The Victoria Cross at Sea: The Sailors, Marines and Naval Airmen Awarded Britain's Highest Honour by John Winton

Author:John Winton [Winton, John]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: HISTORY / Military / Naval, Naval, Military, history
ISBN: 9781473876149
Google: fzdmDAAAQBAJ
Publisher: Frontline Books
Published: 2016-07-31T23:52:35.233746+00:00

Archibald Bisset Smith

Atlantic, March 1917

On 10th March 1917, the New Zealand Shipping Company’s cargo steamer Otaki, 7,520 tons, was about 350 miles east of St Miguel in the Azores, outward bound from London to New York. She was in ballast and making about fourteen knots. There was a long swell running and the visibility was poor in heavy rain squalls when, at about 2.30pm, a strange ship was sighted at about three miles on the port quarter. Otaki’s Master, Archibald Bisset Smith, suspected an enemy and did not stop or challenge, but held his course and increased to full speed, about fifteen knots.

The stranger was the German raider Möwe, a fruit carrier converted while building into an auxiliary commerce raider, with guns, torpedoes, armour plating and mines. Commanded by Count Nikolaus zu Dohna-Schlodien, she had been at sea (on her second raiding trip of the war) since November 1916 and had already sunk or captured twenty-one ships, mostly British. She was smaller than Otaki, but faster, and carried four 5.9-inch, one 4.1-inch and two 22-pounder guns to Otaki’s single stern-mounted 4.7-inch. At first, Dohna-Schlodien held off, hoping the weather would clear, but when it was obvious that Otaki was not stopping, Möwe set off in chase. Möwe was rolling heavily, and Dohna-Schlodien wanted to get close to give his gunners a better chance.

At a range of just under 2,000 yards, Möwe fired a warning shot across Otaki’s bows, which Bisset Smith ignored. Möwe’s gunners could see Otaki’s stern gun being manned and trained, and so opened fire in earnest. Both ships exchanged shells for some twenty minutes. Möwe hit Otaki several times, set her on fire and killed four of her crew, including a Boy Apprentice, Basil Kilner, serving the gun.

But Otaki had what the Germans themselves called ‘an excellent gunner’. He hit Möwe seven times, on the signal bridge, and beside the funnel, and along the superstructure and put one shell in a portside coal bunker, starting a fire which burned for three days. Möwe’s officers were amazed by such opposition. Their ship was quite badly damaged, and with a little more luck on Otaki’s side, might even have sunk.

Otaki had now been hit some thirty times and was heavily on fire. Although a big sea was running and darkness was coming on, Bisset Smith was forced to order the lifeboats away. There was no point in losing more lives in a hopeless action.

When the survivors of the crew of seventy-one had taken to the boats, only the Chief Officer, Roland H.L. McNish, the ship’s carpenter and Bisset Smith himself were left on board. The Chief Officer and the carpenter both jumped into the water, thinking that the Master was following them. But Bisset Smith stayed on board, evidently deciding that he preferred to go down with his ship, which sank with the Red Ensign still flying. Möwe picked up the survivors and took them back to Germany, arriving at Kiel on 20th March, where they were interned for the rest of the war.

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