Indiscretions of the naval censor

Preface

I HAVE been induced by some people for wbom I have a high regard, and in some cases even affection, to attempt to set down some of my recollections of the four and a half strenuous years of my service as Chief Censor at the Admiralty during the late War.

I am painfully aware that in the pages that follow there are to be found

(1) No trace of literary merit; that is a gift which but few naval officers are so fortunate as to possess.

(2) A deplorable lack of continuity and hence no ** construction'' in the trivial narrative. That is due to the fact that I never kept a diary for two reasons: firstly, it was too dangerous to do so, and, secondly, I was too dead tired to have any inclination to write when the day's work was done. To say that I now regret this omission is to put it very mildly.

Now that it is all over I realise how fortunate I was to have such an interesting job and I gratefully acknowledge the consideration I received from all the high Admiralty officers under whom I nerved, from many members of the Press, from

vii

PREFACE

authors, artists and photographers (both moving and still) in carrying out my duties. My reward is that I feel I have more friends among that section of the community than I had before the War, and if I may judge from the many letters I have received from them they appreciated my efforts to help them and realised that I never desired to hinder them.

I do not feel disposed to apologise for the launching of this record, as the public, unlike me, who during my term of service had to read any and everything that came before me in proof form, need not wade through the following pages.

N.B. — ^I gratefully acknowledge valuable help kindly given me by Mr. Archibald Hurd in the final stages of preparing the book for press, and I need not assure his many admirers that he is in no way responsible for its literary style.

vm

Contents

CHAPTBB PAGB

I The Establishment op the Naval Censorship 15

II How THE News Game of the Battles of Coronel

CHAPTER I THB ESTABLISHMENT OF THE NAVALi CBNSOESHIP

Acceptance of the appointment in the spring of 1914 — Emergency arrangements on the outbreak of war — Organisation at the Admiralty — The birth of the Press Bureau — Eelations with the Sea Lords and Mr. Winston Churchill ' — ^Right of the Censor to be acquainted with secret messages — Conmaunications between the Chief Censors at War Office and Admiralty — The Trade Division of the Admiralty War Staff — Captain Richard Webb and Commander Leverton Harris — Mr. Churchill in bed — ^Mr. Churchill and the Dardanelles — The first official naval photographer — ^Relations with Prince Louis of Battenberg and Lord Fisher.

When I retired from the Navy in January, 1913, I was invited to sign a paper stating whether I would volunteer for service in the event of mobilisation for war, and, if so, whether afloat or ashore. I said that I would volunteer for service afloat, and thought no more about it.

I had entered the Navy in 1881, and had seen some fighting in the Soudan, had served in the

Naval Intelligence Department at the Admiralty, as well as at Tokio as Naval Attache, and had had a good deal of sea experience of one kind and another. But for family reasons I decided to retire, and I came ashore, thinking never again to have anything to do with the Navy. Who in 1913 had any idea of what was going so soon to happen? I will be honest. I hadn't. I was not among the prophets, and am content to belong to the small minority who had not foretold the war and all its wonders and horrors.

In the spring of 1914 I was asked, in the event of mobilisation, would I accept the appointment of Chief Censor of Radio-Telegraphy. I answered that I was entirely at their lordships' disposal, and in a week's time I received the appointment of Chief Censor of Radio-Telegraphy, with instructions to go to the Admiralty from time to time to make and keep myself acquainted with the progress of radio-telegraphy in the United Kingdom. I went during June and July, and read the various handbooks on the subject ; and when, during the middle and towards the end of July, it became increasingly evident that war might break out, I reviewed the situation in so far as it concerned my own appointment and came to the conclusion that I could not possibly do the work single-handed.

On the Friday before the outbreak of war, therefore, I telegraphed to two officers (Commander Thomas Crease and Lieutenant Cyprian Bridge), who were indirectly connected with me in the business world, and asked them to lunch with me the next day at the Naval and Military Club. They came, and I put the situation before them, after which, having looked at the books and office and considered various details, they agreed to act as my assistants. Then I sent them both away for the week-end, and remained on duty myself. On that memorable Saturday, August 1, all our radio stations were placed under control, and messages for censorship thereafter came pouring in night and day.

