gb0551ms-33-27

Transcription

[Page] 27
[continued from page 26]

Scottish Museum, with its activities so curtailed
on account of the war, I have not so much
work to do as I should like, so from tomorrow
onwards I am going to work at munitions
in the Museum workshop from 3.30 to 7.0.
For three days a week I intend to do this.
We have a staff of about fourteen working,
with the exception of four, all amateurs.
There are nine lathes, I think, at work.
We are still being thrilled with details of
the great naval battle which took place
off the coast of Jutland on the afternoon
& evening of Wednesday 31st May. As the
Cruiser squadron based on the Forth bore
the brunt of the fighting the excitement in
Edinburgh was high as rumours began to fly
around. The first I heard of it was in a
chemists shop in Queensferry St. as I came
home on Thursday afternoon. There were
rumours then of a great fight, and these
had originated with the arrival of wounded
at Leith & Queensferry. On the Friday the
tales grew. One heard that the Warspite
had returned badly damaged to Rosyth,
that the Queen Mary had been destroyed
by a Zeppelin falling on the top of her,

that seven German ships had been sunk, then
that twenty seven were down and several of our
own. My Evening 'Despatch' of Friday published
at 6.30 contained no word of the fight, but at
a later hour special editions of both evening
papers issued an official communiqué,
unhappily worded, giving a long list of our
ships sunk, and a very brief one of the German
losses. This created great depression, and
unfortunately the feeling got abroad that
we had suffered a partial defeat at the
hands of the enemy. The 'Scotsman' next
morning published not only this depressing
statement, but also a later & more reassuring
one from Sir John Jellicoe, the latter putting
a rather different complexion on the result
of the fight, and daily since then, as more
authentic news leaked out, the conviction
has grown that our fleet obtained a sub:
:stantial success, which, but for the hasty
retreat of the German Fleet, and the failing
light, would certainly have ended in a com:
:plete victory. As it is the German losses,
both relatively, and absolutely, were greater
than ours, and it is not expected that
their ships will be in a condition to
[continued on page 28]