BATTLE OF CORONEL, CHILE, 1914
Rear-Admiral Sir Christopher Craddock, Royal Navy South Atlantic Squadron
York Minster; St. Agatha's, Gilling West, North Yorkshire; All Saints, Catherington, Hampshire
Lieutenant-Commander Percival van Straubenzee, HMS Good Hope
St. Michael and All Angels, Spennithorne, North Yorkshire
Able-Seaman Herbert Bull
St. Mary's, Barnetby-le-Wold, Lincolnshire
Lieutenant-Commander Peter Robert Heathcote-Drummond, HMS Monmouth
Grimsthorpe Castle Chapel, Lincolnshire
The Background
When Japan declared war on Germany in August 1914 the German Treaty Port of Tsingtao, on the Chinese coast, was exposed to a joint attack from the Japanese and Australian navies. Anxious to avoid the fate of the Russian navy ten years earlier, when it was trapped in its Chinese base and destroyed, Admiral von Spee left the port and sailed east, across the Pacific, for Germany. The squadron, consisting of two heavy cruisers, and three lighter ones, initially headed for Chile, which was known to have friendly relations with Germany. There von Spee could resupply whilst also raiding allied merchant shipping before rounding Cape Horn and heading for the North Atlantic.
Of course sooner or later their presence would be known, and in early October the commander of the British South Atlantic Squadron, Rear Admiral Christopher Cradock, who was in his flagship, the Good Hope, off the east coast of South America, learnt of von Spee’s appearance off Chile.
The Action
Cradock set sail for the west coast, taking five ships, and leaving the rest of his force to protect the east coast should von Spee elude him. The five ships he took were: two cruisers, the HMS Good Hope and HMS Monmouth; a light cruiser, HMS Glasgow; a converted liner, HMS Otranto; and HMS Canopus, an old and outmoded battleship. Canopus was soon struggling to keep up and so Cradock ordered her to act as guard to a merchant fleet, leaving him free to move on more swiftly without her. At this point, the Glasgow, scouting ahead, picked up radio signals from one of the German vessels, the Liepzig, and alerted Cradock, who sailed north to meet the Glasgow, before moving on to intercept the German ship.
Cradock’s problem was that, unknown to him, he was going to encounter more than the Liepzig. When he sighted the Germans off the Chilean town of Coronel at 16.40 on November 1st there were five ships: the light cruiser, the Nürnberg; two cruisers, the Liepzig and the Dresden; and two modern battlecruisers, the Gneisenau and the Scharnhorst. Cradock found himself outnumbered, and significantly outgunned; in particular the two battlecruisers had guns with much greater range and power than anything he possessed.
Logic surely dictated that Cradock withdraw, but he did not. At 17.10 he ordered his ships to close in on the enemy. There is a lot of debate as to why. One suggestion is that he just could not resist a fight, but that seems over-simplistic. Another is that he knew reinforcements were being sent to the South Atlantic, and that if he engaged and damaged von Spee’s squadron it would make the Germans’ ultimate defeat much more likely; a sacrificial lamb theory that doesn’t seem necessary, as all he had to do was shadow and wait for the reinforcements . A third theory relates to a colleague, Rear-Admiral Troubridge, who was at the time being court-martialled for failing to engage two German ships in the Mediterranean; a fighting man like Cradock was not going to submit to that indignity. All these are possible factors, but there is also the fact that the ex-liner the Otranto had just eight guns and a top speed of only eighteen knots. If Cradock were to withdraw, with over an hour of daylight still remaining, the Otranto would be left behind, and inevitably caught by the enemy. Once the Germans had seen him, he had to wait until darkness fell before retiring, or the Otranto would have to be sacrificed.
At 18.50, two hours after the first sighting, the Otranto did retire and escape, but by then it was too late for Cradock.
