The Fictitious History of Swan of the East, a 1914 Naval Wargame, End and Epilogue

Note: This is the final chapter in an account of a game that happily dominated my life for much of last year.  It was great fun and I am indebted to the players who were the authors of this story, which I just edited and lightly embellished.   Many of the characters, players and NPCs, became quite real to me and I couldn't resist adding an epilogue at the end to imagine what became of them.  If you've read this far, thank you for following along.  Cheers,  Michael

Part Seven:  The Luck of the Emden

Before war came to these waters, everyone knew of Emden.  Her crew referred to her as “The Swan of the East”, and the name was well deserved,  Graceful and fast, with her crack crew, she turned heads in every port of call.   Slim, correct, and dapper, Kapitan Muller was well known as a good host, and his wardroom was often full of visiting officers and grandees of all nations.

SMS Emden, "The Swan of the East"

As a raider, she lived a charmed life.  Whereas her colleagues captured ships bearing cargoes of grains, livestock, and machine parts, Emden captured not one but two merchants carrying luxury goods.   Georg Heintzelman, a gunner, quipped that “We could scarcely move through the gangways or along upper decks without tripping over crates of whiskey”.  

In the last week of August, prowling around the Philippines, Emden captured four merchant ships, including the Sophie, out of Southhampton, full of luxury products for high end shops in Australia.    A handsome grandfather clock soon adorned Emden’s wardroom, and many sailors chose fancy dresses and frocks in the hopes that they could be posted home to sweethearts.  On 18 September she intercepted the Manxman, whose holds included boxes of fine Cuban cigars.    Heintzelman again:   “For a few days, clouds of blue cigar smoke competed with the smoke from our funnels”.

To be sure, Emden took her share of risks.  On 16 August, she was moving through the islands of the Dutch East Indies accompanied by her prize, the Diplomat, whenshe encountered the light cruiser HMAS Sydney.   The prize crew steered an evasive course opposite to that of Emden, and Captain Glossop of the Sydney was later asked by the Admiralty to explain why he did not use his superior speed to pursue Emden and secure the prize later.    His answer, that he prioritized the freedom of British merchant sailors, was considered weak but was allowed to stand given the successful outcome of the campaign.

Emden had a more remarkable escape on 2 September, when she was hiding in a secluded cove on the Siamese coast, her crew laboriously transferring coal from the captured Sophie.  Another prize, the St Osmund, was anchored nearby.   A small passenger ship, St Osmund's manifest included four Royal Navy officers, two young midshipmen, a paymaster, and the afore mentioned Commander the Rt Hon Sykes Willoughby.   As one of the midshipmen, Timothy Jukes, remembered, “The Hun were quite decent, we were taking air and exercising above decks aft.  It was overcast and had rained earlier, but suddenly all was in commotion.”

Captain Muller had wisely posted lookouts on a high promotory above the cove, with a good view seaward, and they gave the signal by bugle and flag that warships were approaching.  Seaman Heintzelman recalled that “We were fortunate that the old man had ordered us to keep up steam just in case.   Some of us cut ropes to the Sophie while the rest of the coaling detail scrambed aboard.   Anyone who was free raced below to shovel coal.     Ensign Meyer and a clerk got the anchor up and I remember seeing our two cooks helping Torps get the tarps off the torpedo tubes.

Midshipman Timothy Jukes, who escaped from the Emden.

Jukes saw his chance and took it.  “At first our guard was confused and then tried to herd us below, but the Commander was giving him stick and so I did a swan dive, hoping I’d miss the propellers which were just starting to turn.    I suppose the guard decided it wasn’t worth a shot, so i made it to the beach just as the two Hun signalman stumbled out of the jungle and watched their ship departing.   They ignored me, and eventually I was picked up.  It was all rather exciting”.  Anxious to make a hero early in the war, and eager to disguise the escape of Emden, Churcill saw that Jukes received the Conspicuous Gallantry Medal.   Jukes went on to command a destroyer with some distinction.

HMAS Sydney was approaching from the north, in company with the armoured cruiser Duke of Edinburgh, their suspicious aroused by the smoke visible from the cove, which was still sheltered from their view by the surrounding heights. Captain Glossop and his bridge crew could scarce believe their eyes as Emden glided into view and turned south, rapidly working to flank speed.   Glossop ordered fire from the forward 6” gun but the Emden was just out of range.   The chase continued for an hour, both ships straining their boilers to the utmost, but finally Glossop called off the pursuit, concerned about the gathering rainsqualls, and their rudimentary charts which did not have all the local reefs marked.    He returned to the cove, where Edinburgh was taking stock of the situation and reassuring the passengers of St Osmund.

