The sinking of the Goeben
Oakhurst Cottage
Little Donnington
Exeter EX 5
12th July 1964
Dear Trevor
 |
| Geoben |
 |
| Inflexible |
That introduction was made more demanding by the slowly
developing political events leading to the outbreak of the Great War. The
Archduke Ferdinand was assassinated on 28th June. Initially it had little impact but steadily
the tension mounted. By the end of July
it was clear there was going to be a war. The only question for us in the Navy
was whether the British Empire was going to be involved. The last few days were extremely tense as
declarations of war flew around Europe.
When Germany declared war in France we went to a war footing but were
still unclear whether we would go to the aid of France.
 |
| Indomitable |
26 knots, 8 x 12” main guns & 16 x 4” tertiary guns)
 |
| Indefatigable |
could have supported the Germans but fortunately choose neutrality.
The Germans had only two ships in the Med. The powerful Battlecruiser Goeben (23,000 tons, 26 knot, 10 x 11”
main guns & 12 X 6” secondary guns) and the light cruiser Breslau (4,500 tons, 26 knots, 12 x 4”
guns). Goeben, fortunately for us,
needed a major overhaul and had defective boilers. A brief stop at the Austrian naval base at
Pola, only days before the outbreak of war, had enabled some repairs to be made
but her speed was still reduced.
The options and prospects for the Goeben were limited. A
breakout to the Atlantic was extremely unlikely we thought. There were no
coaling stations for them and in all probability they would run out of fuel
before they could reach Germany. That was assuming they managed to avoid
meeting the Home Fleet during a dash up the English Channel! An alternative was to flee eastwards with the
prospect of being interned in Turkey or as some suggested, being turned over to
the Turks. It seemed most likely however the Goeben would make a run to join the Austrians in Pola. There they
would be in a friendly port and able to undergo proper repairs.
A major concern for the French was that the Goeben would attempt to interfere with
their planned movement of troops from North Africa to reinforce the French
borders. If the Goeben had got loose amongst
those convoys they could have done terrible damage and caused a vast loss of
life. It meant that the French fleet was
overwhelmingly devoted to convoy protection.
Consequently it was the Royal Navy that had to deal with the Goeben.
Admiral Milne deployed the Royal Naval ships in three
formations. Admiral Troutbridge with two
of our sister ship’s, the battlecruiser’s Indomitable
and Indefatigable along with several
destroyers were sent to patrol the
entrance to the Adriatic. A second formation of the slower armoured cruisers
and several light cruisers were deployed there as well. Our battlecruisers,
while heavily armed, were lightly armoured compared to the Goeben. The latter was also
built with far greater watertight integrity and so was able to sustain far
greater hull damage than our ships. It
was felt therefore that it would require two of our battlecruisers to take her
on safely. The slower armoured cruisers had no chance against the Goeben and were only to be used as an
extended scouting force, kept within range of the battlecruisers.
 |
| Weymouth |
(4,500 tons, 29 knots, 2 x 6” guns and 10 x 4” guns) and the
Germany declared war in France at 6pm on the 3rd
of August. At this stage the Goeben was taking on coal at the
Sicilian port of Messina. The neutral
Italians would not provide her with coal.
So desperate was her need for coal that she refuelled from German
merchant ships in the harbour. In their
need to refuel quickly they
even ripped up the decks of the merchant ships to
speed up the transfer process. During
the night orders reached them from Berlin that they were to make a breakout to
the Atlantic and return to Germany. Needless to say we were not aware of these
orders.
 |
| Dublin |
Britain of course promptly declared war on Germany, in
support of France. We’d been through this kind of drill many times before, but
even so it was a shock for me, as a 16-year-old boy new to the service, to have
the klaxon going off at 11pm on 3rd August and to be told we were at war. A
process not helped by our being exhausted, having spent most of the evening
coaling.
Admiral Suchon the German commander suspected he would be
spotted if he headed through the Straits of Messina in an attempt to get back
to Germany. Hoping to confuse us he
headed south-east. We only knew that the
Goeben had not gone through the
Straits of Messina so we had to assume it was trying to make for either Pola or
Turkey.
Expecting the Goeben
to head for Pola Admiral Milne ordered the blockade force at the Adriatic to
head south west searching for them. We had steam up and left harbour,
accompanied by the two light cruisers and the destroyers at 1am on the 4th.