At 18.45 the German ships, still out of Cradock’s range, opened fire. Almost immediately the Good Hope was hit, with some of its forward guns put out of action. Cradock moved further forward to get within firing range, but at five thousand metres he was an easy target, and by 19.30 both the Good Hope and the Monmouth were on fire. At 19.50 the forward section of the Good Hope exploded, and she ceased firing, drifted away into the darkness, and sank. The Monmouth was afire and sinking, but still afloat and heading for the shore in an effort to beach. The Glasgow, with a top speed of 25 knots the swiftest of the British ships, escaped. The engagement ended when the Nürnberg signalled to the Monmouth to surrender, and when the invitation was refused promptly sank her. The full crews of both the Good Hope and the Monmouth were lost, a total of one thousand, five hundred and seventy men. To put the inequality of the engagement into perspective, the Germans suffered three casualties, all wounded. It was the first defeat for a British naval squadron at sea since the Battle of Grand Port, off Mauritius, in 1810.
The Men
Christopher Cradock had not been born into a naval family, not even a military one, unless members of the county militia count. The family had lived at Hartforth Hall, a few miles north of Richmond in Yorkshire, since William Cradock of Gilling had had it built in 1744. They were landed gentry, with Christopher’s father, another Christopher (1825-1896) the fourth of the family to reside there. With three sons, Sheldon (born 1859), Montagu (1860) and Christopher (1862) he must have been confident the line would continue, but he would have been wrong. Sheldon inherited, but when he died, a retired Lieutenant-Colonel, in 1922 he, like brother Christopher, was unmarried. The estate passed to Montagu, but he also was single, and when he died in 1929 (described as being of “90, Piccadilly”, not of Hartforth Hall) the direct male line ceased. However, there was a sister, Gwendoline.
Gwendolin, who died in 1932, had married a Co. Durham ironmaster, Herbert Straker, and they had two children, Guy (1892) and Sylvia (1899). When Montagu died he left the estate to Guy on condition that he changed his surname to Cradock. 1929 was quite a momentous year for Guy, as his father, Herbert, also died then, leaving over a quarter of a million pounds, clearly a fortune at the time.
Guy married, but again there were no children, so when he died at Hartforth in 1975 the estate passed to his sister Sylvia and her children. As she was married to the 10th Baron Barnard, of Raby Castle, they didn’t really need the hall; in 1977 it became a hotel, which is how it remains, with no Cradocks remaining other than as memorials in the church.
Percival van Straubenzee (pronounced with the stress on the second syllable, with no emphasis on the first and last), despite being born at the Royal Military Academy in Woolwich, was from a Wensleydale family which had been established in Spennithorne since the 18th Century. The family are descended from a Dutch officer who had come to Britain in the 1740s and married into the gentry. Percival had passed out of HMS Britannia as a Midshipman in 1896, and saw service in Benin before working his way up the ranks. Described by his commanding officers as "zealous" and "painstaking", the past of his service that stands out was his being sent to Mexico City with two Maxim guns in February 1914 "for the protection of British life and property", necessary as Mexico was in a state of civil war. Percival never returned to Yorkshire, but the family still reside in Spennithorne Hall.
Two last points about Admiral Cradock. One is that he is connected to another of the stories on this site; he was in charge of the naval forces at Tientsin during the Boxer rebellion, and so was Midshipman Frank Esdaile’s commanding officer. The other is that there is something endearing about the fact that he commanded at the most emphatic British naval defeat for over a hundred years, and yet he has more memorials than anybody else in these tales: the Portsmouth Naval Memorial; a grand marble memorial in York Minster; a monument at Catherington in Hampshire; and a tablet and a memorial window at his local village church in Gilling West. Who said the British do not admire plucky losers?
When Japan declared war on Germany in August 1914 the German Treaty Port of Tsingtao, on the Chinese coast, was exposed to a joint attack from the Japanese and Australian navies. Anxious to avoid the fate of the Russian navy ten years earlier, when it was trapped in its Chinese base and destroyed, Admiral von Spee left the port and sailed east, across the Pacific, for Germany. The squadron, consisting of two heavy cruisers, and three lighter ones, initially headed for Chile, which was known to have friendly relations with Germany. There von Spee could resupply whilst also raiding allied merchant shipping before rounding Cape Horn and heading for the North Atlantic.
