- Author
- Bingham, Barry, The Hon. VC, Commander, RN
- Subjects
- Ship histories and stories, History - WW1
- Tags
- None noted.
- RAN Ships
- None noted.
- Publication
- September 1979 edition of the Naval Historical Review (all rights reserved)
It was now about 5.30 p.m. and the weather was still calm and fine, but the slightly freshening breeze increased my anxieties as to the length of time the motor boat would remain afloat.
In about fifteen minutes’ time we saw a division of German destroyers shoot out from the rear of the battle fleet and steam towards us at high speed. Rapidly closing, one of them picked us up and carried off our motor boat as a prize; while another took the men off the Carley floats. Once aboard the wounded were placed in the wardroom, the officers in the captain’s cabin, and the rest of the men in the stokeholds and engine rooms.
The captain of the destroyer, which turned out to be S15, sent for me and interviewed me on the bridge. He saw that I was wet through my immersion, but never offered me a change of clothes. He interrogated me without gaining any information, and his manner all through was typically Prussian and discourteous. We were, however, fed until our arrival at Wilhelmshaven the following morning.
What occurred from the moment we were shut down in the captain’s cabin until we disembarked next evening can only be a matter of conjecture from the movements of the propellers, supplemented by the observations of Dr. Alexander Joe, who was once called forward about 8.30 p.m. to minister to two British seamen, picked up from the Indefatigable. But by putting two and two together, we gathered that our captor was escorting the ‘lame ducks’ of the High Sea Fleet back to the base; further, from the intermittent firing of the guns overhead and from the many sudden rapid reversings and alternating movements of the engines, we inferred that, if the main battle has ceased, destroyer attacks were in progress on both sides.
Lying on top of the captain’s bunk in semi-darkness, with clothes slowly drying on me, weary and feeling that one had reached the end, no wonder if I began to reflect about the immediate future. How was it all going to end? Assuming that the British sank this German TBD – an eventuality one’s patriotism demanded and thoroughly expected, because she was one of an old type and no kind of match for any of our destroyers – should we pull through after a scuffle with the sentry, another bath in the North Sea, and with the remote chance of being picked up by a British destroyer in the dark? Probably not. On the other hand, if the German destroyer came through unscathed, one would emerge from the business with a whole skin, with a certainty of a dreary spell of captivity, but with the hope of serving under the White Ensign at a future date.
And so the long-drawn torture of this ghastly night crept on until the first tinge of dawn found its way into the cabin, and with a silent prayer of heartfelt gratitude for the miraculous preservation of my life, I sank into sleep from sheer exhaustion.
At 7.30 a.m. the sub-lieutenant of the destroyer came below, and after ordering some breakfast for us, announced that the battle was over and that the destroyer was shaping for Wilhelmshaven.
It was only natural to ask him which side had gained the victory. His short but emphatic reply suggested a very slight acquaintance with the niceties of the English language. He simply said ‘I’, and pointed to his chest. At greater length he vaguely enumerated the ships lost by the British; of those lost by his own side he would admit to none.
As we were nearing Wilhelmshaven, English submarines were apparently in evidence, and the guns on deck began again: the last time we were to hear that bark for many a long and weary day.
Arriving alongside the destroyers’ wharf at Wilhelmshaven, we were immediately landed, marched off under the personal supervision of Admiral von Capelle – an officer with Prussianism stamped all over him – through the town, and taken to the Naval Barracks.
Here, to our amazement, we found old friends from the Nomad. Remembering the terrible plight of that ship, we had given up for lost all on board and never expected to see one of them again. The captain, Lieut.-Commander Paul Whitfield, however, was in the hospital, suffering from several wounds, some of them serious. To the same hospital our wounded were transferred, one of whom died almost immediately after his arrival there.
Our casualties were: killed, two officers and five men; seriously wounded: three; wounded: six, and the Nomad had even lower figures to show. In our case such few casualties were due to the fact that the German shells had in the majority of cases struck the Nestor in the after-part of the ship, while the men were almost exclusively forward all the time. Had the forepart of the ship met with the same treatment very few of us would have been left alive.