With only one battlecruiser we were seen as a scouting force and were
instructed not to engage the Goeben
but track them while waiting for reinforcements. Accordingly we headed north-east hoping to
sandwich the Goeben between our two
forces if she was heading for Pola.
 |
| Breslau |
Alas, things didn’t go the way we expected! Our Gunnery control misjudged the range and
our shells screamed over the Goeben’s
masts to crash harmlessly into the sea behind it. They however quickly found our range and
several shells plunged into our hull.
At this stage the Goeben
turned and ran north-east. This was taking them towards Admiral Troutbridges
force. We immediately broadcast our
position and the Goeben’s
heading. With all our guns still firing
Captain Thomas decided to continue the action, hoping to be able to push Goeben onto the two other
battlecruisers. It was a bold decision.
It also revealed a noticeable difference between the two gunnery
spotting systems. German spotting equipment could find the target range quickly
but found it difficult to maintain that. Ours, on the other hand took longer to
find the range but was better at maintaining that spotting range.
This is certainly what happened on this occasion. Goeben’s gunnery fell off, while ours
scored hit after hit. The two groups of
ships raced north-east for several hours at range of nearly 10 miles. At times Goeben was struck by multiple shells in
a single broadside which steadily knocked out her secondary and tertiary guns,
inflicted numerous hull hits and several critical hits. In one of these Admiral
Souchon was killed. We in turn suffered
some minor hits and further damage to the hull.
 |
| Onslow |
While the two battlecruisers had been slogging it out, Weymouth and Dublin had been waging their own private fight with the Breslau.
Given the long range it meant their lighter guns were less
effective. Thus, damage to both sides
had been fairly low with only the Weymouth
suffering minor damage on our side while the Breslau in turn also suffered only minor damage. There was little
point in the light guns of our two ships in engaging the Goeben, given her heavy armour.
However due to the manoeuvring of the ships they did come into range of
the Goeben at times and managed to
fire on her and score hits which did minor damage.
The Goeben, while
severely damaged, was not giving up the fight and seemed to redouble her
efforts, scoring numerous hits on the Inflexible
that did considerable damage. We
suffered badly in this and it looked as if for a while as if we would have to
give up the fight. This was where I won
my first ‘gong’.
My post at battle stations was in charge of the ammunition
hoist to Q turret. My position was in
the first hoist room, just above the magazine.
From there I monitored the flow of charges and shells up to the turrets
and ensured any delays were properly dealt with. In those days there was a huge emphasis on
rate of fire and nothing was allowed to delay the prompt movement of charges
and shells up to the turrets. This even led to the dangerous practice of
jamming open the anti-flash shutters in the hoists so there was not even this
slight delay in the process. We always knew it was dangerous but our obsession
with maximising the rate of firing overrode this risk.
We’d maintained a steady fire some time with the ammunition
flowing smoothly up through the series of hoists to the turret. Then at 12:10 p.m. there was a thunderous
crash above and everything in the
barbette shook violently. Seconds later
I heard a screeching roar from above and realised it was charges exploding in
the turret. There was no time to issue instructions, I simply dived across the
hoist room, snatching out a piece of steel jamming the flash doors open and the
doors snapped shut. For a few brief but
terrifying seconds the roar grew louder and louder as the charges in the hoist
burst into flame (rather than exploded), one after the other. Perhaps only ten seconds after the initial
hit the flash doors in the hoist shook and buckled under the strain of the
searing charges. The doors held but even so some flame still shot out around
the door. My left hand was badly scorched and I still bear the scars
today.
Needless to say the magazine would almost certainly blown up
if the flash had reached our room, where 6 charges lay waiting for the hoist and
then the magazine. Q turret and hoist
were now out of action with 25 men killed outright. My prompt action almost certainly saved the
ship and I was subsequently awarded the Distinguished Service Cross.
What men were left in the Q magazine were deployed in damage
control parties and we rendered what assistance we could around the ship for
the rest of the action, rescuing men, helping to put out fires and keeping the
guns in action.
On Inflexible we
were now down to half speed, most of our tertiary guns were out of action, we’d
suffered considerable hull damage and now one of our turrets was knocked out.
Later in the battle we lost two other guns but in those case the guns jammed
from hits and there was no ammunition explosion. Goeben
I’m pleased to say was an even worse situation, hardly moving by this
stage. She had suffered so much
flooding she was deep in the water and had only a few guns still firing.
It was now late in the afternoon. Perhaps it would have been a wise move for
Captain Thomas call off the action and await reinforcements. In a move that was hotly debated after the
event, he decided to continue the action.
