Action
At 06:00 on 22 September, the weather had calmed and the ships were patrolling at 10 kn (12 mph; 19 km/h), line abreast, 2 mi (1.7 nmi; 3.2 km) apart. Lookouts were posted for submarine periscopes or ships and one gun either side of each ship was manned. U-9 had been ordered to attack British transports at Ostend, but had been forced to dive and shelter from the storm. On surfacing, she spotted the British ships and moved to attack. At 06:20, the submarine fired one torpedo at the nearest ship from a range of 550 yd (500 m), which struck Aboukir on the starboard side, flooding the engine room and causing the ship to stop immediately. No submarines had been sighted, so Drummond assumed that the ship had hit a mine, and ordered the other two cruisers to close in to help. After 25 minutes, Aboukir capsized, sinking five minutes later. Only one boat could be launched, because of damage from the explosion and failure of steam-powered winches needed to launch them.
U-9 surfaced from her dive after firing the initial torpedo to observe two British cruisers engaged in the rescue of men from the sinking ship. Weddigen fired two more torpedoes at his next target, Hogue, from a range of 300 yd (270 m). As the torpedoes left the submarine, her bows rose out of the water and she was spotted by Hogue, which opened fire before the submarine dived. The two torpedoes struck Hogue; within five minutes, Captain Wilmot Nickolson gave the order to abandon ship, and after 10 minutes she capsized before sinking at 07:15.
At 07:20, U-9 fired two torpedoes from her stern torpedo tubes at a range of 1,000 yd (910 m). One missed, so the submarine turned to face her one remaining bow torpedo toward Cressy, and fired at a range of 550 yd (500 m). Cressy had already seen the submarine, had opened fire and attempted to ram, but failed. The ship had then returned to picking up survivors. The first torpedo struck the starboard side at around 07:15, the second the port beam at 07:30. The ship capsized to starboard and floated upside down until 07:55. Two Dutch sailing trawlers in the vicinity declined to close Cressy for fear of mines, which led to the cruiser's aft 9.2 in (230 mm) gun firing on one of them in anger.
Distress calls had been received by Commodore Tyrwhitt, who with the destroyer squadron had already been at sea returning to the cruisers now the weather had improved. At 08:30, the Dutch steamship Flora approached the scene (having seen the sinkings) and rescued 286 men. A second steamer — the Titan — picked up another 147. More were rescued by the two Lowestoft sailing trawlers Coriander and J.G.C.; before the destroyers arrived at 10:45, 837 men were rescued while 1,397 men and 62 officers — mostly part-time men from the Royal Naval Reserve rather than regular sailors — had died. Wenman "Kit" Wykeham-Musgrave (1899–1989) survived being torpedoed on three ships. A midshipman aboard the Aboukir, he went overboard and he swam away from the suction. He was climbing on board the Hogue when she was torpedoed. He swam to the Cressy, but after she was torpedoed, he went overboard again, clung to a bit of driftwood and was eventually picked up by a Dutch trawler." The racing driver and airman Glen Kidston also survived the three sinkings. Destroyers began a search for the submarine, which had little electrical power remaining to travel underwater and could only make 14 kn (16 mph; 26 km/h) on the surface. The submarine submerged for the night before returning home the next day.
Read more about this topic: Action Of 22 September 1914
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