Aug 21, 1430 hours, Signal Hill Battery, Esquimalt Naval Dockyard.
Lieutenant Alister Donnelly, of Number 5 Company Royal Canadian Garrison Artillery, stood on the flat concrete roof of his battery Fire Command Post, looking east over the city of Victoria through a pair of binoculars. He could clearly hear the sound of naval artillery. The Fire Command Post stood on the highest point of Signal Hill. Donnelly had hoped the extra eight feet or so of elevation he gained by standing on the roof would allow him to see the ships responsible over the intervening landscape of Beacon Hill and Moss Rock. It did not.
“The Dominion Wireless Station on Shotbolt Hill reports they are being bombarded by two cruisers from off the Trial Islands!” reported the telephone exchange operator, with his head stretched out of the command post vision slit so as to better yell updates to Donnelly. Signal Hill Battery’s Mark X, 9.2 inch guns on their Mark V barbette mountings had a maximum range of 21,000 yards, and so could easily lob a shell as far as the Trial Islands. But Donnelly had no line of sight, and there was no central fire control system to correct the battery’s fall of shot beyond line of sight of the battery’s own Fire Command Post. Direct Fire it would have to be, so Donnelly needed to wait until he could see a target. He was not a patient man.
What he could see through his binoculars, over top of the trees and buildings of downtown Victoria, were the masts of the Wireless Station, 5 miles away. Two tall wooden pole masts, surrounded by attendant guy wires, supported the long range antenna, perched on rocky moss-covered Shotbolt Hill. Puffs of smoke and dust rose from the slopes as German shells landed around the station. The sound of the exploding shells took 20 seconds to reach Donnelly’s ears, so after he saw one of the masts fall, yanking down the antenna with it, and the Germans ceased fire, he continued to hear the sounds of gunfire and shell bursts.
“Traverse number two gun to its farthest east position,” Donnelly ordered. The gunlayers called out some numbers. The gun in the righthand position swung on its axis until it was aimed at Clover Point. The crew standing on the turntable and the heavy armoured gunshield rotated along with the gun, within its concrete emplacement. Any target north of that angle was hidden behind the high ground of the city of Victoria, and so was out of the battery’s engagement zone, no matter what the range. The massive barrel elevated to 15 degrees, its maximum elevation.
Number one gun did not traverse. Its huge barrel was sitting supported on wooden timbers, waiting for a critical part of the recoil mechanism to arrive from repairs in England. In the space between and behind the two gun emplacements, stairs descended to the magazines and shell stores a full story underground. The gun captain of the Number One gun crew climbed up on the roof to stand beside Donnelly, having nothing better to do himself.
“Rotten luck the recoil cylinders are still in shipment,” the captain said to Donnelly.
“Rotten it is, but I don’t call it luck,” answered Donnelly bitterly. “The politicians in Ottawa decided to save money by starving these defences. You know as well as I.” Donnelly cursed. “Should we also say it is bad luck that the Position Finder for this battery was never shipped either? Ottawa just didn’t feel like paying for it. So we are going to have to try and direct our fire with a spare Depression Range Finder from one of the 6 inch batteries. It will be a bloody miracle if we hit a thing today.”
“I heard that a Watkins Position Finder is on a train from Halifax right now,” replied the gun captain. “Although…”
“Although,” continued Donnelly, “fat lot of good it will do us today, sitting in a train car. We are the counter-bombardment battery of this fortress. And it just so happens that the city is being bombarded at the moment. We have only one functional gun, a bodged together director, and thirty-six rounds in the magazine.”
“I recall there being thirty-seven,” replied the gun captain.
“Thirty-six,” Donnelly said definitively. “Ten Lyddite high-explosive, nine armour piercing and 17 solid shot. The magazine crew conducted an inspection this morning, and discovered that the driving bands on one of the armour piercing shells are damaged.” Donnelly thought he saw coal smoke to the east, but he could be mistaking it for smoke and dust from the bombardment, the wind was blowing it away from his position in any case.
