Bang ... Thump ... BOOM!
Bang … Thump … BOOM!
From his name, Lt. Jervais Delacroix might have been mistaken for a Frenchman, but his US Navy uniform and broad Louisiana accent gave away his nationality to anyone who met him in person. As the Second Gunnery Officer of the battleship USS Florida, he was enjoying an all-expenses paid vacation to the exotic seaside destination that was Scapa Flow.
At least that was what he said to the men, but only to the ones who weren’t complaining about the lack of re-supply with ice-cream, which the British seemed utterly incapable of producing. Then there was the lack of shore leave, and the lack of anything much to do even when it was granted. Ultimately of course, Delacroix knew that it was really the lack of action that was the problem.
He envied his colleagues on the older South Carolina and Michigan, who had arrived in June but were lucky to be stationed on the Thames, reinforcing a British squadron of pre-dreadnoughts. Florida and the five other faster ships of Battleship Division 9 had joined the Grand Fleet in May, where the British called them the 6th Battle Squadron. Since they’d arrived, they hadn’t seen any action at all, and today was only the third time they’d been to sea in two months, and only the second opportunity for gunnery practice since they left the US.
The practice turned out to be more than a little embarrassing for his department. In heavy seas off the north coast of Scotland, they straddled the target raft within the first five minutes, on their sixth salvo. However, the shell splashes were spread all over a box nearly five hundred yards long by three hundred wide, and the raft was left undamaged. The ship then turned away to simulate a change of enemy course, and the next salvo fell short and wide. They found the range again on the tenth salvo and managed two more straddles. Florida had fired 114 rounds in ten minutes, a result which Delacroix considered to be unexceptional; not good, not bad, considering the weather.
Astern of the Florida, HMS Royal George fired next. Her fourth salvo crashed out in barely two minutes, and it straddled the target. The massive plumes of water kicked up by her 15” guns were all in a tight group around the raft, and when they fell back into the sea, he could see that the latticework target board had been holed, collapsing at one point, either from a hit or the effects of splinters.
He grimaced and muttered a curse as he heard the Captain being told of Royal George’s signal a few minutes later,
‘That’s how we do it in the Royal Navy’.
A swift burst of mental arithmetic told Delacroix that the Royal George had fired nearly four times the weight of shell as the Florida, and she had hit the target.
Aboard the British ship, Lt. Delacroix’s opposite number, Lt. Aubrey Treherne, made a wickedly wry observation to his Rate Officer.
‘You know Mike, if that’s the standard of their ships, we could sink the lot in an hour and have our colonies back in an afternoon.’
Sub-Lt. Mike Reynolds was always up for a joke, and replied,
‘Shall I begin a new plot, Sir?’
They laughed together and before long, everyone else in the armoured director had joined in.
‘Mind you, we weren’t much better to begin with’, Treherne added a moment later.
‘Yes Sir, but we were still better…’
The laughter rang round again. They all needed some amusement, as in truth, they were just as bored as the Americans. There were rumours of a ‘naval offensive’ going around the fleet, but Lt. Treherne would believe that when he saw it. At least there was slightly better news from Belgium, where a section of the German front had just been blasted to pieces by mines, allowing British troops to advance several miles with little resistance.
On returning to Scapa, Lt. Delcroix learned that Florida’s shooting had been second worst that day. Another American ship, the Wyoming, had the dubious honour of being the worst gunnery ship in the Grand Fleet, although the flagship New York had been better than the British average.
The reputation of the ship didn’t improve the following week, either with the Brits or the rest of the American squadron. On Saturday there must have been twenty thousand men crowded around a makeshift ring on the island of Flotta, cheering on as the Florida’s top prize fighter, a tough Bostonian Fireman nicknamed ‘Slugger’ O’Keafe, had taken on a wiry Scot ‘Jock’ McTavish from HMS Vanguard. Delacroix had once wondered how it was that half the population of Scotland seemed to be called ‘Jock’, and it had come as something of a relief to learn that it was only a nickname applied by their southern cousins.
