Battle of Texel thread:

On the 17/10/1914 the 7th Half-Flotilla's four S-90 class torpedo ships shipped out of the Ems estuary to carryout mining operations on the Downs or even as far as the Thames Estuary which would cause major disruption to British shipping. (pic: S-119)

They were fast at27 knots & that beyond coastal patrol duties they were of little use with only torpedo launchers & 3 2" L/40 guns. The design was almost twenty years old and much lighter in armour and armament than the Royal Navy's destroyers.

There were some within the Admiralstab who had written them off as expendable and the crews were all volunteers for this dangerous journey. In fact the crews were asked to volunteer for the mission which, of course they all did.

"Expendable" was a thought many miles from the mind of 33 year old Korvettenkapitän Georg Thiele as stood on the bridge of his flagship SMS S-119 as it proceeded south along the Dutch coast off Texel.

Thiele had been forced to keep close to land by British mines that lay between Lat 51 15'N and 51 41' against Long 1 35' E and 3 0'E.

7th Half-Flotilla had already lost on of her number in the relative safety of the Ems estuary. The S-116 had been torpedoed by Lieutenant-Commander Horton's HMS E9 on the 6 October killing nine men and her commander Kapitanleutnant Kurt Freiherr von Ziegesar.

Acting on a report from HMS E8 the British Admiralty had dispatched a small force to reconnoiter the Dutch coast. They were disconcerted by the activity in the German estuary fearing that the Kaiser's warships were going to sweep down the coast and threaten the port of Zeebrugge

The German army was sweeping westward with all of its might and should a force of German Cruisers attack and destroy or even damage the port facilities at Zeebrugge it would see the German army to continue straight through the Belgians.

Several patrols were sent to meet any German vessels with the light Cruiser Undaunted leading the destroyers Loyal, Lance, Legion and Lennox from the First Division of Third Destroyer flotilla arrived off the Dutch coast.

Captain Cecil Fox on the Undaunted began to proceed north with the destroyers at 16 knots when at 1:50 p.m. they sighted their quarry. At first the German formation made no move to avoid their British counterparts until they were in visual range when they began to scatter.

The German ships had to be dealt with quickly as they may be screening a larger force heading for Zeebrugge. Undaunted was ahead of her destroyers and orders were rapidly dispatched with each destroyer to attack their opposite number with the Undaunted assisting with the order

"General Chase" signaling the start of the battle and a further signal to the Admiralty "Am pursuing four German Destroyers"

As the Undaunted reached eight thousand yards she opened fire on the S-118 causing the German vessel to take avoiding action which saved her from damage but allowed the Undaunted to get closer. The British Cruiser resumed fire at 5000 yards with the destroyers going in to support

Lance and the Lennox turned to chase the easternmost German ships, the S-115 and S-119 whilst the Legion and the Loyal went for the S-118 and the S-117 with the Undaunted took direct action on the unfortunate S-118 at a range of 2500 yards with the Legion and the Loyal.

One of Loyal's lyditte shells destroyed the conning tower & killing Kapitänleutnant Erich Bickert. Another 6" shell from the Undaunted caused an explosion by her foremost funnel. The German Torpedo boat was reduced to a "sinking condition" with the vessel disappearing at 3:17 p.m

Thiele ordered S-119 & S-117 to turn back & attack Undaunted by either launching a torpedo attack or draw fire from the beleaguered S-118. As they reached the furthest limits of torpedo range Undaunted turned 16 points away. Fox ordered Legion & Loyal to attack the Germans.

Fox watched the Germans approach with a growing temptation to let them approach & decimate them with his gunfire but he later commented that “common sense prevailed” which might have been tinged with the memory of the loss of the Amphion still fresh in his mind!

Thiele appeared to be unwilling to risk his vessels and countered by seemingly abandoning the attack with the S-117 turning sixteen points north whilst Thiele’s flagship turned east with both vessels coming under direct fire from HMS Loyal, HMS Legion and the Undaunted.

Legion pursued the fleeing SMS S-117 and entered a duel which saw the German vessel turn to fire off three torpedoes at her pursuer. Lieutenant-Commander Claud Allsup ordered avoiding action

the first torpedo passing a few yards past her bow and the second a few yards astern but the third torpedo sailed below the destroyer amidships just below her funnel. Thankfully for Allsup and his crew it failed to go off.

With her torpedoes spent the S-117 resumed her escape attempt and fired her guns continually at her pursuer as well as trying to rake the decks of the Legion with machine gun fire but to no avail.

British Lyditte shells were much more effective and knocked out the steering gear forcing her to likewise turn in a circle & leaving her deck covered in twisted metal with steam escaping from her many holes. Kapitänleutnant Sohnke’s men fought on until the last gun fell silent

The sinking wreck which finally slipped below the waves at 3:30 p.m.

Loyal gave chase to Thiele’s flagship with the excitement clearly getting to Lt-Commander Burgess Watson’s men who began firing wildly at 3,500 yards before steadying their fire with five well executed salvoes that were thought to have calmed the men and “disturbed the quarry”.

Thiele and S-119’s Captain, Oberleutnant zur See Windel executed another daring move to try and put off their pursuers by turning eight points towards the Loyal so as to pass astern of her and to put a few shells into her. Watson refused to change course and later reported that;

"I decided to steer a steady course and give the after gun a chance of knocker her out; however the spotting was very and. Shot after shot was going over. I sent a Sub-lieutenant aft to with a more or less curt message that they must get a shot short."

