Christopher Cradock

Sir Christopher Cradock
Sir Christopher Cradock
	Rear-Admiral
Commands held	HMS Alacrity; HMS Andromeda; HMS Bacchante; HMS Leviathan; HMS Swiftsure; Royal Naval Barracks, Portsmouth; North America and West Indies Station
Battles/wars	Boxer Rebellion Battle of the Taku Forts (1900); World War I Naval campaign Atlantic Ocean campaign Battle of Coronel †; ; ;
Awards	Companion of the Order of the Bath; Order of the Crown (Prussia)

CB SGM (2 July 1862 – 1 November 1914) was an English senior officer of the Royal Navy. He earned a reputation for great gallantry.^[1]

Appointed to the royal yacht, he was close to the

commerce raiders

.

Late in 1914 he was tasked to search for and destroy the East Asia Squadron of the Imperial German Navy as it headed home around the tip of South America. Believing that he had no choice but to engage the squadron in accordance with his orders, despite his numerical and tactical inferiority, he was killed during the Battle of Coronel off the coast of Chile in November when the German ships sank his flagship.

Early life and career

Cradock was born at

China Station on 24 August 1880. Promoted to acting sub-lieutenant on 21 December 1881, Cradock returned to England on 6 March 1882 to prepare for his lieutenant's exams which he passed a year later. His rank confirmed, he then passed gunnery and torpedo courses later in 1883.^[2]^[3]

Cradock was assigned to the ironclad

fleet review in Spithead in August. Cradock then spent a year on the corvette HMS Volage, assigned to the Training Squadron. During this time, he published his first book, Sporting Notes from the East, about the shooting of game.^[5]

On 6 September 1890, Cradock was appointed first lieutenant of the sloop-of-war HMS Dolphin which arrived in the Red Sea shortly afterwards. The Mahdist War had flared up again and the British formed the Eastern Sudan Field Force around the garrison at Suakin, on Sudan's Red Sea coast. Cradock was assigned to the force in 1891 and participated in the capture of Tokar. He then became aide-de-camp to Colonel Charles Holled Smith, Governor-General of the Red Sea Littoral and Commandant, Suakin. For his service in this campaign, he was awarded the Ottoman Empire's Order of the Medjidie, 4th Class and the Khedive's Star with the Tokar Clasp. After returning to Dolphin, Cradock helped to rescue the crew of the Brazilian cruiser Almirante Barroso, which was wrecked on the coast of the Red Sea near Ras Zeith on 21 May 1893 during an around-the-world cadet cruise.^[6]

After a brief time on half-pay and another gunnery course, Cradock was appointed to the royal yacht Victoria and Albert on 31 August 1894 and published his second book, Wrinkles in Seamanship, or, Help to a Salt Horse. He served as a pallbearer at the funeral of Prince Henry of Battenberg on 5 February 1896. Promoted to commander on 31 August, he became the second-in-command of HMS Britannia. Before the beginning of the Second Boer War in October 1899, Cradock was briefly transferred to the drill ship President to serve as a transport officer, supervising the loading of troops and supplies for South Africa, and was reduced to half-pay before the end of the year.^[7]

Command and flag rank

On 1 February 1900 he was appointed in command of the third-class

Vice-Admiral Edward Seymour's troops besieged in the Pei-yang Arsenal three days later. Cradock was promoted to captain effective 18 April 1901 and also received the Prussian Order of the Crown, 2nd Class with swords as a result of his actions. Alacrity arrived back in Britain in July 1901 and Cradock was placed on half-pay.^[9]

On 24 March 1902 he was posted to the

Dogger Bank Incident, Wake Walker commanded the cruisers, including Bacchante, shadowing the Russian Baltic Fleet as it steamed through the Mediterranean in October en route to the Far East. On 17 January 1905, Cradock assumed command of the armoured cruiser HMS Leviathan, but was invalided home on 17 June. He was on sick leave until September and was then placed on half-pay.^[15]^[16]

Cradock became

Commodore second class while retaining his duties as aide-de-camp. Edward VII died on 6 May 1910 and Cradock stayed on until the end of October to assist his newly crowned son, King George V.^[19]

In the meantime he had been promoted to rear-admiral on 24 August 1910, and was relieved of his command in October. Still on half-pay Cradock reported to the

Princess Royal, and the king's granddaughters. In recognition of his efforts, he was appointed a Knight Commander of the Royal Victorian Order on 28 February 1912^[20] and later awarded the Sea Gallantry Medal.^[2]

In May Cradock shifted his flag to the predreadnought battleship

Short Improved S.27 biplane while the ship steamed at 10.5 knots (19.4 km/h; 12.1 mph) in front of George V at the Royal Fleet Review in Weymouth Bay on 9 May, the first person to take off from a moving ship. Cradock hauled down his flag on 29 August and went on half-pay.^[21]