A major concern was that we had heard no word from Admiral
Troutbridge as to his position, despite our sending out regular reports. All we
heard on the radio was that he was heading towards our position. We were subsequently flabbergasted to
discover that he had decided he needed the armoured cruisers to extend his
search line and so had dropped his speed to keep formation with them. We of course, were expecting him to be
driving Indomitable and Indefatigable towards us at full
speed. In addition it was now 5pm and
night was steadily approaching. Captain
Thomas feared losing contact with the Goeben
in the night. With drawn features, he
ordered the ship to continue the action, declaring “The Royal Navy can afford
to lose a battle-cruiser, the Germans cannot”.
We still had two destroyers loaded with torpedoes and he
sent these in to attack. Goeben
pushed it’s engines to the limits and manoeuvred as best they could to avoid
the attack. The plucky destroyers raced in and
launched their torpedoes, One at least hit, but it failed to detonate. Goeben
had lost so many of it’s secondary guns it was unable to inflict any damage on
them.
Again, we commenced the gunnery duel. We once more scored
numerous hits on the Goeben. All of
which proved too much for her. With all
engines gone and weighed down by thousands of tons of water she drifted to a
halt and slowly started to roll on her beam.
Captain Thomas ordered our guns to cease fire, the First Lieutenant
pointed out that Goeben was still
flying her flag but Captain Thomas replied that any ship that had fought that
well, deserved to go down with her flag proudly flying. Then her bow dipped beneath the waves and she
steadily plunged down into the depths.
Goeben had managed
to score one last hit on our crippled hull before her end. With hardly any
steerage way and deep in the water Inflexible
seemed about to sink as well. However we were now able to reduce our speed and
reduce the flooding while our damage control parties worked furiously to seal
off compartments and pump the water out. One more hull hit would have finished
us off! After several hours our buoyancy improved significantly and we were
able to breathe a sigh of relief as we realised we would get our valiant ship
home.
While all this last drama of the Goeben was taking place the Breslau
attempted to escape. The three cruisers
had engaged in their own fight for these long hours. Breslau
had fought bravely but equipped with only 4” guns she was hardly a match for
the 6” guns of our two cruisers.
Sheltered to a degree by the Goeben
she had initially taken only minor damage but now, pursued more closely by the Weymouth and Dublin she was hit repeatedly.
Even so she scored quite a lot of hits and even managed to knock out Weymouth’s 2 x 6” gun turret. The
latter fell out of the fight and Breslau
was finished off by Dublin. Both our brave little cruisers suffered
damage in their long-running fight but were in no serious danger.
Inflexible was in
no position to pick up survivors but in the gathering dusk the two cruisers and
five remaining destroyers managed to pick up 756 German survivors out of total
crew of 1,400. At 10pm with our repairs
done as best we could and loaded with survivors we turned and steamed slowly
back to Malta.
We were met next day, several miles out to sea, by a
flotilla of small craft who escorted us into harbour to a rapturous
welcome. We remained there for two weeks
while the dockyards patched up our battered hull. After which we sailed back to England for a
major overhaul. During that period his
Majesty King George V came down to Portsmouth. On the foredeck of our proud
ship he knighted Captain Thomas and awarded me my DSC.
At the time the sinking of the Goeben was seen as a great morale boost to the British population
at large and a somewhat humiliating defeat for the German navy. Subsequently and particularly after the war
it was taken to have had profound political influence as well. It was discovered that the German Emperor had
seriously offered the Goeben to
Turkey in return for her joining the war.
Her loss appears to have undermined Turkish resolve and instead she
remained neutral during the Great War. I’ve always wondered if Turkey would
really have joined on Germany’s side, she had too much to lose. She did extremely well out of the war,
exporting extensively to Russia and charging tariffs on the huge volume of
military equipment which Britain shipped through the Bosporus to the Russians.
Our repairs were finished by February 1915 and we returned
to the Mediterranean in time to take part in the great
amphibious assault on the Austrian naval base of Cattaro on the Adriatic on
April 25 1915. There we provided gunfire support to the ANZAC troops as they
seized the hills overlooking the base.
It was of course the first step in the campaign to drive up the
Adriatic, which Mr Churchill accurately described as ‘the soft underbelly of
Austria’. Italy of course attacked
Austria a few weeks later. My next big
battle was outside Pola, where we crushed the Austrian fleet, leading to her
capitulation in November 1916. I’ll
write of that another day.
Your loving grandfather
Rear Admiral (Rtd) Sir Norman Butcher KCMG, DSC and bar.
Operation Trident, the Allied invasion of Cattaro 25th April
1915.