Aboard Emden that night, the mood in the wardroom was one of nervous relief but sadness, as they toasted the absence of their Second Officer and Ensign who were lost with a dozen men of the prize crew (in fact they would make good their escape in a commandeered boat and after a long hike through the jungle, made their return to Germany on an American tramp steamer).  In his memoir, von Mücke, the Executive Officer recalled that Captain Muller, who loved amateur theatre, was saddened that the variety show planned for the next night would not go ahead.  “A pity about Ensign Franck, he had a lovely falsetto”.

Emden’s luck held course on the night of 11 October when she was discovered around 23:00 hrs by the patrolling armoured cruiser Duke of Edinburgh.  Due to heavy rain and darkness, both ships encountered one another suddenly and at close range, and opened fire almost simultaneously,  Emden launching a torpedo.     Captain Danvers of the Edinburgh appears to have drawn the worst possible conclusion, that it was a heavier German vessel (Moltke fever still seems to have been infectious) and veered away after taking a penetrating hit to her engine spaces.   Muller, undamaged, thanked his copious lucky stars and made another escape.   Subsequent inspection revealed that a boiler space had been destroyed and a dozen men working there killed, leading Danvers to signal that he was making for Hong Kong and repairs.    Sam Weller, Admiral Jerram’s steward, recalled that “There were some broken crockery when Old Man read that particular signal, I can tell you”.    A subsequent Board of Inquiry held Danvers at fault for not engaging and destroying Emden, despite his damage, though reduced to half speed as she was, it is not clear that Edinburgh could have accomplished this.

It was about this time that the Norwegian merchant Gudrun arrived in Manila with an extraordinary story to tell.   She had been, as Captain Muller slyly put it, “borrowed” to accompany Emden and at length she was sent on her way along with the captive crews of several vessels, including the three Royal Navy officers taken of St Osmund.   Sven Trygvasson, Gudrun’s master, recalled that “The night before we parted company, the Germans treated us to a variety show, that had us laughing and crying at the cruel fate that makes ordinary seamen foes.”   Heintzelman of Emden recalled that “The English midshipman had a lovely boy soprano, and treated us all to his rendition of “It’s a Long Way to Tipperary”.   There was not a dry eye in the house.”

Emden's variety troupe.

Muller knew from interrogating prisoners that there was now a massive dragnet looking for him, and he took the bold decision to make for Rabaul, which he knew, thanks to coded signals from the enterprising Ensign Brunner, was incredibly not blockaded.  Emden arrived on 20 October, resupplied, and embarked all German personnel willing to leave with him fr South America.  He also found Von Spee’s collier Markomania, and put Brunner in command.   Muller could see that with only a handful of marines and some native levies, the German governor had no chance to resist a determined assault.   In fact, such an expedition was at that moment being prepared in Cairns, after a long wrangle about whether a British or Australian officer would command the expedition.   This impasse was settled by a compromise which gave command to Captain Juares of the French navy.    

Emden’s last day in port was marked by a pig roast on the beach and another concert.  On the night of October 28th, she left port accompanied by Markomania, and in a final display of luck, slipped between the patrolling ships of Jerram’s squadron.  In late November, Emden arrived in Valparaiso, where she was soon blockaded by ships of Admiral Craddock’s squadron.    Her engines badly worn, Muller agreed to have his crew interned.   On 1 November, the French ships Dupleix and Montcalm led the Australian landing force into the harbour at Rabaul, where the German garrison surrended without a shot.     Wearing his best uniform, Captain Juares had the French tricolour raised, but the surrender ceremony was delayed until someone could at last find a sword for the governor to hand over to Juares.   

Thus ended the Great War in the Pacific.     The German press had much to boast of: the chivalry of its captains, the brief weeks of terror that had gripped mercantile firms from Capetown to San Francisco, and the loss of Royal Navy ships including the proud Australia.  Indeed, the sympathy for the Germans in the neutral press, particularly the cult of the Emden, may have had some influence on delaying America’s entry into the war.  However, the Lords of the Admiralty knew better.    A crack German squadron had been sunk or bottled up.    Irreplaceable crews and talents, including Von Spee, would no longer trouble the Royal Navy.   Mercantile traffic soon resumed.   The vital Imperial Convoys had not been disrupted.  Victory, however blemished, is still victory.