On 8 February 1913, he was given command of the

colony of Bermuda, and hoisted his flag in the armoured cruisers HMS Donegal then HMS Suffolk.^[2] His orders from the Admiralty were to protect British lives and property during the ongoing Mexican Revolution, but to avoid any action that could be construed as British interference in internal Mexican affairs. The British Minister to Mexico, Sir Lionel Carden strongly disagreed with the official policy and argued for some sort of intervention. The situation was further confused by American suspicion of British actions, believing that the Monroe Doctrine meant that the Americans alone could intervene in Mexico.^[22]

Together with the American Rear Admiral

Galveston, Texas, where he arrived at the end of the month.^[24] There he visited some of the refugees and was feted by the Americans, including a visit with the Governor of Texas, Oscar Colquitt before returning to Mexican waters. Cradock was in Tampico, when the Mexican Army briefly arrested nine American sailors who were purchasing petrol in the city on 9 April. Rear Admiral Henry T. Mayo, commander of the American forces off-shore, demanded an apology, but the Mexican government refused. The incident contributed to the American decision to occupy Veracruz on 21 April. Cradock was able to evacuate some 1,500 refugees from Tampico, Mexico City and Veracruz without incident.^[25]

First World War

When the preliminary warning of war with Germany reached Cradock on 27 July, there were two German light cruisers in his area. The brand-new SMS Karlsruhe had just arrived to replace SMS Dresden. Cradock dispersed his cruisers to find and track the German ships, but the Admiralty was concerned about the presence of numerous ocean liners in New York that could be converted into armed merchant cruisers, so they ordered him to concentrate three of his cruisers off New York harbour. He sent two of his ships northwards and followed them in Suffolk before the declaration of war on 4 August.^[26]

On the morning of 6 August, Suffolk spotted Karlsruhe in the process of transferring guns and equipment to the liner

Watling Island. The two German ships quickly departed in different directions. Suffolk followed Karlsruhe, and Craddock ordered the light cruiser Bristol to intercept her. Karlsruhe's faster speed allowed her to quickly outpace Suffolk, but Bristol caught her that evening and fruitlessly fired at her before the German ship disengaged in the darkness. Craddock had anticipated her manoeuvres and continued eastwards, but Karlsruhe was almost out of coal and had slowed down to her most economical speed and passed behind Suffolk the following morning without being spotted before putting into Puerto Rico with only 12 long tons (12 t) of coal remaining.^[27]

Cradock continued northward in obedience to his orders and, after rendezvousing with the newly arrived armoured cruiser HMS Good Hope in Halifax, transferred his flag to her because she was faster than Suffolk. Dresden was ordered to rendezvous with the East Asia Squadron under Vice-Admiral Graf Maximilian von Spee in the Pacific. Karlsruhe was sent to intercept Allied merchantmen off the north-eastern coast of Brazil. So the reported losses of shipping showed both ships moving south. In response, the Admiralty ordered Cradock southward on 22 August, put him in command of the South American Station the following month, and reinforcing his fleet with the elderly and slow pre-dreadnought battleship HMS Canopus.^[28] Good Hope was coaled at the Royal Naval Dockyard, Bermuda (by Bermuda Militia Artillery gunners assisting with coaling).^[29]

On 14 September, Cradock received new orders from the Admiralty. They apprised him that the East Asia Squadron was probably heading for either the west coast of South America or the

Port Stanley in the Falkland Islands to re-coal. To achieve this aim, he was to be reinforced by the modern armoured cruiser HMS Defence arriving from the Mediterranean. Until she arrived, Cradock was to keep Canopus and one Monmouth-class cruiser with his flagship, Good Hope. Once he had superior force, he was to search for and destroy the German cruisers and break up German trade on the west coast, while remaining prepared to fall back and cover the River Plate area.^[30]

The day that the Admiralty issued this order, the East Asia Squadron appeared at occupied German Samoa. Noting this apparent movement to the west, and the continuing depredations of the light cruiser SMS Emden in the Bay of Bengal, the Admiralty concluded that von Spee meant to rendezvous with Emden in the southwestern Pacific, and cancelled the transfer of Defence to Cradock's command.^[31] Two days later, the Admiralty messaged Cradock that von Spee was moving away from South America, and that he should search the southwestern coast of South America for German ships without worrying about keeping his ships concentrated. But they failed to inform him that Defence would not now be sent to him.^[32]

By late September, it had become clear that Dresden had passed into the Pacific Ocean. Cradock's ships fruitlessly searched several different anchorages in the area of Tierra del Fuego, and returned to Port Stanley to re-coal on 3 October. Based on intercepted radio signals, the Admiralty decided that the East Asia Squadron was probably headed east, and so advised him two days later, although he did not receive the message until 7 October.^[33]

