On 22 September 1914 between 6.20am and 7.55am three British
cruisers went down off the Dutch coast, HMS Aboukir, Hogue and
Cressy. Of the combined crew of 2296 no less than 1459 men perished
on their ships or in the sea. There were 837 survivors. The
perpetrator was a simple German submarine, U-9. This event in the
early days of the First World War came as a big boost to the
Germans. But for the British it was a dire blow, the biggest loss
ever inflicted on the Royal Navy, hitherto deemed invincible. The
suffering was the more grievous now that among the fatalities were
thirteen young boys, aged 15 and 16, while most of the other
victims were reservists, mainly young family fathers from a few
villages in the Chatham area. After some years of research the
author has written a uniquely accessible reconstruction of this
tragedy. Successively he pictures the build-up to this calamity,
the crew's trials and tribulations, as well as the consequences of
the incident from both a British and a German point of view. The
hard times of the crewmembers had to go through are reflected in
the personal accounts of some of the survivors of the catastrophe.
Two Dutch merchant vessels had rescued a number of them and the men
were then received and looked after in Holland. That too is part of
this pitiful tragedy, which, though almost forgotten, was one of
the largest calamities ever in the history of naval warfare.
General
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