While Churchill privately fumed that Admiral Jerram had let Emden escape, and indeed the failure to blockade Rabaul indicates the lack of command and control among the allied forces, he could be satisfied with the final result.   Indeed, Jerram had already been decorated and fêted in the press as “The Hero of the Macassar Strait”, so it would have been difficult to make him a scapegoat.    Jerram, by now practically an invalid, was given command of the West Indies squadron.   

Churchill’s hostile relationship with Admiral Patey only ended when he was removed as First Lord, and Beatty, who admired Patey’s fighting spirit, chose him for command of a battle cruiser squadron.   Admiral King Hall accepted a knighthood and command of training establishments ashore in England, a post that he threw himself into.    In addresses to young sailors, he liked to say that he had begun his career in the topmasts of sailing ships, and had lived to watch seaplanes loaded with bombs hunting for the Koenigsberg.    

The allied naval contingents had all done well and burnished the reputations of their respective nations.  Admiral Ivanov in particular was celebrated in the Russian press for his capture of Eitel Friedrich and was given command of the Vladivastock squadron.    The Emperor of Japan could enjoy his new property in Tsingtao, and the Imperial Japanese Navy knew that they were now peers of the celebrated Royal Navy.    Captain Juares accepted his Croix de Guerre on behalf of his ships, and never failed to tell the press what he could have done had he been unleashed by Les Rosbifs.   As for those surviving Germans who fought on in Africa or who languished in captivity or internment, they could tell themselves that they had met Der Tag and won glory, even though glory alone does not command the sealanes.

Epilogue:  What Became of Them?

Ensign Brunner:  Escaped internment in Chile and made his way back to Germany where he commanded a submarine with distinction.   After the war became an ardent Nazi.  A UBoat ace in the Second World War, his boat was last seen leaving Brest in 1943, and his fate remains unknown.

Winston Churchill:  Took credit for the conduct of the naval war in the Pacific, except for the parts where he blamed others.   Went on to become rather famous.

Captain Glossop:  His career never prospered because of his failures to sink the Emden.  Left the navy after the war and became a shoe salesman in Brisbane.

Admiral King Hall: become a beloved mentor to a generation of officer cadets during and after the war, often called “the grandaddy of the Royal Navy”.   After serving as Governor General of Trinidad and Tobago, he published his memoirs and settled down on his family estate in Shropshire.

Admiral Jerram:  Commanded the West Indies Squadron with his headquarters in Bermuda, but spent most of his time ashore being treated for his war wound suffered at the Macassar Strait.  Died of the Spanish Influenza in 1919.

Captain Juares:   Became an Admiral but never decided who he hated more, the British or the Germans.   During World War Two he commanded the last holdout Vichy garrison in Tunisia, and chose to surrender to an lone American sergeant in a jeep rather than surrender to the British Eighth Army.  His memoirs, The Meaninglessness of My Life At Sea, are today regarded as an existentialist classic.

Timothy Jukes:   Commanded a destroyer and won the Victoria Cross at Zeebrugge for his coolness under fire.   In the next war led destroyer flotillas at Narvik and in the Mediterranean, won a second Victoria Cross for his actions during the Pedestal convoy to Malta.  Ended the war as a Rear Admiral and served in the House of Commons.

Admiral Ivanov:   During the Russian Civil War, commanded the White Russian forces in Siberia, in 1920 died in combat fighting the Reds.

Capitain Loof:  Survived the war as one of Lettow Von Vorbeck’s ablest commanders.  Never returned to Germany and ran a successful safari business in Kenya.   His memoirs, The Pirate Turned Lion Tamer, became a bestseller and was turned into a silent movie by G.W. Pabst.

Captain Muller:  Also never returned to Germany.   After the war he and some of his theatre loving Emden colleagues settled in Rio de Janeiro and opened a nightclub called The Raider which attained fame for its variety shows.  The musician son of one of his officers, Stanislaus Von Getz, changed his name, moved to America, and introduced the Bossa Nova sound to world audiences.

