Castles of Steel

by Robert K. Massie

  Earlier, as streaks of light appeared on the eastern horizon, Hipper’s ships were steaming northwest at a leisurely 15 knots. Their formation was spread across a wide front to facilitate the search for British fishing vessels and, if they were fortunate, light naval patrol forces. The four big ships were in a single line. The light cruisers Stralsund and Graudenz and eleven destoyers were a few miles ahead. Kolberg with four destroyers was ten miles out on the port wing, Rostock with an equal number of destroyers was equally distant on the starboard wing. Hipper, calm and alert, stood on the signal bridge of Seydlitz. During the night, his ships had passed numerous fishing boats, rekindling the admiral’s fears that they might be reporting to the enemy and creating another nasty surprise similar to finding Warrender and Beatty across his line of retreat from Scarborough five weeks before. “I was anxious at all costs to avoid having enemy forces between me and the German Bight at daybreak,” Hipper said later. Another worry was the weather: the coming day was going to be clear with high visibility. If, by mischance, British dreadnoughts were encountered, the Scouting Groups would not be concealed by mist and rain as they had been after bombarding Scarborough, Whitby, and Hartlepool.

  When Hipper’s port wing light cruiser, Kolberg, encountered Aurora, Kolberg’s captain reported the incident to Hipper. The Scouting Force commander immediately steered his battle cruisers south toward Kolberg. Here, perhaps, were the British light forces he had come to mop up. But as Hipper approached, Kolberg warned him that she had sighted smoke to the southwest. At almost the same moment, Stralsund reported from the van that she, too, was seeing thick clouds of smoke, but in the northwest. Then Blücher, which had a better view than Seydlitz, reported seeing seven British light cruisers—four Southamptons and three Arethusas—and more than twenty British destroyers to the northwest on a parallel course, out of gun range. These ships, Hipper knew, constituted no mere patrol force; instead, the presence of so many light cruisers and destroyers strongly suggested that more powerful ships were coming up. This ominous suspicion was reinforced when Stralsund signaled again, reporting that she had observed “at least eight large ships” under the smoke clouds to the northwest. Simultaneously, German interceptions of the wireless call signs of British ships appeared to indicate the approach of Warrender’s 2nd Battle Squadron.

  Hipper began to worry; if the ships to the northwest were indeed one of the Grand Fleet battleship squadrons, where were Beatty’s battle cruisers? His own force was weaker than either Beatty’s or Warrender’s individually; here, possibly, the two were combining to spring a trap. Hipper knew that he could expect no support from the High Seas Fleet. He had promised to take no risks. He made up his mind quickly. At 7:35 a.m., he signaled his entire force to turn southeast and run for home at 20 knots. If the large ships seen by Stralsund were battleships, this speed was sufficient to maintain the present gap; if necessary, he could increase speed to 23 knots, Blücher’s maximum.

  As the German battle cruisers settled onto their new course with Seydlitz still in the van, followed by Moltke, Derfflinger, and Blücher, Hipper sent his outlying light cruisers and destroyers on ahead. All German captains knew that severely damaged ships would be left behind, and Hipper did not want his smaller, weaker ships in the rear where they could be crippled by overwhelming enemy gunfire. Not until 7:50 a.m., after his ships began their run for home, did Hipper himself observe the oncoming shapes beneath the clouds of smoke to the northwest and realize that his opponents were battle cruisers. “The pace at which the enemy was closing in was quite unexpected,” he said later. “The enemy battle cruisers must have been doing twenty-six knots. They were emitting extraordinarily dense clouds of smoke.” Hipper’s first reaction was relief: he now felt confident that he was facing one group of British dreadnoughts, not two. He also was reasonably certain that, as the British battle cruisers were usually the advance guard of the Grand Fleet, no other significant British force was likely to be operating between himself and Heligoland. Nevertheless, there was an ominous factor in identifying Beatty as his pursuer. On paper, the most modern British battle cruisers were only marginally faster than his own battle cruisers. But Hipper’s squadron that day included Blücher, which was at least 2—and perhaps 3 or 4—knots slower than Beatty’s ships.

