22 
LAND & WATER 
May 25, 1916 
Dominions' Naval Help 
By Arthur Pollen 
THE splendid work of the Canadian, Australian 
and New Zealand troops in the stricken tields 
of France and Flanders, has largely oyer- 
siiadowed in the memory of the public the im- 
portance of Dominion services at sea. F'or that matter, 
there has been little published wherefrom a connected 
or detailed story can be derived. But the broad facts 
of the share of the^Dominions in the naval campaigns are 
available, and, on an occasion such as this, it is right 
and fitting that the more salient points should be brought 
to our recollection. 
The first ship of the British Xavy to be sunk in 
action — Good Hope — was the first ship, I believe, in the 
Navy List that was, in a sense, a gift from the Britons of 
Overseas. At the Battle of Coronel, Good Hope was 
the gallaint Cradock's flagship. In the ships that fell so 
gloriously in that unequal fight, there was serving a 
detachment of officers and men from the Royal ^Canadian 
Navy — the youngest of the daughter services of the 
Empire. It was little more than a matter of months 
that these men had trained before they set out on this 
desperate and, in a military sense, fruitless errand. They 
were, I believe, the first of our Overseas brothers to shed 
their blood and lose their lives at sea in the cause of Empire. 
More recently, two other Dominions ga\e to the mother 
country's Navy, by direct gift, units of the first im- 
portance. New Zealand, a battle cruiser of the Ittde- 
faiigable type — after a maiden cruise to the Dominion that 
gave her to the nation — returned to home waters, and 
joined Sir David Beatty's flag. So far as we know, she 
has been a imit in the battle cruiser squadron ever since, 
and has remained under the command of the officer 
who commissioned her. Captain Lionel Halsey. She 
took part in the sweep into the Bight of Heligoland of 
August, 1914, and, in the affair of the Dogger Bank, flew 
the flag of Rear- Admiral Sir Archibald Moore, when he 
succeeded to the command of the squadron after Lion 
had been disabled. Malaya, a battleship, was the gift 
of those of the Malay States that are under the dominion 
of the British Crown. The value of such gifts as these 
needs neither argument nor emphasis. Finally, /1 2<s/>'(»/i«, 
after invaluable services in the Pacific and Indian Oceans 
while von Spec's squadron was in being, has for long 
been in the same squadron as New Zealand. 
Nor were the Canadians, who shared in the action 
off Coronel, the only Dominions men serving in the Senior 
Service. The uncounted flotillas of sloops and special 
craft designed for hunting submarines, and for finding 
and sweeping away mine fields, etc., have been largely 
manned and commanded by volunteers from Canada and 
other Dominions. From quite early in the war, too, Canada 
undertook the patrol of her own Eastern coast, thus 
releasing the North Atlantic squadron for more important 
work. Further than this, both Australians and Canadians 
have undertaken and managed the whole of the transport 
of the great armies they have sent to Europe — a purely 
naval operation of the first magnitude and importance. 
Canada has supplied the Royal Navy with great quanti- 
ties of naval munitions. Thus men, trained and untrained ; 
material, raw and manufactured^ — everything which each 
Dominion could give — has been willingly offered and 
eagerly accepted. 
Australia, at the outbreak of war, was the only Dominion 
that had a completely organised Navy and an Admiralty 
of its own. Of ships — finished, commissioned and ready 
for sea — her force consisted of the Australia, a battle 
cruiser of the Indefatigable class ; two protected cruisers 
of the Dartmouth type, the Melbourne and Sydney; 
the Encounter, a sister ship of Challenger ; six 26-knot 
destroyers, and the nucleus of a flotilla of submarines of 
the E class. In addition the fast light cruiser Brisbane and 
seme destroyers are now completing for her navy. It was 
not perhaps a very large force, but it proved to be of 
decisive value in war. Withoiit it, the coast towns of 
Australia would have been at the mercy of the German- 
China squadron, her very important trade routes opeh 
to the ravages of von Spec's light cruisers. 
The strategic position in the Pacific and Indian Oceans 
was curiously complicated at the beginning of hostilities 
and it may be of some interest to recall the main 
circumstances. In the China Squadron, Vice-Admiral 
Jerrom had under his command Triumph, Minotaur, 
Hampshire, Newcastle and Yarmouth, eight destroyers, 
three submarines, four torpedo boats, half a dozen gun 
vessels, and some river craft. The latter would, of course, 
be useless for war purpose. Of this force. Triumph 
was not commissioned. She had been sent to Hong 
Kong as depot ship, and at the outbreak of war was due 
for a refit. Only a nucleus crew of officers and men was 
on board. She was actually fitted up with men, officers 
and stores, and sent out of harbour within forty-eight 
hours ! The East Indies Squadron, under Rear- 
Admiral Peirse, consisted of Sunftsure, a sister ship of 
Triumph ; Dartmouth, a cruiser of the same class as 
Newcastle ; the Fox, an old Astrcca, and four small craft. 
In Australian waters were the Dominion squadron I have 
enumerated above. Clearly, neither the East Indies nor 
the China squadron — without Triumph — was any sort 
of match for the forces at von Spec's disposal. And had 
Japan preserved her neutrality, our chief reliance must 
have been placed in the force which the loyal foresight 
of the Australians provided. 
Von Spec's Plans 
The share an Overseas navy can take in the strategic 
defence of the Empire, and its influence upon the plans 
and the movements of the enemy, are very clearly indicated 
by a brief review of what in fact happened in the only 
waters where a colonial navy existed. The first ship 
of the German China squadron to be sunk, namely, 
Emden, fell as we all know to the Australian Svdncv 
And if we follow the movements and can penetrate the 
plans of von Spec, it becomes obvious that it was the 
existence of the Australian navy that determined his 
movements, and materially assisted in hastening his end. 
Von Spec had the choice of scattering his fleet or keep- 
ing it together, Scattered, his light cruisers were hardly 
equal individually to the best of the light cruisers that 
they might encounter. Sydney, Melbourne, Newcastle. 
Yarmouth and Dartmouth were all more heavily gunned 
than Number g, Leipzig and Emden or than Dresden, 
which had joined von Spec at Easter Island in the 
middle of October. His battle cruisers — though not 
carrying such heavy metal as Swijtsure or Triumph — 
were yet much faster. Each was about equal in 
speed and fighting power to Minotaur, and, of course, 
vastly superior to any other British ship in the Pacific — 
Australia excepted. But he could not count on having 
to meet British ships only — and the Japanese Navy had 
some single ships that were as fast and more powerful 
than his. This is an important matter to remember 
in discussing his choice of plans. 
The first question that he must put to himself was — 
should his policy be to scatter his fleet and do all the 
damage he could ? Or to keep it together, in the hope 
of ultimately achieving some strategical object worth 
having ? Scattered, the damage the armoured cruisers 
could have done on the trade routes — supposing they 
could be supplied — would clearly have been enormous, 
although he could hardly have expected to do much 
against the transports, for these would surely be convoyed 
so long as his ships were at large. But the necessity of 
convoying the ships would have relieved him to a great 
extent of. the fe.ar of formidable vessels being sent to 
hunt him upon the trade routes. He might have guessed 
that the Japanese ships would probably be kept to their 
waters. This would leave all the trade routes of the 
Indian Ocean open to his attack. Had he used his 
armoured cruisers as commerce destroyers here, he 
could reasonably have expected a staggering success 
before they could be brought to action by superior force. 
With such a policy, he would no doubt have recognised 
the ulitmatc fate of his sliips to be inevitable. Sooner 
