on the morning of september 22nd 1914
the british armoured cruisers abukir
hogue and cressie were on patrol not far
from the coast of holland
the first world war was only a few weeks
old and not a single hostile ship have
been spotted so far
but not far away observing the british
ships through a periscope were the crew
of the german submarine u9 who were
about to shatter the quiet of that
september morning in a devastating
single-handed attack mounted in broad
daylight against the royal navy
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at the outbreak of the first world war
the royal navy had a large number of
older ships in mothballs placed in
reserve during and after the
reorganization of the navy under admiral
jackie fisher
among these ships were five cressy-class
armoured cruisers which had been built
in the late 1890s and had spent years
tied up on the river medway in kent
cressy abakir hogue bocante and uralus
were reactivated at the start of
hostilities and crewed with reservists
drawn from the local area in particular
the dockyard town of chatham
they were assigned to patrol an area of
the north sea of the dutch coast known
as the broad 14s under rear admiral
arthur christian in support of the
destroyers at harrage under commodore
reginald tierwitz
a key objective of the navy in the early
weeks of the war was to keep the german
navy away from transports taking british
troops to france and so christian ships
began a relentless patrol only returning
to port to coal or to carry out repairs
this was no easy task for the aging
ships which in rough autumn weather
struggled to maintain any kind of speed
without using copious amounts of coal
and they'd do so alone since the
destroyers they were supposed to support
couldn't maintain the patrol in the
rough seas
to make matters worse every admiral
christian had to contend with frequent
engine breakdowns meaning there were
sometimes only three of the five
cruisers at sea
in this position the cruisers were
highly vulnerable old slow ships prone
to malfunction with basically untrained
crews
if they ran into virtually any modern
german surface ships they would be in
serious danger
commodores tiowi and roger keys in
command of the local submarine flotilla
appreciated this and was soon asking the
abraham t to withdraw the crestes out of
harm's way
trying to force the navy's bureaucracy
into action was easier said than done
though as there were several key figures
who could intervene
keys in particular was a vociferous
going straight to the top and managing
to secure a meeting with the first lord
of the admiralty winston churchill on
september 17th
commodore keys was able to convince him
that the cressies were hugely unsuited
for their current task and had even
become known in the navy as the live
bait squadron
churchill recommended that the cruisers
be withdrawn a request that met with
approval from apple john jelico the
commander-in-chief of the grand fleet
however that wasn't the end of the story
vice admiral duft and sturdy the chief
of the war staff at the april t
intervened to convince april prince
louis battenberg the first sea lord to
keep the ships where they were
sturdy's argument was that the cressies
should be replaced as soon as possible
by new arithusa class light cruisers but
since these weren't ready yet then the
armored ships were better than nothing
and so as another north sea storm closed
in on september 21st three of rear apple
christian ships remained at sea plowing
through the waves
their accompanying destroyers had
returned to pool because of the weather
and christian himself was ashore with
the uralus
under the temporary command of hms
abukir's captain john drummond the
cruisers were alone
at the same time not far away a german
u-boat submarine lay 50 feet under the
sea being buffeted by the rough weather
this was u9 under the command of
lieutenant otto vedigen a fearlessly
brave 32 year old who had nearly been
killed twice before while serving in
submarines
at the start of the war germany had 24
u-boats in commission these were tiny
500-ton boats with crews of just 28 men
and two torpedo tubes at each end
their engines burnt kerosene so produced
a plume of dark smoke whenever they
steamed on the surface making them easy
to detect
u9 had been scheduled to leave germany
as soon as war was declared but engine
troubles and banned weather delayed it
in port for six weeks before vetigan
could finally take his boat out on
september 20th
he was tasked with attacking british
transport off austend but unfortunately
the same north sea storms that were
battering the british ships also hit u9
and pushed it off course towards the
dutch coast
by the morning of september 22nd vadigan
was about ready to give up and take his
boat back to port when the weather broke
and the sea calmed
rising to periscope depth with the
boat's secondary electric engines
vadigan took one look around as the sun
rose
to his surprise he could spot three
british cruisers steaming directly
towards him
four thousand yards apart
the british that morning were relieved
to see the end of the bad weather by 5
am the sea was calm enough for the
