The Washington times. [volume] (Washington [D.C.]) 1902-1939, 1916-07-23
ADMIRAL DEWEY ON THE JUT.
LAND BATTLE

Admiral Dewey's discussion in
"Sea Power" Of the battle of the
Jutland coast--he calls it the Battle
Of Skagerrack, by the way, and
ought not to be permitted to hitch
such a name to it when Jutland is
quite as descriptive and much easier
is chiefly a consideration Of the
work Of the various types of vessels.
For the first time in history, there
was thorough tryout Of all kinds Of
strictly modern fighting craft. The
battle cruisers were sent in to do
exactly the work for which they
were intended; the destroyers did
likewise, and did it magnificently.
Finally, the dreadnaughts came in
and played the part that had been
assigned to them; and they per-
formed in a fashion justifying all
expectations.
The lesson Of it all Is that the bat
tie cruisers, though they were swift
and powerful enough to force an en-
gagement on an enemy that other
wise might have escaped, were not
able to stand the fire of dread
naughts. They made the battle pos
sible, but three magnificent ones Of
them were sacrificed; went to the
bottom with almost all on board.
Their attack held the Germans &C.
cupied till the British dreadnaughts
could come up; and then for the first
time the opponents were approx
mately fairly matched, though Ad-
miral Dewey's account leaves the
impression that he believes the Ger
mans had the advantage in actual
weight of armament at ALL times
during the actual fighting. His YER
dict on the two types Of capital ships
is thus stated:
Battle cruisers. with the weight of
their armor sacrificed to speed, with
fewer big guns than have dreadnaughts.
cannot give and take with the latter
class OF ships. In grips with dread
naughts they are pretty sure to be sunk.
This has been the theory Of naval ex-
perts all along, but that moot question
, Of the point to which armor should be
sacrificed to speed has never before had
any actual experiments upon which to
base its deductions.
The battle cruiser was crumpled up
| and Its unfitness to play a leading role
Queen Mary. magnificent ship Of her
kind, displacing 5000 tons. could not
survive the big shells Of the Germans.
One of the horrors of modern
naval war-the fact that when a
great fighting ship goes down she is
likely to carry practically her entire
company to the bottom-is explained
by the admiral. A battleship goes
into action with plenty of pneumatic
belts and life RATS; but
In time Of battle. however, there is nc
time and no inclination to make use OF
these devices, When a battleship is hi
and seriously damaged there Is no way
| Of knowing whether or not she IL about
to sink. 1t may be possible that she will
remain afioat for hours. or that she may
not sink at all Her purpose Is to con-
tinue to damage the enemy to the great
est possible extent. A single final shot
| from a sinking ship may be the blow
that will turn the tide OF battle and
the destiny of empires.
A damaged battleship. therefore. con.
tinues to fight The men remain in the
fire rooms, In the turrets. at their guns
Every man continues that particular
Job which Is his In fighting the ship az
long as she may strike a blow. II
therefore happens that when the battle
ship goes down there Is practically no
body on deck. and there Is no man who
may leave his post In time to put on q
life belt or launch a raft. Quite nat
urally. every man dies with the ship.
While the battles results deter
mined. in the admiral's opinion, the
great superiority Of the dread
naught as a fighting machine, YET
rather oddly he thinks it did not de-
eide much about the comparative eff
fectiveness of the big guns Of vari
GUS calibers. The craftsmanship was
not remarkable on either side; but
most of the fighting was at close
quarters, at which any big gun, il
served to plant its hits properly
must be pretty effective.