyed thousands of tous of Allied shipping in the Pacific, says a writer in the"Cape Times." .For months yon Spec had carried on his cruiser war. He had wiped out Cradock's ships off Coronel, and now he -had decided' on a, bold stroke —an attack on an important British naval base. To the Giieisenau and the Nurnbcrg he assigned the work of destruction. The first officer of tho Gncisenau that fateful morning was Captain Hans Pochhammer; The story of the battle and of the event's which had preceded it. he has now:set down in ai book, "Before Jutland.''. At five o'clock the armoured cruiser, Gneisenau, and her light cruiser companion made for Port Stanley. Yon Spec's flagship, the armoured •■ cruiser Scharnhorst, and the. light cruisers Dresden and-Leipzig, remained to cover the action sonic; distance from the ■':■ harbour. As the raiders approached the land that hid the roadstead "columns of dark yellow smoko began-to ascend as. if stores were being destroyed." Disillusionment came quickly. Officers of. tho Gneisenau realised that: warships were hidden behind the land and'the smoke. They thought that they could niako out two, four, and then six ships, and wirelessed the news to the Sehnrnhorst. Yon Spec ordered the suspension of the operations and flight. ' .■-..... NO ESCAPE. i'light-was of no avail. The British ivere in full pursuit, and towards noon the fast .and-powerfulrbattle cruisers, Invincible and Inflexible, were only 18,500 yards away from the German ships. . Further back were other , bruisers'and the Germans' could see.the , smoke of other vessels leaving harbour to destroy their transports. . Yon- Spec dismissed his light cruisers in the hope that they'would escape. Quickly the smaller British ships turned after them. "The Nurnbcrg arid" the Leipzig were overtaken and sunk later in the day.^ ' The' Dresden escaped but was .found and.destroyed tho following March. : i 'Meanwhile the Seharnhorst and Gneisenau ■were left alone with; the In- ■ vincible, flying the flag of Vice-Admiral /.- Sir Doveton Sturdee, and the Inflexible. ; Even before the German cruisers had fled the. British , had .opened fire with their-12-irich guns tit 17,250 yards. Tho extreme range of the . 8.2-inch guns of the, German armoured cruisers was 16,500 yards and just after 1 o'clock ' the Scbardhorst fired her first broadside - at that. ' distance."' .Fighting at this. '; range was fatal for yon Spec; his ships ■were being' battered' by an uninjured enemy,; ''With difficulty" ho ; bore down to within 12,000 yards of tho British ships. ' . . . ' * : "The English admiral must then have remarked the better effect of our artillery, for at th 6 en<T of three-quar-ters of ;an hour's fighting he wheeled to the north. ... Yon Spec did not follow'him, but wheeled: to the south, whence one might expect bad weather to come." ■ -. . !The;Gormans used the interval to repair damages and attend to Svounded. But Sturdee did not leave them long :.alpne.,; : Ho wheeled again and slowly but surely gained on them. , At'lß,soo v •yards.. the;: British opened fire, -and at ■•■ 2.30,-when the lines were 16,250 yards apart,-the battle began again. "Again we tried, to shorten the dis- ' tance," says. Captain Ppchhamnier. '.'But 'this* time the enemy was careful1 not;to 'let.' us approach him, and we knew that we were in for a battle.of ': extermination.", ■'. •■.; :■'. ■ • >.-,■.-.-.■ - V TO THE BOTTOM. , ships' were now in a bad •way. The Seharnhors.t^lay.deeper than tisual; and;heeled slightly to the larboard.1. She' was: holed,and holed by: tfihaH-'of British shells. , "The admiral must ha;ve felt that his ' Ship was. nearing her end. Just as he !had previously;..sacrificed his..armoured -to' save': nis> light •■ cruisers,, so' !" ■he'purposed to sacrifice the Scharnhorst r to.save the Gneisenau. Determined to fight-as lpng as he could, fight, ana in this way1 facilitate'the escape of our ship,'he swung round to the enemy on .the starboard in tho hope of damaging him by firing torpedoes. A grave but ' splendid decision!" ■The Scharnhorsfr's • fate : then was (■eenled; Soon afterwards she sank, ' •taking yon Spee,to the depths with her. And the- Gneisenau was left only a brief ' .interval'before1 she followed her leader* •Left to.fight the.lnvincible and the Inflexible, and anarinoured cruiser which 'had come up from behind, she had no hope. .'•'... , Of-tlie 2200 officers and men of the jSfcharnhorst, Gneisenau, Kurriberg, a.nd ; 'Ljepzig, only 215 were . saved. The -British casualties-were seven,killed and - wounded.: ;.'; '. Coronel had been avenged.' There, too, it' had'been.an unequal'contest,..witt 'the weakef -ships silhouetted against the afterglow'of the sunset and all :tbe bias against'them. ' Ora'dock^s .-flagship* the' Good Hope, and another ! arm on red cruiser, th c Monmouth, Avere :BunVi. The light cruiser, Glasgow, and Ahe firmed jiner, Otranto, escaped, while the other ship of the squadron, the obsolete battleship, ■ Ganopus, had dropped behind for repairs. ahd; ;was.notin \ the fight. ' ■■•'..■■ ■■•.'■. : ' Captain Pochhammer has an axe to ■grind, and he grinds it with no mean 'vigour. The English, as a nation, were, in.his. eyes,'the, hateful authors of the war,' grasping Imperialists who would not allow anybody or anything, to stand in their way.. ; . . ''-'•'At the same time, he-is ever ready, to; pay tribute to them individually as sailors and to their determination to preserve •■■their ■ .''sacrosanct •,sovereignty" of the seas. NOT INSULTED. ..,-■•, , ■When allowance is'made for the 'author's'national prejudice^ the one big blemish of his book is his attack upon Sturdee. The latter, he alleges, once insulted him by trying to force him"'to drink the. toast of the King. Sturdee's adherence to tlie invariable custom of proposing the toast' may have given Captain Pochhammer a wrong impression, but hia statement that an ./attempt was made to force him to honour it is given the lie direct by officers of ■ the Invincible r and Inflexible who were present. ~'"•■ 'Not haying been on yon Spec's staff, Captain Pochhamnier cannot be expected to reveal the real reason for the ' decision to attack the Falklands. And, a? thero were no survivors from the • Soharnhorst, it will probably never be kiffiwn. ..■".- ■" ..'' ■ ;;•, .■ .' . .,': The British- story is that the German admiral fell into-a clever trap. A wiro- ; -less messago was sent out telling the «.; : Canopus to go ta'Port Stanley, where ijishe/would be \safe, as the new guns for the forts had arrived. 'As bad been intended, the message was intercepted by tho Germans, who regarded the talk: of'new guns as nonsense—as it was— arid thought that the Cfinopus would be lying in port an easy prey. Yon Spec, therefore, decided to destioy both her and the Falklands wireless station. Instead, he met the powerful British ships which had come secretly half across the globe to annihilate • him,- ~. ,