THE FALKLAND ISLANDS 4 – PAGES FROM A DIARY CONT’D. (Written 10th December 1914 by OKW J Fraser SHAW, Engineer Lieutenant-Commander, H.M.S. Invincible, following the Battle of the Falklands 8th December 1914) The CANOPUS in the meanwhile had opened fire on the enemy with the idea of keeping them at a distance till we could get a move on. The enemy could not see us at the line, and sheared off to wait for the rest of their Squadron. Their Squadron consisted of SCHARNHORST, GNEISENAU (heavy armoured cruisers 8 inch guns), LEIPZIG, NURNBERG, DRESDEN (light cruisers): Also they had two or three – I am not sure which – colliers which went to some bay to be out of the way for a while. Their idea was apparently to bombard the place, sink anything afloat, destroy all the stores on shore, and then push off, or possibly use the place as a base (we have heard both stories from prisoners). They had no idea of any battle cruisers being nearer than the Mediterranean; when the INFLEXIBLE and ourselves first appeared they tried to make us into some other cruisers with dummy funnels rigged. However they were soon undeceived, for very soon they had the whole hornet’s nest about their ears. The BRISTOL and MACEDONIA were sent round to catch the colliers, which they did; the BRISTOL had not been able to fill up with coal the previous day on account of the coal being almost on fire. I don’t know that she tried awfully hard, but they must have been sick to have been kept out of the main show because they hadn’t coal, as was the case. I believe the INFLEXIBLE got away a few minutes before we did, but in a very short time we caught her up and took the lead, which we kept the rest of the day. By 10.45 a.m. we must have been going anything up to twenty-six knots; all the others except the INFLEXIBLE had dropped well astern. Sometime about then I went up and had my only glimpse of the enemy, steaming away in a line about ten miles off; we got up into a position on their beam, and then the Admiral sent all hands to dinner. In the meantime we reduced speed to let our other ships come up, and to
Posted on: Wed, 10 Dec 2014 01:00:00 +0000
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