The Fictitious History of Swan of the East, a 1914 Naval Wargame, Part Four

 Part Four:  The Battle of Rabaul

Having received orders from Rear Admiral Patey to blockade the port of Rabaul, the protected cruiser HMAS Encounter (Captain Lewin) arrived off the entrance to the  large natural harbour on 14 August, with Captain Silver of HMAS Melbourne nearby in support.  Lewin observed a merchant ship (the unfortunate Matheran), sunk on one side of the mouth of the harbour, to restrict the approaches.  The other side of the mouth was partially covered by a boom and some small boats.  

HMAS Encounter

A shore battery unsuccessfully tried a shot once when Encounter passed too close, thus revealing that there were some fixed defences.  Lewin also obserbved a permanent wireless mast has been observed in the town near the docks, as well as a second wireless mast on one of the volcanic summits overlooking the harbour, the observation post of the resourceful Ensign Brunner.  While Captain Lewin contemplated a raid to destroy these wireless stations with his slender resources, Brunner had set events in motion for the decisive battle of the campaign.

Von Spee, his squadron nearby in the Marshall Islands, received a coded message from Brunner that there was a solitary British cruiser blockading the harbour.    This appeared to vindicate his plan to pick off solitary enemy vessels when possible, and so on 16 August Von Spee ordered his squadron to steam for Rabaul.  While en route on the 17th his lookouts sighted smoke from a large vessel on an intercepting course, but this ship soon veered away and receded from view.  

                                                                        HMAS Australia

This ship was the battlecruiser HMAS Australia.  Patey had grown anxious about the lack of signals from Encounter and feared she had come to a bad end.   Encounter’s signal log indicates that reports were sent, but for whatever reason were not received by the flag.    With the smoke of five ships in sight (two were in fact Von Spee’s supply ships), Patey did not fancy his chances and veered away, allowing Spee to proceed on his course.  Melbourne joined Patey that evening, and while in the morning Patey also summoned Encounter, she did not arrive until after the battle.

SMS Scharnhorst

 At 07:45 on August 17th, Patey was rewarded by the sight of Spee’s squadron, steaming ahead and away from him.   This time Patey decided to attack.  Von Spee had dispatched his supply ships to join him at a pre-arranged rendezvous, and tried to put distance between his ships and the pursuers, but over three hours it turned out that his enemy was faster.   

Shortly before noon, Von Spee elected to give fight rather than be shelled from astern by Australia’s bigger guns.  Turning into his foe would at least give the chance of doing damage in return.   Scharnhorst led as flagship, followed by Gneisnau and Nurnberg in line astern.  Patey slowed to half speed to prolong his range advantage, and wrote later that he planned to turn away and outshoot the Germans, but chance would interfere with this plan.  

Patey’s first salvo from Australia’s forward battery was very fortunate.   One 12” shell penetrated Scharnhorst’s stern top armour and detonated in a boiler space, killing many men and causing the ship to slow suddenly.   Leutnant Hoffman, a survivor of Gneisnau who was on her bridge, recalled that her skipper, Kapitan Maerker, had to turn sharply to starboard to avoid a collision, putting a gap between the two ships.   Maerker decided to use the situation to his advantage, and signalled by lamp to Scharnhorst “Will engage to port, you engage to starboard”.

The German cruisers opened fire at long range, ineffectively at first, but soon scoring a few hits.    Commander Hughson on Australia remembered that it was “damned good shooting.  We began our turn to present a full broadside and open the range so our longer guns could fire while we were untouched, but at that moment we were hit twice.   We’d just received a report that our forward turret was jammed and could not traverse when the bridge was riddled with splinters.    A signalman beside me was cut down, and my right arm was left useless.    I was being treated when I recall hearing the Admiral say ‘Why the fuck are we turning?’”