Of course sooner or later their presence would be known, and in early October the commander of the British South Atlantic Squadron, Rear Admiral Christopher Cradock, who was in his flagship, the Good Hope, off the east coast of South America, learnt of von Spee’s appearance off Chile.
The Action
Cradock set sail for the west coast, taking five ships, and leaving the rest of his force to protect the east coast should von Spee elude him. The five ships he took were: two cruisers, the HMS Good Hope and HMS Monmouth; a light cruiser, HMS Glasgow; a converted liner, HMS Otranto; and HMS Canopus, an old and outmoded battleship. Canopus was soon struggling to keep up and so Cradock ordered her to act as guard to a merchant fleet, leaving him free to move on more swiftly without her. At this point, the Glasgow, scouting ahead, picked up radio signals from one of the German vessels, the Liepzig, and alerted Cradock, who sailed north to meet the Glasgow, before moving on to intercept the German ship.
Cradock’s problem was that, unknown to him, he was going to encounter more than the Liepzig. When he sighted the Germans off the Chilean town of Coronel at 16.40 on November 1st there were five ships: the light cruiser, the Nürnberg; two cruisers, the Liepzig and the Dresden; and two modern battlecruisers, the Gneisenau and the Scharnhorst. Cradock found himself outnumbered, and significantly outgunned; in particular the two battlecruisers had guns with much greater range and power than anything he possessed.
Logic surely dictated that Cradock withdraw, but he did not. At 17.10 he ordered his ships to close in on the enemy. There is a lot of debate as to why. One suggestion is that he just could not resist a fight, but that seems over-simplistic. Another is that he knew reinforcements were being sent to the South Atlantic, and that if he engaged and damaged von Spee’s squadron it would make the Germans’ ultimate defeat much more likely; a sacrificial lamb theory that doesn’t seem necessary, as all he had to do was shadow and wait for the reinforcements . A third theory relates to a colleague, Rear-Admiral Troubridge, who was at the time being court-martialled for failing to engage two German ships in the Mediterranean; a fighting man like Cradock was not going to submit to that indignity. All these are possible factors, but there is also the fact that the ex-liner the Otranto had just eight guns and a top speed of only eighteen knots. If Cradock were to withdraw, with over an hour of daylight still remaining, the Otranto would be left behind, and inevitably caught by the enemy. Once the Germans had seen him, he had to wait until darkness fell before retiring, or the Otranto would have to be sacrificed.
At 18.50, two hours after the first sighting, the Otranto did retire and escape, but by then it was too late for Cradock.
At 18.45 the German ships, still out of Cradock’s range, opened fire. Almost immediately the Good Hope was hit, with some of its forward guns put out of action. Cradock moved further forward to get within firing range, but at five thousand metres he was an easy target, and by 19.30 both the Good Hope and the Monmouth were on fire. At 19.50 the forward section of the Good Hope exploded, and she ceased firing, drifted away into the darkness, and sank. The Monmouth was afire and sinking, but still afloat and heading for the shore in an effort to beach. The Glasgow, with a top speed of 25 knots the swiftest of the British ships, escaped. The engagement ended when the Nürnberg signalled to the Monmouth to surrender, and when the invitation was refused promptly sank her. The full crews of both the Good Hope and the Monmouth were lost, a total of one thousand, five hundred and seventy men. To put the inequality of the engagement into perspective, the Germans suffered three casualties, all wounded. It was the first defeat for a British naval squadron at sea since the Battle of Grand Port, off Mauritius, in 1810.
