The battle-cruisers in this action had some exciting adventures with submarines. They had, for instance, to wait for some hours before the moment came for their intervention, and while at the rendezvous they were repeatedly attacked by them. From the Vice-Admiral’s despatch, it would appear that this attack was frustrated partly by rapid manœuvring, partly by sending destroyers to drive the U-boats off. Later in the day, when the squadron was engaged in sinking _Köln_ and _Ariadne_, it was once more attacked by submarines, and _Queen Mary_ (Captain W. R. Hall) turned his ship, not to avoid the submarine, but its torpedo, which was seen approaching. We got very early warning, therefore, of the truth of the prophecy that the first result of the employment of the torpedo in fleet actions would be compulsory movements of the attacked ships. It was a prompt reminder that if manœuvring meant loss of artillery efficiency, that the enemy had it in his power, by submarine and destroyer onslaughts, to extinguish our gunfire from time to time.
Alone of the actions which have taken place in this war, the firing was all within comparatively short range. Six thousand yards was the limit of visibility. There are not sufficient data to judge whether the British gunnery was greatly superior to the German. But Commodore Tyrwhitt draws attention to a fact, already familiar to us, viz. that a German cruiser can send salvo after salvo, all within a few yards of the target, without securing a hit. It proved later to be a feature common to all engagements.
[Illustration: The action off Heligoland. The course of the battle-cruisers]
The engagement off Heligoland had no successor until the spring of 1916, when the attack on the island of Sylt took place. A second sweep some days after the first was made in the same waters, but nothing of the enemy was seen. Whether such sweeps were repeatedly made in 1915 without the public being informed, we do not know. By this I do not imply that no incursions into German waters were made--I mean only that we heard of none, and presumably that, if any were made, there was no result.
But two points in this connection may be borne in mind. The affair off Heligoland took place on August 28, 1914. After losing three cruisers by exposing them to Sir David Beatty’s and Commodore Goodenough’s forces, the Germans managed their affairs very differently. Perhaps from this time on no German craft ventured into the North Sea at all, except when the whole fleet came out in force. And they did not come out in force very often, nor at all, except at night or when the weather was clear enough for the fleet’s scouts, either in the form of airships, destroyers, or cruisers, to give long warning of the presence of danger. The two raiding expeditions and Von Hipper’s excursion of January 28 are undertakings of a very different character.