Plucky Action at Dar-es-Salaam
The war on land had begun in Europe during August 1914, but naval and other actions were taking place further afield, including in East Africa. It was here in November 1914 that the first Royal Navy VC of the war was awarded.
The German cruiser Königsberg, which had sunk HMS Pegasus on 19 September had retired to the Rufiji River (120 miles south of Dar-es-Salaam, East Africa) to overhaul her engines and so a Royal Navy squadron, led by the Canopusclass pre-dreadnought battleship HMS Goliath, was despatched to East Africa to hunt her down. When Königsberg was discovered in the Rufiji, a small force blockaded the estuary of the river.
Though Königsberg was trapped, it was always possible that she might escape. Königsberg had previously been operating out of Dar-es-Salaam and whilst the German Governor, Heinrich Schnee, had declared that neither the harbour nor its ships would be used for military purposes, it was felt that if any of the German vessels in Dar-es-Salaam took to sea they would be able to take supplies and fuel down to Königsberg. To prevent this, Admiral Herbert KingHall decided to immobilise the ships in the harbour.
Located in the harbour were German cargo ships SS König and SS Feldmarschall, the hospital ship SS Tabora and several smaller coastal vessels. To prevent any large British warships from entering the port at
Dar-es-Salaam, the Germans sunk a floating dock at the harbour entrance. As Goliath was unable to undertake a close bombardment, King-Hall decided to send in raiding parties to immobilise or sink the German vessels. Command of the raid was entrusted to Goliath’s second most senior officer, Commander Henry Peel Ritchie.
Ritchie was given command of the small auxiliary gunboats, Duplex and Helmuth, plus other boats, to carry his raiding parties. The German authorities were warned that the local agreement concerning Dar-es-Salaam and the vessels in its port was not recognised
by the British Government and that therefore steps would be taken to disable the German ships.
The raid began at 10.00 hours on 28 November 1914, and from the outset things began to go wrong. Firstly, Duplex broke down and then Goliath’s picket boat became stranded on a reef.
Nevertheless, Ritchie continued in the other boats and König and Feldmarschall were boarded. Ritchie then steamed on to deal with another German ship, Kaiser Wilhelm II. He found no crew on board but did see several clips of Mauser rifle bullets. “It was decidedly suspicious,” Ritchie later said.
Ritchie’s party then set demolition charges and went to destroy a floating crane and other vessels, the remaining boats of the raiding party having just set off back to Goliath. As he returned past König and Feldmarschall there was no longer any sign of the crew. At that moment, the German sailors, who had hidden themselves ashore, opened fire, and as Captain Caulfield on Helmuth recalled:
“Bullets were raining over and into the boat and through and against the thin iron plates rigged on either side of the boiler and around the coxswain.”
Helmuth managed to escape the fusillade, leaving Ritchie’s little pinnace the sole target of the German guns onshore. “We realised that the pinnace could hardly survive such heavy fire as Helmuth had experienced,” wrote Lieutenant C.J. Charlewood, “but we were confident that the Commander would not surrender without a fight”.
As Ritchie tried to run for the harbour entrance, he saw a small boat shoving off from the hospital ship Tabora which had been inspected by Surgeon Holtom to check her credentials as a hospital ship. Ritchie changed course to pick up Surgeon Holtom just as gunfire opened up on him from both sides of the creek. “I could not get alongside of Surgeon Holtom owing to the difficulty of steering, and the boat swinging round on its own axis,” Ritchie explained. So,
Ritchie decided to leave Holtom behind and press on “with the object of drawing all the fire on the steam pinnace”.
Ritchie certainly succeeded, the small boat being repeatedly hit by machine-gun and rifle fire. “Bullets whistled overhead,” wrote Petty Officer T. Clark. “Some rattled against the iron plates which had been rigged for the protection of the boilers and myself by the wheel amidships. Others shattered the woodwork ... Cdr Ritchie sat calmly in the boat alongside myself through it all until a piece of shell struck his arm and he doubled up with a groan.”
Clark was hit and the man that took his place at the helm, Able Seaman Upton, was also wounded. “It was now clear that only by means of skilful handling would the little pinnace negotiate the most difficult part of the channel which lay ahead, and Cdr Ritchie, although he had been wounded several times since he was struck by the first piece of shell and was suffering great pain, scrambled towards the wheel and himself took charge of the steering operations.”
The pinnace was soon a virtual wreck. Most of the crew had been wounded and gunfire was still pouring in on her. Still, though, the little boat moved closer to the harbour entrance, beyond which Goliath and Fox were bombarding the port. Then Ritchie was hit again, this time in the leg. He sank to the deck, no longer able to steer the boat. He had, though, taken her through the worst of the fire and saved most of the crew.
Many of those that had taken part in the raid and the desperate retreat were decorated for their gallantry. For Ritchie, this meant the award of the Victoria Cross. His was the first naval VC action of the Great War.