Oakhurst Cottage
Little Donnington
Exeter EX 5
20th April 1965
Dear Trevor
Given the date, it’s time I continued writing about my
adventures, as we’re coming up to another of those great anniversaries, namely
Operation Trident, the Allied invasion of Cattaro on 25th April
1915.
After its battle with the KMS Goeben, HMS Inflexible needed an extended
period in the docks undergoing repairs.
This gave the powers that be the chance to send us Midshipmen off on
various courses. I and another
midshipmen, Brian de Winter, were assigned to go on a course on gunnery
spotting with a particular emphasis on using shore based radio to direct a
ships gunnery. This was because Inflexible was being fitted with a newly
developed ship to shore radio system. We
were both somewhat sceptical about this course, thinking it was another waste
of time on much vaunted new technology, that wouldn't actually work under
combat conditions. Still, it did give us an entertaining break from the rigours
of navy life and a chance to get out the pub and unwind.
We were fully
repaired and ready to go back into action in February 1915 so we sailed once
again for the Mediterranean. The war at sea had been quiet there since the sinking
of the Goeben. The Austrian fleet
never ventured out of port. However, big
plans were in the making which we were unaware of. The top brass decided to
undertake a naval invasion of the Austrian port of Cattaro, just north of
Montenegro. This was seen as an
important strategic objective. It was a
deep, very sheltered harbour where Austrian ships could remain safe from any
attacks. It was also close to the Montenegrin front line and gave the Austrians
the ability to move troops and ships up rapidly to attack on that front. If
however, we captured it, it gave us a base in the Adriatic from which to harass
the Austrian coastal shipping.
There was great concern about the varied rugged terrain in
the area. However the Austrian garrison
was small, isolated and engaged by the Montenegrin forces to the south. It was felt that a surprise assault by
several divisions would be able to seize the coastal hills and therefore
dominate the harbour itself. This would
allow our naval forces to bombard the harbour and surrounds with impunity and
quickly lead to the fall of the isolated town.
To undertake this operation the British forces had; the new
1st Australian Division, the New Zealand and Australian Division and the 29th
Infantry Division. These were to be transported
and landed by a group of transports.
These would be protected by a large contingent pre-dreadnought
battleships, who would also provide shore bombardment. Further out at sea, screening forces of pre
dreadnoughts would guard against a sortie by the Austrian navy. Further up the Adriatic light screening
forces of fast cruisers were to be deployed to search for any such sorties.
France contributed their three new battleships, seven of
their pre-dreadnoughts, plus a force of armoured cruisers, light cruisers and
destroyers under the command of Admiral Guepratte and their 1st Infantry
Division.
As the scale of the operation and the requirement for ships
grew, so did the fleet of available ships. The Royal Navy initially planned to
use only pre-dreadnoughts and 19 of these were made available to support the
invasion. HMS Inflexible of course was there, as it was our regular station, and
we were designated as a fast scouting unit to search for Austrian naval
forces. At the time the fast, new battleship
HMS Queen Elizabeth was entering
service and Churchill, the First Lord of the Admiralty, decided to send her to
join in the operation as an opportunity to calibrate her guns.
Finally, much to our relief it was then decided to create a
fast battle group, to be commanded by Admiral Heard. So, our old comrades HMS Indomitable and HMS
Indefatigable were sent out to join us. I think the presence of the French modern battleships
rather embarrassed the Royal Navy into sending these. On Inflexible
we’d been concerned that even with our superior speed we’d be vulnerable if
we’d encountered the three Austrian battleships. Together these four fast, powerful, new ships
were more than capable of taking on three Austrian battleships by
themselves. The overall Commander of the
combined British and French forces was Admiral De Robeck.
The Austrian Navy itself was a rather top-heavy and
acquainted force. There were only three battleships plus a collection of
elderly pre-dreadnoughts and coastal defence ships. There were only a handful of elderly armoured
cruisers and light cruisers to support them.
The Austrians did have some good, modern destroyers. There were also a large number of motor
torpedo boats. Despite our concerns
about the latter however, they played no part in the operation, being based at
Pola at the head of the Adriatic. It was
surprising that some were not moved to Cattaro, as they could have posed a
serious threat to our invasion force.
It was very difficult of course to conceal the build-up of Allied
forces. Initially it had been expected
to launch the invasion from Malta but the politicians managed to arrange with
the Greeks for the fleet to be based at Corfu, which was far closer to Cattaro. The convenience of the closer base far
outweighed the security concerns. It was
strongly suspected that Austrian agents that operating in Corfu port would be
able to provide information about fleet departures to the Austrian navy. We were certain however, from intercepted
radio messages, that they already had a team of agents in Malta anyway.