  In Wilhelmshaven, Ingenohl received news of the encounter from Seydlitz soon after 7:50 a.m. and ordered the High Seas Fleet to prepare for sea. There was little urgency in this command and not until 9:30 a.m. was the fleet assembled in Schillig roads. Then, at 10:00 a message from Hipper declared that he was in difficulty and needed support. The German battle fleet sailed at 10:10 a.m. but could not possibly rendezvous with the Scouting Groups before 2:30 in the afternoon. Hipper, therefore, was alone. He was 150 miles from Heligoland and three hours from any real assistance. He had a fourteen-mile head start.

  Once Hipper made his dramatic turn to the southeast toward home, Goodenough led his four light cruisers to a position on the port quarter of the German ships from where he could observe and report Hipper’s movements. At 7:47 a.m., when he was 17,000 yards northwest of Blücher, Goodenough was able to count the number of Hipper’s big ships and signaled Beatty: “Enemy sighted are four battle cruisers, speed 24 knots.” Three minutes later, Beatty himself could see the German battle cruisers on his port bow, over ten miles away. Beatty and the officers standing with him on Lion’s bridge were exhilarated. “As day broke,” Chatfield said, “we saw a distant mass of black smoke ahead of us and a report from a cruiser indicated enemy capital ships. . . . They were Hipper’s squadron at least twelve or thirteen miles distant, but it was clear weather and we still might catch them.” Another officer on the bridge recalled: “On the horizon ahead could be seen . . . four dark patches with a mass of smoke overhead. These four patches, each containing more than a thousand men, were our long-destined prey.”

  By 8:00 a.m., the chase was on, with the British pursuing on a course parallel to Hipper, not directly astern of him. In part, Beatty chose this tactic because of his concern that the retreating enemy might drop mines in his path. More important, it permitted Beatty to use the wind to his advantage. By being downwind of Hipper in the fresh northeast breeze, Beatty’s battle cruisers could fire unimpeded by smoke from their own guns and funnels. Hipper, on the other hand, would be forced to shoot directly into the smoke created by his funnels and guns. As the pursuit developed, Tyrwhitt’s light cruisers and destroyers joined Goodenough’s light cruisers on Lion’s port bow, five miles northeast of the flagship. From this position, the British light forces had multiple duties: they acted as scouts to report the enemy’s course and speed; they were to intercept and repel enemy torpedo attacks; they had to be ready themselves to launch a torpedo attack if ordered; and they had to do all this without masking their own heavy ships’ fire with their funnel smoke. The uselessness of their guns and torpedoes against the German heavy ships was quickly demonstrated when Tyrwhitt’s seven 30-knot M-class destroyers raced ahead to within 7,000 yards of Blücher. The German armored cruiser altered course slightly to bring more guns to bear, and brought down such a storm of 8.2-inch and 5.9-inch fire on the British destroyers that, although they suffered no hits, they were forced to retreat out of range. Beatty thereafter decided to destroy the enemy by long-range battle cruiser gunfire. He told his light forces simply to stay out of the way.

  The action now became a straightforward stern chase in which the key to success was speed. Hipper’s fourteen-mile head start put him four miles—7,000 yards—beyond the effective gun range of the British battle cruisers. “Get us within range of the enemy,” Beatty said to Percy Green, Lion’s chief engineer. “Tell your stokers all depends on them.” “They know that, sir,” Green replied. A midshipman on Indomitable later provided a graphic picture of the effort being made in the engine and stoke rooms of the British battle cruisers:

  The furnaces devoured coal as fast as a man could feed them. Black, begrimed and sweating men working in the ship’s side dug the
coal out and loaded it into skids which were then dragged along the steel deck and emptied on the floor plates in front of each boiler. . . . If the ship rolled or pitched there was always a risk that a loaded skid might [slide and crush a man]. Looking down from the iron catwalk above, the scene had all the appearance of one from Dante’s Inferno. . . . Watching the pressure gauges for any fall in the steam pressure, the Chief Stoker walked to and fro, encouraging his men. Now and then the telegraph from the engine room would clang and the finger on the dial move round to the section marked “More Steam.” The chief would press the reply gong with an oath, “What do the bastards think we’re doing? Come on boys, shake it up, get going,” and the sweating men would redouble their efforts, throw open the furnace doors and shovel still more coal into the blazing inferno.

