Percy Scott - World War

World War

When war broke out, at the request of Field-Marshal Earl Roberts, Scott provided proposals for the use of 6-inch naval guns mounted for mobile use on land as long range artillery. Neither the War Office nor Admiralty appreciated the value of such long range weapons and it was not until mid 1915, when under pressure on the Western Front from long range German guns, they urgently called Scott to put the proposals into effect.

In November 1914 Scott was called into the Admiralty by Winston Churchill and Lord Fisher, returned once more as First Sea Lord, to be told he was to be employed as an advisor in connection with the gunnery efficiency of the fleet. His first job, however, was to organise the conversion of sixteen merchant vessels into a squadron of dummy warships which he effected with the help of the Harland and Wolf shipyard in Belfast.

Once more Scott turned his attention to the submarine menace. He proposed that rams should be put on torpedo boats, destroyers and trawlers and he submitted a design for a bomb which could be used to attack submarines on or near the surface. These were rapidly implemented. In late October 1914 Captain P. H. Colomb proposed a depth charge actuated by a hydrostatic pressure valve and in the same month Rear-Admiral Sir Charles Madden suggested adapting howitzers to lob depth charges in the water. In November Scott proposed a simple depth charge deliverable from the air. Scott was however frustrated by the Admiralty's exhaustive development process and instead of having a basic howitzer depth charge combination in late 1914, the weapon did not become available until 1916.

Much of Scott's time was employed cutting through red tape and getting the Grand Fleet fitted with director-firing. However, in May 1915 Fisher resigned and Scott once more found himself with little influence. Once more the momentum slowed. By the time of the Battle of Jutland in 1916 only six ships were fully fitted (for primary and secondary armament) and no cruisers at all were equipped. Scott lost his eldest son, a midshipman in one of the cruisers sunk in the battle.

In January 1915 Scott was offered by Churchill command of the fleet for the Gallipoli Campaign. He decided that the ships of the Mediterranean Fleet could not possibly perform the tasks required of them and so he refused the appointment.

In September 1915, following a Zeppelin raid on London, Scott was tasked by the First Lord, Arthur Balfour to establish the London Air Defence Area to defend London from the increasing threat of air attack. Little thought had been given to the possibility of air attack and anti-air measures had been given no priority. Scott's first priority was to devise a high explosive shell, easy to manufacture and with a suitable fuse. With the help of the Navy's Anti-Aircraft department this was quickly achieved but then came the problem of getting the proposals through the Admiralty's administrative process into production. To avoid this Scott took the plans to France where he directly commissioned a car manufacturer which started production quickly and efficiently.

The second priority was to create a cadre of flyers capable of flying at night and intercepting Zeppelins and to devise ammunition for aeroplanes' guns suitable for attacking Zeppelins. Although workable proposals had been submitted in 1914, these had been rejected and once again in 1915 after successful trials. Fortunately for England the ammunition and flyers were available by 1916 when the Germans launched their air offensive.

Scott worked tirelessly to get guns from the Navy and Army for conversion into anti-aircraft guns. By pulling strings with Jellicoe and Kitchener he managed to build his numbers from twelve to 118. Scott then managed to secure from the French two lorry-mounted examples of the highly effective 75mm gun. Using the French design as a guide and cutting red tape by pulling in help from a wide range of sources Scott had by late November assembled an Anti-Aircraft Corps of 152 guns manned by volunteers from a wide range of professions. In February 1916 responsibility for the air defence of London was transferred from the Admiralty to the War Office. After some confusion it was agreed that Scott's association with the Corps should end and he took a position as advisor to Field-Marshal John French on air defence questions.

For the rest of the war Scott continued to suggest improvements on a wide range of subjects: his intervention with General Sir Henry Rawlinson led to changes being made to the mountings on the army's 9.2inch guns resulting in an increase in range from 13,000 to 17,000 yards while he also made important suggestions as to the handling of searchlights on the navy's ships to improve their ability to fight in the dark.

By 1918, with his supporter Jellicoe gone from the Admiralty, Scott was underemployed: in his opinion he was being given too little information to provide good advice on gunnery while the advice he gave was ignored. He therefore wrote to the Admiralty and "...pointed out to the authorities that as they would not give me anything to do I would do what I could without robbing the country of £1200 a year." (the salary he was being paid).