THE GREAT WAR.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXIV, Issue 19558, 10 February 1927, Page 13

THE GREAT WAR.

jCHUECHILL'S MEMOIRS.

DUEL OF BATTLE-CRUISERS.

•BRITISH LOSSES AT OUTSET.

HIGH SEA FLEET IN ACTION. THE RIGHT HON. WINSTON CHURCHILL. (Copyright—By arrangement with the Times, London.) No. IV. The combat of the battle-cruisers which preceded the encounter of the main fleets off Jutland is a self-contained episode. Both admirals, tactics apart, wished for a trial of strength and quality. Human beings have never wielded so resolutely guch tremendous engines or such intense organisations of destruction. The most powerful guns ever used, the highest explosives ever devised, the fastest and the largest ships of war ever launched, the cream of the officers and men of the British and the German nations, all that the martial science of either navy could achieve—clashed against each other in this rigorous though intermittent duel.

Both sides deliberately converged to effective striking distance. Fire was opened by the Lutzow and answered by the Lion a little after a quarter to four. Each ship engaged its respective antagonist. As there were six British to five German battle-cruisers, the Lion and the Princess Iloyal were able to concentrate on the enemy's flagship, Lutzow. The chances of tho batttle on either side led to discfep«ndes in the selection of targets, and sometimos two British ships were firing at one German, while another was ignored, or vice versa. Two minutes after the great guns had opened fire at'about 14,000 yards the Lion was hit twice, and the third salvo of the Princess Royal struck tho Lutzow. On both sides ;:our guns at a time were fired, and at every discharge four shells, each weighing about half a ton, smote target or water in a volley. In the first 37 minutes of an action which lasted above two hours, one-third of the British force was destroyed. Two Ships out of Si* Lost. At four o clock the Indefatigable, after 12 minutes at battery with the Von der Tann, hit by three simultaneous shells from a salvo of four, blew up and sank almost without survivors.

Twenty-six minutes later the Queen Marj, smitten amidships by a plunging salvo from the Derfflingcr, burst into flame*, capsized, and, after 30 seconds, exploded into a pillar of smoke which rose 800 ft. in the air, bearing with it for 200 ft, such items as a 50ft, steamboat. ,

The Tiger and the New Zealand, following her at the speed of an ordinary train, and with only 500 yds. between them, had barely time to sheer off port and starboard to avoid her wreck. The Tiger passed through the smoke cloud black as night, and her gunnery officer, unable to fire, took advantage of the pitch-darkness to reset to zero the director controls of his four turrets. Meanwhile the Lion, after being eight minutes in action, was hit on her midship turret (Q) by a shell which, but for a sublime act of personal devotion and comprehension, would have been fatal.

Meanwhile, tho vice-admiral, pacing the bridge among the shell fragments rebounding from the water, and, like Nelson of old, in the brunt of the enemy's fire, has learned shat the Indefatigable and the Queen Mary have been destroyed, and that his own magazines are menaced by fire. It is difficult to compare sea with land war • - But each battle-cruiser was a unit comparable at least to a complete infantry division. Two divisions out of his six had been annihilated in the twinkling of an eye. The enemy whom he could not defeat with six ships to five are now five ships to four. Far away all five German battle-cruisers—-grey smudgos changing momentarily into "rippling sheets of flame"—are still intact and seemingly invulnerable.

Beatty Takes Conqueror's View. \ "Nevertheless," proceeds the official narrative, "tho squadron continued its course undismayed." But the movement of these blind, inanimate castles of steel was governed at this moment entirely by the spirit of a single man. Had he faltered, had ho taken less than a conqueror's view of the British lighting chances, all these great engines of sea power and war power would have wobbled off in meaningless disarray. This is a moment on which British naval historians will be glad to dwell; and the plain facts deserve to be recorded. The Indefatigable had disappeared beneath tho waves. The Queen Mary had towered up to heaven in a pillar of fire. The Lion was in flames. A tremendous salvo struck upon or about- her following ship, the Princess Royal, which vanished in a cloud of spray and smoke. A signalman sprang on to the Lion's bridge with the words: "Princess Royal blow up, sir." On this the vice-admiral said to his flag captain : "Chatfield, there seems to be something wrong with our ships to-day. Turn two points to port"—i.e., two points nearer the enemv.

Thus the crisis of the battle was surmounted. All the German damage was done in the first half-hour. As the action proceeded the British battle-cruis-ers, although reduced to an inferiority in numbers, began to assert- an ascendance over the German fire. Their guns became increasingly effective, and they themselves received no further serious inmjury. German Battleships Appear.

At 4.33 tha Southampton, Commodore Goodenougn's flagship, sighted the head of the long line of German battleships drawing out upon the horizon, and sigthe magic words, "Battleships in sight. Almost as soon as the reports oi the light cruisers had reached the i-ion, Beatt-y himself sighted the High Fleet. He grasped the situation instantly. \\ ithout losing a moment he Jed his remaining four ships round in a complete turn and steamed directly back along Ills course toward Jellicoe. Hipper, now in touch ' with Scheer, turned immediately afterwards in the £ame direction. The situation of the two admirals was thus exactly reversed: Beatty tried, to lead Hipper and the German Battle Fieet up to Jellicoe; Hipper pursued his retreating foe without knowing that he was momentarily approaching the British Grand Fieet. In P^ ase 0I * the action, which is called The Run'to the North," firing was continued by the battle-cruisers on both sides. The light was now far more favourable to the British, and the German battle-cruisers suffered severely from their fire.

On righting the main Genrtan Fleet, Beattv had turned about so swiftly that his ships soon passed the- Fifth Battlf» Squadron coming up at full speed and still on its southerly course. As the two squadrons ran past each other on opposite courses, the Lion signalled to the Barto turn about in succession. The Lion s signal of recall was flovm at 4.48. Ar ' e passed the Barham two miles away

with this signal flying, at 4.53; and RearAdmiral Evan Thomas responded to the signal three or four minutes later. PerVaps the rear-admiral, having Been slow in coming into action, was inclined to be slow in coming out. Brief as was this interval, it was sufficient at the speed at which all the ships were moving to expose tho Fifth Battle Squadron to action with the van of the German Battle Fleet. The van was formed by the German Third Squadron, comprising the Konigs and the Kaisers, the strongest and newest vessels in the German Navy. The four Qucon Elizabeths were now subjected to tremendous fire concentrated particularly upon the point where each turned in succession.

The two leading ships, the Barham and tho Valiant, were engaged with the enemy's battle-cruisers; the rear ships, the Warspite and the Malaya, fought the whole of the finest squadron in the German Fleet This apparently unequal conflict lasted for over half an hour. All the ships except the Valiant were struck repeatedly with the heaviest shells, the Warspite alone receiving 13 hits and the Malaya seven. Such, however, was the strength of these vessels that none of their turrets was put out of action and their speed was wholly unaffected. All the main forces were now fast drawing together, and all converged and arrived upon the scene in one great movement. Every ship was moving simultaneously, and after an almost unperceived interval, the duel of the battle-cruisers merged in the preliminaries of a general

(To be continued Daily),