The Allied High Command were deeply concerned that the
Austrians already had some kind of pre-warning about our operation. There were several things we were concerned
about; that the Austrians would send MTB’s to defend the port or lay
minefields. Also they were concerned that the Austrians would move their fleet
closer to Cattaro. In fact just before
the operation began we received notification from an agent in Vienna that the fleet
had been ordered to sail to their base at Split. There was also the risk that
they may be able to ship additional land forces in to the area. Although due to
the risks, the latter seemed unlikely, provided we moved quickly, so it was
decided to proceed.
Initially the Navy had planned to send out several forces of
fast, light cruisers to patrol north of Cattaro and search for Austrian ships
coming down from the north. At the last
minute however, concerns about MTB’s proved too much and the light cruisers
were instead allocated to escorting troop ships. One of the things we really
dreaded was having a fully loaded troop ship, carrying several thousand
infantryman, sunk.
The invasion was set the dawn on the 24th April and at dawn
on the 22nd the first scouting forces left Corfu and headed up the
Adriatic. Our fast battle group was the
first to leave port and we threaded through the narrow channel between the
island and the mainland with a great sense of anticipation and concern about
attacks by MTB’s. Once we were into open
waters we could relax a bit. Six formations of pre-dreadnoughts, cruisers and
destroyers followed us. They were to
arrive early and commence bombarding shore positions along the coast. They would also act as additional support
should the Austrian fleet venture out. The
landing forces and minesweepers with escorting pre-dreadnoughts would leave 16
hours later. The intention being to
engage any Austrian forces at sea around Cattaro and destroy them before the
invasion forces arrived. We didn't want to engage in a battle with the troop
ships nearby at any kind of risk.
Accordingly our screening forces ventured some way up the
Adriatic, well past Cattaro. Much to our concern we found nothing. Admiral De Robeck was concerned that the
Austrians had left port in good time and had actually managed to sail further
down the Adriatic and were now behind us.
Consequently he ordered the forward fleets to fall back towards the invasion
forces and provide close support.
It was then, at 10am, along the coast just south of Cattaro,
our ships encountered the first Austrian force. This was a rather forlorn and
futile scouting force of one old, slow, armoured cruiser, a light cruiser and
four destroyers. Our force while old,
was vastly superior, with three pre-dreadnoughts Lord Nelson, Swiftsure and Agamemnon,
the light cruiser Lowestoft and two
destroyers. The battle, if you can call
it that, was over in half an hour with all the Austrian ships sunk, well before
they had time to come into their own gunnery range.
Here we saw the first example of the determination and
courage of the Austrian destroyers.
Their Austrian High Command had realised that this was a crucial battle
and they had to take high risks to prevent the invasion going ahead. As a
result destroyers had been ordered to attack regardless of the cost and in all
the subsequent encounters of the campaign they did just that, but to no avail
and at terrible cost.
A few hours later the French armoured cruiser Dupleix approached the entrance to Cattaro
harbour where it encountered the three old Austrian coastal defence ships, Monarch, Wien and Budapest. These lumbering old rust buckets were not close enough to
engage or fast enough to catch up but they pursued the Dupleix west along the coast.
This was a serious mistake as our fast battle group and a force of pre
dreadnoughts was charging at full speed to support the Dupleix.
With our superior speed we quickly moved into extended gunnery
range and at 5pm the massive 15” guns of the Queen Elizabeth roared out. Still
not fully experienced with the big guns, their first salvoes missed but this
was quickly corrected. All our ships went forward at full speed to close the
range so the battlecruisers could engage with their 12” guns.
Previously my role had been in the bowels of the ship,
managing the flow of ammunition to our guns.
Now, in both senses I’d moved up and my new role, due to my recent
gunnery course, was high up in the ship in the spotting top. From here I could clearly observe the fall of
our shells sending up; either huge columns of water which would almost obscure
the target or big clouds of smoke and debris as a shell exploded somewhere on
the target. Our 12” would usually burst
quite visibly. When one of Queen Elizabeth’s massive 15” shells
hit however, it plunged deep into the target with little visible sign. This would be followed briefly by an explosion
which shook the entire ship and rapidly tore it to pieces.