The answer to Patey’s question was one of those moments when the Goddess Fortuna intervenes in human affairs.   A shell from Gneisnau had penetrated and exploded in Australia’s tiller space, jamming her rudder and forcing her to turn to starboard.    Captain Silver of Melbourne had to turn sharply to evade his flagship, putting him out of range and out of the fight for several key minutes.

Why Von Spee did not chose to escape at this point is unknowable as he left no account of the action.    It took the German ships moments to understand that Australia was turning uncontrolled, and by then they were close enough that even their secondary guns were able to damage the lightly armoured foe as they fired from either side.   Von Spee may also have decided to try and rescue his sister ship, which was taking a fearful pounding from Australia’s serviceable main guns.  Leutnant Hoffman wrote later that “Everything was a shambles, we were on fire from end to end and the bridge deck was slippery with blood.  Kapitan Maerker was dying from a splinter wound in his chest, but his last orders were to keep engaging.  Somehow our surviving main guns were still in action.”

On Australia the situation was also dire.  Voice pipes and electricity were out of action throughout the ship, and an engineering officer, his head bandaged, had to report damage to the boiler spaces.  The ship was slowing noticeably, and damage control parties worked bravely but futiley to stem the inrush of the sea.  She was settling by the bow with water lapping around her useless forward turret.   

At this point Melbourne finally entered the fray,  As she surged past Australia, she signalled “Am attacking with torpedoes”.  Captain Silver recalled that “Australia’s ensign was still proudly flying, though she was pretty mangled and on fire in several places.   We cheered her madly as we passed and bore down on Gneisnau.”  Melbourne would claim several hits, and a large column of water was observed, but Hoffman thought they were already sinking and the order to abandon ship had already been given.    

Seeing Australia immobile, and his consort sinking, Von Spee decided that he had done enough.   Scharnhorst limped away, covered by Nurnberg, who had played no part in the battle.  He was not pursued.  Melbourne was busy attending to his flagship, which was fighting for her life.  Patey ordered her many wounded to be brought above decks and put into those few boats that were not smashed.   For the moment the flooding was contained, but she was so far down by the head that Australia’s screws were visible above the water.    

By this point Encounter had arrived on the scene, and was also receiving wounded from the flagship.  Some boats were detailed to pick up Gneisnau’s survivors, who numbered just under two hundred.    Just after 15:00, realizing that there was little chance of getting Australia to safe harbour in Sydney, Patey transferred his flag to Melbourne and ordered her sunk with torpedoes.    Captain Silver recalled that “we cheered her as she slipped below the waves, but we were all very sorry to see her go.”

Patey was grim on the return to Australia, but he could take some comfort in knowing that he had sunk one heavy cruiser and damaged a second.   He would have been more cheered had he known how badly Scharnhorst had been damanged.  As Von Spee received damage reports, he realized that his flagship was badly hurt.  One forward 8.2” turret was permanently out of action, her hull had been holed in several places and her armoured belt badly damaged, and worst of all for a raider, her maximum speed had been reduced by half.  For Von Spee, this last result was the most catastrophic.   The hunter would now become the hunted.

While Von Spee sought a remote island in the Solomons to regroup with his supply ships and tend to his wounded, Melbourne and Encounter steamed south to Cairns, where hospital trains had been summoned.   Almost a thousand of Australia’s crew had survived, though many were wounded and some died en route.    Melbourne’s doctor and padre were both kept busy.    Hoffman of Gneisnau recalled that “We were well treated, given clothing and cigarettes, and there was a brisk trading of caps and souvenirs.  We could proudly say that we and our Kapitan Maerker had done our duty, sunk a capital ship,  and allowed our Admiral to escape.”

Some of Australia's survivors.

Over the next few months, there was an uproar in the Australian press that a namesake ship had been sunk.    An Admiralty Board decided to keep Patey in command, and reinforcements from New Zealand, the old light cruisers Pioneer and Fox, were summoned.   The Colonial Secretary expressed alarm that the troops currently mustering to arms in Australia and New Zealand could be safely convoyed, but the First Lord, Churchill, with his characteristic optimism, assured the colonies that the ANZAC troops would be safe.