Before the fight, rules against gambling were supposed to be strict, but on one of the desolate islands that surrounded this godforsaken anchorage there had been no stopping the men betting against ‘the Limey’. Every sailor in the American squadron had heard of ‘Slugger’, and more than a few had been on the receiving end of his fists over the years. It had seemed to be a sure thing, but then O’Keafe went down hard in the third round.
Doing his rounds the next day, Delacroix noticed that the men’s paper Dollars obviously hadn’t been of much interest to the British sailors; but no-one on the ship seemed to have any cigarettes anymore.
A week after the fight, Lt. Delacroix was off duty, walking on the deck, when a thunderous roar rent the air off the port quarter. He looked around, shocked, and saw a column of black smoke rising from near the adjacent line of British ships. A second later, his shock turned to horror as he saw a steel bow rear into the air, before rolling back into the sea with another mighty bang. Only then did his training take over, and he instinctively rushed off towards his battle station. If there was a U-boat in the harbour, the Florida might be torpedoed any second. Hatches had to be secured and guns had to be manned. Steam had to be raised in the boilers far below. As he reached the ladder to his station, one of the ship’s boats was being lowered.
From his position in the aft fire-control top, he saw the Florida’s boat lead a dozen others as they rushed to haul survivors from the water.
Three days later, there was a memorial service on Flotta for more than 700 men of the Royal Navy, who had died when HMS Vanguard’s forward magazine had exploded. Officially it was a tragic accident triggered by a fire, but he’d noticed this morning that several of the British ships were discharging large numbers of propellant charges into lighters alongside.
As the brief ceremony drew to a close, the men of the Royal Navy and the United States Navy stood together, as the tall figure of the Commander-in-Chief praised the conduct of all who had rushed to rescue those few who had survived the sinking. Thanks were offered, particularly to the crew of the Florida, who had rescued eighteen men from the icy water.
Today, there were no snide remarks or backhanded jokes. There was no difference between Yank and Limey.
They stood together, all of them just sailors, all of them from one fleet.
From his name, Lt. Jervais Delacroix might have been mistaken for a Frenchman, but his US Navy uniform and broad Louisiana accent gave away his nationality to anyone who met him in person. As the Second Gunnery Officer of the battleship USS Florida, he was enjoying an all-expenses paid vacation to the exotic seaside destination that was Scapa Flow.
At least that was what he said to the men, but only to the ones who weren’t complaining about the lack of re-supply with ice-cream, which the British seemed utterly incapable of producing. Then there was the lack of shore leave, and the lack of anything much to do even when it was granted. Ultimately of course, Delacroix knew that it was really the lack of action that was the problem.
He envied his colleagues on the older South Carolina and Michigan, who had arrived in June but were lucky to be stationed on the Thames, reinforcing a British squadron of pre-dreadnoughts. Florida and the five other faster ships of Battleship Division 9 had joined the Grand Fleet in May, where the British called them the 6th Battle Squadron. Since they’d arrived, they hadn’t seen any action at all, and today was only the third time they’d been to sea in two months, and only the second opportunity for gunnery practice since they left the US.
The practice turned out to be more than a little embarrassing for his department. In heavy seas off the north coast of Scotland, they straddled the target raft within the first five minutes, on their sixth salvo. However, the shell splashes were spread all over a box nearly five hundred yards long by three hundred wide, and the raft was left undamaged. The ship then turned away to simulate a change of enemy course, and the next salvo fell short and wide. They found the range again on the tenth salvo and managed two more straddles. Florida had fired 114 rounds in ten minutes, a result which Delacroix considered to be unexceptional; not good, not bad, considering the weather.
Astern of the Florida, HMS Royal George fired next. Her fourth salvo crashed out in barely two minutes, and it straddled the target. The massive plumes of water kicked up by her 15” guns were all in a tight group around the raft, and when they fell back into the sea, he could see that the latticework target board had been holed, collapsing at one point, either from a hit or the effects of splinters.
