Imperial Valley press., 1915-03-13
BRITISH OFFICER WRITES
OF NORTH SEA BATTLE

UT NORIH SEA bAl LIZ
London, March 13.-I have just
come into possession of an interest
ing account of the North Sea battle,
in which the Bluecher was sunk, writ
ten by British officer of the de-
stroyer Sandfly. He says:
Il am afraid l can't say that the
Sandfly took leading part on Sun
day. You see it was nearly entirely
a big shin action and the destroyers
hardly got a chance.
I'VE had beastly night on Satur-
day; you could not see thing except
at intervals and you had to look out
as best you could. As the light got
better we made out the enemy battle
cruisers making our way. l was wet
through, having come up quickly
without an oilskin, which | don't do
again even though l am a bit late
on the forecastle, also suffering a bit
from seasickness. l suppose at
pinch one can fight well even though
It's on an empty stomach and no
sleep and wet through, but Pm blowed
II you can if you are feeling seasick.
"A bit later We made out some
heavy ships on our port side 1--WE were
steaming north). These might have
been Germans for all we knew in the
Sandfly. The German ships came on
for a bit, but as soon as they caught
sight of the Lion and that lot they
altered course Is points and made off
towards the Fatherland as quick as
they could We realized then that
we should see some very pretty fir
| ing and something rather out of the
common, as for the first time during
the war our later superdreadnaught
were going to be pitted against theirs
and the numbers on either side were
more or less equal.
About a. m. our leading ships
fired ranging shots from the fore tur-
rets, but they fell short. About $50
it seemed that the enemy were within
range, and at 9:45 the Tiger and Lion
seemed to be firing their whole broad
sides regularly, and about 10 a. m. the
Lion, Tiger, New Zealand and Princess
Royal were all in action. 1t was very
hard to see much from where we were.
as our bridge was washing down. and
one could not keep binoculars dry. AS
lar as we could see, our shots were
straddling them all right, and theirs
seemed to be all around our two lead |
ing. ships, especially the Tiger. n
can't say | was very impressed with |
the action, as it looked just the same
as any squadron firing one has ever
seen IN peace time. l have no doubt.
1t was quite exciting enough, though,
In the b. C.s, or to anyone who had
not seen ships engaged before. At
ll:O5 we sighted a Zepp. About the
progress of the action and DAMAGE
each side was doing we could tell very
little, except that their shooting
seemed jolly good.
At ll:10 we came up to the Lion.
which had fallen out of the line and
was listing a good deal to port Other
wise, she seemed perfectly all right.
However, she was obviously out of ac-
ton and it did not cheer us up at all
as, for all we knew, our other three
might be getting the worst of it. The
first flotilla boats formed a screen
around the Lion and after this we
were out of the fighting altogether
and. much to our ANNOYANCE. we had
to let the whole concern drift away
to the eastward, splitting out flame
and smoke at each other quite in the
style. Our main care was
now guarding the Lion from tornedo
attack, and we steamed slowly north
west. The admiral shifted his flag
TO the Acheron. At 2 p. m. the re-
llaindef or our ships appeared astern
OF Us and overhauled us, and the
Acheron -. as she passed signaled that
the blucher was sunk, which bucked
US un. Later on the Indomtable took
the Lion In tow and all destroyers
her from submarine attack.
ana we all steamed home slowly. None
of our other ships showed the least
signs OF having been engaged.
The destroyers that went on had
the most interesting time. as they saw
the Blucher sink and picked up the
survivors. Had bombs dropped at
them while doing it. They tour de-
stroyers) say the Derfflinger and
Seydlitz were both badly on fire and
awfully badly knocked about, and
they wonder how they managed to
steam away, but they have 13-inch
armor, which must have saved them.
AS far as results go, we did not do
very much, only bagging one, but we
had had luck in not getting more.
The moral effect, | should say, would |
be great, as their force was barely in
ferior to ours, and ought to have been |
able to put up good fight if they |
had not run away. Our most modern |
ships were up against theirs, and it is
evident that our ships are much su-
perior in gun power and shell effect,
otherwise you can't explain away the
small damage they did us.
'1f what happened on Sunday is any