First Officer Mundt:  After being a prisoner of war in Siberia, he was a successful hotel manager in Singapore and Shanghai.   He sheltered numerous Chinese from the Japanese and is credited with saving many lives.   Was arrested by Mao’s Communists in 1949 and never seen again.

Admiral Patey:  Was given command of the 2nd Battle Cruiser Squadron of the Grand Fleet under Admiral Beatty.    His flagship, Invincible, was last seen at Jutland signalling “Let’s go fuck up those German bitches” shortly before she exploded and sank with all hands.

Captain Tatsuo:   Enjoyed a rapid rise through the Imperial Japanese Navy. Commanded a cruiser squadron in the Pacific, decorated for his actions at Guadalcanal, and survived the Second World War to become the first commander of the postwar Japanese naval forces.

Captain Thierichens:   Spent the rest of the war as a prisoner in Siberia, where he became an increasingly bitter opponent of the Kaiser.  Following the Treaty of Brest Litovsk he was repatriated to Germany and became a ringleader in the German naval revolt of 1918.  Fled Germany for Canada and became a captain on Great Lakes ore freighters.

 

The Fictitious History of Swan of the East, a 1914 Naval Wargame, Part Six

 Part Six:  The Raiders Run To Ground

As the weeks went on, each German captain realized that their days were surely numbered.  The difficulties in finding coal and managing prize ships have already been described.   Also, and unbeknownst to the Germans, the Allied forces were only growing stronger.   The Japanese battlecruiser Ibuki and the French armoured cruiser Montcalm reinforced their compatriots. while several armed merchant cruisers (converted passenger liners) joined the Royal Navy forces.   By mid September, freed up by the capture of Tsingtao, the Imperial Japanese Navy assumed patrol duties in the northern Pacific, allowing the allies to focus more on likely areas around Indonesia, the Philiippines, and the Solomons.  The noose was slowly tightening, and in mid September the Allies achieved two key victories.

The first victory came, paradoxically, in the form of a defeat.  Once he realized that blockading Dar Es Salaam was a fruitless business, Admiral King Hall, now reinforced by several modern cruisers, could focus elsewhere.  He prepared to take over escort duties for the ANZAC convoy, faithfully shepherded by Admiral Patey’s squadron, and also knew that the Indian Army was preparing an expedition to seize the German haven of Dar Es Salaam.    

King Hall had stationed two of his oldest ships, the protected cruisers Astraea and Pegasus, in the Mozambique Channel should Koenigsberg attempt to flee south from her profitable hunting ground in the Bay of Bengal.   As fate had it, this was exactly Captain Loof’s intention, and at 00:45 hrs on September 19th, off the coast of Madagascar, a sharp-eyed German lookout spotted two ships in line abreast,  identifying them as British light cruisers, which flashed a demand for a recognition signal.   Fearing that he could not outrun these ships, and relying on German night fighting skills, Loof hoisted his battle ensign, turned broadside to the enemy, turned on his searchlights and opened fire at medium range, scoring at least three hits with his 10.5 cm guns.

HMS Astraea visiting Hong Kong before the war.

The lead ship was in fact HMS Astraea and her exact fate is unknown.  She was not observed to fire, but in the words of one German witness, “Staggered out of line and rapidly began to heel over”.  Presumably she experienced some sort of catastrophic flooding.   Astern of her, Lt. Oliver Burne-Lee of Pegasus recalls getting the order to fire, and believes that the gun under his command scored a hit, but “It was very dark and we were all blinded by their damned lights and quite shocked to be suddenly in a fight”.   Seconds later a German shell burst in Pegasus’  bridge, killing Commander Ingles and his staff.   To the astonishment of those aboard Koenigsberg, the first British ship had vanished, presumably capsized, and the second (Pegasus), now no longer under direction, steamed on an unchanging course that took her closer to their broadside.

Several more German salvoes ripped apart the lightly armoured Pegasus, and she sank quickly.    Aboard Koenigsberg there was cheering, but when Loof received the damage report, that an entire boiler room had been destroyed, he knew that his ship’s fate was sealed.   As he wrote later, “A raider’s primary weapon is speed, and in depriving us of that advantage, these gallant Britishers had sealed our fate with their lives”.    Loof spent several hours searching for survivors, rescuing twenty two men from Pegasus, but not one man from Astraea survived.    The German skipper then took the extraordinary decision to broadcast his position in the clear, reporting the engagement and the need for a rescue mission, before leaving the scene.   This message was picked up by several Allied stations, and was first thought to be a ruse, but days later, patrol boats sent from Simonstown found wreckage and bodies, confirming the sad story.