There was no staff, so we assembled a body of clerks, all experts at shorthand and typewriting, drawn from the associated firms of which we had special knowledge, Messrs. Cammell Laird and the Fairfield Shipbuilding Company; and these men immediately sorted themselves out into four shifts, covering the twenty-four hours, and arranged their meal-relief and so on between themselves. They saved the situation for me, and their single-mindedness and devotion to their arduous duties fully justified me in forwarding to their two firms, on August 25, 1914, a message circulated by the First Lord of the Admiralty five days previously, to the Admiralty staff, expressing **his great satisfaction at the excellent work done by them during the period of strain involved in the mobilisation of the Fleet for war. The First Lord considers that the manner in which all departments have responded to the call made upon them has been admirable. This expression of appreciation is thoroughly concurred in by all the members of the Board/'

I am anticipating events, however. When Sunday dawned it was upon a day of unforgettable excitement. It was still uncertain on the following day whether we should go to war or not, though the die, as we now know, had already been cast by Germany, and, throughout the country, the great mass of the people was enjoying the beautiful August Bank Holiday. At the Admiralty the tension was such, however, that nobody who was there will ever forget it.

I was now trying to organise the proper distribution of the hundreds of messages that were flooding in from all the radio stations, at each of which I had a staff of censors, ten in all, I think. The Trade Division of the Admiralty War Staff, though still small, was in a state of rapid expansion, and it must be remembered that it was upon this division that the safety of our immense merchant service largely depended, since it was the recipient of intelligence from all parts of the world of the doings of our own shipping and the whereabouts and movements of hostile vessels, ^n those days it was snowed under by rumours. The Operations Division was also growing swiftly, and it will be readily understood that the sifting, censoring, and circulation of messages soon became a pretty stiff job.

During that Sunday, Monday, Tuesday — the day on which war was declared at midnight, Wednesday, and Thursday I was working in my room for twenty-two hours a day, my scheme of rest being to go away about six p. m. to my bedroom at my club, strip and go to bed till a quarter to eight, get up, have a hot bath and shave, and go back again to the office. In the first week or so I had all my meals there.

It was on the Wednesday night about nine o'clock that I met the Assistant Secretary of the Admiralty, Mr. (now Sir) Oswyn Murray, in the passage outside my little room looking over the quadrangle off Whitehall, and he asked me if I would ^'take on the Press.'' With regard to this a Consultative Committee had some time before been set up by the Admiralty and War Office, and it had done good work, supported with fine patriotism by the proprietors, editors, and staffs of the principal newspapers. But actual censorship of the Press ! That was another matter, requiring courtesy and tact. However, I told Mr. Murray that I would undertake it, but, at the same time, I said that I must have a quieter room, as the roar of the traffic in Whitehall made the use of a 'phone extremely difficult and very tiring, and I realised that the 'phone would be my salvation. He agreed, and suggested to me that I should occupy Eoom 37, an offer I gladly accepted, as that room overlooked the inner quadrangle, and was perfectly quiet. It turned out, however, that it was for six months or so even more noisy than the other room, as a series of galvanised iron buildings (known as **tin tabernacles'^) were being erected for the accommodation of tke increased Admiralty staff necessitated by tbe war. A really infernal din raged night and day throughout that time. But this was not Mr. Oswyn Murray's fault, and he was most helpful and considerate on all occasions, and I could always rely on him for wise counsel in any difficulty.

The change was rapidly effected, and it was in this room that we first issued communiques to the Press. These were limited to seven copies, distributed respectively to the four British agencies, Renter's, Central News, Exchange Telegraph Company, and Press Association, to two American agencies, and, I believe, to one Overseas Dominion agency. The number was limited to seven, partly on account of lack of accommodation in the office, and partly because the typewriter we had would not take off more than about nine legible copies, two being retained for our own reference! Our facilities in those days were very modest ! \

From these small beginnings sprang the Press Bureau, which was first installed under Sir F. E. Smith (now Lord Birkenhead) in an old part of the Admiralty, viz., 40, Charing Cross, where we used to supply them with matter for communiques and public information, and whither they had taken some of my assistants, naval officers who had volunteered or been recalled for service.

The growth of the Press Bureau was not accomplished without some '^puU devil, pull baker'' between them and me. They wished to break away completely from all naval control, while I took the line that, though the naval side of the Bureau was competent to censor most material, it was not in a position to know what could be safely **passed" and what must on no account be made public. I therefore insisted that reference should in the last resort be made to me, as representing the Admiralty view and being in the closest touch with the Sea Lords and the hourly reported course of naval events. For my position at the Admiralty I was very fortunately equipped, as it so happened that I was of that sort of seniority and age as to know all the members of the Board well, and many of them intimately as personal friends. It was therefore easy for me to establish the practice of having free access to each and all of them, and I was thus able to settle any question referred to me from the naval side of the Press Bureau by going to whichever Sea Lord was concerned, which meant absence of delay and freedom of red tape.

