Small naval battle; not many hurt.....

Now for something completely different.

When I was working in Malawi 50 years ago I heard the comical story of the very first British naval victory of WW1 that took place on Lake Nyasa. About 25 years later I met a contemporary when I was in Australia and we started to chat about the event; He told me that in fact he had an original copy of the eye-witness account which was written many years later and  only published in the Nyasaland Journal. He later sent me a copy which I recently dug out of my archives.

How he managed to get hold of the original is a mystery. However, I visited Mangoche in 1990 and went to the Yacht club. When the Guen was broken up the ship’s bell was hung in the club, and I guess all other memorabilia was also kept there, including  this account.

At independence these were all ‘liberated’ and I was told that the bell is now resident in a yacht club ‘somewhere in England. I guess thus was how the paper came to be preserved.

I reckon that it has seen the light of day in the past, as it may well have been the inspiration for ‘The African Queen’ and ‘Shout at the Devil’.  When my late friend George Walker owned Elstree Studios I tried to persuade him to film this, but he went pear-shaped first!

Although the story is intrinsically funny, if Rhoades had not taken out the Weismann, von Lettow-Vorbeck might well have won the East African campaign.

It is quite a long story and I have edited it only to correct spelling errors etc. It is worth persevering with.

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I should state at the outset that I have written this account of the 'naval battle’, which took place on Lake Nyasa shortly after the outbreak of the First World War, entirely from memory and only in response  to numerous requests. I believe it to be substantially correct because the adventure made a great impression on me at the time and it remains in my mind's eye as a sequence of pictures; it is, however, possible that after all these years some of these may be slightly out of focus, resulting in errors of detail, in which case I crave the reader's indulgence.

I was on ulendo north of Mount Mangoche in the South Nyasa district when, on July 31st 1914, I received a telegram from Zomba ordering me to report immediately at Port Mangoche for active service.  This fort was at that time an outpost of the King's African Rifles and was occupied by a Company (four sections of 25 men) commanded by Captain Griffiths, a very able soldier whom I was destined to know very well.

When war was declared on August 6th, Griffiths marched the Company to the Bar, headquarters of the Marine Transport Department some six miles north of Port Johnston, which automati­cally became an Advanced Base from the future 'front'. We had a difficult time getting the 'artillery down the steep and rocky slopes of the mountain as specifically ordered - it consisted of two muzzle-loading cannon, seven pounders, I think. These, with one monster 9-pounder and two ancient maxims, comprised the only fire-arms other than rifles with which we cheerfully went to war.

At the Bar we joined forces with two other companies of K.A.R. under Captains Collins and Portal, and sundry very recently recruited details mostly commissioned and attached to that regiment. The N.V.R. (Nyasaland Volunteer Reserve) was still being organized in Zomba and their uniforms designed and issued} these consisted solely of two yellow shoulder straps stencilled 'N.V.R.* which were sewn to the members' own clothing.

The Marine Transport was a Government Department having the following European personnel: Commander Rhoades (Lieut. R.N.R.), Chief Officer, with Tait as his Number One, Haynes, Chief Engineer, with Urquhart and Fernandez as his assistants, and lastly, Bishop, clerk and storekeeper, later the hero of the battle of Karonga. The fleet comprised the Guendolen (so spelt) , Pioneer and Dove, in commission, with Queen Victoria  and Chauncey Maples  under charter.

Our only frontier with German East African (now Tanganyika Territory) was west of the northern end of the Lake, beginning at the mouth of the Songwe River, some 20 miles north of Karonga in the North Nyasa District which was at that time the property of the Chartered Company. This five-man station Karonga, with normally two officials and three civilians, was therefore the objective, whether for offence or defence, of Nyasaland's tiny army, and as there was no road usable by wheeled traffic and, incidentally, not half a dozen vehicles other than ox-carte, its L. of C. must perforce be by way of the Lake and this was unusable as long as any enemy ship, however lightly armed, was at large. 

The Germans had four ports on the northern half of the Lake, two of them on the flank of shipping from the south. No-one was surprised, therefore, when Rhoades received a telegram from Sir George Smith, Governor .and Commander-in-ordering him to 'sink, burn or otherwise destroy the Hermann von Weismann, the German 'gun-boat' though the belligerency of this signal was somewhat tempered by its conceding Passage, which warned Rhoades that under circumstances was he to risk the Guendolen.

The armament of the Guen consisted of a 3-pounder Hotchkiss mounted in a sponson immediately abaft the break of the fo'c'sle on the main deck and, if I remember correctly, two Nordenfeldts on the boat deck. The Weismann had only a one-pounder but this mounted on the fo'c's'le so that its field of fire more than compensated for its lack of weight.

Our 3-pounder immediately presented two problems, the whereabouts of its ammunition and the lack of a gunner; eventually Bishop found the ammo, in boxes painted a Naval grey and labelled by somebody "Spares", and Providence supplied the gunner: an assistant in the A.L.C. store at Fort Johnston volunteered the information that he had been trained as a seaman-gunner in the Clyde Division of the R.N.V.R., though he modestly admitted that he was not very sure how much he had remembered of it all.  Unfortunately I forget the name of this gallant Scot but I think he was usually called Jock. 

It so happened that while a student I had for a time been a P.O. in the London Division, R.N.V.R. and between us we were able to evolve some sort of drill for the benefit of the beaming crew supplied by Rhoades from among his "pirates".  Jock promoted himself to Gunlayer.

