1937-01-04 — Page 22

10.

By Torpedoman

Albert E. Pratt

One of the crew of H.M.S.

Natal at the time of

the disaster

the

T is said that two beetling headlands, scarcely a mile spart, which form the bottle-neck opening to Cromarty Firth in Scotland, are called "The Sutors," because on the crest of each there used to live a cobbler with only one last between the two of them.

This, says legend, they slinred by throwing it backwards and forwarda as required "autor" being the Latin and an old Seattish word for cobbler. But, whatever you may think of this local lore, there can be no doubt that nowhere

coust on the

of Great Britain in there a better protected or more sequestered natural harbour.

This 15 the rennon Cromarty Firth was one of the most impor tant. naval, bases during the war. Some of the swiftest and most vital naval dramas had their beginning in that twenty-mile stretch of water with the straggling burghs of In- vergordon

nide and on the onc Cromarty on the other.

A Pulse of the War

The Admiralty was constantly in touch with this northern stronghold, for sometimes the entire High Sen Fleet would be moored there in readiness for action.

Special traina often left London secretty in the middle of the night and raced non-slop over those 700 miles that lay between London and Invergordon carrying with them munitions, food supplies, and not infrequently some of the bigt naval chiefs in a special saloon couch at- tached to the rear.

Cromarty Firth was one pulses of the war,

of the

Anshed from

An urgent message 'one of the Sea Lords In London would in a few minutes send n squadron of our greatest ships steam- ing between "The Sutors."

Towards the end of 1915 there was considerable movement in the Firth.

"The Sutors had been forlifed,' A mine-landing station had been established at ʼn local distillery. A line of oil tanks for the refueling of the great men-o'-war of the Ficet stretched for a quarter of a mile along the northern shore.

were

The water was dotted with every description of craft. There battleships and cruisers, destroyera and submarines, torpedo-boats and aircraft carriers, mine-layers and minesweepers, and auxiliary craft of various kinds-eighty to a hundred in all,

THE HONGKONG TELEGRAPH. MONDAY, JANUARY 4, 1937.

SPARE MOMENT PAGE

·

TO-DAY IN THE PAST

The Story Of The

Blowing-Up

of

H.M.S Natal

To-day a naval man tells of the blowing up ́ in the Cromarty Firth on New Year's Eve, 1915, of the armoured cruiser Natal. Four hundred persons on board were killed.

Among the medley of craft an- chored off Cromarty was the 13,500 tuns armoured cruiser Natal, one of the last ships of the pre-Dreadnought

ruke.

She had been built a good many years before at a cost of £1,218,244, including her slx 9.2 and four 7.5 guns, and normally she carried a complement of 704 officers and men. On the morning of December 30 there was a good dent of activity aboard the ship, for it was known that the commissioned ranits were giving a New Year party that same afternoon to which their brother officers from other boats had been invited, as well as friends and re- lations living on shore and nurses from the hospital ships.

fael that the party, excepting D number of helpers from the non- commissioned ranks, was only for officers and their, friends, we non- commissioned ones had our own particular pastime-a football match Cromarty between the petty t officers nnd men of the Natal.

After the match I happened to take a look at the Natal, which lay

below the playing Beld alongside her sister ships-the Shannon, the Cochrane, and the Achilles.

A proud ironclad" she looked, indeed, with the Union Jack nut- tering from her masthead. I won- dered how the party was going and If the children were enjoying them- selves.

And it was at this moment that there occurred a sight that froze the blood in my veins, that lives with me to this day in nightmares-a sight that set me shouting to my football friends and impelled one

THOM

launch. He gripped the rope with was in harbour trim with all her Black Isle, as they call Cromarty

was thus drawn to water-tight doors open.

and the surrounding locality, is to port. Over, over she slowly went, his teeth and

No one will ever be able to relate constantly reminded of the tragic Those of her crew and others who safety.

Not one of the civilians who had

what

those fate of that proud ship and those actually happened in had by then reached the deck slid

who were aboard in tho strLa into the water like beans from a gone aboard the cruiser, however, few terrible minutes.

was to be seen. None in fact, has

Of those who were in the very monument that every day emerges shovel.

none survived, from the water when the tide ebbs. Some who managed to cling on ever been found from that day to heart of the ship

for even they were alive after Then the long line of the Natal's to the ship's fixtures made frantle to doubt they were imprisoned in the explosion their escape was cut "bilge" keel can be plainly seen. efforts to scramble up the rapidly No

the ship where the party was being off through the concussion slam- protruding Boveral feet above, the steepening deck,

Further, further she went, till her held.

ming and jamming the doors of water like the humped back of a Perhaps they were already dead the interior gangways.

whale, surmounted each end by a rail touched the water with her bilge

before the ship sank, for although, Salvors had to hack then, open bencon to safeguard shipping in the keel painting heavenwards.

channel. For a moment she lay there, while considering the magnitude of the when working on the ship.

