Background
Christopher Cradock was born at Hartforth, Yorkshire, on July 2, 1862.
Christopher Cradock was born at Hartforth, Yorkshire, on July 2, 1862.
He entered the navy in 1875, and ten years later took part in the campaigns in Egypt and the Sudan. Next came command of the royal yacht.
In July 1900, as commander of the Alacrity, Cradock led the assault of the Taku Forts, and later at the head of another force relieved the Tientsin Settlement. Promotion to the grade of captain came in 1907, and to that of rear admiral three years later. In February 1913, Cradock was appointed commander of the North American and West Indies station. With his flag on board the armored cruiser Suffolk, he patrolled the vast expanse of ocean from Brazil to the St. Lawrence River. Of special concern to him were the German forces in this area consisting of the two light cruisers Dresden and Karlsruhe.
With the outbreak of war, Cradock was ordered to protect Britain's North Atlantic trade and to shadow German ships stopped in Atlantic ports. Specifically, the admiral raised his flag on the Good Hope and set out after the two German light cruisers. The Admiralty informed him early in September at Pernambuco that the German East Asia squadron under Admiral Count Spee was assumed heading eastward across the Pacific, possibly for the Falkland Islands. Cradock at once decided to intercept Spee, informing Whitehall that he would concentrate two forces, one to the east and one to the west of the Magellan Straits, each powerful enough to crush the German flotilla. Unfortunately, the Admiralty was desperately in need of warships at home and refused to reinforce Cradock, sending him only the old battleship Canopus to augment his contingent consisting of the armored cruisers Good Hope and Monmouth, the light cruiser Glasgow, and the armed merchantman Otranto. Moreover, the Admiralty's orders were rather ambiguous and Cradock, left to his own devices, decided to abandon his former search and protection function and to engage Spee instead.
Late in October Cradock arrived off the west coast of South America, and by October 31 had taken up station off Coronel. He assigned the slow-moving Canopus to protect his colliers. A newly-constituted Board of Admiralty under Admiral John Fisher ordered Cradock to delay any engagement with the Germans until the powerful battle cruiser Defence reached him, above all, not to do battle without the
Canopus. Apparently, the cable never reached Cradock. Hence the fuzziness of Admiralty telegrams, compounded by his impetuous nature, prompted Cradock to press the issue with Spee. In addition, he rightly discerned the black mood at Whitehall in the wake of the escape of the two German cruisers in the Mediterranean into Turkish waters: "I will take care I do not suffer the fate of poor Troubridge."
At 4:20 P.M. on November 1, 1914, Cradock fell in with Spee's force consisting of the armored cruisers Scharnhorst and Gneisenau, and the light cruisers Dresden, Leipzig, and Nürnberg. Although outmatched in speed, armor, and firing power, and with Canopus still 250 miles away, Cradock nevertheless decided to accept battle. Spee's ships were silhouetted against the dark land mass by 7:00 P.M. and were almost invisible, while the British units stood out against the bright glow of the western sky. It was all over within an hour: Good Hope and Monmouth were destroyed while the Glasgow managed to escape and find the Canopus. Cradock went down with his flagship.
The action off Coronel unleashed a storm of protest at home. British public opinion attributed the disaster solely to Cradock, specifically charging him with recklessness and with engaging a squadron superior to his own.
Cradock never married, but kept a dog which accompanied him at sea. He commented that he would choose to die either during an accident while hunting (this was his favourite pastime), or during action at sea.