At least visibility was all one could ask for. The sun was bright and the sky perfectly clear. Today the mountain range of the Olympic Peninsula to the south was not hidden behind clouds as it so often was, and rose dark blue and sawtoothed across the whole southern horizon. The sea banded with silver and turquoise and was running with waves a couple of feet tall, showing occasional whitecaps. American warships were steaming back and forth on the international boundary, 10 miles to the south, and Donnelly imagined they were none too happy with what was transpiring this afternoon.
Nearer to the south, just down the slope from the battery, were the streets and houses of the civilian townsite of Esquimalt. Some of the children and housewives were appearing on their lawns, curious about the sound of the distant gunfire.
“Those houses will suffer badly from concussion when we open up,” said the gun captain. “They already have half their windows cracked from the reduced charges we have been using for the practice fires.”
“Yes,” replied Donnelly. “The full charges will take care of the rest of that window glass. Saint Paul’s Church used to be right down there,” he said pointing, “before they moved it in 1904. Think of what the concussion would do to all that stained glass!”
Donnelly looked over his shoulder at Esquimalt Harbour to his north. This was the Royal Navy’s and Royal Canadian Navy’s sole dockyard on the West Coast of the Americas, and his responsibility to defend. The Dockyard buildings, with all the administration and naval stores, were clustered on the peninsula to his west, between Signal Hill and Duntz Head. The Graving Dock was drained with the Grand Trunk Pacific freighter
Prince Albert resting on blocks inside, having broken her propeller shaft two days previously. The coal- loading wharf was being replenished by a scow cut down from a 4 masted sailing ship. A tug stood by the scow, just a whisp of smoke rising from her funnel. A CPR Steamship, the
Princess Royal, was raised out of the water on the ways at the Yarrows shipyard at Jones Landing. Only a single ocean going vessel was riding at anchor, the cable laying ship
CS Resorer. Behind her, another mile and a half up Esquimalt Harbour, he could see the brick buildings on small Cole Island, the naval magazine for the Dockyard. If the German cruisers stayed out of range of the guns of Forts Rodd Hill and McAuley, then at least the naval magazine would remain safely beyond the range of the German guns.
On the other side of the entrance to Esquimalt Harbour, just inland from Fisgard Lighthouse, the three 6 inch guns in the Upper and Lower Batteries of Fort Rodd Hill were elevated above their parapets and aimed east along the same axis as his own gun. He could also see the three anti-torpedo boat batteries, each with a pair of 12 pounder guns: Duntze Head and Black Rock Batteries on this side of the Harbour and Belmont Battery on the Rodd Hill side. And just barely visible over the trees of Saxe Point to the east, he could make out the glacis and elevated barrel of the easternmost of the 6 inch guns of Fort McAuley, guarding the western side of Victoria Harbour.
The two 6 inch batteries of the forts were less than 20 years old but were already hopelessly obsolete. Donnelly tried not to rub this fact in the noses of their battery commanders, but it was an undeniable fact. Their range of 8800 yards made them useless enough, but their greatest sin was their poor rate of fire. With complicated and awkward hydro-pneumatic disappearing carriages, the six inch guns could not manage to get more than one shell off every two minutes. His own 9.2 inch gun, despite having a shell that weighed almost 4 times as much, could send shells downrange at a rate of three per minute with a fresh crew in top form. Meaning his singe gun had the same rate of fire as all six guns of the two other forts combined. Which made it all the more inexcusable that the 9.2 inch battery had been so neglected.
Donnelly silently raged as he paced back and forth atop the Fire Command Post roof.
“Fort McAuley reports the two cruisers are approaching Victoria Harbour from the east,” called up the telephone operator. “They are engaging.”
Three booms in quick succession sounded from the east. Donnelly saw the muzzle flashes above the trees on Saxe Point, and saw the number 3 gun of the fort recoil, and swing backwards then downwards into the loading position in its pit.
After a moment the telephone rating called up again. “Fort McAuley reports the cruisers are out of range, at just over 11,000 yards.”
Donnelly made a scoffing noise.
“Fort McAuley reports that the cruisers are heading south west, in company, at about 15 knots,” called the telephone rating, and gave some positions. “The commander suspects they are deliberately staying out of range of his guns. He expects they will become visible to us in a minute or so.”