The Hunt for the East Asia Squadron

By late October Cradock had reliable intelligence that the East Asia Squadron had reached the western coast of South America. Cradock's fleet was significantly weaker than Spee's, mainly consisting of elderly vessels manned by largely inexperienced crews. However, the orders he received from the Admiralty were ambiguous; although they were meant to make him concentrate his ships on the old battleship Canopus, Cradock interpreted them as instructing him to seek and engage the enemy forces. Clarifying instructions from the Admiralty were not issued until 3 November, by which time the battle had already been fought.^[34]

Battle of Coronel

Cradock found Spee's force off

armed merchant cruiser Otranto away. He tried to close the range immediately to engage with his shorter-ranged six-inch guns and so that the enemy would have the setting sun in their eyes, but von Spee kept the range open until dusk, when the British cruisers were silhouetted in the afterglow, while his ships were hidden by darkness. Heavily disadvantaged because the high seas had rendered the main-deck six-inch guns on Good Hope and HMS Monmouth unusable, and with partially trained crews, Cradock's two armoured cruisers were destroyed with the loss of all 1,660 lives, including his own; the light cruiser Glasgow managed to escape. This battle was the first defeat of the Royal Navy in a naval action in more than a hundred years.^[35]

Departing from Port Stanley he had left behind a letter to be forwarded to Admiral Hedworth Meux in the event of his death. In this he commented that he did not intend to suffer the fate of Rear-Admiral Ernest Troubridge, who had been court-martialled in August for failing to engage the enemy despite the odds being severely against him, during the pursuit of the German warships Goeben and Breslau. The Governor of the Falklands and the Governor's aide both reported that Cradock had not expected to survive.^[36]

A monument to Cradock, sculpted by F. W. Pomeroy, was placed in York Minster on 16 June 1916.^[37] It is on the east side of the north transept towards the Chapter House entrance. There is another monument to Cradock in Catherington churchyard, Hampshire. There is a monument and a stained glass window in Cradock's memory in his parish church at Gilling West.^[38] Having no known grave, he is commemorated by the Commonwealth War Graves Commission on Portsmouth Naval Memorial.^[39]

Personal life

Cradock never married, but kept a dog which accompanied him at sea. He commented that he would choose to die either during an accident while hunting (his favourite pastime), or during action at sea.^[40]

References

^
doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/32607. Retrieved 29 June 2019. (Subscription or UK public library membership
required.)

^ ^a ^b ^c ^d ^e "Christopher George Francis Maurice Cradock". www.dreadnoughtproject.org. Retrieved 15 February 2019.
^ Dunn, pp. 9–14
^ Dunn, pp. 16–17, 214
^ Dunn, pp. 17–18
^ Dunn, pp. 18–19
^ Dunn, pp. 19, 23, 25–27
^ "Naval & Military intelligence". The Times. No. 36053. London. 31 January 1900. p. 8.
^ Dunn, pp. 30–33
^ "Naval & Military intelligence". The Times. No. 36724. London. 25 March 1902. p. 9.
^ "The London Gazette". No. Supplement: 27448. 26 June 1902. p. 4189. Retrieved 16 February 2019.
^ "Naval & Military intelligence". The Times. No. 36968. London. 3 January 1903. p. 6.
^ Dunn, p. 53
^ "The London Gazette". No. 27560. 2 June 1903. p. 3525. Retrieved 16 February 2019.
^ "H.M.S. Leviathan (1901)". www.dreadnoughtproject.org. Retrieved 16 February 2019.
^ Dunn, pp. 56–57
^ Dunn, pp. 68, 76–78
^ Quoted in Dunn, pp. 78–79
^ Dunn, pp. 67–69, 76–79
^ Dunn, pp. 88–92
^ Dunn, pp. 92, 94
^ Dunn, pp. 96–98
^ Dunn, p. 97
^ Transcript
^ Dunn, pp. 99–101
^ Corbett, pp. 45–47
^ Corbett, pp. 47–50
^ Corbett, pp. 51, 258–264
^ Record of Service of the Bermuda Militia Artillery (Report). British Army. B.M.A. at Ireland Island did good work assisting in coaling warships during the first six months of mobilization and received the thanks of the Admiralty (Having coaled the "Good Hope" on her last a fatal trip.)
^ Corbett, p. 309
^ Corbett, pp. 290–291
^ Corbett, pp. 309–310
^ Corbett, pp. 310–315
^ Halpern, pp. 91–92
^ Dunn, p. 152; Halpern, p. 93
^ Massie, pp. 219–221
^ Dunn, pp. 180–181
^ Webster, Dave (5 March 2011). "HMS Good Hope". Flickr. Retrieved 30 May 2019.
^ "Search Results". www.cwgc.org. Commonwealth War Graves Commission. Retrieved 30 May 2019.
^ Massie, pp. 218–219

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