Letter dated 9th December 1914

After the action off the Chilean coast, we sent home word for reinforcements. These did not arrive until the day before yesterday, when a large fleet came here comprising the Invincible, Inflexible, Carnarvon, Cornwall, Kent, Glasgow and Bristol. Up to this time we had heard nothing of the Germans. The very next day (yesterday), the whole fleet of Germans, which had been in the action of November 1st - Scharnhorst, Gneisenau, Leipzig, Dresden and Nurnberg - turned up. They couldn't have come at a more opportune moment, as if they had arrived earlier our fleet would not have been here and if they had arrived later the fleet (which was to have left today) would have gone!

We, the Canopus went to General Quarters about 10.00 am and opened fire with our 12 inch guns. Our other ships could do nothing, as the land was between them and the enemy, and most of them were coaling. We fired a lot of shots and hit the Gneisenau. By this time the fleet had weighed and were coming out at full speed. The Germans turned tail and fled with the fleet at full speed after them.

Of course we could not follow as we were on the mud. Still we had opened up the action, prevented the enemy from shelling the Wireless Station and saved the fleet from being attacked while at anchor. All that day we waited anxiously for news. Towards evening we got the welcome news that the Invincible and Inflexible had sunk the Gneisenau and Scharnhorst. Later we heard that the Leipzig was on fire fore and aft and she sank soon after. Then the signal came through from the Kent "Have sunk the Nurnberg". We were frantic with joy. We have got a lot of prisoners on board. The officers are being kept in the Captain's lobby, where they are guarded by sentries with fixed bayonets. They get quite respectable food, however! The men are all forrard. One prisoner who can talk English told us they had intended to destroy the Wireless Station, to land by night and sack the town and sink all the colliers and store-ships in the harbour, sink the Canopus if we made any resistance and decamp to West Africa taking the crew of the Canopus with them. There was only one thing they didn't know all about and that was the arrival of our fleet.

If the fleet had arrived only two days earlier or two days later, it would have been all up with us and everyone else on the Falkland Islands.

However it turned out all right. I am only sorry we were not able to go out and settle some of them ourselves, but anyhow we could not have kept up with the fleet.

Still we did our little lot.

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