War and literature

From Castles of Steel by Robert K. Massie. Page 368.

When they arrived, the British pilots and observers looked down into “a thick ground fog drifting in masses . . . which blotted out everything except what was lying immediately under the machine.” One aviator descended to an altitude of 150 feet and still could not see the ground. Another set his course by a line of railway tracks and passed over villages, farms, and plowed fields. Eventually, the tracks led him to the Jade estuary where he flew over seven light cruisers, many destroyers, and a battle cruiser, all of which vigorously fired at him. Another pilot dropped his three bombs on sheds that he thought might constitute a seaplane base. One bomb scored a hit, but the sheds subsequently turned out to be structures for drying fish. Of the seven seaplanes that had taken off, only one reached the Nordholz zeppelin base. Its crew had been mistakenly briefed that the base was farther to the south and, because dense fog obscured the immense airship hangar, they failed to recognize it and contented themselves with bombing two antiaircraft guns. Only two of the seaplanes came close to harming the enemy. One dropped three bombs near the light cruisers Stralsund and Graudenz; the closest fell into the water 200 yards from Graudenz. Another seaplane, her engine misfiring, gave up the search for the zeppelin base, turned back, and, passing low over the Schillig roads, caused consternation among the crews of the warships anchored there. All of the ships opened fire on the small plane and some attempted to get under way.

[A long-perpetuated myth was that in the confusion caused by the appearance of British seaplanes over the Jade, the battle cruiser Von der Tann collided with another vessel and was severely damaged. This, supposedly, was the reason that Von der Tann was not present a month later at the Battle of Dogger Bank. Actually, during that battle, Von der Tann was in dry dock undergoing routine maintenance.]

The seaplane was hit, but the observer, Lieutenant Erskine Childers, a Royal Navy reserve officer now on active duty and the author of the popular thriller The Riddle of the Sands, managed to perform his mission. Childers was an expert on the German North Sea coast and river estuaries and, knowing exactly where he was and what he saw, he pinpointed the location of seven battleships and three battle cruisers in Schillig roads.