Censorship of news concerning naval losses in 1941 and 1942 can, perhaps, be better understood if one knows something of the loss of the British battleship Audacious in 1914.
The bare facts of the case are these: On October 27, 1914, the new battleship Audacious struck a mine off the coast of Northern Ireland. She was kept afloat for some hours while a desperate effort was made to get her into port. During the last hours before she sank, the White Star liner Olympic stood by to take off the battleship’s crew, if necessary. When it became evident that the Audacious could not be saved, and after her crew was transferred to safety, the Olympic went on into a British port.
This was the first serious British naval loss in World War I—serious in the sense that both Germans and British based their “strategic calculations” on the number of battleships available for sea duty.1 The Cabinet was faced with the necessity of deciding whether to take the public into its confidence and publish the loss, or to suppress news of the sinking in the hope that the Germans would not learn of it. It must be remembered that the Audacious was mined, not torpedoed, and therefore the Germans would not have certain knowledge of her sinking. There was divided opinion in the Cabinet; some members arguing that there was little point in suppressing the news because of the many passengers on the Olympic who would spread the story as soon as they landed. Other Cabinet members, notably Winston Churchill, urged that
. . . there was no reason why the Germans should not be left to collect their own information for themselves, that the moment they knew the Audacious was sunk they would proclaim it, and then we could quite easily explain to the public why it was we had preserved secrecy. I cited the effective concealment by Japan of the loss of the battleship Yashima off Port Arthur in 1904. If Sir John French had lost an Army Corps, every effort would be made to conceal it from the enemy. Why then should the Navy be denied a similar freedom? Lord Kitchener strongly supported me; and our views were eventually accepted by the Cabinet.2
The British newspapers acceded to the Government’s request that the sinking of the Audacious be not mentioned. As in the Cabinet, there were objections to this request for self-censorship, based largely on the contention that the passengers from the Olympic would write to friends in the United States, who would in turn give the information to the American newspapers. This happened as predicted and on November 15, 19 days after the sinking, the New York Times carried a long story on the Audacious.
Mail advices brought to New York yesterday the report that the British superdreadnought Audacious, the third largest battleship in the English Navy, was sunk by a mine or a torpedo off the north coast of Ireland on October 27. . .
It was well known that the White Star liner diverted her course on her last voyage . . . This was explained in cable dispatches on no less an authority than the British Admiralty, by the fact that mines had been discovered in the steamship lanes . . . The British Admiralty is silent yet with regard to the Audacious?3
On the 16th an editorial inquired
Why should censorship have been so rigidly enforced in this matter? To prevent panic in England? . . . The tardy announcement of the destruction of the Audacious by a German mine or torpedo may beget a suspicion that some of the truth is still withheld, that the British Navy may have lost other big ships.4
In spite of the possibility that the public would lose faith in the word of the Admiralty, Churchill was justified in taking the position that he did. Reinhold Scheer, the great German Admiral of Jutland fame, wrote in his memoirs in 1920 that
The English succeeded in keeping secret for a considerable time the loss of their great battleship, a loss which was a substantial success for our efforts at equalization . . . The behaviour of the English was inspired at all points by consideration for what would serve their military purpose.... In the case of the Audacious we can but approve the English attitude of not revealing a weakness to the enemy, because accurate information about the other side’s strength has a decisive effect on the decisions taken.5
What Scheer does not explain is the reason why his government would have been keenly interested in any definite knowledge, such as an official British communique, as to the loss of an important unit of the British battle fleet such as the Audacious. The New York Times account of the sinking was not confirmed in Britain and the Germans could not be sure that it was anything but rumor. Their entire plan of naval strategy might have been profoundly altered had they known for sure that the Audacious had been lost.
Consider for a moment the naval situation in October of 1914. At that time the Germans had at least 16 and possibly 18 dreadnought battleships ready for action. The British had 26 such vessels; a superiority of from 8 to 10. Normally this would have been sufficient to warrant the British Commander in Chief, Admiral Sir John Jellicoe, to seek fleet action with the Germans, and conversely, to justify the Germans in avoiding such action. But there was a time in October when the Germans would have been justified in seeking a decisive action with the British Grand Fleet —a time when the Grand Fleet would have gone into battle with the very slim margin of superiority of but 2 ships. This would have been possible had the Germans known definitely certain facts that British naval censorship carefully withheld from the public. Jellicoe has written that at the end of October he had but 12 dreadnought battleships and 5 battle cruisers ready for action. Audacious had just been sunk, Ajax and Iron Duke were having their condensers overhauled, Orion was undergoing turbine examination, Conqueror was refitting at Davenport, New Zealand was in dry dock, and Erin and Agincourt were newly commissioned and not ready to join the fleet.7
Here was the German Navy’s great opportunity—if they had only known the situation. Able to choose their own time and mass all their strength at one crucial point and moment, the Germans could have swept into battle with 16 or 18 modern dreadnoughts and battle cruisers, to meet an English fleet of 18 such vessels. Had such a meeting of fleets eventuated as did Jutland, within the first half hour the loss of two British battle cruisers would have given the Germans parity, or a superiority of two ships. The possible results of such an engagement, in which the British would have lacked the decided superiority they had at Jutland, could have changed the course of history. The point here is that the Germans did not know that they held temporary parity of battle fleets. The reason for their lack of such vital information is to be found, chiefly, in effective naval censorship on the part of the British Admiralty.
The lesson to be learned from this incident of 1914 should be obvious. The Japanese do not know the extent of the damage they inflicted at Pearl Harbor; they do not know the disposition of the main body of our fleet; they do not know how much of our air force strength is in the Pacific.
The Germans and Italians do not know what our naval forces in the Atlantic amount to. If we follow the precept of the censorship of the sinking of the Audacious, our enemies never will know until they meet our forces in combat.
A wise organization insures that the personnel of combat groups changes as little as possible, so that comrades in peace-time maneuvers shall be comrades in war. From living together, and obeying the same chiefs, from commanding the same men, from sharing fatigue and rest, from co-operation among men who quickly understand each other in the execution of warlike movements, may be bred brotherhood, professional knowledge, sentiment, above all unity. The duty of obedience, the right of imposing discipline and the impossibility of escaping from it, would naturally follow. . . . And now confidence appears…It is not that enthusiastic and thoughtless confidence of tumultuous or unprepared armies which goes up to the danger point and vanishes rapidly, giving way to a contrary sentiment, which sees treason everywhere. It is that intimate confidence, firm and conscious, which does not forget itself in the heat of action and which alone makes true combatants.—Du Picq, Battle Studies.
1. Churchill, Winston S., The World Crisis, Vol. I, New York, 1923, p. 430.
2. Ibid., p. 430.
3. New York Times, November 15, 1914, New York.
4. New York Times, November 16, 1914.
5. Scheer, Admiral Reinhard, Germany’s High Seas Fleet in the World War, London, 1920, pp. 61-62.
6. See my article “German Naval Strategy in 1914” in U. S. Naval Institute Proceedings, September, 1940.
7. Jellicoe, Admiral Sir John Rushworth, The Grand Fleet, 1914-1918, its Creation, Development and Work. London, 1919, pp. 151-152.