On this day 1st November 1914 The Royal Navy received the shock of its life, and also its first major defeat in an action at sea. Admiral Kit Craddock on his Flagship HMS Good Hope took his South American Squadron up the coast of Chile in search of the German East Asiatic Squadron, the Largest and most powerful German Naval Force based outside of German home waters. At 4:20 this afternoon HMS Glasgow a light Cruiser with Craddocks Squadron Sighted the smoke from Admiral von Graf Spees East Asiatic Squadron, which comprised the Big Armoured Cruisers sisters SMS Scharnhorst and Gneisenau, and three small Light Cruisers: SMS Leipzig, SMS Nurnburg and SMS Dresden. After 2 hours of hard steaming and the two squadrons jockeying for a better position with which to aim and shoot their guns, by 6:30 that evening conditions were such that the German Gunners could clearly see the British ships silhouetted against the setting sun, where as the British Ships could only just about see dark smudges below the horizon. At 6:50 the Germans opened fire and so began the Climax to one of the most one sided Naval Battles in History. The Germans had 16 Heavy Guns compared to the British 2 Heavy Guns, the British were soon even further handicapped when 5 minutes into the action accurate shell fire form the Germans destroyed one of the two heavy guns on board Craddocks Flagship Good Hope. By 6:30 HMS Monmouth, Craddocks second big Cruisers had stopped firing at the Germans, so heavy was her damage, and both British ships were heavily damaged and on fire, presenting a near perfect target for the Germans. At 6:50, HMS Good Hope, heavily on fire, most of her guns destroyed, and heavily listing, suffered a massive explosion in the forward part of the ship, which blew into pieces, and she sank, taking all her crew with her to the bottom of the sea. HMS Monmouth was allowed some reprieve from the Germans shooting, by now it was nearly pitch black and the Germans had lost her in the dark. HMS Glasgow had stayed near her though and her Captain was considering taking Monmouth in tow to try and beach her on the coast of Chile, mindful of the two big German Cruisers that were around Monmouths Captain ordered Glasgow to make for a safe port to radio the news of the Action to the Admiralty in Whitehall. Around 9pm SMS Nurnburg found HMS Monmouth in the dark, her bows deep in the water, slowly sinking, and unable to make any headway, Nurnburg indicated to Monmouth to surrender, Monmouth refused, and so SMS Nurnburg sank her after a short sharp fight in which Monmouth did not have a single gun working, at 9:21pm HMS Monmouth rolled over on to her side and quickly sank, again like HMS Good Hope there were no survivors, of Craddocks Squadron only HMS Glasgow and an Armed Ocean Liner HMS Otranto survived, between them HMS Good Hope and Monmouth went down with just over 1600 men. SMS Scharnorst is thought to have managed to hit HMS Good Hope 35 times on her own with her heavy guns, Gneisenau is thought to have hit Monmouth a similar number of times. In return the British hit the German ships had hit SMS Gneisenau with 4 6 shells, which did no real damage to the German, and SMS Scharnhorst twice, with the only German Casualties being three wounded sailors on Gneisenau. The Coronel is still today one of the worst, and most one sided defeats the Royal Navy has ever suffered. RIP to Admiral Kit Craddock and his gallant crew.
Posted on: Sat, 01 Nov 2014 11:22:22 +0000
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