Loof spend the rest of the night considering his options.   The German commander at Dar Es Salaam reported an attack was likely and that the port was sure to fall.  Loof knew these waters well, and decided to take Koenigsberg on a one-way journey up the Rufiji Estuary to put his crew and armaments in the service of the German commander von Lettow-Vorbeck, the celebrated “Lion of Africa”.  For some weeks, the mysterious loss of Astraea and Pegasus vexed the British, until in another piece of chivalry, Loof put his British prisoners on a captured Japanese merchant, the Hudson Maru, and sent them back down the river.   Eventually Burne-Lee and his comrades were rescued and their story became known.  King Hall recalled that “the loss of these two ships and their crews was the saddest part of this campaign for me, but their loss was not in vain”.  Indeed, by sacrificing themselves, their crews had removed another enemy piece from the board.

A day after Koenigsberg encountered and sank the British ships, the brief and successful career of Prinz Eitel Friedrich ended.   Friedrich had encountered her nemesis some weeks earlier.   On 9 September, while pretending to be the British passenger ship Star of Auckland, she had used this disguise to trick, capture and sink two sailing ships (the Lady Lucy and Emerald) and was in the process of boarding a third prize, the British steam merchant ship Pontic, when smoke was observed through rain squalls astern.   Captain Thierichens was in company with a prize ship, the French Victor Herbert, which he was using as a collier.   Thierichens promptly recalled his prize crew, ordered Pontic’s crew into lifeboats, and fired a broadside into her, setting a fire amidships.

The approaching ships were the Russian squadron under command of Commodore Ivanov.  At first Ivanov did not recognize Friedrich and thought he had encountered some sort of convoy.  However, the fire that soon broke out aboard Pontic was the clue that dirty deeds were afoot.   By the time Askold had arrived on the scene, Friedrich was steaming hard for nearby cloud cover, and  eventually was obscured in rain squalls, and escaped.    Ivanov rescued the crew of Pontic and searched the area, and now knew that a German armed merchant raider was in the vicinity.

On the early morning of September 20th, Ivanov’s patient hunting was rewarded when he caught up with his quarry in the Marshall Islands.   Shortly after sunrise, a sharp eyed lookout on Askold’s bridge spotted Friedrich, which, perhabs because of the rising sun or a tired crew, failed to spot the Russians until a 6” shell caused a waterspout 200 metres to port amidships.   Ivanov ordered Jemtchug to engage to the enemy’s port while he closed to starboard.  He signalled “Show your true colours and surrender in the name of the Tsar!”

Captain Thierichens resolved to fight, and the ensign of the Kaiserliche Marine broke out from his mast as he turned to starboard, making smoke to conceal himself from Jemtchug.   Pulling tarpaulins off their deck guns, the Germans opened fire but failed to slow the onrushing Russian ships, which enjoyed a considerable speed advantage.   As Friedrich turned to port, she took several hits from Askold’s full broadside, destroying one 10.5 cm gun and its crew and opening her hull below the waterline forward.

First Officer Mundt recalls that “as the fight was heating up, Leutnant Von Richter appeared on the bridge, and reported severe flooding below forward.   Thierichens and I both looked at one another in alarm.  That was where many of our prisoners were confined.    Grimly the Captain told him to do his best.”   Despite frantic efforts, the flooding worsened and Friedrich was slowing.  With a Russian ship on either side and his firepower diminished, and wanting to spare the prisoners, Thierichens ordered the ensign struck, signalled his surrender and requested assistance.   

In his memoirs, Mundt remembered that at this point he and the Captain realized they were both wearing their uniform coats overtop their pajamas. Thierichens ordered a seaman to go fetch their trousers and his sword.  “I’ll be damned if a Russian captures me like this”.    By the time Ivanov’s first officer climbed aboard, the worst of the flooding was contained and the ship was no longer in danger.  A few prisoners had sadly drowned, but Thierichens’ compassionate decision had saved many lives.    The Russians rescused the crews of five merchant ships that day, and putting his own men aboard, Ivanov ordered his prize sailed to Vladivastock.   Thus began a long Siberian captivity for Captain Thierichens and his men, who it must be said had behaved with the utmost gallantry and regard for their prisoners.