Perhaps it was only Von Spee at this point who realized that the decisive battle of the campaign had been fought, and lost.    His force would never again pose a serious threat to allied warships, and at most they could raid until cornered and sunk.   The Imperial Convoys would sail unmolested. Admiral Patey did not know it at the time, but he had turned the tide of the war in the Pacific.

To Be Continued

The Fictitious History of Swan of the East, a 1914 Naval Wargame, Part Three

 

Part Three:  The Raiders Learn Their Craft

If the initial Allied efforts were fruitless, so were the first weeks at war for the German raiders.  It would be two weeks before they caught another prize after the unfortunate Matheran, though this may have been because they chose less travelled routes as their hunting grounds.   By 15 August, only three ships were sunk or captured, and of these, the SS Diplomat, was recaptured by HMAS Sydney and her prize crew from Emden taken prisoner.   The German naval forces always behaved with great chivalry to the captured crews of their prizes, but discovered that taking a prize could be a double-edged sword.    First, while the prize ship was useful as a collier or as a prison for captured mariners, it encumbered the raiders should they have to show their heels, which is how Diplomat was recaptured.   Secondly, every prize crew detached from a ship’s complement  risked undermining the efficiency of that ship, and indeed, the German ships were generally superior to their adversaries in training and skill, so this was not an advantage lightly to be dispensed with.

Even when fortunate enough to capture a merchant with full coal bunkers, the raider captain, who was always thinking of his own dwindling coal stocks, had a dilemma.  Did he put out fenders and try to coal at sea, with the risk of damage to his hull?   Or did he try and find a secluded cove and hope that he could take the necessary two to four days of laborious work to transfer coal from ship to ship?  Sometimes the Germans got away with it, but Emden almost came to disaster when she was discovered in the act of coaling in early September.

Captain Max Loof of Koenigsberg

Once he established himself athwart the Bay of Bengal trade routes, Kapitan Loof of Koenigsberg showed considerable ingenuity in managing his prizes.   On August 20th he captured the SS Mersey Girl, with a load of cattle bound for Singapore.   Finding a secluded beach on the Arrakan coastline, where he was unbothered by allied warships for some weeks,  his crew and their captives regularly feasted on barbecued beef and bathed in the warm waters.   As Loof remarked later on, “That was a very pleasant part of the war for us”. 

Eitel Friedrich’s Mundt wrote that these first weeks were very frustrating, as their scant prey largely consisted of small sailing ships carrying unremarkable cargoes of grains and textiles.   After encountering the old sailing ship Gullwing, he recalled joking: “Sailing ships!   Sailing ships!   At this rate we can cut down their masts, bring them aboard, and turn Der Alte Friedrich into a clipper ship!”   Thierichens acidly remarked that at least the textiles could make curtains for the wardroom.  The one advantage that Eitel Friedrich enjoyed was that as a converted passenger liner, she had room for captives.   Indeed, when the Russians finally ran her to ground, they freed  prisoners from six ships and many nations.

                                 Prinz Eitel Friedrich in peacetime, in the colours of the Norddeutscher Lloyd line.

Usually the raiders practised the techique of turning away wrath with soft words and kid gloves.  One exception was when Koenigsberg encountered the American sailing vessel SS Chauncey in the Bay of Bengal on 18 August.   Her master, a rock ribbed Yankee skipper, took umbrage to being inspected and rudely declined Captain Loof’s offer of dinner, which made the German skipper lose his temper and aggressively search the American vessel before letting her go.   The Yankee captain loudly protested this treatment to the British authorities when he reached Bombay, and had Royal Navy Intelligence been more efficient, the whereabouts of Koenigsberg might have been determiend earlier thanks to this indignant American.