This applied equally to the First Lord, Mr. Winston Churchill, who, though he was extremely busy and hard-worked, usually spared time to see me and settle points that I wished to put before him, and if during the day his secretaries, exercising a wise discretion, headed me off, I invariably succeeded in tripping him up at 1 :30 a. m., when he had finished his work and was off to bed, as lie would look into my room and give me the decisions I was after.

This freedom of access to all heads of departments I enjoyed throughout the war, and I cannot but think that it accounted for whatever measure of success I achieved, if that is a term that can properly be used in connection with such an unpopular institution as a censorship ! At all events, the decisions given had ample sanction behind them. They were always carefully considered, and were invariably approached from the point of view of concealing as little as possible and allowing publication of as much news as might safely be given to a hungry Press and an anxious public.

The Directors of the Press Bureau tried on several subsequent occasions to sever the connection between the Favy Room in the Bureau — ^which was subsequently housed in the Royal United Service Institution — and my office, and on every occasion, and under each Home Secretary, and finally by a decision of the War Cabinet, they failed to achieve their object ; and I cannot help repeating that I think it fortunate that the direct communication between the Press and the Admiralty, via the Navy Room of the Press Bureau, continued to the end.

Nov/ let me return to the early days of the War. The stenographers whom we had borrowed from the firms already mentioned had in due course to return to their ordinary work, and so it became necessary to recruit a staff of stenographers of our own, and we were uniformly fortunate in the men that we thus gathered together. They worked (three of them) in twelve-hour shifts — ten a.m. to ten p.m., and vice versa — twelve hours on and twenty-four off for many months, until the work became so heavy and exacting that a fourth man had to be taken on, thus enabling each of the clerks in rotation to get one week of day duty, i.e., from ten a.m. to eight p.m., and to be free that week from night duty. That is to say, that, once in three weeks, each of them had what navy men call a week of ** nights in." Later on we had again to add to our staff, having three men always on duty besides the usual night duty shifts. From the day war started the office never closed night or day — not a bad record !

At an early stage I decided that practically all secret cables and messages of all sorts ought to be sent to me, as, if I was not in possession of all facts, I could not censor intelligently. In the very early days of the war secrecy was a bit of an obsession at times, and many matters were kept so **pink"^ — secret — that many who were closely concerned did not know what was going on; and it was to get myself admitted into the sacred ring of those who received all ^^ pinks" that I struggled, though I must say I did not meet with very serious opposition. I won my point, in fact, with

*So called from the colour of the paper on which these ** secret" telegrams were circulated.

considerable ease, and my work was all the easier and more satisfactory thereafter.

One branch of the work connected with my office was that connected with the sifting, circulating, and giving of decisions on commercial messages intercepted both by the cable censors and the wireless telegraph censors. As is well known, the cable censorship all over the world is conducted by the War Office ; and in order to make communication between the chief censors at the War Office and Admiralty complete and to get decisions promptly, a post captain was appointed as naval adviser to the chief censor at the War Office. It was this officer (Captain John H. Trye) who communicated directly with me on a private 'phone from his room at the War Office to mine. Any matters that could be settled on the 'phone were done in that way, but, in addition, some 700 or 800 typed copies of commercial cables were sent by that officer to me daily for decision or reference to other departments, or for copies to be circulated among those who were interested in the contents of the messages. For nine months I handled these messages myself, and then I got another officer. Commander the Hon. Gerald Digby, to come and take it over and do nothing else — a dull, thankless task — and I am very grateful to him for sticking to it for three and a half years.

