JUTLAND AND ZEEBRUGGE.*

A MOST fascinating book on the Battle of Jutland 1 has been prepared by two naval officers, Mr. Fawcett and Mr. Hooper. They have collected a number of personal narratives by officers and men who were present, and they have arranged and edited these accounts, with many plans and drawings, so as to give an idea of the battle, in its successive phases, as it was seen by those who took part. The book, with seventy-two narratives, was printed privately last spring for the officers and men of the Navy, and it was so well received—three editions being sold out in a few months—that the editors have now given the public the opportunity of buying an abridged edition, with forty-five narra- tives. This will, we are sure, become a naval classic. Most of the accounts, we are told, were written immediately after the battle or from notes taken at the time. They all bear the stamp of truth, and some of them show descriptive power of a high order. All who had relatives or friends at Jutland will know how precious were their first-band descriptions of isolated episodes in the action. It is well to have a large collection of such descriptions placed on record, so that all may know what a modern naval battle is like, and how the officers and men of the British Navy bore themselves in the great fight. The editors rightly avoid any discussion of strategy or tactics. Their task has been to supplement the official reports by giving personal experiences, and to remind the public indirectly that the success of the Navy still depends on the spirit of its officers and men, rather than on its ships and their equipment.

The opening narrative is that of an officer of H.M.S. ' Galatea,' which first sighted the enemy about 2.15 p.m. on May .31st, 1916. ' Galatea,' with other light cruisers, had accompanied the battle-cruisers in a " sweep " to the Bight of Heligoland ; the battle-cruisers had turned for home at 2 p.m., but ' Galatea'

• (1) The Fighting at Jutland. The Personal Experiences of Forty-five Officers and Men of the British Fleet. Edited by H. W. Fawcett, R.N., and G. W. W. Hooper, R.N. With Forty-five Photographs and Numerous Plans and Illustrations by a Naval Officer. London : Macmillan. pls. net.)---(2) The e.hitzg of %Zesbruffit. By. Captain Alfred F. B. Carpenter, V.C., B.N. London : Herbert Jenkins. [lbs. net. was late in receiving the signal and was about to turn when she sighted an enemy destroyer. The narrator sent a wireless message to the battle-cruisers, which turned back again, and thus the battle began. Next we have the report of the flight-lieutenant who went up in a seaplane from ' Engadine' about 3 p.m. and reconnoitred the enemy fleet. The battle-cruiser action is described by officers of ' Princess Royal ' and ' New Zealand,' and then wines a. vivid account of the loss of ' Queen Mary' by Petty Officer Francis, who was one of the few survivors. Petty Officer Francis's story is worthy of Defoe in its terse andlomely style, beginning :— " I had the first dog watch (4.0 to 6.0 p.m.) in the battery so I made arrangements with the Gunner's Mate on watch to send a man down and let me know when it was 3.30 p.m. We lay down and had quite a comfortable sleep, having nothing on our mind to keep us awake. At 3.30 an able seaman came down and said, Petty Officer Francis, it is nearly seven bells.' I thanked him, and said, Anything doing up top r He said ' No.' I got up, took off my jumper, and had a wash in a bucket of water, and just as I had finished I heard in the distance a bugle sound of Action.' I was so surprised that I could hardly believe my ears, but the rush of feet by the door forced it upon me. I took the first hatchway up, and came up to the foremost 4-inch battery, starboard side, and raced for ' X' turret. When I got inside everyone was there. I yelled out Turret's crew, number.' They were correct from- top to bottom, and I reported to the Lieutenant of the Turret. He said, Test loading gear, but for goodness' sake don't let them go too rash.' The loading gear and machinery were tested, and immediately- afterwards mini() the order to load all cages. As soon as the cages were loaded, it was reported to the Transmitting Station, and then cafne the order to load ; the guns were loaded and brought to the half-cock and reported, and then came the order to bring the right gun to the ready, director laying and firing. Shortly after this the first salvo was fired, and we had started on the great game."

Then he goes on to tell us how the fight proceeded until there was " a big smash " :—

" Nos. 2 and 3 of the left gun slipped down under the gun, and the gun appeared to me to have fallen through its trunnions and smashed up these two numbers. Everything in the ship went as quiet as a church, the floor of the turret was bulged up, and the guns were absolutely useless: I must mention here that there was not a sign of excitement. One man turned to me and said, What d you think has happened ? ' I said ' Steady every one, I will speak to Mr. Ewart.' I went back to the cabinet and said, ' What do you think has happened, sir ? ' He said God only knows.' Well, air,' I said, it's no use keeping them all down here, why not send them up round the 4-inch guns, and give them a chance to fight it out. As soon as the Germans find we are out of action they will concentrate on us, and we shall all be going sky high.' He said, ' Yes, good idea. Just see whether the 4-inch guns aft are still standing.' 1 put my head up through the hole in the roof of the turret, and I nearly fell back through again. The after 4-inch battery was smashed right out of all recognition, and then I noticed the ship had an awful list to port. I dropped back inside the turret and told Lieut. Ewart the state of affairs. He said, ' Francis, we can do no more than give them a chance ; clear the turret.' Clear the turret,' I called out, and out they all went. P.O. Stares was the last I saw coming up from the working chamber, and I asked whether he had passed the order to the magazine and shell room, and he told me it was no use, as the water was right up the trunk leading from the shell room, so the bottom of the ship must have been out of her. Then I said, Why didn't you come up ? ' He simply said, ' There was no order to leave the turret.' "

The ship took a heavy list to port, and the narrator crawled to the starboard side, clambered over the slimy bilge keel and fell into the water. After some time he was picked up by a destroyer and happily recovered.