Of those who were picked out There she lies, masts downwards, a straggling line-of survivors floun- disaster, the detonations were com

paratively small,

It was apparent to the water alive shortly after the at a slight angle which brings up dered on her silny hull.

Yet another explosion from her when salvage work on the boat be- disaster every one was too dazed her "bige" keel squarely from the depths so muffled that it seemed gan some years later that the force of to give a coherent story. In all 428 water's surface.

Occasionally the ferryman who men, nurses and civilians more like the dull throb of a pulse the concussion must have been terri officers, --and with a great shudder" the fle

A number of survivors piles between Cromarty and Inver were lost. Natal hnd disappeared,

The entire stern of the ship was Inter succumbed from their injuries, gordon will leave his usual line of It all happened in less than five found to be missing. Divers dis- Many stories of miraculous escapes route and draw up alongside the One man ashore missed ship to enable a relative, a passenger. minutes. So shart had been the covered pieces of her propellers on were told,

indient of this frent disaster than the bed of the Firth many yards away the launch which would have put in his boat, reverently to place a

him aboard the Natal five minutes wreath of flowers on one felt it to have been unreal from the wreckage. the grotesque hallucinations of some

before the disaster.

The cook had been ordered to prepare mecka feast, with all the customary dishes and delicacies of celebration, and the offers quarters were gaily decorated with flags, and all to rush pellmell down to the haunting nightmare.

+

waterside.

A lower of sickly yellow flame hat of suddenly shot up from the aft the ship.

It leaped above the masthead. It seemed even in dwort the mountains in the background.

Nothing but a seething mass of white form to mark the spot, dotted with patches of struggling human beings who had survived.

Saved by Teeth

This surprising disparity between noise and damage is probably because the explosion was well down in the ship below the waterline.

Submarine Theory

wite

were

persunde

their

her

wave-

washed wreckage.

Razor Blades Now

bunting arid coloured balloons. The

An Invergordon doctor and his among those invited. ship's band was to play and there

They were about to leave was to be dancing. A cinema show

Sometimes, a diver, groping his house for the Natal when a telephone way about hier watery barnacle also was included in the programme,

message called the doctor 10 an hung corridors in connection with and games for the children, of whom a number were be present.

Many theories were advanced to accident In the town. He tried to the salvage work, will come acroSS his wife not to miss the an ominous heap of bleached bones. Lord

Jellicoe then Sir John

Recount for the disaster.

fun," and precede him to the party. Jellicoe and Lady Jellicoe, who

At first 'It was thought

A naval funeral with full honours that an He would follow Inter. She, An Immediate rush to the rescue

κοιν were at Invergordon, had been sent It struck terror to the hearts of was made by every available craft. enemy submarine had succeeded in ever

is at once given to the remains.

Meanwhile work on and were an invitation,

expected all who saw it-and they say its There

salvaging was a string of lenders, eluding the defences of "The Sutors" ever, insisted on waiting his return

from his case. Before he aboard!

back the metal has been going slowly the Natal during the flash was noticed ten miles away launches, and tugs, followed by a and passed between them into the for her the Natal had

cante disappeared. festiviiles.

at Fortrose, despite the daylight. It nolla of rowing boats and dinghies Firth, but this view was subsequent-

ahead for some years, and by an The news that Sir John

and remember that day very well-was unmistakably the flash of burn whose oarsmen pulled, feverishly. ly dismissed, because it was unlikely

Ironical trick of fate the heavy Jellicoe were aboord

the plates of high tensile steel that were dull and dry, with a cold wind ing cordite.

cruiser spread through The scenes in the water as boats thut any under-water craft could Lady simultaneously sweeping across the Firth from the

town, intended to protect her from the sounded a deep, rumbling explosion, drew alongside were indescribably have safely negotiated the network but as it happened thes

were, attacks of her adversaries are now terribic.