He grimaced and muttered a curse as he heard the Captain being told of Royal George’s signal a few minutes later,
‘That’s how we do it in the Royal Navy’.
A swift burst of mental arithmetic told Delacroix that the Royal George had fired nearly four times the weight of shell as the Florida, and she had hit the target.
Aboard the British ship, Lt. Delacroix’s opposite number, Lt. Aubrey Treherne, made a wickedly wry observation to his Rate Officer.
‘You know Mike, if that’s the standard of their ships, we could sink the lot in an hour and have our colonies back in an afternoon.’
Sub-Lt. Mike Reynolds was always up for a joke, and replied,
‘Shall I begin a new plot, Sir?’
They laughed together and before long, everyone else in the armoured director had joined in.
‘Mind you, we weren’t much better to begin with’, Treherne added a moment later.
‘Yes Sir, but we were still better…’
The laughter rang round again. They all needed some amusement, as in truth, they were just as bored as the Americans. There were rumours of a ‘naval offensive’ going around the fleet, but Lt. Treherne would believe that when he saw it. At least there was slightly better news from Belgium, where a section of the German front had just been blasted to pieces by mines, allowing British troops to advance several miles with little resistance.
On returning to Scapa, Lt. Delcroix learned that Florida’s shooting had been second worst that day. Another American ship, the Wyoming, had the dubious honour of being the worst gunnery ship in the Grand Fleet, although the flagship New York had been better than the British average.
The reputation of the ship didn’t improve the following week, either with the Brits or the rest of the American squadron. On Saturday there must have been twenty thousand men crowded around a makeshift ring on the island of Flotta, cheering on as the Florida’s top prize fighter, a tough Bostonian Fireman nicknamed ‘Slugger’ O’Keafe, had taken on a wiry Scot ‘Jock’ McTavish from HMS Vanguard. Delacroix had once wondered how it was that half the population of Scotland seemed to be called ‘Jock’, and it had come as something of a relief to learn that it was only a nickname applied by their southern cousins.
Before the fight, rules against gambling were supposed to be strict, but on one of the desolate islands that surrounded this godforsaken anchorage there had been no stopping the men betting against ‘the Limey’. Every sailor in the American squadron had heard of ‘Slugger’, and more than a few had been on the receiving end of his fists over the years. It had seemed to be a sure thing, but then O’Keafe went down hard in the third round.
Doing his rounds the next day, Delacroix noticed that the men’s paper Dollars obviously hadn’t been of much interest to the British sailors; but no-one on the ship seemed to have any cigarettes anymore.
A week after the fight, Lt. Delacroix was off duty, walking on the deck, when a thunderous roar rent the air off the port quarter. He looked around, shocked, and saw a column of black smoke rising from near the adjacent line of British ships. A second later, his shock turned to horror as he saw a steel bow rear into the air, before rolling back into the sea with another mighty bang. Only then did his training take over, and he instinctively rushed off towards his battle station. If there was a U-boat in the harbour, the Florida might be torpedoed any second. Hatches had to be secured and guns had to be manned. Steam had to be raised in the boilers far below. As he reached the ladder to his station, one of the ship’s boats was being lowered.
From his position in the aft fire-control top, he saw the Florida’s boat lead a dozen others as they rushed to haul survivors from the water.
Three days later, there was a memorial service on Flotta for more than 700 men of the Royal Navy, who had died when HMS Vanguard’s forward magazine had exploded. Officially it was a tragic accident triggered by a fire, but he’d noticed this morning that several of the British ships were discharging large numbers of propellant charges into lighters alongside.
As the brief ceremony drew to a close, the men of the Royal Navy and the United States Navy stood together, as the tall figure of the Commander-in-Chief praised the conduct of all who had rushed to rescue those few who had survived the sinking. Thanks were offered, particularly to the crew of the Florida, who had rescued eighteen men from the icy water.
Today, there were no snide remarks or backhanded jokes. There was no difference between Yank and Limey.
They stood together, all of them just sailors, all of them from one fleet.
