Feb-Mar-Apr, May-June-July 1972 - Navy League of Australia

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FAITH
WITHOUT
FOUNDATION
The most serious case of false
identification occurred off the
Dogger Bank when the heavy units
ploughed through the middle of a
large fleet of British trawlers, believing
them to be a marauding flotilla
of Japanese T.B.D.s. Under the pitiless
glare of searchlights the
trawlers were smothered by a hail of
This incident nearly precipitated
war between England and Russia and
caused the Home Fleet to be brought
to a state of readiness. It wasn't
until he arrived at the Spanish port
of Vigo that Rozhestvensky was
made aware of the uproar his ships
had caused. The Spaniards, not wishing
to offend Britain, gave him a
chilly reception and refuelling the
Squadron from part of the fleet of
hired colliers proceeded only under
adverse diplomatic conditions. It
was from Vigo that Rozhestvensky
(on "-equest from St Petersburg)
sent two conciliatory cables of
regret which smoothed the ruffled
British feathers.
To act as witnesses at an International
Commission in Paris, set
up to investigate the trawler fiasco.
Rozhestvensky detached three
junior officers and sent them home.
As their charge, he also took the
opportunity to off-load a pernicious
Admiralty pseudo-savant and
parasite by the name of Captain
Nicholas Klado who. with Admiralty
approval, had attached himself to
Rozhestvensky's staff as an
advisor'. The two men loathed each
other, and letting an enemy of that
magnitude go free to wreak havoc
against him at the Admiralty was one
of Rozhestvensky's great blunders.
That the British Government still
did not quite trust the Russian
Admiral was made plain by the
occasional appearance of British
cruisers that were obviously shadowing
the Squadron, which was not to
lose its watchdogs until the arrival
at Tangier on 3 November.
The Sultan made the Russians
welcome and coaling proceeded
without incident. A one-thousand
ton cargo of frozen meat arrived on
a transport, as did the snow-white
hull of the hospital ship Oryol (a
converted liner with the same name
as the First Division battleship). Her
untouchable staff of 100 aristocratic
female nurses were also the
subject of much ribald comment
throughout the lower deck.
However, the comment reached
new heights when Rozhestvensky
announced his intention of dividing
the Fleet Oslyabaya joined the
badly-directed shellfire which sank
First Division and Admiral von
one of the little steamers: decapitated
two men. and damaged several
Felkerzam was directed to proceed
through the Mediterranean Sea to
other vessels with resultant iniuries
Suez and to take with him the old
to personnel.
battleships Sissoi Veliky and
Navarin together with the T.B.D.s
and three light cruisers. He was to
rejoin the remainder of the
Squadron at Madagascar.
Rozhestvensky never revealed the
reason for this action and I will avoid
speculation by simply stating that
Felkerzam's little sub-fleet" was last
seen heading East into the Mediterranean
late in the evening of 3
November.
The departure of the reduced
"Cape Squadron'" from Tangier was
accompanied by the usual chaos of
the ships attempting to take station
relative to each other; the highlight
of which came when a vessel caught
her bower anchor in a submarine
cable. Seamanship went by the
board. The simplest method of
freeing the anchor was to sever the
cable. Thus it was that Europe heard
nothing of North Africa for four days!
The heat of Dakar made the
normally back-breaking task of
coaling an absolute nightmare.
Diplomatic pressure had forced
even France, long an ally of Russia,
to be cautious in her dealings with
Rozhestvensky. and Dakar was
French. Not knowing when next he
would have unhindered facilities
(and he did not trust his subordinates
enough to confide this to
them). Rozhestvensky gave orders
to take on double the normal
quantity of coal: the bunker surplus
to be stacked in bags wherever,
literally, space could be found. The
heat, extreme humidity, and filthy
coal dust made conditions ripe for
discontent, and it was not surprising
that the first rustlings of
mutiny weiefelt here.
Normally overloaded warships
were now almost lethally top-heavy
and as sluggish as waterlogged river
scows: the lower gunports became
unworkable and the protective
armour-belts made useless by submergence.
Nevertheless, the Cape
Squadron staggered on at an
average 8Vi knots to Gaboon and
then Libreville. A brief coaling halt
at the Portuguese colony at Great
Fish Bay (December 6) was made uncomfortable
by Portuguese
references to England, her greatest
ally, who would like (if you pL-ase)
the Russian Navy to move on poste
haste.
The German South-West African
port of Agra Pequena gave the
squaoron a much-needed welcome
on 11 December. This was the last
opportunity to take on coal before
making the long journey around the
Cape of Good Hope to Madagascar,
and the unsheltered harbour
enabled a full South Atlantic gale to
vent its fury on the coaling efforts
which slowed to a halt in the face of
huge seas. Coaling resumed on 15
December, and the Squadron finally
left African shores on the 17th.
Rozhestvensky expected to find a
cruiser (from Felkerzam's detached
Squadron) waiting for him upon his
arrival on New Years Day 1905 at the
Madagascan port of Sainte Marie to
convey the information that
Felkerzam was anchored and awaiting
orders further up the coast at
Diego Suarez. When Rozhestvensky
found, to his fury, that one of Felkerzam's
ships was not there he sent the
tug Rousse to find him. Meanwhile,
a collier arrived from Felkerzam with
the news that he was. on Admiralty
orders at Nossi-Be overhauling his
engines. Hard on her heels came the
Rousse whose captain returned with
the diastrous news from Felkerzam
that (a) Port Arthur had fallen to the
Japanese, (b) the remnants of the
Pacific Squadron had been either
captured or destroyed by siege
artillery, (c) therefore the Second
Pacific Squadron was no longer a
relief force and (d) Russia had lost
her only adequate base in the Pacific
area
It was the fall of Port Arthur that
caused their old French allies to yield
to British and Japanese pressure and
deny them the use of Diego Suarez.
which explained further why
Felkerzam was at Nossi-Be Nor was
that the end of it.
The Hamburg-Amerika Line,
whose colliers had fulfilled their
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