Queen Elizabeth
was firing at the Monarch the
furthest ship away and we in Inflexible
firing on what we subsequently discovered to be Budapest the second ship. I
had a good eye in those days and had bracketed the Budapest several times and scored at least one hit. Somehow I had a
sixth sense as to what they would do next and made a quick correction to the
gunnery plot. Only six of our eight guns
could bear but I only counted two columns of water, indicating four hits and a
mass of explosions on the ship itself. As the smoke slowly cleared it became apparent
that the Budapest was sinking.
The Gunnery control officer looked askance when I called the
correction but was good enough to commend my action to Captain Thomas. He called me to the Bridge later and
congratulated me on my gunnery spotting.
We could have held back and destroyed the Austrians at a
distance, out of their gunnery range. Our fast battle group commander, Admiral
Heard, however was eager to finish the battle as quickly as possible, so we
could focus on the main Austrian fleet. Accordingly we closed to within the
range of the Austrian guns. At this range our firepower was devastating. Our supporting pre dreadnoughts were also able
to engage at long range.
It was something of a massacre, the Austrian ships were
simply blown out of the water, with only Indomitable
suffering one minor hit from the Wien. With only six 9.4” guns between the three
Austrian ships, even one of our battlecruisers could have taken them on. It was
another forlorn sacrifice of brave men.
Once again the Austrian destroyers charged forwards, only to be
devastated by a hail of shells from our secondary and tertiary guns.
Night fell after this.
Deeply concerned about protecting the invasion force Admiral De Robeck
ordered the bulk of the fleets to concentrate just south of Cattaro, at the
designated pre invasion assembly point.
There were more than enough pre dreadnoughts to protect them and the
French modern battleships were also deployed to screen them.
There was never any thought of abandoning the invasion. High
Command had always factored in the possibility that a delay may occur. The key
was to ensure the Austrian fleet could not attack the transports and that any
threat from MTB’s or minefields in the landing areas were removed.
At dawn on the 24th April, the pre-dreadnoughts
comprising a bombardment squadron moved into the entrance of Cattaro harbour.
The 10 pre-dreadnoughts commenced shelling the Austrian shore batteries
overlooking the landing beaches. We’d
taken numerous minesweepers as well as we expected a series of mine fields but the
Austrians had done little to bolster the defences and no minefields were present.
The British fast battle fleet plus two groups of
pre-dreadnoughts were further out to sea searching for the Austrian main
force. Its failure to appear was
completely mystifying. Given that the
Austrians had committed their weaker forces, we had to assume their main battle
fleet was at sea as well. The failure of our heavy screening forces to
locate the enemy had been of great concern to us. This left Admiral De Robeck afraid that the Austrians
had been in Split and somehow got behind us.
In a way this is what they had done, but they had actually
sailed all the way from Pola. Subsequently
we realised a series of errors on both sides had led to a situation we did not
expect. Admiral Mack, the Austrian
commander never actually received his instructions to proceed to Split. As a
result the Austrian fleet remained in Pola harbour and only set sail when he
received word from the Austrian agents in Corfu that the Allied fleet’s had
sailed. They had in fact got behind
us. He had taken virtually the whole
Austrian fleet down the western side of the Adriatic. During the night he managed to slip past our
forces patrolling near the spur of Italy.
From there the Austrian fleet closed in on the entrance to Cattoro harbour, rightly guessing some of our invasion fleet would be gathered there by
now.
As a result, at 4.15pm the Austrian fleet moved in from the
south to attack the bombardment force. Fortunately, the French modern battleships
had already closed in to support to cover the transports. Despite being considerably outnumbered the
Austrians attempted to close the range and engage the transports. Fortunately the Austrians were out of gunnery
range when first spotted and our transports were able to commence a withdrawal
behind a screen of mostly French battleships and pre-dreadnoughts. The three French battleships were superior to
the three smaller Austrian ones. In addition we had ten pre-dreadnoughts as
compared to their six weaker ones. The
Austrians in addition had a number of their old armoured cruisers and light
cruisers and again numerous destroyers, but we outnumbered them in this
category as well.
All our ships steadily withdrew out west into the Adriatic,
with the battleships and pre dreadnoughts trading blows. In a long range gunnery duel between the
battleships, spanning many hours, the French got the better of it. Their battleships put up a superb fight and did most of the damage to the Austrians. Paris
and the Jean Bart suffered only
minor damage. The Courbet unfortunately
took heavy damage but was still able to continue the fight. The armoured cruiser Waldeck Rousseau was also damaged.