The gold standard for chivalry was maintained throughout the campaign by the officers and men of Emden, who quickly became media darlings.    In early October she captured the passenger ship SS St Osmund and detained four Australia-bound RN officers, including Commander the Rt Hon Sykes-Willoughby.  Before he and other captives were finally released, their captors entertained them with a musical variety show (the Emden’s captain and crew were particularly fond of dramatics and musicals).   Once he reached Manila, Sykes-Willoughby told the press that the Germans were "Dashed fine fellows … and a pity we shall sink them and kill the lot.  A shame, really, they are such good singers”.   Indeed, the Emden’s fame was such that when the crew of Nurnberg briefly detained the passenger ship City of Adelaide on October 13th, they pretended to be from Emden, thus concealing their own identity and putting more heat and light on their comrades.  When Captain Muller of Emden read of this in a captured newspaper, he joked to his officers that “We are everywhere, even where we are not!”.

All in all, by the time Emden, the sole survivor of Von Spee’s squadron, fled the Pacific in late October, the German raiders had accounted for 29 merchant ships, totalling roughly 230,000 tons.   While there was some considerable disruption to Allied trade between South Africa and South America, the panic was relatively short lived, and the cost to Germany in ships and crews made this at most a Pyrrhic victory.   One can only imagine what a difference a sailor of Von Spee’s calibre would have made had he and his ships been part of the High Seas Fleet, and could perhaps have exercised his skill at Jutland.

To Be Continued

The Fictitious History of Swan of the East, a 1914 Naval Wargame, Part Two

 Part Two:  Opening Shots and Blockades

Hostilities in earnest began in the Pacific on 5 August when a landing party from Spee’s Gneisnau descended on the island of Tout Compris, a sleepy French colony in the Caroline Islands.   German sailors comprehensively wrecked the wireless station, though not before a the attendants had time to transmit a brief SOS call.    The island’s main industry, a coconut oil refinery, and several warehouses, were all set ablaze before the Germans withdrew to their ship without a shot being fired.

SS Matheran, the first merchant ship captured in the campaign.

Meanwhile, Nurnberg detained the British merchant steamer SS Matheran, carrying livestock and machine parts en route to South Africa.  Her master, Percy FitzPatrick, did not know that war had been declared, and found himself en route to Rabaul in the custody of a prize crew.    As FitzPatrick recalled, “spending three months at Rabaul weren’t a hardship, we was treated decently and them island girls were pretty, but we got a bit tired of all that fruit”.   

Spee gave specific instructons to the Ensign Emil Brunner, the prize commander, to establish a liason with the governor of Rabaul and update the squadron on developments.  An enterprising young officer, Brunner removed the wireless set from Matheran and had it lugged to the top of a volcanic peak, where he and his men could see for miles and report to Von Spee.  Brunner would play a small role in the sea battle that occurred off Rabaul, but more of that later.

Mount Kombiu, the site of Brunner's observation post.

By the time Jerram’s China Squadron arrived to blockade Tsingtao on 6 August, his lookouts found the harbour devoid of masts or funnel smoke.  “The partridges have flown!” Jerram remarked to his flag captain.   His mood was not made better by a signal from the First Lord ordering him to proceed to the Carolines and investigate the French distress signal, an order that he found disruptive to his own plans.  King Hall meanwhile did not wait for the arrival of Swiftsure but reached Dar es Salaam on August 5, where he also found nothing to blockade.   The Koenigsberg had sailed days earlier.  Coded wireless messages from the German port commanders informed the German ships at sea that their safe havens were now denied to them.

HMS Triumph, Admiral Jerram's flagship.

