Part Two: Opening Shots and Blockades
Hostilities in earnest began in the Pacific on 5 August when a landing party from Spee’s Gneisnau descended on the island of Tout Compris, a sleepy French colony in the Caroline Islands. German sailors comprehensively wrecked the wireless station, though not before a the attendants had time to transmit a brief SOS call. The island’s main industry, a coconut oil refinery, and several warehouses, were all set ablaze before the Germans withdrew to their ship without a shot being fired.
SS Matheran, the first merchant ship captured in the campaign.
Meanwhile, Nurnberg detained the British merchant steamer SS Matheran, carrying livestock and machine parts en route to South Africa. Her master, Percy FitzPatrick, did not know that war had been declared, and found himself en route to Rabaul in the custody of a prize crew. As FitzPatrick recalled, “spending three months at Rabaul weren’t a hardship, we was treated decently and them island girls were pretty, but we got a bit tired of all that fruit”.
Spee gave specific instructons to the Ensign Emil Brunner, the prize commander, to establish a liason with the governor of Rabaul and update the squadron on developments. An enterprising young officer, Brunner removed the wireless set from Matheran and had it lugged to the top of a volcanic peak, where he and his men could see for miles and report to Von Spee. Brunner would play a small role in the sea battle that occurred off Rabaul, but more of that later.
Mount Kombiu, the site of Brunner's observation post.
By the time Jerram’s China Squadron arrived to blockade Tsingtao on 6 August, his lookouts found the harbour devoid of masts or funnel smoke. “The partridges have flown!” Jerram remarked to his flag captain. His mood was not made better by a signal from the First Lord ordering him to proceed to the Carolines and investigate the French distress signal, an order that he found disruptive to his own plans. King Hall meanwhile did not wait for the arrival of Swiftsure but reached Dar es Salaam on August 5, where he also found nothing to blockade. The Koenigsberg had sailed days earlier. Coded wireless messages from the German port commanders informed the German ships at sea that their safe havens were now denied to them.
The first instance of inter-allied cooperation occured when the IJN Chikuma arrived August 8 off Tsingtao, where Captain Tatsuo went aboard the British flagship Triumph to liase with Admiral Jerram. It was agreed that Tatsuo would follow Triumph and Jerram’s light cruisers to the Carolines, while Hampshire and Minotaur woujld remain on blockade. What Tatsuo did not reveal was that the Japanese government would soon declare war on Germany, with an eye to seizing Tsingtao for the Emperor,
Admiral King Hall had likewise been giving thought to how he might communicate with his allies. Before leaving Simonstown, he had a Russian speaking tailor summoned aboard and essentially press-ganged. As King Hall remembered, “We referred to him as ‘Mr Stroganoff’ and had rations and quarters provided for him, but were never sure how we would explain this expense to the Admirality”
The Russians meanwhile had arrived at a Japanese naval station in the Bonin Islands, and were receiving a frosty reception from the commander there, until Jerram’s squadron along with IJN Chikuma arrived on 10 August. At a conference aboard Triumph, Jerram, Tatsuo and Ivanov met to coordinate their efforts. Jerram’s staff officer, Commander Wittering, recalled that “The Russian and Japanese officers were very cool to one another, it was clear that they had unfinished business, but Admiral Jerram did his best to play the bluff old sea dog and jolly them along.” At the end of the conference, it was agreed that the Russians would patrol north of the Carolines, while the British and Japanese would work the southern sea zones. It was the first attempt by any allied commanders to coordinate their efforts, though coordination would prove to be a perennial problem for them.
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