It should be noted that the Royal Navy’s pre dreadnoughts
acquitted themselves well. They suffered
some damage, particularly the Triumph
but scored numerous hits on the Austrian pre dreadnoughts and several major
hits on the Virbus Unitus and Prinz Eugen. They also caused varying
degrees of damage to the Austrian light ships, including contributing to the
sinking of the pre-dreadnoughts Ferdinand
Max and Erzhherzog Karl. It was
something of an embarrassment to the Royal Navy that our fast battle group was
still some distance away from the battle
It was must be said though that it was the French who
inflicted the most serious damage on the three Austrian battleships. They
reduced the Virbus Unitus to a
floundering wreck with only two main guns operating. Tegetthoff
and Prinz Eugen suffered substantial
damage as well.
The sun was now setting, with only a quarter moon and some
light rain, visibility became quite poor.
Admiral Mack in the Virbus Unitus recognised
his limited choices. It was clear there
was no chance of getting through our fleet to the transports. To try and engage the Allied fleet any further
was little short of suicide. His only chance was to try to break away with the
surviving ships and head back to Pola.
He ordered Virbus Unitus and
the light cruiser Novara, both badly
damaged, to engage the Allied fleet
at the maximum distance they could, while the last of the destroyers charged
the Allied fleet in diversionary torpedo attacks, in an attempt to buy time. It
did buy some time but at a terrible cost.
Even in the dark and rain the massed fire of ten pre-dreadnoughts and
three battleships quickly blew the destroyers to pieces before they got into
range.
Free of that threat, the French battleships proceeded to
demolish the Virbus Unitus and Novara.
This gallant action, from which Admiral Mack emerged unscathed,
slowed the Allied fleet enough and gave the remaining Austrian ships the chance
to head north at full speed.
Admiral Heard and Admiral Guepratte contemplated sending our
fast battle group or the French battleships in pursuit but I think they had all
been somewhat disconcerted when the Austrians appeared behind us earlier. One
message from Churchill had been hammered into us before the operation
commenced. The invasion was the priority, speed was essential and the Austrian
fleet was secondary. We were not to go
ship hunting but to ensure the success of the invasion. The idea of the
Austrians getting away was galling but we turned back towards the invasion
area.
We had in fact won a splendid victory. Nearly three quarters of the Austrian Navy had
been destroyed in one night. Whereas we had only suffered some major damage to
a few ships and varying degrees of damage to others. Overall damage had been negligible, in fact we
didn’t lose a single ship. It was a small price to pay for the major strategic
victory we gained by capturing Cottaro.
We were always somewhat mystified by the Austrian High
Command sending out their fleet against such superior numbers of Allied
ships. Subsequently we discovered that
the operation had been based on out of date information. Their agents had
obtained an early draft of the Allied plan.
One that had been done before the various modern battleships were added
to our forces. The Austrians had been expecting perhaps 12 pre-dreadnoughts.
Even that would have been a challenge for them but they hoped our ships would
be too distracted that the attack would catch us unaware.
At 4.30am on 25th April 1915 virtually the entire
Allied fleet was assembled off the coast of Cottaro harbour. The effect was demoralising for the Austrian defenders.
The previous day when we first bombarded the landing areas the garrison had
been fairly weak. Nevertheless the few
shore batteries had put up a spirited defence, while the infantry had held fast
even under our massive bombardment. When our forces had withdrawn on the
approach of the Austrian fleet the garrison thought we were retreating and that
they were saved. Accordingly they spent the night celebrating.
Now we were back and in even bigger numbers. The effect was a
huge shock in their often drunken state and led to near panic. Thus when the bombardment started, the morale
of the garrison quickly collapsed. We
could very quickly see them running back from the beach defence line and guns.
When the invasion forces hit the beach’s they met virtually no opposition and
as our troops stormed forward any opposition simply melted away before
them.
The intention was to isolate the two large peninsulas on the
southern side of the harbour. Once isolated any garrison there would be cut-off
and be easily dealt with. To do this we
would land the 29th Infantry Division and 1st Australian Division at
the bay about seven miles south east of the port of Cottaro itself. From there an open valley lead virtually to
the back of Cottaro. The valley had
steep hills on either side which we knew were not garrisoned. The plan was to seize the hills to protect
our flank as the infantry advanced up the valley until we are in a position to
attack the port.
The French 1st Infantry Division would land in the Bay of
Traste a few miles south-west of Cottaro to cut off the lower peninsular and
advance quickly to threaten the town.
The lack of any serious opposition meant all three divisions swept
forward and achieved their objectives by 11 am.
At 12pm the impetuous Australians were probing into the outskirts of
Cottaro itself. Which led to the large
contingent of Naval and support personnel there fleeing north around the
harbour or taking any boat they could find to flee to the other side.
