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    Falklands, Jutland And The Bight [Illustrated Edition]
    Falklands, Jutland And The Bight [Illustrated Edition]
    Falklands, Jutland And The Bight [Illustrated Edition]
    Ebook136 pages1 hour

    Falklands, Jutland And The Bight [Illustrated Edition]

    By Commander The Hon. Barry Bingham V.C. R.N.

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    At the outbreak of the First World War, Barry Bingham, an Ulsterman and career sailor who joined the Royal Navy in 1895, was a Lieutenant-Commander gunnery officer on the new battlecruiser HMS Invincible.
    He and his men did not have to wait long before they were pitched into battle against the German fleet, Invincible was part of the taskforce sent into the South Atlantic to avenge the defeat at the Battle of Corondel. The ensuing battle of the Falkland Islands was a decisive encounter, the lighter German Squadron under Admiral Graf Spee were surprised by their British opponents and lost all but two of their ships.
    The author’s reward for his conduct was command of a destroyer squadron in the Home Fleet and in May 1916 at the Battle of Jutland he was to win the Victoria Cross. He was ordered along with six other destroyers, along with the three of his squadron, to attack Admiral Hipper’s battlecruiser squadron. Out-ranged and out-gunned, Bingham’s ship drove for his target hard and fast, hoping to come within torpedo range of the heavier German ships. The German destroyer screen intercepted the majority of the British ships, of which two were sunk and others disabled; Bingham in HMS Nestor along with HMS Nicator of his squadron plowed forward. With reckless bravery the two ships carried on to 3,000 yards but were disabled before they could release their torpedoes; the Nestor continued to fight the unequal battle until sunk., Bingham and many of his crew were picked up a German destroyer bound for captivity warmed only by the thought that they had done more than their duty.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherVerdun Press
    Release dateAug 15, 2014
    ISBN9781782895343
    Falklands, Jutland And The Bight [Illustrated Edition]

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      Book preview

      Falklands, Jutland And The Bight [Illustrated Edition] - Commander The Hon. Barry Bingham V.C. R.N.

       This edition is published by PICKLE PARTNERS PUBLISHING—www.picklepartnerspublishing.com

      To join our mailing list for new titles or for issues with our books – picklepublishing@gmail.com

      Or on Facebook

      Text originally published in 1919 under the same title.

      © Pickle Partners Publishing 2013, all rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted by any means, electrical, mechanical or otherwise without the written permission of the copyright holder.

      Publisher’s Note

      Although in most cases we have retained the Author’s original spelling and grammar to authentically reproduce the work of the Author and the original intent of such material, some additional notes and clarifications have been added for the modern reader’s benefit.

      We have also made every effort to include all maps and illustrations of the original edition the limitations of formatting do not allow of including larger maps, we will upload as many of these maps as possible.

      FALKLANDS, JUTLAND AND THE BIGHT

      BY COMMANDER THE HON. BARRY BINGHAM V.C., R.N.

      WITH AN INTRODUCTION

      BY ADMIRAL SIR DAVID BEATTY, G.C.B., G.C.V.O., D.S.O.

      WITH ILLUSTRATIONS AND A PLAN

      TABLE OF CONTENTS

      Contents

      TABLE OF CONTENTS 2

      DEDICATION 3

      PREFACE 4

      INTRODUCTION 5

      LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS AND PLANS 7

      CHAPTER I — THE AUTHOR’S APOLOGIA 9

      CHAPTER II — THE COMMISSIONING OF H.M.S. INVINCIBLE AND THE BATTLE OF THE BIGHT 11

      THE BATTLE OF THE BIGHT 14

      CHAPTER III — PATROLLING THE NORTH SEA 19

      CHAPTER IV — AGAINST VON SPEE 22

      CHAPTER V — ARRIVAL AT FALKLAND ISLANDS 28

      CHAPTER VI — THE BATTLE OF FALKLANDS 31

      CHAPTER VII  — AFTER THE VICTORY 40

      CHAPTER VIII — HORNET AND THE FIRST FLOTILLA. 46

      CHAPTER IX — H.M.S. NESTOR 57

      CHAPTER X — THE BATTLE OF JUTLAND 61

      AFTERWORD 70

      ADDITIONAL ILLUSTRATIONS 71

      DEDICATION

      TO MY WIFE

      PREFACE

      THE author desires here to place on record an expression of his most grateful thanks to the following, without whose co-operation and unstinted help the book would in all probability never have seen the light:—to Mr. Algernon Okey Bellow, M.A., of Christ Church, Oxford, for assistance in mending the style and for advice in the arrangement of the material; to an ex-Naval officer, Major Douglas Robinson, of the Buffs, for the frontispiece, painted from details supplied by the author at Augustabad, where the Major was a fellow prisoner of war; to Lieutenant Dudley Rowe, D.S.O., R.N., the Sub-Lieutenant of the Nestor, for assistance in draughting plans of the Nestor from memory; to Paymaster Sub-Lieutenant Arthur D. Duckworth, for permission to use photographs taken by him from the maintop of the Invincible, while the Battle of the Falklands was actually in progress.

      Those in search of the author’s Apologia pro libello suo can be referred at once to Chapter I.

      B. B.

      INTRODUCTION

      BY ADMIRAL SIR DAVID BEATTY, G.C.B.,  G.C.V.O.,  D.S.O.

