The Grand Scuttle by Dan Van der Vat

Author:Dan Van der Vat [Van Der Vat, Dan]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780857905130
Publisher: Birlinn

Fine words, redolent of anticlimax. They echoed a secret letter from Beatty to the Admiralty in the days while he was waiting for and organising the triumph, in which clear concern is expressed that not enough credit might be given where it was due (13 November). By all thinking persons, the part played by the British Royal Navy and the British Mercantile Navy in attaining this consummation is recognised, but it is likely that the full significance of the final victory at sea, obtained by the British, unmarked as it has been by any dramatic episode such as would appeal to popular imagination, may for that reason receive something less than its proper share of attention.

It is due to our Empire, as well as to its first Service, that the character of the victory won at sea should be brought home to all by every means in our power. It is a victory that has no parallel in history. Crushing to our enemies, it has been finally achieved without a gun being fired or a life being lost.

The enemy is required to hand over such a part of his fleet as will deprive him of the power of again contesting our sea supremacy, and this last act of his, which is the result of years of unsparing effort on the part of our officers and men and of ungrudging support on the part of our peoples, should in my opinion be arranged so as to afford an object-lesson, not only to our own countrymen and to those who live to see it but to all nations and to those who come after us.

It will be for our good, and for the good of all that we as a race stand for, it will consolidate our position at the Peace Conference, serve as a recompense to seamen who have suffered at the enemy’s hands, to seamen who have fought, to seamen who have waited, and be in some measure a tribute to those who have fallen, if the sea power of Germany is surrendered under the eyes of the fleet it dared not encounter, and in the harbours of the power that swept it from the sea …

Advertisement of the deeds of the Navy is properly shunned by all naval officers, but the question to my mind touches great issues and its satisfactory handling will have widespread effects.

The Navy can maintain its reputation for silence, but I would have the results of its long and devoted service displayed in a manner befitting an event so unexampled in our history so that all may see and remember.

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