4 December 2014 Ranald Shepherd - The Battle of the Falklands 1914 and Gail Edwards induction.

Thu, Dec 4th 2014 at 12:00 am - 2:00 am

Member Ranald Shepherd gave a talk about the Battle of the Falklands in 1914. Gail Edwards, was inducted into membership.

l-r Speaker Ranald Shepherd, Jill Adams, President Peter Farr, Gail Edwards and speakers host Iain Smith

There was a full house at last week's meeting with 38 members and one honorary member present. 

The speaker for the evening was club member Ranald Shepherd who gave a talk on The Battle of the Falklands 1914, one of the decisive naval battles of the First World War.

Before handing over to Ranald, President Peter Farr had the very pleasant task of formally inducting our newest member, Gail Edwards, into membership of the club. Gail was proposed by Jill Adams, a colleague at Queen Victoria School and will join the Community Service committee. All present gave Gail a very warm welcome to the club.


Ranald, who is an experience Battlefield Tour Guide, gave a very detailed and well researched account of the circumstances leading up to the Battle of the Falklands on 8 December 1914 which followed a serious defeat for the Royal Navy by German Admiral Graf Maximilian von Spee at the Battle of Coronel off the southern coast of Chile in October. This defeat provoked a very heavy response by the Admiralty who despatched two fast modern battle cruisers, HMS Invincible and Inflexible to hunt down and destroy Spee's flagship, the Scharnhorst. Ranald explained the circumstances surrounding the battle and how the relatively poor communications at the time led to the German fleet not pressing home their early advantage but decided to run for open sea. Unfortunately, the British ships were faster and better armed and in the ensuing battle, four German cruisers, including the Scharnhorst were sunk with the loss of some 2,200 sailors. British casualties were only 10 killed with no serious damage to any ships.
Following a lively series of questions, Iain Smith thanked Ranald for an excellent talk.

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