On September 28th, the ANZAC convoy, now under the sheltering wings of King Hall’s squadron, reached the Suez Canal,  a significant achievement for the Allies.   For these gallant volunteers, their long ordeal in the Gallipoli campaign lay in the future.   That same week, Nurnberg, under Von Spee’s command, sank two merchants in the Coral Sea and put their crews on a third ship, SS Madrigal, with orders to proceed to Rabaul.   

Landing troops at Dar Es Salaam.

On 3 October, Dar Es Salaam fell.   The pre-dreadnought HMS Ocean, which had reinforced the Cape Squadron, opened a bombardment of suspected beach defences.   King Hall watched the landing from Swiftsure and recalled that “It was a most gallant sight.   Led by Pelorus, her quick-firing guns ready to engage the enemy, boats rowed by Ocean’s bluejackets brought out troops ashore, the East Surreys in their pith helmets and the turbans of the Rajputs.  Our men waded ashore in fine style, and found no resistance.  The foe had wisely fled.”  An unexpected reward was found by some of King Hall’s officers, who had the presence of mind to search the evacuated German naval headquarters and found a codebook.  On being sent to London, it proved to be of some value in later months.

On 7 October, Emden and Nurnberg met by chance in the Marshall Islands.  It was the only time in the campaign that the men of Emden saw their admiral.  Muller of the Emden wrote in his memoirs that “Both our ships were battered and rusty, but our spirits were high.   Nurnberg traded us captured mutton for some of our liberated whiskey and caviar, and we had a very pleasant few hours.   For once, neither ship was short of coal.  We agreed to part ways, Von Spee steaming north and we steaming west the for the Philippines, and that was the last we saw of our gallant chief.”

SMS Nurnberg

On 15 October, Nurnberg bombarded and severely damaged a Japanese naval outpost and wireless station in the Central Pacific.    Von Spee must have known that this would attract attention, and perhaps he was hoping to draw the hunters off the Emden, which was by now notorious.   The Japanese did manage to signal an SOS, and Nurnberg was briefly pursued by a Japanese squadron of three older and slower ships, and this made good her escape.   But she was now a marked quarry, and around 21:00 hours on 19 October, Nurnberg’s luck ran out.

The fast cruiser IJN Chikuma had been summoned north from her duties supporting Admiral Jerram.   Sighting a suspicious ship in the dark, she challenged by flashing light.  Captain Tatsuo was immediately suspicious, and opened fire with his full broadside.    Only a handful of Nurnberg’s crew survived, and their accounts do not shed much light on how she sank, but her end came quickly.  Signalmen Horst Thiele was on the bridge and recalled that the deck tilted sharply.  “It was the old man, the Admiral, who pushed me up and through the hatch, but when I turned to grab his hand he was gone and I was engulfed in black water.  Somehow I was able to make it to the surface.”  Chikuma plucked some twenty survivors from the dark sea, but Von Spee was not among them.   So ended the saga of this gallant sailor, who caused us much consternation, and who gave his life in a forlorn hope.   With Friedrich captured, the crippled Koenigsberg walled up in her riverine prison, and Nurnberg sunk, this only left one raider at large, and we shall finish our account with her remarkable story.

The Fictitious History of Swan of the East, a 1914 Naval Wargame, Part Five

Part Five:  The Demise of the Scharnhorst

With Spee’s striking force defanged, it was only a matter of time until the raider threat was dealt with.  To be sure, the remaining German ships and their highly trained crews were still dangerous and full of fight, as the Allies learned to their cost, but operating individually, and with Allied reinforcements entering the fray, it was only a matter of time.

On August 28th, Von Spee decided to disband his battered squadron.  The collier Markomania was ordered to the German-held port of Rabaul with wounded from the battle, and she arrived safely.  Titania, carrying the captured sailors of the French merchant Annatoile, was to head for the Philippines and a secret supply base there established before the war as part of the German Entappen scheme.  Spee himself transfered his flag to the intact Nurnberg and ordered Scharnhorst to find a secluded place where she could make what repairs she could.  By then he had learned from a wireless transmission that the German garrison in Tsingtao was besieged by Japanese forces (the Empire had declared war on Germany on August 11).  

