War is in many ways a chronicle of disastrous assumptions and unpleasant surprises

The U-9 and the Realm of the Unexpected

By Ralph Kinney Bennett

Exactly 100 years ago the world was reminded yet again that war — declared or undeclared — is in many ways a chronicle of disastrous assumptions and unpleasant surprises.

As the summer of 1914 closed and World War I entered its third month, the British Royal Navy held a virtually unchallenged command of the seas, daring the German High Seas Fleet of Kaiser Wilhelm to come out from the safety of its ports. Part of this effort was a patrol of obsolescent Cressy-class armored cruisers in that area of the North Sea just north of the English Channel known as the Broad Fourteens, where the sea bottom is consistently 14 fathoms (about 85 feet). Many senior officers were opposed to using these older, slower ships to patrol the “narrow seas” between England and Europe, fearing that they could be suddenly attacked by fast new German warships. The patrol quickly earned the sardonic name “The Live Bait Squadron.”

On September 18, 1914, the First Lord of the Admiralty, Winston Churchill, wrote a memo suggesting that the older cruisers “ought not to continue on this beat. The risk to such ships is not justified by any services they can render.” But the Admiralty chose to continue the patrols until more modern cruisers, still under construction, could take over.

Two days after Churchill wrote his memo, four of the “Live Bait” cruisers set out from Harwich for the Broad Fourteens. One of them had to turn back for more coal and repairs to its wireless antenna. The other three, HMS Cressy, HMS Aboukir, and HMSHogue, proceeded in a gale so foul that their escort screen of destroyers had to return to port. The three cruisers headed north through the storm alone.

On the same day the cruisers had departed, September 20, a German submarine, the U-9, had begun a patrol south along the Belgian coast looking for British transports that might be landing troops or supplies in support of the then-raging Battle of the Marne. Because of difficulties with her gyro-compass, the German sub journeyed further south than intended and found itself just off the Dutch coast in the storm. It submerged and spent the night of September 21-22 resting 50 feet beneath the roiling waves.

On the morning of the 22nd, the U-9 surfaced and began cruising the Broad Fourteens, charging its batteries. The sea was calm. The morning sun promised a clear day. The kerosene-fueled Korting engines hummed, sending thick smoke out the top of the “demountable” stack protruding from the deck behind the conning tower.

Suddenly, a lookout spotted masts on the horizon to the southwest.

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