“Load solid shot!” ordered Donnelly. The gun crew received the 380 pound shell from the lift, rammed it from the trolley into the firing chamber, opened a zinc canister containing the silk bagged cordite charge and rammed that in behind the shell. The breechblock was closed. The crew moved to their firing positions.
“We had best move inside the Command Post,” said Donnelly, and he hopped down onto the concrete glacis. “Well
I had better. You should take your men into the crew shelter, and stand by in case Number Two gun takes casualties.” The men cleared the top of the fort. Donnelly entered the concrete Fire Command Post from the sheltered door at the rear. Inside the small space were half a dozen men, a telescope, a depression range finder and the telephone exchange. The artillerymen were working with a quiet efficiency. It had been two minutes since Fort McAuley had fired the opening salvo. The 6 inch guns of the fort sounded again.
“There they are!” exclaimed the young private on the telescope, then he composed himself and reported, “Sir, a German cruiser has appeared from behind Saxe Point. Range 13,000 yards. I identify her as
Stettin class.”
“That would be the
Nürnberg,” Donnely said. He strode over to the view slit and gazed out at Saxe Point, just in time for the bow of a second cruiser to thrust out where he could see it. The shells from Fort McAuley had been in the air for 16 seconds, and landed just then, raising a trio of waterspouts several thousand yards short of the Germans. Donnelly took over the telescope, and trained on the leading German ship.
“Yes, that is the
Nürnberg all right,” he said. He panned the telescope over to the second cruiser. “And that second one is
Bremmen class.” A recognition silhouette sheet was pinned to the wall of the post, and the exaggerated ram bow of the second cruiser was a dead giveaway. “
Leipzig.” Suddenly the guns on the cruiser flashed, causing Donnelly to jump. Then he laughed. “Get me a firing solution for the lead cruiser. The soldier on the range finder began calling out numbers, and these were relayed to the gun crew.
“Ready!” came the reply.
“Fire!” ordered Donnelly, and the order was passed on. Donnelly plugged his ears and opened his mouth. The force of the blast pressed on his chest, and raised dust in the small space of the command post. When the sound of the blast died away he ordered, “Load solid shot!” He looked through the telescope at the
Nürnberg to spot the fall of shot. Her guns flashed again, with a 4 gun broadside. As he waited for his shell to land, he heard shells rumble overhead from Fort Rodd Hill, followed by the boom of the fort’s 6 inch guns. At this angle his battery was on the flight path of the western fort’s shells. Now incoming higher velocity German shells made a different note as they passing overhead from the direction of the sea.
“Over!” called the soldier on the rangefinder. His first shell had fallen far outside of his field of view from the telescope, so he had completely missed its landing. “By 3000 yards.”
“Ready!” announced the gun crew. The director adjusted the aim point.
“HMCS Shearwater reports she is engaging the cruisers!” announced the telephone operator.
“Fire!” ordered Donnelly. The big 9.2 inch gun roared again. “Load solid shot!” This time Donnelly looked up from the telescope to get a wider field of view.
Leipzig’s guns flashed with a 5 gun broadside. A pair of waterspouts rose a thousand yards short of
Leipzig, as expected.
Shearwater’s pair of 4 inch guns had a 9600 yard range, longer than the 6 inch guns of the forts, but still not long enough. His 9.2 inch shell also landed short by a thousand yards, and well astern of
Nürnberg. Donnelly looked back through the telescope.
Nürnberg’s guns flashed. Her guns were aimed somewhat to the east, perhaps at Victoria harbor. Another pair of
Shearwater’s shells landed, short again. At least
Shearwater was armed with quick firing guns.
Both German cruisers were now rapid firing salvos, one every five seconds or so. The shells whistled as they flew overhead. Donnelly could hear splashes as shells landed in the harbor, and explosions as they struck something more solid, but he did not take the time to look just now.
“
Shearwater reports she is exchanging fire with the lead cruiser,” reported the telephone operator.
“Ready!” called the gun crew.