      IN introducing Commander the Hon. E. B. S. Bingham, V.C., of H.M.S. Nestor, as an author to the public, I would call attention to the despatches which have been published reporting the Battle of Jutland.

      "Eight destroyers of the 13th Flotilla ... with two of the 10th and two of the 9th Flotilla, having been ordered to attack the enemy with torpedoes when opportunity offered, moved out at 4.15 p.m. simultaneously with a similar movement on the part of the enemy.... They intercepted an enemy force consisting of a light cruiser and fifteen destroyers. A fierce engagement ensued at close quarters, with the result that the enemy were forced to retire on their battle-cruisers, having lost two destroyers sunk and having their torpedo attack frustrated....

      "Nestor, Nomad, and Nicator, gallantly led by Commander the Hon. Edward B. S. Bingham, of Nestor, pressed home their attack on the battle-cruisers and fired two torpedoes at a range of 6,000 and 5,000 yards, being subjected to a heavy fire from the enemy and secondary armament.

      "Nomad was badly hit....Subsequently Nestor and Nicator altered course to S.E. and in a short time found themselves within close range. Nothing daunted, though under a terrific fire, they stood on, and their position being favourable for torpedo attack, fired a torpedo at the second ship of the enemy line at a range of 3,000 yards. Before they could fire their fourth torpedo, Nestor was badly hit and swung to starboard.... Nestor remained stopped, and was afloat when last seen."

      This attack will be passed down to history as one of the most stirring examples of fine leadership seen in the Royal Navy during the war.

      The Nestor was unfortunately sunk, and Commander Bingham and the survivors of his crew were picked up by the German destroyer S.16 and made prisoners of war.

      This officer spent twenty-three, months in Germany, and it was while there he gave lectures which form the basis of this narrative.

      The writer relates his experiences in the Naval battles, mentioned on the title-page, in which he took an active part; there are also chapters relating to incidents and adventures met with in the everyday life of a battle-cruiser and a destroyer in the North Sea.

      The author’s story, besides being first-hand, is presented with colour and movement, technicalities being as far as possible suppressed; he also introduces a human touch when lie describes the thoughts and aspirations of his brother officers and men.

      The heroic and indomitable spirit animating the British Navy reveals itself in these pages, silhouetted the more clearly by virtue of a modest background.

      DAVID BEATTY.

      April, 1919.

      LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS AND PLANS

      H.M.S. NESTOR LEADS THE WAY

      THE BRITISH SQUADRON CLEARING PORT STANLEY (FALKLAND ISLANDS) TO GIVE CHASE

      11 A.M. THE SCHARNHORST, GNEISENAU, NURNBERG, DRESDEN, AND LEIPZIG

      ON THE HORIZON BEING OVERHAULED BY THE BRITISH SQUADRON—Taken from H.M.S. Invincible

      H.M.S. INVINCIBLE AND INFLEXIBLE PICKING UP SURVIVORS FROM S.M.S. GNEISENAU.—Taken from H.M.S., Invincible

      PLAN OF ACTION BETWEEN ARMOURED CRUISERS AT THE BATTLE OF THE FALKLAND ISLANDS, DEC. 8TH, 1914

      18TH FLOTILLA OF DESTROYERS ATTACK DURING 1ST PHASE OF BATTLE-CRUISER, ACTION, MAY 31ST, 1916

      FALKLANDS, JUTLAND, AND THE BIGHT

      CHAPTER I — THE AUTHOR’S APOLOGIA

      IN offering to an indulgent public, already sated with such things, a little book whose sole raison d’être is the Great War, I feel the obligation of prefixing a word, if not in justification of its existence, at least by way of explanation. In brief, the two circumstances that contributed to the present result were, the importunity of friends, and the enforced leisure of a captivity that afforded the time for attempting what I had been asked to do.

      It would appear that the Battle of Jutland, and the part played therein by our destroyers, succeeded in arousing interest to an uncommon degree, and I found myself overwhelmed with questions and inquiries from all with whom my new surroundings brought me into close contact—in other words, fellow prisoners of war. The constant repetition of the same story soon became extremely wearisome; and as the same demand for information, reiterated by each new acquaintance, rose by leaps and bounds every time I was transferred from one prison camp to another, I resolved to silence all these kind inquiries once and for all by means of a lecture.

      Now, in sitting down to write such a lecture, I realized more forcibly than ever that, with a few exceptions, my audience would be composed altogether exclusively of military officers, unversed in the Naval side of the war, who in some cases had been absent from England for nearly two years. It therefore seemed proper to widen the scope of the lecture by recounting something of what I had been able to see, not only of actual engagements other than the Battle of Jutland, but of the daily routine and general doings of the Silent Service in wartime. Nor was it possible to miss the opportunity of retailing one or two stories and experiences that had clung to the memory with a strange pertinacity. In short, my lecture came to embrace the sum of my experiences in H.M. Ships Invincible, Hornet, and Nestor from the outbreak of war until the moment of my capture by the enemy.

      Given in this form, the lecture met with a success that exceeded my wildest expectations.

      Probably no one is more prone to flattery than the budding author, and I thus came to lend an ear to the smooth tongues that urged me to put my story into some more permanent form for the

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