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CHAPTER XXXIX

RAIDS ON THE ENGLISH COAST

During the first days of November, 1914, the Germans planned and carried out a general surprise for the British navy.  After the battle in the Bight of Helgoland, back in August, the British thought that Germany would continue to keep her navy within the protection of her coast defenses, perhaps forever.  But such was not her intention.

On the afternoon of November 2,1914, there gathered off some part of Germany’s northern shore a squadron consisting of the battle cruisers Von der Tann, Seydlitz, and Moltke, the protected cruisers Kolberg, Strassburg, and Graudenz, the armored cruisers Yorck and Bluecher, together with some destroyers.  The slowest of these vessels could make a speed of 25 knots, and the fastest, the Graudenz and Moltke, could make 28 knots.  The guns of the Bluecher were the heaviest in the squadron, those of her primary battery being 12-inch cannon.  Ten-inch guns were on the decks of the other ships.

The first that the rest of the world knew of the gathered force was at evening, November 2, 1914, when a fleet of British fishermen hailed them with friendly signs, thinking them British ships, not far from Lowestoft some time after six o’clock.  The fishermen started at once for their home ports in order to apprise the British authorities, but they had not gone far when the news was flashed to the British admiralty office from the wireless room of the British gunboat Halcyon.  But only the first few words of the warning were able to get through, for the wireless operators on the German ships “jammed” their keys, and a few shots from the German guns were sufficient to bring down the wireless apparatus of the gunboat as well as one of her funnels.  She turned off and made for her home port to report the news some hours later.

It was only ten miles from the British shores that the Halcyon had sighted the German ships, but they were able, nevertheless, to elude all British warships in those regions and proceeded to Yarmouth, firing at the wireless station, the naval yards, and the town itself.  Fearing mines near the coast, the German commander did not attempt to come in too close, with the result that many of the German shots fell short, and, in spite of the fact that the bombardment lasted for nearly half an hour, the damage done by them was not great.

The inhabitants of the towns of Lowestoft and Yarmouth were asleep in the early hours of the morning when they first heard the booming of the German guns.  In the darkness of the British winter they hurriedly went down to the water front, where, far out at sea, they could make out faintly the hull of but one vessel, but the red flashes from the booming guns showed that other ships were present.  The crowds on the shore