Normally the crew of the Guen consisted of two Europeans (Rhoades or Tait, in command, Haynes or Urquhart, engineer) and many Africans, deck-hands and stokers; most of the former were competent helmsmen who knew every inch of the Lake and could con her with their eyes shut.  When we put to see on this occasion, however, both engineers were on board, Rhoades was in command with Jock as gunner and me as surgeon, and we carried a section of askari as Marines (pro tern) under the command of Beaumont, a P.W.D. official usually known as Champagne Charlie, because he sported a monocle, recently commissioned as Second Lieut. K.A.R. (Temp).)

It must have been during the second week of August that we sailed from the Bar en-route for Nkata Bay where Rhoades hoped to be able to obtain recent news of the Weismann’s whereabouts from some of the Atonga plying to and fro across the Lake in canoes.  It was only after sailing (perhaps when wooding at Nkudzi Bay) that someone commented on the vulnerability of the main steam-pipe between boiler and engine where it rose in a graceful curve above deck. Haynes and his merry men remedied this, we hoped, by hanging some spare plates round it at different angles designed to deflect bullets.

Meantime, I, probably inspired by a former visit to Nelson's Victory, was busy converting the forward into a 'cockpit' for the reception of casualties. It contained a large number of bags of rice (crew rations) which I had piled from floor to deckhead after the manner sandbags in the hope that they would afford me at least some protection while attending the wounded on my camp bed erected under the only light, amidships.

On arrival at Nkata the most recent information obtainable was that three weeks previously the Weismann was at Sphinxhaven. almost due east of Nkata across the Lake, hauled out of the water on a slipway having some new plates fitted.  It seemed too much to expect that she could be in this undignified position but Rhoades decided that the chance, however remote, must be taken, risk or no risk; as he said, this was the deepest part of the Lake (2300 feet, 800 below sea level).

As we approached the land, now running dead slow, and turned north along the coast. Jock called my attention, quite unnecessarily I may say, to the multitude of campfires all along the shore, it looked as if the whole German army was awaiting us. Actually they were heaps of burning rubbish in the gardens.

The bay of Sphinxhaven was made into a harbour by a peninsula of huge rocks enclosing its southern part and crowned by a large boulder said by the more imaginative to resemble the Sphinx, This cape afforded us useful cover as we circled it but I for one had a sinking feeling below my belt because it afforded even better cover for machine gun or other lethal weapon in the hands of an enemy.  One shot from the veriest pip-squeak of a gun, would suffice to sink us.  The same applied to the Weismann, of course, for neither vessel was intended for other than native warfare.

As we cleared the point and swung towards the bay, the swell caught us broadside on and the Guen, wide in the beam but shallow of draught, began to roll, not really heavily but enough to embarrass an amateur gunlayer.  Then simultaneously a voice from above rapped out the order 'Open Fire, 2000 yards', and the Weismann slid into view, a sitting duck, still on the slipway. Jock belted away making a lot of noise between duds, partly owing to some overestimation of the range and partly, no doubt, to the rolling of the Guen, all the first shots that were no misfires soared away over the hills behind the target probably 'scaring the lights out of' peaceful villagers far inland.

The ammunition was Victorian in date and about one in four was dud so that when Jock found that none exploded during the period of waiting, before opening the breech decreed by the Lords of the Admiralty, he soon dispensed with that formality altogether though he barked at his crew if they delayed in dumping a misfire overboard. Then without warning, just as Beaumont had strolled over to offer advice Jock scored a hit on the slip, a shower of splinters went up and everyone cheered,

That was the only score - a bye, so to speak, for immediately afterwards a small white dinghy put off from the shore, in which was a European clad in a single and a pair of shorts pulling furiously straight for the :Guen.  Rhoades ordered ‘Cease Fire" and a blessed silence fell.  It was his drinking pal, the skipper of the Weismann with whom every meeting was a party. The accommo­dation ladder was lowered and Rhoades descended from the bridge to receive him at the gangway.

The Dinghy came alongside and. its infuriated occupant, having flung his oars into the boat, leaped to his feet and shaking both fists above his head, exclaimed, ‘Gott for damn, Rhoades, vos you drunk?

The news that Der Tag had arrived had not yet reached him.

Rhoades invited him aboard and as he stepped on deck we onlookers moved in behind him, forestalling any complication such as an attempted escape.  When Rhoades informed him rather apologetically that he was a prisoner, one could sec his anger turn to horror as he realised his fatal mistake? he seemed to shrivel and allowed Rhoades to usher him up the ladder and into a cabin without a word.  We all felt very sorry for him, and Rhoades as well for that matter.

The Guen was very vulnerable where she lay at anchor close to the shore and Beaumont picked the ridge bordering the "beach with his askari: if any troops had happened to be on their way to occupy the port they would now be advancing at the double to investigate the cause of all the noise. Meantime Haynes and his engine-room staff were swarming round the Weismann, inside and out, dismantling every removable part, each being grabbed, passed to the waiting deckhands and dumped aboard the Geun. 

At the same time some miscreants were wandering about in search of souvenirs which might otherwise fall into the hands of the locals after our departure. I secured the clock in the chartroom and a very good one it proved to be.  Every single African in the immediate vicinity of the Weismann had vanished at the first cannon shot but the German engineer was discovered under Ms African-type bedstead in the grass shack in which he and his Captain had been living for coolness sake.  He offered no resistance when winkled out, and was put into the bag.

We returned to Nkhata that afternoon in order to wood and also to send a telegram from the Company's office to Chinteche. Rhoades detailed Beaumont and me to draft the message and after obtaining his approval to put it into code, using the old-fashioned book whose contents were doubtless known in all parts of Europe.  All I remember of his signal is that the first sentence read, 'Weismann taken completely by surprise', and that 'silver-grey' mean 'stop’.

We learnt later that anything our message lacked in drama was supplied by Fleet Street for it arrived during the black days prior to the Marne and was splashed as ‘Naval Victory on Lake Nyasa' even in the sober Times.