The method of handling this business was to refer doubtful matters to various experts who were attached to Captain — now Rear Admiral —

Eichard Webb, E.N., the Director of the Trade Division. This officer, of whom not much was heard by the public, was one of those who worked like a nigger for three years without a break until he got away to a battle-cruiser in the Grand Fleet. But Lloyd ^s and the shipping interests could give a satisfactory account of his work. Among other valuable traits in his character, he had the knack of attracting to him men of rare ability in the varied walks of commercial life. Among those with whom I was frequently in contact through the nature of my work were Mr. Bilborough, who dealt with all questions of insurance, and Commander F. Leverton Harris, R.N.V.E., who dealt with all questions of copper and beef and other imports. He seldom left his office before two a.m. He had a passion for work, and no one handled it with more rapidity and accuracy. Though I was glad to see his great ability recognised by his promotion to Assistant Minister of Blockade, it was a bitter blow to me and to all his friends and admirers that his successful policy for the restriction of enemy trade and the vigorous enforcement of the blockade should have been rewarded by his being dropped overboard at the moment when the result of his work culminated in the Germans being compelled to ask for the Armistice which finished the war; his official ruin was brought about through the machinations of a ^^ party'' which, as some newspaper wittily remarked, could take itself to Westminster in a side-car. He did fine service for tlie country.

Presently, wlien the War Trade Intelligence Department came to be set up, some of tlie work of sorting and sifting gradually fell to that department, but the circulation of messages containing information of use to Admiralty departments still remained in our hands.

In fact, from the day we started down to the end, when the ether was thick with Armistice messages and no cables were coming through from Germany, our office was a distributing centre for all manner of information on every conceivable topic! That may seem curious as part of the duty of one who is supposed to have existed to suppress information.

During the Dardanelles days, for instance, we were very busy indeed. Mr. Churchill naturally took a very keen interest in the whole proceedings, and he said to me one day, **For this business I am Chief Censor, not you." The result was that I used, as I mentioned above, to see the last of him at 1 :30 a.m., and I would take him the cable copies and radios that had come in during the night, properly t3rped out, and be by his bedside at 9 :15 a.m. He presented a most extraordinary spectacle, perched up in a huge bed, with the whole of the counterpane littered with despatch boxes, red and all colours, and a stenographer sitting at the foot — Mr. ChurchiU himself with an enormous Corona Corona in his mouth, a glass of warm water on the table by his side, and a writing-pad on his knee. On one occasion he had a badly swollen face, and with two turns of a flannel bandage round it and a scanty lock escaping here and there, represented a truly extraordinary picture. The Corona Corona, however, was still there !

Here I would like to say that, barring one '* bust-up'' that I had with Mr. Churchill — in September, 1914, I think — I never had anything but pleasant relations with him. I could not help admiring his appetite for work and his pluck in taking decisions. He was indeed a whale for work, and I daresay a little thoughtless of others, but so far as I am concerned I can say that I was sorry to say good-bye to him when he left the Admiralty, and I enjoyed serving under him. He was, of course, a master of language and had a -flair for framing communiques, and I still have some of his which have never seen the light and are, to my mind, masterpieces. He was also a bit of a gambler — i.e., he would hold on to a bit of bad news for a time on the chance of getting a bit of good news to publish as an offset, and I must say that it not infrequently came off! On the other hand, there were days when it did not, and then there was a sort of *^ Black Monday'' atmosphere about — a bad *^ settling day" sort of look on all our faces.

After he left I always pleaded for the immediate publication of disasters, or, at any rate, that they should be made known as soon as the number of casualties had been reported and the relatives informed; and this soon became more or less the established practice.

I well remember taking up to Mr. Churchill the messages reporting the failure of the attack by the fleet on the Dardanelles and how the fleet had withdrawn owing to the sinking of so many ships. He looked up at me and said: ** You can't do this sort of job without casualties; they are having scores of hundreds of casualties on the "Western Front!'' There is no doubt he badly wanted the attempt renewed on the second day, and I believe it is now admitted that it would have been successful had it been undertaken. Perhaps, in retrospect, the chief tragedy of the war was due to the lack of pluck and determination by those responsible at home; and Mr. Churchill was not among them.

It was over the Dardanelles business that an official photographer was first employed, Ernest Brooks, a most gallant and delightful little man, who had previously been round the world with the King, and had done many other jobs. This started a fresh line of work, every one of his pictures passing through my hands before being marketed or issued to the Press. Brooks remained out till the Gallipoli force was withdrawn, when he wired me asking for instructions. I put forward a suggestion that the Commanders-in-Chief in the

Mediterranean and of the Grand Fleet should be consulted as to his retention, but nothing came of it, and he was lost to us and was, of course, snapped up by the Army. I subsequently had to go on my hands and knees to the Minister of Information (Lord Beaverbrook) to borrow him. I have never ceased regretting our losing hold of him.

