NAVAL OPERATIONS

The principal feature of naval warfare, aside from that conducted by and against submarines, was the absence of major engagements. Such engagements as occurred were of a minor nature and confined to meetings between patrol units or to local raids.

On February 25, 1917, German destroyers bombarded Broadstairs and Margate on the English coast. Two deaths but no material damage resulted.

About the same time it was announced that on February 15, 1917, a British cruiser had fought a successful engagement against three German raiders off the coast of Brazil, damaging two of them. The third escaped.

Not until March 22, 1917, did the German Government announce that the raider Moewe had returned to her home port from a very successful second raiding trip in the Atlantic Ocean which had yielded twenty-seven captured vessels, most of which of course had been sunk.

Still another German raider was heard of on March 30, 1917. On that day the French bark Cambronne arrived at the Brazilian port of Rio de Janeiro, having on board the crews of eleven vessels which had been captured and sunk by the raider. The latter was said to have been the former American bark Pass of Balmaha which had been captured by the Germans in August, 1915, and at that time had been taken into Cuxhaven. She had been renamed Seeadler and was a three-master of about 2,800 tons, square rigged, with a speed of about twelve knots, and was equipped with a powerful wireless plant. Her armament was said to have consisted of two 105-mm. guns and sixteen machine guns, and a crew of sixty-four men. The boat apparently had left Germany in December, 1916, escorted by a submarine, and had successfully evaded the British patrol, not mounting her guns until she had run the British blockade. The eleven ships known to have been sunk by the Seeadler were:

Antonin, French sailing vessel, 3,071 tons, owned in Dunkirk; 31 men on board.

British Yeoman, British sailing vessel, 1,963 tons, owned in Victoria, B. C.; 21 men.

Buenos Ayres, Italian sailing vessel, 1,811 tons, owned in Naples; 21 men.

Charles Gounod, French sailing vessel, 2,199 tons, owned in Nantes; 24 men.

Dupleix, French sailing vessel, 2,206 tons, owned in Nantes; 22 men.

Gladys Royle, British steamship, 3,268 tons, owned in Sunderland; 26 men.

Horngarth, British steamship, 3,609 tons gross, owned in Cardiff; 33 men.

Lady Island (or Landy Island), 4,500 tons; 25 men.

La Rochefoucauld, French sailing vessel, 2,200 tons; owned in Nantes; 24 men.

Perce, British schooner, 364 tons, owned in Halifax; 6 men, 1 woman. Pinmore, British sailing vessel, 2,431 tons, owned in Greenock, 29 men.

The Cambronne, which on her arrival at Rio de Janeiro had on board 263 men, had been brought up by the raider on March 7, 1917, in the Atlantic Ocean in latitude 21 south, longitude 7 west, or almost on a straight line with Rio, but twenty-two days east.

During March, 1917, the British Government announced an extension of the danger area in the North Sea, which affected chiefly the protected area off Holland and Denmark. On March 28, 1917, German warships, cruising off the south coast of England, attacked and sank the British patrol boat Mascot.

On April 8, 1917, an engagement occurred between British boats and German destroyers off Zeebrugge on the Belgian coast. One of the German destroyers was sunk and another was seriously damaged.

Various raids were carried out during April, 1917, against the English coast. On April 21, 1917, six German destroyers attempted an attack on Dover. Two of them were sunk by British destroyers. The Germans also claimed to have sunk two British patrol boats. Six days later, on April 27, 1917, another German destroyer squadron attacked Ramsgate, killing two civilians before they were driven off by land batteries. During another engagement a few days later between British light cruisers and destroyers and eleven German destroyers off Holland, one German boat was damaged.

Both Calais and Dunkirk were bombarded by German destroyers. In the former town some civilians were killed. As a result of the attack on Dunkirk one French destroyer was sunk.

On May 10, 1917, a squadron of eleven German destroyers about to sail out of Zeebrugge was attacked by a British naval force and forced back into the former Belgian harbor, then serving as a German naval base. Two days later, May 12, 1917, the same British force assisted by an air squadron successfully attacked Zeebrugge, destroying two submarine sheds and killing sixty-three persons.

During May, 1917, it was also announced that American warships had arrived safely in British waters and had begun patrol operations in the North Sea. At about the same time Japanese warships made their appearance at Marseilles to assist in the war against submarines operating off the French coast.

On May 15, 1917, Austrian light cruisers operating in the Adriatic Sea, sunk fourteen British mine sweepers, torpedoed the British light cruiser Dartmouth, and sunk an Italian destroyer.

An engagement occurred between a French and a German torpedo-boat flotilla on May 20, 1917, during which one of the French boats was damaged. A few days later British warships bombarded Ostend and Zeebrugge. Six German destroyers engaged in a running fight with a British squadron, as a result of which one German destroyer was sunk and another damaged. On May 29, 1917, a Russian squadron, operating along the Anatolian (south) coast of the Black Sea bombarded four Turkish-Armenian ports and destroyed 147 sailing vessels carrying supplies.

Thirteen Bulgarian ships successfully bombarded the Greek port of Kavala, then occupied by Allied forces.

Fort Saliff on the Red Sea was captured by British warships. Fort Saliff is a Turkish fortress on the Arabian coast of the Red Sea.

Nothing of importance happened during June, 1917.

Early in July, 1917, a German submarine bombarded Ponta Delgada in the Azores, but was beaten off by ships lying in the harbor, including an American transport.

On July 17, 1917, it was announced that British destroyers had attacked a flotilla of German merchant ships on their way from the Dutch port of Rotterdam to Germany, sinking four and capturing four others.

Mines, submarines, and explosions also made inroads on the naval establishments of the various belligerents. During February, 1917, the Russian cruiser Rurik was damaged by a mine in the Gulf of Finland. On February 28, 1917, a French torpedo destroyer was sunk by a submarine in the Mediterranean.

On March 19, 1917, the French warship Danton was torpedoed in the Mediterranean, 296 of her crew having perished. A mine was responsible for the sinking of a British destroyer on May 4, 1917, causing the loss of one officer and sixty-one men.

Mines also were responsible for the sinking of the French armored cruiser Kleber off Point St. Mathieu on June 27, 1917, with a loss of thirty-eight men, of a British destroyer and of a German torpedo boat in the North Sea, and, on June 30, 1917, of a Russian torpedo boat in the Black Sea.

A torpedo sent the British auxiliary cruiser Hilary to the bottom of the North Sea with the loss of four men, while a collision was the cause of the loss of a British torpedo boat.

On July 9, 1917, the British battleship Vanguard of the dreadnought class, 19,250 tons, was destroyed by an internal explosion while at anchor in a British port.

According to figures compiled by the New York "Times" the naval losses at the end of the third year of the war (August 1, 1917) had reached approximately the following figures: Allied navies, 120 ships with a total tonnage of 662,715; Central Powers, 122 ships with a total tonnage of 387,911.[Back to Contents]