The first instance of inter-allied cooperation occured when the IJN Chikuma arrived August 8 off Tsingtao, where Captain Tatsuo went aboard the British flagship Triumph to liase with Admiral Jerram.  It was agreed that Tatsuo would follow Triumph and Jerram’s light cruisers to the Carolines, while Hampshire and Minotaur woujld remain on blockade.   What Tatsuo did not reveal was that the Japanese government would soon declare war on Germany, with an eye to seizing Tsingtao for the Emperor,

Admiral King Hall had likewise been giving thought to how he might communicate with his allies.  Before leaving Simonstown, he had a Russian speaking tailor summoned aboard and essentially press-ganged.  As King Hall remembered, “We referred to him as ‘Mr Stroganoff’ and had rations and quarters provided for him, but were never sure how we would explain this expense to the Admirality”

The Russians meanwhile had arrived at a Japanese naval station in the Bonin Islands, and were receiving a frosty reception from the commander there, until Jerram’s squadron along with IJN Chikuma arrived on 10 August.  At a conference aboard Triumph, Jerram, Tatsuo and Ivanov met to coordinate their efforts.    Jerram’s staff officer, Commander Wittering, recalled that “The Russian and Japanese officers were very cool to one another, it was clear that they had unfinished business, but Admiral Jerram did his best to play the bluff old sea dog and jolly them along.”   At the end of the conference, it was agreed that the Russians would patrol north of the Carolines, while the British and Japanese would work the southern sea zones.   It was the first attempt by any allied commanders to coordinate their efforts, though coordination would prove to be a perennial problem for them.

To Be Continued

The Fictitious History of Swan of the East, a 1914 PBEM Naval Wargame, Part One

Imagine my surprise browsing a used book store over the holidays and finding this old, long out of print history of the first months of the Great War at Sea in the East.   Imagine further, dear reader, that the events described therein were an exact match for the events of the naval campaign game that myself and eleven wonderful people participated in between June and November 2025!  I stood for many moments in that bookstore, turning those old pages in wonderment.  What strange alternate history timewarp did this volume emerge from, and who was Capt. C.M. Peters?  I could find no record of him in any history, and online sources such as Dreadnought Project yielded nothing.

So, over the next week, I shall be posting the contents of the history of this online game, which for me was the highpoint of my gaming career.   That it was a success is thanks to the creativity and commitment of the players, who seemed to have as much fun as I did.   You can go through back posts of this blog to learn about the mechanics of the game.  MP+

 Introduction

The author acquired first hand knowledge of the events described in this history as a staff officer serving in the Admiralty.   After the war he had the privilege of interviewing many of the participants whose accounts grace these pages.    This book is dedicated to the gallant sailors of all nations who contested the Pacific and Asian sealanes in the fall of 1914.

Captain C.M Peters, Rn (retd)

Part One:  Preparing for War

As both sides in the Pacific prepared for war, there was one man who had a definite plan.    Vice Admiral Maximilian Johannes Maria Hubert Reichsgraf von Spee, commander of the Kaiserliche Marine’s East Asiatic Squadron, spent the last days of peace laying at anchor in the Caroline Islands.  

Besides his flagship the heavy cruiser SMS Scharnhorst, and her sister ship, Gneisnau, his squadron consisted of the light cruiser Nurnberg, as well as the supply ships Titania and Markomania.  In addition, still in port in Tsingtao, Spee’s command included the light cruiser Emden (Kapitan Muller) and the hastily converted armed merchant cruiser, Prinz Eitel Friedrich (Kapitan Thierichens), a passenger ship of the Hamburg Amerika Line.  In Dar es Salaam, Spee also had the light cruiser Konigsberg (Kapitan Loof).

Spee’s orders from Berlin were to “wage a vigorous cruiser warfare” against Allied merchant shipping, while maintaining a fleet in being to threaten Allied naval forces and the vital convoys of colonial troops that would surely be raised and transported.  Spee knew that these orders could be contradictory.   To raid enemy merchant shipping he would have to disperse his ships, while threatening Allied naval forces meant risking damage that could not be repaired so far away from Germany.  He also knew that the recent development of wireless telegraphy equipment was a mixed blessing, for every communication with his squadron carried the risk of detection by superior allied forces.  In his favour, Spee knew that he could count on crack, well trained crews, except for the hastily assembled crew of the Friedrich.   He also knew that his sailors were well trained in night fighting, which would give the Kaiser’s men an edge on several occasions in the campaign to come.