"The Sub-lieutenant soon returned looking rather startled with the information that the First Lieutenant and two men were knocked out"

One of the wounded men was Lt Commander G. L. Davidson who remained at his post after his left foot was shot off encouraging his gun crew to continue their efforts and giving orders whilst spotting for the gunners and reporting where the shot fell, a feat that earned him the DSC

S-119 soon became a target for both Loyal, who altered course to bring her other guns to bear but also Lance who had left Lennox to deal with S-115. Lance put 3 shots into the German in quick succession but was struck amidships by the S-119’s last torpedo but it failed to explode

Lennox had begun firing her forward turret at S-115 at 2:25 p.m. but was inaccurate for some 35 minutes and it wasn't until 3:10 p.m. that any damage was registered when two Lyditte shells disabled the steering gear forcing the German vessel to turn sixteen points to port

It was at this point that the Lance departed to assist in combatting the S-119. Starting at 2500 yards the Lennox began to demolish the stricken German vessel destroying the bridge at 1,200 yards.

It was not until the destroyer reached 700 yards that fire was ceased believing the Germans would strike their colours and surrender but the crew continued to fire prompting the Lennox to resume her devastation until all signs of resistance ceased

a boarding party was dispatched with the officer later reporting that;
"On conclusion of the action I was sent away in a boat to S-115 to take off the only man left alive on board. He was standing on the propeller guard waving his shirt as a signal of distress and on my coming...

alongside he jumped into the boat and shook me warmly by the hand, pouring down blessings on my head in guttural Hun language."

I had been ordered to waste no time in taking off the German, so really was not able to make a thorough inspection of her; perhaps I was also thinking a little of our own safety, in that at any moment she might have been expected to blow up, as she was burning fiercely...

Her hull was riddled with shot holes all along the water-line the starboard side; and aft, she had two large gaping holes either side of the stern post. Nothing could be seen inside these latter but twisted lumps of metal and burning woodwork.

The funnels, although rather badly knocked about, were still standing, but were more in the shape of a bashed in top-hat than anything else.

The foremost torpedo tube and the foremost starboard gun had completely disappeared, only gaping holes showing the havoc wrought by our Lyditte.

Both masts had also gone over the side, this, unfortunately, frustrating any chance there might have been of securing her ensign as a much to be valued trophy.

The ‘midship torpedo tube was practically untouched, only the lip being a little bent and the torpedo was still in the tube.

The after gun also remained standing, but a shell had evidently struck the muzzle, as about half the barrel had been blown away. The after torpedo tube hadn’t been fired and was very little damaged.

It seemed evident that the officers and crew had jumped overboard soon after the ship had really began to get knocked about; but I should think that they must have nearly exhausted their ammunition first.

I am sure that had there been anything left in the magazines the ship would have blown up, considering the heavy fire that was raging fore and aft.

Owing to the short time I was alongside, I was unable to see what damage had been done to the engines and boilers, or to the foremost port gun; but as regards the former, they were probably reduced to scrap iron, judging from what I could see through holes in the ship’s side.

Having collected a few empty 4-pounder cartridge cases as “souvenirs,” I pulled back to the ship with our one prisoner. We picked up four other survivors later from the water, one of whom died on the way home from the effects of a bad leg wound."

S-115 was finally sunk by the Undaunted signalling the end of the German squadron in an action which had claimed some two hundred sailors killed including all four vessel's captains and the flotilla leader with only thirty one men pulled from the water

During the engagement Alfred Fright, who was serving on the bridge of the Undaunted witnessed one of the German vessels hoist a white flag before firing upon lifeboats that were lowered by one of the destroyers.

The First Officer, Lt-Commander Wood asked if he should lower boats to which Fox retorted that "If you do I'll shoot you." Its rumoured Fox had sworn he would kill an equal amount of the enemy as had perished under him aboard the Amphion. Undaunted picked up no survivors.

For the Admiralstab it was a stinging but expected defeat and the loss of the four older vessels only cemented their belief that the Royal Navy destroyers had superiority of numbers and ability over their German counterparts and further such missions were abandoned.

The Royal Navy could not afford to be self-congratulatory though as despite the easy victory and only five wounded casualties the accuracy of the gunnery was exceptionally questionable with a total of 1031 shells being fired by the five vessels and HMS Lance firing 262 alone.

Fox attributed the high amount of shells to the action taking place at high speed and long range and in an article written for the Naval review he made several observations which would have been dutifully brought forward to the Admiralty's attention

He also noted that independent fire at a range of over 2000 yards with officers spotting was wasteful and inaccurate preferring controlled fire using salvoes with bursts of rapid fire would be the best method until range finders could be employed.

The Germans on the other hand had also failed to score any significant hits whether due to poor accuracy or just not being able to get rounds in the air due to the enemy fire.

The damage was minimal with the Legion being struck in the starboard condenser, the Loyal took two shells including the one that struck the aft gun with the second causing a small fire in the steering compartment and had to undergo minor repair

The Lance was raked with Maxim machine gun fire but the damage was superficial and the Lennox and the Undaunted suffered no damage at all.

With concern that U-boats may be in the area Fox decided to leave the area as quickly as possible and with a brief signal to the Admiralty enforming them that the German force had been sunk his ships turned for home.