The Men
Christopher Cradock had not been born into a naval family, not even a military one, unless members of the county militia count. The family had lived at Hartforth Hall, a few miles north of Richmond in Yorkshire, since William Cradock of Gilling had had it built in 1744. They were landed gentry, with Christopher’s father, another Christopher (1825-1896) the fourth of the family to reside there. With three sons, Sheldon (born 1859), Montagu (1860) and Christopher (1862) he must have been confident the line would continue, but he would have been wrong. Sheldon inherited, but when he died, a retired Lieutenant-Colonel, in 1922 he, like brother Christopher, was unmarried. The estate passed to Montagu, but he also was single, and when he died in 1929 (described as being of “90, Piccadilly”, not of Hartforth Hall) the direct male line ceased. However, there was a sister, Gwendoline.
Gwendolin, who died in 1932, had married a Co. Durham ironmaster, Herbert Straker, and they had two children, Guy (1892) and Sylvia (1899). When Montagu died he left the estate to Guy on condition that he changed his surname to Cradock. 1929 was quite a momentous year for Guy, as his father, Herbert, also died then, leaving over a quarter of a million pounds, clearly a fortune at the time.
Guy married, but again there were no children, so when he died at Hartforth in 1975 the estate passed to his sister Sylvia and her children. As she was married to the 10th Baron Barnard, of Raby Castle, they didn’t really need the hall; in 1977 it became a hotel, which is how it remains, with no Cradocks remaining other than as memorials in the church.
Percival van Straubenzee (pronounced with the stress on the second syllable, with no emphasis on the first and last), despite being born at the Royal Military Academy in Woolwich, was from a Wensleydale family which had been established in Spennithorne since the 18th Century. The family are descended from a Dutch officer who had come to Britain in the 1740s and married into the gentry. Percival had passed out of HMS Britannia as a Midshipman in 1896, and saw service in Benin before working his way up the ranks. Described by his commanding officers as "zealous" and "painstaking", the past of his service that stands out was his being sent to Mexico City with two Maxim guns in February 1914 "for the protection of British life and property", necessary as Mexico was in a state of civil war. Percival never returned to Yorkshire, but the family still reside in Spennithorne Hall.
Two last points about Admiral Cradock. One is that he is connected to another of the stories on this site; he was in charge of the naval forces at Tientsin during the Boxer rebellion, and so was Midshipman Frank Esdaile’s commanding officer. The other is that there is something endearing about the fact that he commanded at the most emphatic British naval defeat for over a hundred years, and yet he has more memorials than anybody else in these tales: the Portsmouth Naval Memorial; a grand marble memorial in York Minster; a monument at Catherington in Hampshire; and a tablet and a memorial window at his local village church in Gilling West. Who said the British do not admire plucky losers?
The Coronel Memorial, York Minster
IN MEMORIAM LIEUTENANT COMMANDER THE HONOURABLE PETER ROBERT HEATHCOTE-DRUMMOND-WILLOUGHBY R.N., FOURTH SON OF THE FIRST EARL OF ANCASTER. BORN 2nd NOVEMBER 1885, LOST IN HMS MONMOUTH IN THE NAVAL ENGAGEMENT OFF CORONEL ON THE COAST OF CHILE 1st NOVEMBER 1914
Percival Lieut Commander RN born 13 Dec 1880. He served with the Benin Expedition 1897 & was lost in action in HMS 'Good Hope' at Coronel on 1 Nov 1914.
'The souls of the righteous are in the hand of God'
'The souls of the righteous are in the hand of God'
Sources
Photos
HMS Good Hope - collections of The Imperial War Museum
Rear-Admiral Christopher Cradock - Wikimedia Commons
Hartforth Hall - by Roger Dean, from geography.org.uk
The Coronel Memorial, York Minster - author
Barnetby-le-Wold War Memorial - author
Military
en. wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Coronel
en. wikipedia.org/wiki/Christopher_Cradock
Genealogy
www.ancestry.co.uk
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hartforth
ⓒ Jon Dewhirst June 2014
