Battle of Coronel

On the evening of 1 November 1914, in the Pacific off the coast of central Chile, the German East Asia Squadron of Vice-Admiral Maximilian von Spee clashed with the British force of Rear-Admiral Christopher Cradock. In less than an hour the Germans sank the armoured cruiser HMS Good Hope, and later finished off HMS Monmouth. Both ships went down with all hands.

An unequal fight

For weeks Spee had been making his way across the Pacific towards South America, and his presence had been given away by, among other things, the bombardment of Papeete in September. Cradock had been tasked by the Admiralty with finding the German cruisers, but his forces were clearly weaker. Against the Germans’ two modern armoured cruisers and three light cruisers, Cradock had two old armoured cruisers with crews that had not worked up, the light cruiser Glasgow and the armed liner Otranto. The strongest ship of the force, the slow battleship HMS Canopus, had been left far behind.

The two squadrons sighted each other in the afternoon, west of the port of Coronel. Cradock did not withdraw and accepted battle. Spee, who had the faster ships, waited until sunset to open fire. The British ships then stood out clearly against the sky still bright over the ocean, while the German ones were lost in the gloom against the land. Fire was opened at about 7 p.m. The high sea made aiming and working the guns difficult for the British, while the Germans, famous for the excellent training of their gunners, scored hits from the first salvoes.

Good Hope blew up and sank at about 8 p.m. The badly damaged Monmouth was found in the darkness by the cruiser Nürnberg and sunk. Glasgow, which had taken several hits, and Otranto managed to escape. About 1,600 British sailors were killed, among them Admiral Cradock. The Germans had only three wounded.

The first casualties of the Canadian navy

Among those killed on Good Hope were four Canadian naval midshipmen: Malcolm Cann, John Hatheway, William Palmer and Arthur Silver. They belonged to the first class of the Royal Naval College of Canada, founded shortly after the creation of the Canadian navy in 1910, and were serving their training on the British cruiser. They were the first men killed in the history of the Royal Canadian Navy and are regarded as Canada’s first fatal casualties of the war.

Shock in London

News of the defeat reached Britain a few days later and caused a shock. For the first time in more than a hundred years the Royal Navy had lost a battle at sea. The new First Sea Lord, Admiral John Fisher, who had returned to the Admiralty only two days earlier, reacted firmly and sent two battlecruisers from the Grand Fleet against von Spee’s squadron. Spee himself had no illusions about the future. His ships had used up a large part of their ammunition at Coronel and could not replenish it, and superior British and Japanese forces were now setting out against him.