Great responsibilities have rested on the captains of His Majesty’s ships. They showed in the Jutland battle, in which they were tried by the searching test of decisive action, that they possessed the ability to inspire and discipline their men, and to put forth the maximum of the fighting power of the ships. Officers in detached command away from the Fleet have rendered very great services. The junior officers are beyond praise. By universal testimony, their devotion, courage, and ever-ready professional skill, in every test of emergency and endurance, have never been excelled. The officers of the destroyers are men above price. The commanders of submarines, who have even carried their enterprise into the Baltic, and risked the perils of mine and gun in the narrow waters of the Dardanelles and the Bosphorus, are officers who have won new laurels for the Fleet.
The men of the lower deck, wherever they serve, give daily proof of the bravery, hardihood, cheerfulness, and long endurance which have always been the qualities of British seamen. Let Sir John Jellicoe speak of them as he knew them:—
Nothing can ever have been finer than the coolness and courage shown in every case where ships have been sunk by mines or torpedoes; discipline has been perfect, and men have gone to their deaths not only most gallantly, but most unselfishly. One heard on all sides of numerous instances of men giving up on these occasions the plank which had supported them to some more feeble comrade, and I feel prouder every day that passes that I command such men. During the period of waiting and watching they are cheerful and contented, in spite of the grey dullness of their lives.
It would not be difficult to single out instances from the records of the war of constructive power in thought, and sound and swift judgment in action, as well as of splendid courage, enterprise, dash, and resolution—call it what you will—in the crisis of battle and in moments of stress, exhibited in a manner rarely exampled in naval warfare. The British Fleet has been rich in the mental endowments of its officers, showing them to possess grasp and insight, and moral force, to dominate hesitation and sustain action in the tremendous emergencies of battle and when confronted with the most formidable responsibilities. Excitement has never carried them away. Judgment has worked through all their endeavours as, in the long watches and waiting, it has sustained them.