Accordingly, Spee’s orders to his captains, given in sealed envelopes and only to be opened in the event of war, were simple:

• Avoid combat unless absolutely necessary;
• Get to sea at once so you are not blockaded in port;
• Maintain wireless silence unless absolutely necessary; and
• Treat captured merchant crews courteously while sinking their ships.

He assigned his ships to the following areas:

Koenigsberg would operate to the west of Australia and try to pick off merchants on the India/Arabia/Africa routes,  Friedrich would hunt the Pacific trade routes north and northwest of the Carolines, Emden would operate west of the Carolines and prey on the China trade.   

Spee’s own squadron would operate initially in the Carolines, raiding commerce routes while keeping an eye out for exposed allied naval units that could be picked off with minimal risk.

Leutnant Von Lans, who survived the sinking of Scharnhorst, remembered that Von Spee “always appeared calm, confident and encouraging, but one saw glimpses of a fatal resignation in his demeanour, the knowledge that he and many of his shipmates would never return home.”

In Tsingtao, the last days of peace were spent in frantic preparation as Emden and Eitel Friedrich took on coal, supplies, and ammunition.   Theo Mundt, the Executive Officer of the Eitel Friedrich, recalled that there was little time to integrate the crew, a mix of sailors from the gunboats Luchs and Tiger, reservists newly arrived from Germany, and civilian volunteers from the Hamburg Amerika crew.   “We did the best we could, and managed to be ready for sea in the same time as Emden, which made us all proud”.  Mundt recalled sitting with Kapitan Max Therichens the night before sailing, and toasting their ship.   As Mundt joked, “I never thought I’d be taking a floating hotel to war”.

And so it was that at night, in the last hours of peace, Emden and Friedrich left Tsingtao and parted company, while Kapitan Max Loof ordered Koenigsberg into the Mozambique Channel on what would be an eventful cruise.

Opposing Von Spee were three Royal Navy admirals and their foreign allies.    Operating out of Simonstown in South Africa, Rear Admiral Sir Herbert Goodenough King-Hall commanded the Cape Squadron.    

A veteran sea dog, King-Hall had first seen action as a midshipman in the Anglo-Egyptian War of 1882.    He knew these waters intimately, but was also painfully aware that his three ships, the protected cruisers HMS Pegasus, HMS Astraea, and HMS Hyacinth, were all built in the late 1800s whereas his likely opponent, Koenigsberg, was much newer.   Also weighing on King-Hall’s mind was the warning from the Admiralty that the German battlecruiser SMS Moltke, sister ship of the Goeben, could be en route to reinforce Von Spee.    

The First Lord of the Admiralty, Winston Churchill, was aware that the Cape Squadron would be no match for Moltke, and ordered the pre-dreadnought battleship HMS Swiftsure, to steam to reinforce.   As King-Hall wrote later, “The First Lord told me that since my ships were slower and inferior to those of the enemy, there was no use in running.   We were to sell our lives dearly in the best traditions of the service”.   With the promise of Swiftsure’s arrival, King-Hall’s squadron steamed north with the intention of blockading Dar Es Salaam.

Meanwhile in Hong Kong, Vice Admiral Martyn Jerram prepared his China Squadron for war.   

Besides his flagship the pre-dreadnought HMS Triumph, Jerram’s squadron included the slow but powerful armoured cruisers HMS Minotaur and HMS Hampshire, while for his eyes and ears her could count on the fast light cruisers HMS Newcastle and HMS Yarmouth.   While powerful in terms of tonnage and guns, Jerram knew that his crews varied in quality.   Only Newcastle had a crew that was trained to a superior standard.   