The executive officer of ' Warspite,' in the 5th Battle Squadron, gives a lively picture of the havoc made in the great and complex machine, which a modern battleship is, by a few heavy shells.

Thus,

" While forward was told we had been hit port side aft, so ran aft and found we had been hit under the engineers' office. It looked very bad, as a large triangular piece had been blown out of the top corner of the main belt about a foot above water. The fresh water and oil fuel tanks had been blown to pieces, and everything in an awful state of dust, oil fuel, and mess. Engineers' office completely vanished and deck all bowed upwards. Men trying to plug the hole, knit tons of water were coming in and washing them back all the time. As it was all oil fuel, they looked like a lot of goldfish swimming about. A marine remarked, This will mean a drop of leave.' " An officer of ' Warrior' describes the plucky efforts made to save that battered cruiser, which had come under the concentrated fire of the enemy battle-fleet at " Windy Corner " but had not, like Defence ' and ' Black Prince,' been sunk. But for the presence of Warspite,' he says, Warrior' must have been destroyed at once. She was not abandoned till early next morning, when the was waterlogged and sinking. A aubinarine

officer states that he was patrolling off Horn's Reef on the day and night of the battle, but ho knew nothing about it until he returned home four days later—a fresh reminder that the sea is a very large place and that one cannot judge of naval battles from small maps. The destroyers which took part in the night action provide some admirable narratives. An officer of Spitfire,' for instance, begins by saying that

" the night was dark and in the ' Spitfire ' we had absolutely no idea of where the enemy were and only a very vague idea of the position of our own ships."

A torpedo was fired and hit an enemy ship :-

" She seemed to stop firing, heel over, and all her lights went out ; but instead of the violent explosion we expected to see there appeared a kind of dull red glow, and then fire seemed to spread forard and aft from where she was hit. It struck me as exactly like a large set piece at a firework display ; the fuse being lit, and the fire spreading along from one firework to the next all along the frame."

Then Spitfire' was hit. A friend in the next ship astern said afterwards, " You seemed to disappear with a salvo hitting you amidships, one great sheet of flame." Then an enemy cruiser, probably Elbiug,' tried to ram her :— " She was coming at us full speed across our port bow. The Captain ordered, Hard-a-starboard : full speed ahead both,' and leaning over the bridge screen, shouted, ' Clear the fo'c'sle.' It wasn't a minute too soon, as with an awful crash the two ships mot end on, port bow to port bow, wo steaming almost 27 knots, she steaming not less than 10 knots (perhaps 20 or more). You can imagine how the i-inch plates of a destroyer would feel such a blow. I can recollect a fearful crash, then being hurled across the deck, and feeling the Spitfire' rolling over to starboard as no sea ever made her roll. As we bumped, the enemy opened fire with their fo'c'sle guns, though luckily they could not depress them to hit us, but the blast of the guns literally cleared everything before it. Our foremast came tumbling down, our for and searchlight found its way from its platform above the fore-bridge down to the dock, and the foremost funnel was blown back till it rested neatly between the two foremost ventilation cowls, like the hinging funnel of a penny river steamboat."

Spitfire' was left in an apparently hopeless condition, but she contrived to crawl home safely to the Tyne at six knots. Such are some typical passages from a book that everyone should read. The sober and dispassionate tone of all the narratives is characteristic of the British Navy.

We may briefly commend also the first-hand account of the Zeebrugge exploit= by Captain Carpenter, who commanded Vindictive,' and who took an active part in working out the detailed plans of the enterprise, which was first undertaken at the instance of Lord Jellicoe in November, 1917. Captain Carpenter's exposition of the reasons for the attack on Zeebrugge and of the many difficulties which beset it is a model of lucidity.

The attack, for example, could only be made on a moonless night when the tide was high and the wind was blowing from the north-west so as to facilitate the use of smoke-screens. These conditions were not fulfilled on the first and on the second occasion when the expedition set out from the Thames estuary, but through all the weary weeks of waiting the secret was kept. Captain Carpenter's account of the attack on St. George's Day, 1918, is an admirable piece of writing. He shows how gallantly Vindictive's ' company, with the men from ' Iris ' and Daffo-

dil,' pressed the assault on the mole, in spite of very grave diffi- culties that could not have been foreseen. It is to be noted that he does not attempt to describe in detail what happened on the mole itself. The attack was, as he insists, a subsidiary affair, made chiefly to divert the attention of the enemy from the three block-ships which steamed into the harbour and sank themselves across the entrance to the Bruges canal, thus prevent. ing it from being used by the enemy submarines. The material results of the Zeebrugge affair were considerable, but the moral results were far greater. At a critical moment in the Western campaign, the British public was cheered by the news of Zee- brugge, while the enemy were bewildered and depressed. Captain Carpenter's book is well illustrated with photographs and charts,

and will be a standard authority for one of the most gallant exploits in our naval history.