  The speed of the battle cruisers constantly increased. Beatty’s signals over the next forty-five minutes tell the story:

  8:10: “Lion to Battle Cruisers: Speed 24 knots.”

  8:16: “Lion to Battle Cruisers: Speed 25 knots.”

  8:23: “Lion to Battle Cruisers: Speed 26 knots.”

  8:34: “Lion to Battle Cruisers: Speed 27 knots.”

  8:43: “Lion to Battle Cruisers: Speed 28 knots.”

  8:54: “Lion to Battle Cruisers: Speed 29 knots.”

  Beatty’s demands reached the impossible. New Zealand and Indomitable had design speeds of 25 knots, yet at first, even Indomitable, the oldest of his ships, was keeping up and eventually reached a speed above 26 knots. Beatty was grateful and at 8:55 a.m. the flagship signaled: “Well done, Indomitable.” The message was passed quickly to Indomitable’s boiler rooms. Nevertheless, Beatty kept asking for more. He knew that speeds of 27 and 28 knots could be approached only by his three leading ships, Lion, Tiger, and Princess Royal, and that 29 was one knot higher than the design speed of his fastest ship, Tiger. He was also aware that his demand for speeds above 27 knots would stretch out his squadron; already his first three ships, the Cats, were drawing away from the two older battle cruisers, now slowly dropping astern. Before long, a second gap began to open as Indomitable fell behind New Zealand. Beatty was willing to take the risk; if necessary, he intended to overtake and fight Hipper, three ships to four.

  As a result of the stokers’ effort, it became apparent to the officers on Lion’s bridge that they were gaining on the Germans. At eight o’clock, the range from Lion to Blücher, Hipper’s rearmost ship, was 25,000 yards, about twelve and a half miles. This was 3,000 yards more than the greatest effective range of Lion’s 13.5-inch guns. Gradually, as Beatty called for ever greater speed, and with Hipper’s squadron limited to 23 knots, the distance decreased. Meanwhile, the officers on the bridges of both flagships could do nothing but wait, staring ahead or watching behind as the distance between them grew smaller.

  Beatty took this opportunity to go to breakfast, and when the admiral returned to the bridge, Chatfield went below. Filson Young remained on the bridge. “We were all in high spirits,” he wrote.

  As usual when the ship was in action, the decks were deserted and although during action, the navigating staff of the ship as well as the admiral and his staff are supposed to retire to the conning tower, no one had thought of going as yet. . . . Beatty, Chatfield, the Flag Commander, the Secretary, two Flag Lieutenants and myself were all on the compass platform, enjoying the sensation and prospects of the chase in that clear North Sea air. There was immense exhilaration whenever another [flag] hoist indicating a speed signal was hauled down [and we felt] the splendid ship’s jump forward through the sea.

  Young had an unimpeded view.

  Lion being our leading ship there was nothing before me but the horizon . . . the four black smudges on the port bow that only through binoculars were identifiable as big ships . . . the farther line of our light cruisers on their quarter . . . and at the apex, the smoke from the German light cruisers and destroyers. . . . Once, far ahead, appeared more smudges, a group of trawlers fishing quietly off the Bank which suddenly found themselves enveloped in the thunder of a sea battle. The German battle cruisers passed them to the northeast and we to the southwest, so that our fire was passing over their heads. We must have appeared in the eyes of the astonished Dutch fishermen who saw us thunder past in the primitive herd formation, the bulls or battle cruisers bellowing in the van, followed by the females, light cruisers with the destroyers, like the young, bringing up the rear.

