This, the 1914-1915 diary of Thomas Benjamin Dixon, is a well-observed and compassionate account of the first year of World War I as seen through the eyes of a young naval surgeon who in later life rose to the rank of Surgeon Captain and was appointed honorary physician to the King. T. B. Dixon's diary of life at sea includes an eye-witness account of the Battle of the Falklands, in which Dixon's ship H.M.S. Kent chased and then sank the Nurnberg after a running battle, and a description of the subsequent gruelling search for the German light cruiser Dresden and her destruction by H.M.S. Kent at Juan Fernandez on 14 March 1915.

Born in China in 1886, the son of missionaries who were killed during the Boxer Rebellion, T. B. Dixon was brought up by his guardians in England and subsequently qualified as a doctor at University College Hospital, London. With the start of World War I in 1914 T. B. Dixon found himself, at the age of twenty-eight, as a recently commissioned junior surgeon on H.M.S. Kent, bound for the waters of South America. Behind him he left his friends, his medical practice and his young wife who was expecting their second child. Dogged by seasickness and the strangeness of his new surroundings Dixon nevertheless threw himself wholeheartedly into life aboard ship and in his spare time chronicled both the tedium of chasing tramp steamers and coaling at sea and the excitement of coming face to face with the enemy. The diary that T. B. Dixon produced tells simply and movingly the story of his own struggles, and of the struggles of the world outside where great empires were locked in combat. This is one man's view of the war that changed the face of that world.

The Enemy Fought Splendidly is illustrated with seventeen contemporary photographs and drawings and has three Appendices. Appendix 1 gives the full text of T. B. Dixon's account of the Battle of the Falklands which was written for the Western Daily Press and published on 23 January 1915, Appendix 2 contains the crew list for 1914, 1915 and 1916, and Appendix 3 is made up of five diagrammatic drawings of the British ships mentioned in the text.

A foreword by Admiral Sir John Bush sets the diary in context.

Contents

Editorial Note

Foreword

Introduction

1 Before the Battle

2 Battles of the Falklands

3 Search and Chase

4 Sinking the Dresden

5 Aftermath

Appendix I: South Atlantic Naval Battle; Bristol Doctor'sGraphic Account

Appendix II: Naval List for H.M.S. Kent 1914, 1915

Appendix III: Illustrated list of British Ships involved in the Battle of the Falklands

Bibliography

Biographical Note

Index

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