Titania never reached the Phillippines; she was captured by Newcastle on 30 September.  Vice Admiral Jerram reported that her captain was “a tedious Boche of the square headed, heel clicking variety, but he was true to his oath and told us nothing”.  Jerram chivalrously ignored Churchill’s suggestion that he “rough the man up” to learn more.

By September, a convoy of seventeen ships, carrying thirty thousand newly raised Australian and New Zealand soldiers, departed Sydney for the Suez Canal.    Admiral Patey, now flying his flag in Melbourne, led the escorting force, and had arranged with King Hall to take over the escort near the Chagos Islands.   King Hall had by this time abandoned his blockade of Dar Es Salaam, as news was now widespread that Koenigsberg  was wreaking havoc in the Bay of Bengal.  On September 7th, the German garrison in Tsingtao surrendered to Japanese forces.   

By this phase in the campaign, the Allies were beginning to coordinate their movements more efficiently.    Royal Navy codes had been shared with the French, Japanese, and Russian, whose signalmen did their best to learn these codes, and the English language, as best they could.   Despite many grammatical errors, the Japanese did the best at this task.   The French were lacklustre students, having felt that with some justification that they were ignored by Jerram.   Lieutenant Jacques Derrida, the Signals Officer of Dupleix, who went on to be a professor of Semiotics and Nonsense after the war, was heard to say, “What is the point?   All messages are futile attempts to make meaning where there is none.   Life is inherently meaningless”.  

Undeterred by French apathy, First Lord Churchill had appointed Vice Admiral Jerram as the de facto senior commander in the Pacific, with the task of directing Allied strategy.    At this point in September, the Emden was the most notorious of the raiders, and it was while searching for her that Jerram found and finished off the Scharnhorst on the night of September 14th in the Battle of Java Head.

Scharnhorsti died well.    At first Jerram’s squadron was unsure of her identity, and thought that she was in company with a second warship, though this was in fact the prize ship SS Clan MacGregor.  Commander Ashby of HMS Triumph wrote that “In the dark it could have been Dutch warships, and the Old Man didn’t want to start a war with them, so we flashed recognition signals and that’s when things got ugly”.   

HMS Triumph, Admiral Jerram's flagship

At that point, Scharnhorst turned on her searchlights, pinning the lead British ship Yarmouth and scoring multiple hits.   Ashby remembers that there was shock on Triumph’s bridge at the sight, with someone exclaiming "Christ, it's the Moltke”, but the voice was silenced when Jerram  snapped "Be still and do your bloody jobs”.  This was one of several actions in the Pacific where the Royal Navy paid a price for not having trained for night actions.  After several salvos, Yarmouth had veered out of the line, badly hit, and Jerram determined to take Triumph in close where his secondary 7.5” guns could also bear.

Triumph’s rate of fire was good but it took four salvos to score a hit, which had the effect of dousing Scharnhorst’s searchlights.  Commander Ashby recalled that “It was a proper heavyweight match, with us and the Germans trading shells and landing hits.    We could see them stagger, but we were suffering as well”.  Indeed, Triumph almost met disaster when a shell penetrated her forward 10” turret, killing the Royal Marine crew there, though the turret commander with his dying breath ordered the magazine flooded and so saved the ship.

Jerram himself recalled that “We were cheering Newcastle as she made a torpedo run, and wondering why the second Hun ship wasn’t shooting, when there was an almighty bang and I woke on the deck with my Yeoman of Signals fussing over me”.  A direct hit on Triumph’s bridge had killed the Flag Captain and many of the officers, and splinters badly shredded Jerram’s right leg, but he insisted in being helped to his chair until Scharnhorst, now a burning wreck, sank and Clan MacGregor was boarded.   The survivors of Scharnhorst proudly reported that Von Spee was not among them, and that he and Nurnberg lived to fight another day.

By morning it was clear that Yarmouth and Triumph were seaworthy and could make Hong Kong, but their role in the war was over.   Jerram refused to leave with them, and was transferred to Newcastle by stretcher.   For this action, and for stubbornly remaining on duty until the final flight of Emden, Jerram would receive the Distinguished Service Cross, but he never regained the use of his leg and the wounds no doubt contributed to his too early death.   He was a gallant sailor and understood that having a pre-dreadnought and a light cruiser crippled in return for sinking Scharnhorst was undoubtedly the right play.