Page:Victory at Sea - William Sowden Sims and Burton J. Hendrick.djvu/235

1917-18] fought, and what part would the several elements of modern naval warfare play in it : mines, submarines, battle-cruisers, airplanes, dirigibles, and destroyers? These were among the questions with which the Planning Section busied itself, and this problem, like many others, they approached from the German standpoint. They placed themselves in the position of the German High Command, and peered into the Grand Fleet looking for a weakness, which, had they been Germans, they might turn to account in a general engagement. The only weak spot our Planning Section could find was one which reflected the greatest credit upon the British forces. The British commander, Admiral Sir David Beatty, was a particularly dashing and heroic fighter; could not these splendid qualities really be turned to the advantage of the Germans? That Admiral Beatty would fight at the first opportunity, and that he would run all justifiable risks, if a chance presented of defeating the German fleet, was as well known to the Germans as to ourselves. The British Admiral, it was also known, did not entertain much respect for mines and torpedoes. All navies possessed what was known as a "torpedo flag." This was an emblem which was to be displayed in case torpedoes were sighted, for the purpose of warning the ships to change course or, if necessary, to desist from an attack. It was generally reported that Admiral Beatty had ordered all these torpedo flags to be destroyed; in case he once started in pursuit of the German fleet, he proposed to take his chances, dive straight through a school of approaching torpedoes, or even to rush full speed over a mine-field, making no efforts to avoid these hidden dangers. That he would probably lose some ships the Admiral well knew, but he figured—and probably correctly—that he would certainly have enough vessels left to annihilate the enemy. Still, in the judgment of our Planning Section, Admiral Beatty's assumed attitude toward "torpedo flags" gave the Germans their only possible chance of seriously injuring the Grand Fleet. They drew up a plan of attack on the Scapa Flow forces based upon this assumption. Imagining themselves directors of the German navy, they constructed large numbers of torpedo boats, submarines, and mine-fields and stationed them in a particularly advantageous position; they then proposed to send the German fleet in the direction of Scapa Flow, draw the Grand