Upon the outbreak of war with Germany in 1914, the Second and Third Fleets of the Royal Navy were combined to form a Channel Fleet. The 7th Cruiser Squadron consisted of , , , and . Their task was to patrol the relatively shallow waters of the
Dogger Bank and the
Broad Fourteens in the North Sea, supported by destroyers of the
Harwich Force. The aim was to protect ships carrying supplies between Britain and France against German ships operating from the northern German naval ports. Although the cruisers had been designed for a speed of , wear and tear meant they could now only manage at most and more typically only . Bad weather sometimes meant that the smaller destroyers could not sail and at such times the cruisers would patrol alone. A continuous patrol was maintained with some ships on station, while others returned to harbour for coal and supplies. From 26 to 28 August 1914, the squadron was held in reserve during the operations which led to the
Battle of Heligoland Bight.
The Live Bait Squadron On 21 August, Commodore
Roger Keyes—commanding a submarine squadron also stationed at Harwich—wrote to his superior Admiral Sir
Arthur Leveson warning that in his opinion the ships were at extreme risk of attack and sinking by German ships because of their age and inexperienced crews. The risk to the ships was so severe that they had earned the nickname "the live bait squadron" within the fleet. By 17 September, the note reached the attention of
First Lord of the Admiralty Winston Churchill who met with Keyes and Commodore
Reginald Tyrwhitt—commander of a destroyer squadron operating from Harwich—while travelling to Scapa Flow to visit the
Grand Fleet on 18 September. Churchill—in consultation with the
First Sea Lord Prince Louis of Battenberg—agreed that the cruisers should be withdrawn and wrote a memo stating:
Vice Admiral Frederick Sturdee—chief of the
Admiralty war staff—objected that, while the cruisers should be replaced, no modern ships were available and the older vessels were the only ships that could be used during bad weather. It was therefore agreed between Battenberg and Sturdee to leave them on station until the arrival of new cruisers then being built.
Sinking of three cruisers At around 06:00 on 22 September, the three cruisers
Aboukir,
Cressy and
Hogue were steaming, alone, at in line ahead under the command of Captain J. E. Drummond of
Aboukir. The 7th Cruiser Squadron flagship, their
sister ship Euryalus, as well as their
light cruiser and
destroyer screen, had been forced temporarily to return to base, leaving the three obsolete cruisers on their own. They were spotted by the German submarine , commanded by Lt.
Otto Weddigen. They were not zigzagging but all of the ships had lookouts posted to search for periscopes and one gun on each side of each ship was manned. Weddigen ordered his submarine to submerge and closed the range with the unsuspecting British ships. At close range, he fired a
torpedo at
Aboukir. The torpedo broke the back of
Aboukir and she sank within 20 minutes with the loss of 527 men. The captains of
Cressy and
Hogue thought
Aboukir had struck a floating
mine and came forward to assist her.
Hogue hove to and began to pick up survivors. Weddigen fired two torpedoes into
Hogue, mortally wounding her but the submarine surfaced and was fired upon. Rear-Admiral
Arthur Christian was suspended on half pay and later reinstated by Battenberg. Drummond was criticised for not zig-zagging to shake off submarines and for not requesting destroyer support as soon as the weather improved. Zig-zagging had not been taken seriously by ships' captains who had not experienced submarine attacks; the tactic thereafter was made compulsory in dangerous waters. All big warships were instructed never to approach a ship severely disabled by mine or torpedo but to steam away and leave the rescue to smaller vessels. Three weeks later, the German war hero Weddigen—now operating
U-9 off
Aberdeen—torpedoed and sank , another British cruiser that was not zig-zagging in hostile waters. Weddigen was killed in March 1915 during a German raid in the
Pentland Firth when his submarine——was intentionally rammed by the battleship . The remaining
Cressy class ships were dispersed from the British Isles. The remnants of the 7th Cruiser Squadron was reconstituted the following year as part of the Grand Fleet, which contained many better armoured and more modern ships than
Bacchantes but in 1916 the 7th was disbanded again. It did not see service at the
Battle of Jutland. ==Second World War==