Many of the survivors were of mines laid at the entrance

fortunately, unable ot the striving to keep

Firth.

last being cut and ground into blades for up despite their dreadful injuries cause no doub! by

minute to attend the celebrations. Another conjecture was

safety razors. sunk before enemy agent had introduced an in the explosion. Many

fernal muchloe into one of the after magazines.

north, and causing the smaller of the craft rhythmically to rock in the grey, ruffled waters,

Almost

the sea.

there

that, by reason of its remoteness; seemed to come from the depth of It was followed by two sharper explosions. The vessel immediately swung and swayed in alarming

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There was one man whose hands had been blown off. A rope was Then she suddenly began to heel thrown to hlin by a rescue party in a

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Yet the magazines and shell rooms which it was assumed had exploded and caused the ship to sink were found intact by the salvors.

Even their cordite charges

were discovered still in projectiles their places.

and

The theory which gained greatest ground was that an infernal machine

und we

set to explode at a given hour was introduced into the ship's coal bunk- ers. The fact thut the Natal had returned from a Liverpool docking only a few days before the

disaster, and it was notorious that the dock gates were unguarded and that ever eighteen months after the outbreak of war it was a comparatively easy matter for any one to board vessels in the guise of workmen, coupled with the coincidence that the oilier two battleships destroyed by Infernal explosions during the war-the Van- guard and the Bulwark—were coal- burning ships, lent certain credence to the theory.

Moreover, it was well known that during the war Germany produced skilfully cumouftaged bombs, to re- semble blocks of coal, oil drums and parts of ship's gear in readiness for the opportunity to “plant" them in British battleships.

Yet another hazard as to the cause of the disaster, discussed at the time was that the cinematograph film that was to have been shown accidentally caught alight and ignited the explosives aboard.

But this

has since been discounted by the discovery by divers of the Ali, quite intact, strips of which practically every one in the sur- rounding towns and village now possesses as a souvenir.

Wonderful Escapes

cx-

most feasible Perhaps the planation to that in some way one of the magazines became ignited and exploded. immediately flooding the others. This would account for the salvors finding them intact.

This theory is most possibly correct, since the Natal at the time

WAKE UP YOUR

the

OUR BRITISH

10

12 13

14

14

CROSSWORDS

19

20

#1

23

ACROSS

1 A naval battle here would be

paradoxical.

5 The golfer who buys this is con- cerned with the sphere of economy

Things in this ore probably wanted.

10-These flatten the sands.

11 Put the grate around in the wrong way and the result Įs bard.

12 An architectural feature that

changed the fashion.

13 Whore America (two words). Double,

15

17 "Star tlo" (anag.).

19 An old master.

22 May, perhaps,

takes. stock

25 A statement that might cicur

up a 24 down.

LIVER BILE. WITHOUT CALOMEL 28 A nautical cord.

120 This in bed is indeed fortunate.

And You'll Jump Out of Bed'Fool ing You Could Push Bus Dvor The liver should pour out two pints of Iquid bile into your bowale daily. If this bila In not dowing freely your food doesn't digest. It just docnyt in the bowels. Gar bloat up your stomach. You gut constipated. Your whole system le poisoned and you feel saur. sunk and the world looks pinky

Salt, Day drinks, palatable laxaliro und A more

harsh purgativan ura soakesh, It

bawal moverent dosen't got at takes the famous, aure soling Carter's Little Liver l'ills to get those two pints of bile Bowtoy freely and make you feel “up anţă xp". Larmloss, mentio, qui amaking in mak ing bile flow freely. Ask for Carter's Little Liter Pilla Look for the name Carter's.on

20 Reports of this are rife in war. 30 An expressive part of 22 down. 31 "He heats" (anag),

32 This vehicle has a distinct rotary

movement in it.

DOWN

Semi-precious stone.

2 Cool mob makes a hot town.. 3 Worry.

4 This may be all over the fruit. 5.A collection to make Bill Sikes'

mouth water.

6.A growing concern..

It's n cool customer that has this quality,

132

It has wings,, but cannot fly; it has. Ties that cannot take wing.

14 Neutralise with suggestion of

Bale.

16 A personal query.

18 Part of 15 across.

10 Companions of combs,

20 A sorry performance, so

speak.

to

21 Think of what is left, and it

will be right.

22 This is conveyed here, but not

even in the middle.

23 An amateur of arresting power. 24 A puzzling thing this. 27 Italian river.

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