Attached to the China Squadron was the French armoured cruiser Dupleix, commanded by Captain Louis Juares.    

The relationship between Juares and Jerram began poorly and deteriorated thereafter.  Neither spoke the other’s language, and Juares found Jerram to be typical of his prejudices of the condescending English sea dog.     For his part, Jerram had a low opinion of the French crew, doubting their experience and competence, and relegated Dupleix to the unglamorous task of patrolling the sea lanes while he hunted the Germans.  Commander Edgar St John de Lancey, Jerram’s Intelligence Officer, spoke good French and did his best to mediate between the two, but found the task difficult.  “Both men cordially disliked the other from the start, and I think the Admiral often forgot that the French were part of his command, while Juares grew increasingly bitter and cynical as the weeks went on.  It was an Entente, but never an Entente Cordiale.”

In the last day of peace, Jerram received orders from the Admiralty to raise steam and prepare to sail.   Once hostilities were declared on 2 August, the China Squadron steamed north towards Tsingtao, leaving Dupleix to guard the South China Sea. 

The third member of this Royal Navy triumvirate, Rear Admiral George Edwin Patey, commanded the newly formed Royal Australian Navy’s sole squadron, based in Sydney.   

 Sharp-tongued and hard driving, Patey was an aggressive commander who did not suffer fools gladly.    He flew his flag in the battlecruiser HMAS Australia, paid for by subscription by her namesake colony but with a mostly British crew.   Her guns were more than a match for Spee’s heaviest ships.  Also part of the squadron were the  modern and fast light cruisers, HMAS Sydney with a highly efficient crew, and HMAS Melbourne.  Patey could also call on the older armoured cruiser HMAS Encounter.

Patey had a difficult relationship with Churchill, as the First Lord had given him conflicting orders.   On the one hand, he was tasked with steaming to Dar Es Salaam to reinforce King-Hall’s venerable ships and guard against any breakthrough by the German bogeyman Moltke.    However, he also knew that he was responsible for protecting the Australian trade routes and the troop convoys that would inevitably be sent from Australia and New Zealand once the war came.    Patey also knew that the enemy base in Rabaul, German New Guinea, could be a haven for Von Spee.  Small wonder then that he was known for his waspish temper.

Patey’s solution to this fraught situation was to divide his squadron.  Australia and Sydney would steam west and assist King Hall, while Melbourne and Encounter would steam north and blockade Rabaul.

Finally, we should mention the allied naval forces that played a significant contribution to the campaign.   

Coming from the frigid waters around Vladivastock was Commodore Admiral Sergei Ivanov, with his flag in Askold.   With her distinctive five funnels, Askold was well known in the Pacific.  A German design, and quite fast, she was plagued with smaller than normal coal bunkers.    Ivanov’s squadron included the older protected cruiser Jentchug,  Her captain, Baron I. A. Cherkasov, was socially superior to Ivanov but far less competent, which made for a difficult relationship. Ivanov also had the challenge of managing crews that were still infected by the mutinous spirit of the 1905-06 rebellion.   A veteran of the Russo-Japanese war, and a former junior naval attaché to Britain, Ivanov had excellent English and was a conscientious commander who strove to motivate and improve his crew.

Finally, the Imperial Japanese Navy contributed the fast light cruiser Chikuma, a close copy of an English design, the first Japanese warship to be equipped with steam turbines. 

Her captain, Hiroshi Tatsuo, had commanded a torpedo boat in the war with Russia and had been decorated for sinking a Russian cruiser.  One can imagine that he had no love for the Russians, which was potentially awkward as he and Ivanov were both attached to Jerram’s China Squadron.   

As it turned out, both the Russian and Japanese contributions were highly effective, and deserved as much credit for the final victory in the Pacific as did the Royal Navy.

With our list of dramatis personae complete, we can now turn to the first moves of the naval war in the east.

To Be Continued