Todd war diary, 3 August 1914-29 February 1916 / Arthur Todd - Page 304
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[Page 304]
but he was sure that we could not have such big ships in those waters, and was not disturbed. He sent the man up aloft again to have another look. He little knew that since a few days after Coronel two battle-cruisers had been racing southward in the Atlantic to destroy him. The signalman again reported tripod masts. He was cursed for a fool, and the officer of the watch went up. He reported that he thought there were tripod masts, and he too was not believed. The gunnery lieutenant went up and said there were tripod masts inside, and the Germans, thoroughly alarmed, now turned away. But it was too late, for our ships had long since descried them, and had raised full steam and set out in pursuit. The sinking of the big German ships which could not get away for lack of speed, and the famous chase by the Kent of the Nürnberg and the Leipzig during which she threw all her woodwork into the furnaces to increase her speed, have already become historic; at any rate before darkness fell all the German fleet except the Dresden lay at the bottom.
From the Scharnhorst no-one was rescued, as she sank during the heat of the action; but from the Leipzig and Nürnberg a few survivors were gathered. The Carnarvon, Rear-Admiral Stoddart told us, did not take a very active part in the battle. We had plenty of ships, and she had no vis-à-vis; but it fell to her lot to pick up the prisoners. According to the stories of the latter both surgical stations in the Gneisenau were blown to pieces and the surgeons killed early in the action; the chaplain, who was assisting, was decapitated and his head blown up a