Sir Erie Geddes, as we expected, was able to explain
clearly why the fast German cruisers which destroyed the Scandinavian convoy on October 17th were able to escape scot-free. Their first shot by ill-luck destroyed the Strongbow's wireless room, and another fatal shot struck the magazine of the-' Mary Rose.' A small armed vessel which was equipped with wireless had dropped behind to protect a laggard merchantman. No other ship in the convoy had wireless, and the Admiralty thus knew nothing of the affair until the vessels which escaped reached Lerwick, thirteen home, after- wards. The Navy had convoyed four thousand five hundred vessels in safety to and from Scandinavia since ApriL This convoy was the first to suffer misfortune. In the Atlantic convoys only ono vessel in every two hundred had been lost.• In reply to the suggestion, originating more probably in Berlin than in Petrograd, that we should send a fleet into the Baltic, Sir Eric Geddes said that it would be "an act of madness," having regard to "the certainty that the Germans would occupy and fortify" the Danish islands commanding the Sound and the Belt.
Previous page