A year or so later I was authorised to communicate direct with Commanders-in-Chief and senior naval officers on all matters concerned with my department, and had I been so authorised, then we should, I am confident, never have lost Brooks, for the little man was liked wherever he had served, and he never fell foul of anybody.

That, at any rate, was the inauguration of the photographic side of my office. Every plate sent home by Brooks we turned over to the Central News photographic section, run by Mr. George Knight, M.B.E., who throughout the war handled every single photograph that we had. He in turn issued them to a rota of photographic publishing agencies, and these supplied the Press, via the Press Bureau, and the net proceeds were remitted to the Admiralty. Everybody was thus kept sweet, and I think the business gave satisfaction.

It was no slight business keeping track of all the artistic and other efforts of those who were permitted to take photographs of naval objects. Soon after the war broke out it was decided that no pictures of British ships of war should be sold by anybody, and an embargo was placed upon all the familiar books like **The Naval Annual," ''Jane's Fighting Ships,'' the ''Naval Pocket Book," the "Navy League Annual," and so on. The authorities were determined that nothing should appear which could by any chance assist the enemy. When, later on, it was decided that it was desirable to let the public have such pictures of ships of naval incidents as could not benefit the Germans, it was my task to see that they were innocuous. By that time all sorts of new "gadgets" had been introduced into the Fleet about which we wanted the enemy to know nothing. Consequently a lot of the photographs contained dangerous matter, and they had to be manipulated. I would receive proofs and examine them, marking in some cases ships on the horizon to be omitted, and in others sighting hoods, paravanes, range-finder towers, fire-control stations, and other distinctive features to be taken out of them. Mr. Knight and his staff showed great ingenuity in faking these pictures, as the illustrations which are reproduced in this book show.

As everybody knows, when the war broke out Prince Louis of Battenberg was the First Sea Lord, and all business with him was very easily and pleasantly carried on. At that time he sat in the old board-room, next door to which was my oflSoe, and hie naval assistant. Captain T. P. H.

Beamish, occupied the room just across the passage from us, whilst the Chief of Staff (Admiral Frederick Doveton Sturdee) and the Director of Operations (Admiral Arthur Leveson) were in some of the first-floor rooms of the old Admiralty House, all close to my office. I was therefore able to obtain decisions from each and all of these officers quickly and without having to search the building for them.

At the end of October, 1914, i.e., immediately before Admiral Cradock's squadron was destroyed in action with von Spec off Coronel, Lord Fisher came back to the Admiralty as First Sea Lord, and took Commander Crease, who had been working with me since the beginning of the war, as his naval assistant, while about the same time Lieutenant Bridge left to go to the Naval Division. I therefore had to look about for another assistant, and I was fortunately able to get Paymaster- Commander E. H. Shearme, who had been employed at the Central Telegraph Office as a censor, and had then been transferred to the naval room at the Press Bureau. He thus came armed with a working knowledge of both these other departments of censorship, and his help was invaluable to me down to the end of the censorship four years after, with the exception of a short interval during which he filled the post of Paymaster of Contingencies. It is impossible for me to rate the value of his assistance too highly, and I am glad to acknowledge it here.

Lord Fisher was no stranger to me. I had been his Flag Commander when he was Commander-in-Chief at Portsmouth eleven years before. I knew his methods, and fully appreciated that things had to move with a * ^ snap, ' ^ and that in order to keep on terms with him one had to remember the maxim, ' ' Get on or get out. ' '

One of the first things I had to do for him was to send long cables en clair and in extenso to President Wilson, Prince Henry of Prussia, and Admiral von Tirpitz, all dealing with a request for the release of his daughter, Mrs. Neeld, and her husband. Rear- Admiral Neeld, who had been detained in Germany on the outbreak of war, where they were undergoing a *^cure.'' These cables presently achieved their object^ — thanks, I believe, to the representations of the President of the United States.

My next clear recollection of Lord Fisher's term of office was the chronic hustle and bustles in the passages. He had placed himself in the First Sea Lord^s room in the west block, i.e., at the other end of the building from my office, and he must have often regretted it, for he had to go trapesing down that long corridor many, many times a day to get to the Chief of Staff's room and to the Map Room beyond. I felt sorry for him when, towards the end of the day, he came along in company with the First Lord, who, of course, was fresh as paint, and seemingly never thought that his old First Sea Lord might be tired!