“Fire!” ordered Donnelly. The gun thundered. “Load solid shot!” A German shell landed nearby, close enough that small pieces of rock rained down on the battery. He heard the lowered steel shutters of the command post ring as they were struck with fragments. He was not worried about the Germans landing any effective counter-battery fire on his position. The guns and its support facilities were dug deep into solid rock and protected by concrete. These positions were built by Royal Engineers. In fact, the best possible outcome would be if the Germans did engage in an artillery duel with the forts, and wasted their shells fruitlessly trying to silence the guns, rather than destroying the much more vulnerable and valuable parts of the Dockyard. No more shells landed nearby the battery, and he guessed that the Germans understood this as well.
“Long!” called the artillery spotter. “By a thousand yards. Last two of our shots straddled.”
“That is about as accurate as we are going to get with this equipment,” said Donnelly.
“Ready!” called the gun.
“Fire!” Donnely ordered. The gun thundered again. “Load High-Explosive! We might just get lucky.”
“The Dockyard reports they are receiving shellfire,” announced the telephone operator. The sound of incoming shells and nearby explosions had become constant, and drowned out the sound of the distant guns. The sharp smell of detonated TNT, wood smoke, and burning tar drifted into the Command Post, on the breeze.
“Range 11,000 yards,” called the soldier on the rangefinder. “The cruisers have accelerated to over 20 knots.”
“Fire!” ordered Donnelly. “Load High Explosive.”
“Victoria reports the Inner Harbor is under bombardment,” reported the telephone operator.
The engagement continued like this, for a perhaps five more minutes, until the cruisers were directly south of Signal Hill Battery. Smoke blowing east from the fires in the Dockyard now blanketed the Signal Hill, at times completely obscuring their vision. The rate of fire of all the guns had dropped, with the cruisers each firing a salvo every 20 seconds, and the 9.2 inch gun getting a shell off every 30 to 45 seconds. The other forts reported occasionally by telephone, but not once had one of their shells reached as far as the cruisers. Donnelly noticed that the anti-torpedo boat battery at Black Rock had opened up with their 12 pounders, and even these were outranging the 6 inch guns, but still to no effect.
“That was the last of the high explosive shells,” reported the gun captain.
“Load Armour Piercing.” ordered Donnelly. “Let’s see if they are done with us, and run past out to the Pacific, or if they want more destruction.”
“Ready!” announced the gun captain.
“Fire!” ordered Donnelly.
“Sir, the cruisers are turning!” reported the soldier on the telescope. Donnelly looked and indeed they were, in a tight turn backtracking their previous course.
“Brass balls.” Donnelly muttered to himself. His first AP shell literally missed by a mile.
The cruisers steamed eastward for another two minutes, inflicting more punishment on the Dockyard and Victoria harbour. Waterspouts rose in a zone several thousand yards to the north of the warships, as if making a fence through which they dared not pass. At some point the fire from
Shearwater had ceased, but by now all three of the anti-torpedo boat batteries had joined in, rapid fire. And the lone 9.2 inch gun added its wild fire to the mix.
“Cruisers are coming about again,” reported the telescope. The two cruisers turned while firing, and raced westward once more, chased by the shore batteries. Two minutes later they again passed directly south of the Signal Hill Battery.
“There goes the last of the AP shells,” reported the gun captain.”
Donnelly thought he saw a smoke trail of a ship to the west, coming from beyond Race Rocks, but it was hard to tell through the smoke of the burning Dockyard. Another American warship on neutrality patrol?
“Sir! I have HMCS Rainbow in sight!” reported the telescope. “Just rounding Race Rocks now!”
I can find no photos of the Signal Hill Battery with guns mounted. This is a similar battery on the River Tyne. From victorianforts.co.uk
Modern view towards from top of Gonzales Hill, formerly called Shotbolt Hill
Find local businesses, view maps and get driving directions in Google Maps.
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Modern View from the Roof of Esquimalt Naval Base Wardroom, on top of Signal Hill. Number One Gun Position is visible just below the white geodesic dome.
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Modern Walk Through of Fort Rodd Hill, starting at the Lower Battery
https://www.google.ca/maps/@48.4321...9THvCq10qUp_3AT5hABA!2e0!7i13312!8i6656?hl=en
Much about 9.2 inch guns
Federal Government Historical and Architectural Report on the Signal Hill Battery