The New Zealand and Australian Division had been kept in
reserve to exploit or support where it was needed. Given the rapid Austrian
collapse it was decided to land it on the small bay on the northern peninsula
covering the harbour. From there it
would move up the inner harbour to seize Castelnuovo and the artillery
batteries there. Given the rather dismal
performance of the Austrian infantry so far it was felt that this would be
relatively easy. Taking Castelnuovo would open the passage way into the
convoluted inner harbour.
Inflexible was
chosen the land operation because we were the only ship that had any kind of
ship to shore radio facility. Accordingly Captain Thomas positioned her in the
harbour entrance where they could bring their guns to bear on Castelnuovo. Having
done the gunnery course I was sent with a small team to direct gunfire support
for the Anzacs, if needed. A team of
ratings and I set out in a small boat to join the Anzacs in the landing. This
all went peaceably and we started to trudge off around the coast lugging the
delicate, clumsy and heavy equipment.
There appeared little in the way of an Austrian defence so
the Australian 4th Brigade moved forward into the outskirts of the town which
was about a mile away. Shortly after this the New Zealand infantry brigade
followed them. I had the radio team set
themselves up on a path about 60 foot up the slope to our left where we had an
excellent spotting position. This drew some
angry grumbling from the ratings about the ‘unnecessary’ climb. From this height though we saw clearly over
various obstructions and could observe, with considerable alarm, perhaps 5
battalions of Austrian troops moving out of the low hills to the west of
Castelnuovo and advancing into the New Zealand brigades rear. The latter were clearly unaware of what was
happening. Fortunately we had already
started making contact with the ship to keep them informed and much to our
surprise were speaking to them within only a couple of minutes of twisting
dials and pointing the aerial in different directions.
Gunnery under those conditions somewhat more difficult than
today. We had to estimate different
distances and compass directions, then have Inflexible fire 3 shells in a ‘ladder’ so that we could spot the
fall and determine, range and direction.
I did some quick calculations in my head and had the radio operator send
the coordinates to the Inflexible. Three guns roared out creating a ‘’ladder’. There was little risk of hitting our own men
as I’d been careful to make sure it was well off target. It gave us however the crucial starting point
and with three more ladders I confidently ordered full 8 gun salvo’s from the Inflexible into the Austrian
troops. This was enough to disrupt the
rear units of the Austrian counter-attack and I was then able to ‘walk’ the gunfire
further into the Austrian troops.
Casualties amongst the Austrians evidently was horrendous and they
quickly broke and ran. The New
Zealander’s had halted their advance and took up defensive positions. After we
were confident the Austrians posed no further threat, we called off
bombardment.
This allowed the New Zealanders to clean up the surviving
Austrian while the Australians advanced and seized Castelnuovo. Fortunately our
fire caused no casualties amongst our own troops. After things had calmed down the Division
Commander General, Godley, came back and thanked us for our work in avoiding
what could have been a serious trap for his troops. His language in describing being under fire
and how I had stopped the barrage only 100 yards from his command post was
quite colourful. When he heard my name
he commented that I’d lived up to it, which is where I got my nickname of ‘The
Butcher’. There was a more flattering
acquisition from this action though, as shortly afterwards I was promoted to
Sub Lieutenant.
By mid-afternoon all resistance had ceased and the remnants
of the garrison were fleeing to the north-west. The High Command had expected a
three-day fight at least to complete the invasion and our casualties had been
only a fraction of what was feared.
The immediate side-effects were significant and led in, due
course, to the collapse of the Austrian southern flank. The relatively small
Austrian forces deployed against the Montenegrin front in the area were largely
trapped out supply and forced to surrender. This gave the Montenegrin’s the
opportunity to push forwards on their northern front.
Later Allied land forces from Cottaro moved cautiously up
the virtually undefended Adriatic coast. Subsequently we launched further seaborne
operations to capture ports along the coast and cut communication lines
supplying the Austrian forces. The
Austrians never managed to gather enough troops to respond to our landings and
lost large sections of the Dalmatian coast line as a result.
More importantly, despite the difficult terrain, we were
able to shift supplies across the mountains to Serbia. The various diversions of Austrian troops
were significant and when finally in January 1916 they and the Germans launched
an offensive against Serbia, it failed to achieve any significant advance. Austria quickly went downhill under a series
of hammer blows on all fronts after that.
Your loving grandfather
Rear Admiral (Rtd) Sir Norman Butcher KCMG, DSC and bar.