destroyers to operate so commodore
teewit left harrid with a light cruiser
and 14 destroyers the journey to the
patrol location would take four hours
as the sun came up that morning captain
drummond had his three ships steaming
liner breast at 10 knots
none of them were zig-zagging or varying
their course the only precautions were
lookouts being posted and two guns on
each ship being loaded and manned
everything seemed calm as it had been
for weeks
what the lookouts did not see was a
periscope steadily approaching hms
abukir on its port side
from just under a thousand yards away
vatigan fired one bow torpedo before
descending once more to 50 feet
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with abakir keeping a steady consistent
course and speed it was an easy shot to
aim
at 6 20 am the torpedoes slammed into
abakir amidships blowing a massive hole
in the side and flooding the engine and
boiler rooms the ship quickly came to a
halt and began to list dramatically
having seen no sign of submarine
previously drummond initially believed
that his ship had struck a mine but
after damage reports were received he
signaled to the others that abakir had
been torpedoed
the flooding on the armoured cruiser was
soon running out of control and just 25
minutes after she was hit abakir
capsized leaving hundreds of sailors in
the water
in response captain wilmot nicholson of
hms hogue took his ship towards the
stricken apocare ordering his crew to
keep an eye out for periscopes
boats were sent out to recover survivors
and hulk came to a complete stop not far
from the abakir which was still hanging
upside down near the surface
whether captain nicholson believed that
the submarine would not attempt another
attack or that his crew would be able to
spot it before it could get a torpedo
away is a bit of a mystery
but either way he was mistaken
after hitting abakir lieutenant vedigen
brought his boat cautiously back to the
surface at about 650 after reloading the
empty front tube
he raised his periscope and discovered
to his astonishment hms hogue straight
in front of the boat 300 yards away not
moving
wasting no time u9 fired both its four
torpedoes at 6 55.
vadigan took his boat back to a safe
depth as the metal fish closed in on
their target
after 30 seconds two loud explosions
could be heard
on board hogue captain nicholson had
ordered all watertight doors on the ship
to be shut but in a moment that exposed
the inexperience of the crew doors
inside the engine room were left half
open
water rushed in dooming the hogue to
capsize at 7 15 even before the boats
full of survivors from abakir had
arrived back
the scene in the water was now one of
utter carnage as the last remaining
cruiser hms cressie also came in close
to try and rescue as many sailors as
possible
i think it's important to note here that
all three of these ships have been
crewed from reservists from the same
local area around the medway river many
of them would probably have known each
other and the instinct to save their
comrades from drowning i think got the
better of both the hogue and cressi
to their detriment
not content with sinking just the two
armored cruisers u9 circled around while
submerged again to continue the attack
even as the power in its batteries
dropped to dangerously low levels
by 710 vatican had lined up the rear
tubes on cressie which was also
stationary to pick up survivors
two torpedoes were fired
this time lookouts on the target spotted
the periscope and torpedo track and
alerted the bridge cressie went to full
ahead and managed to dodge one of the
torpedoes but the second slammed into
its side
noticing this as he had stayed on the
surface this time vadigan decided to
make sure the ship sank swinging his
boat around to fire the last loaded bow
torpedo at 7 30. this one ruptured
pressy's boiler room dooming the ship
hms cressie sank at 7 55 completing an
extraordinary victory for the german
submarine
in a little over an hour between first
and last torpedoes one german submarine
had sunk three much larger british
cruisers and escaped unharmed
with tier which ship still some distance
away hundreds of british sailors had to
cling on in the cold north sea until
help arrived in the form of dutch
trawlers many did not make it
1459 men were killed with 837 being
pulled from the sea
in material terms the loss of three
obsolete and pretty useless cruisers was
insignificant in the grand scheme of
things and did not affect the balance of
power but the loss of life stung both
the navy and the local communities from
which the sailors had been drawn
for germany lieutenant vazigan became
the nation's first naval war hero
awarded the iron cross first class for
his daring attack
it was an early sign of just how
dangerous u-boats would be as the war
progressed when military success
delivered the belgian port of zebruga
into german hands u-boats would be able
to operate from there virtually inside
the english channel a threat which
culminated in an incredible british
sabotage operation in 1918 which i'll be
covering in the next video
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