Iles war diary, 1914-1919 / G. H. Iles - Page 303
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[Page 303]
ships at a time took their departure until on Nov 25th at 1 PM our own squadron weighed anchor, the German Light Cruiser Squadron doing likewise, and at a speed of 10 knots we made our way to the northern base. Our ship the Melbourne acted as the leading ship whilst the remainder of our squadron consisting of "Birmingham" flagship, the "Sydney" and "Dublin" took up station on the beam to seaward and so through the darkness of the night we lead the German ships through our minefield and they steamed in line ahead with great precision keeping station faultlessly until on
Nov 26th at 11 AM we steamed through the defence gates at Scapa Flow and brought our ships to anchor the enemy ships brought to head on wind to drop anchor near by. – other squadrons of German ships arriving during the remainder of the day – We laid at anchor awaiting orders to proceed to Portsmouth to refit etc preparatory to leaving for Australia