  As the minutes passed, the gunnery officer on Lion’s bridge constantly checked his prismatic range finder to acquire the distance to Blücher. At 22,000 yards, the outside limit at which the target might be reached, Chatfield asked this officer, “How soon should we open fire?” At 8:45 a.m., when the range finder provided a distance of 20,600 yards, the gunnery officer turned to the captain and asked, “Should we use armour-piercing or common shell?” “Armour-piercing,” Chatfield replied. Then, he said, “at long last, when the range of their rear ship was reported at twenty thousand yards, I proposed to Beatty that we should open fire. He assented.”

  The two turrets on Lion’s bow were trained on Blücher. One 13.5-inch gun of the upper B turret was elevated and at 8:52 a.m. a single ranging shot was fired. As the cordite smoke blew back in their faces, the watchers on the bridge fixed their binoculars on the German ship. “We could see the tiny fountain of water that told us the shot was short,” said Young. Gun elevation was slightly adjusted and two more sighting shells were fired. They fell over. It was sufficient; Blücher had been straddled. At 9:00, Tiger, close on Lion’s heels, fired her own ranging shot at Blücher. At 9:05 a.m., Beatty made a general signal to the squadron: “Open fire and engage the enemy.” The first two British battle cruisers immediately erupted with salvos of armor-piercing shells. Soon, Princess Royal, 1,000 yards astern of the Tiger, came within range and opened fire. To the rear, New Zealand and Indomitable plowed silently ahead, their 12-inch guns not yet able to reach.

  Firing at ranges of 20,000 yards was beyond anything imagined before the war. Although the extreme range of the 13.5-inch gun—by 1914, the main armament of ten British dreadnought battleships and four battle cruisers—was 22,000 yards, prewar British gunnery training still assumed a close action at moderate speed. In the spring of 1914, Churchill ordered experimental firing at 14,000 yards, and he said, “to universal astonishment, considerable ac-curacy was obtained.” Beatty, commanding the battle cruisers and suspecting what war would be like with these fast ships and their powerful, long-range guns, went further and asked permission to conduct his own gunnery practice at towed targets 16,000 yards away with his ships steaming at 23 knots. Now, traveling at 27 knots and firing at a range of almost 20,000 yards, the British long-range guns began to score hits. As they did so, Beatty altered course slightly to starboard, placing his battle cruisers in echelon rather than single line ahead, thus enabling each ship to bring its after turrets to bear. Lion first hit Blücher at 9:09 a.m. Ten minutes later, with the range down to 18,000 yards and with both Tiger and Princess Royal also firing at Blücher, Lion shifted her guns to the third German ship in line, the battle cruiser Moltke.

  At 9:15 a.m., the Germans began to fire back. From Lion’s bridge, Young observed this happen:

  The enemy appeared on the eastern horizon in the form of four separate wedges or triangles of smoke. . . . Suddenly, from the rear-most of those wedges [Blücher], came a stab of white flame. “He’s opened fire,” said Captain Chatfield and we waited for what seemed a long time, probably about twenty-five seconds, until a great column of water and spray rose in the sea at a distance of more than a mile from our port bow. . . . Minute by minute the ranges came down, and during each interval further flashes were observed from the enemy and further fountains of water arose between us, always creeping a little nearer, but still short.

  Before long, other German battle cruisers opened fire and the sea around both opposing groups of ships was alive with tall columns of water. From Lion, Young could see British shells hitting German ships. T
he hits appeared as “a glare amid the smoke. There was no mistaking the difference between the bright sharp stab of white flame that marked the firing of the enemy’s guns and this dull, glowing and fading glare which signified the bursting of one of our own shells.” Blücher, not surprisingly, was the most severely punished. After the battle, prisoners from Blücher said that they had not known which of their enemies was hitting their ship, but that the third salvo had struck on the waterline and reduced her speed and that the fourth had almost carried away the after superstructure and had disabled the two after turrets.

  As the guns on both sides continued to lash out, observers on Lion and Southampton saw signs of commotion in the formation of German destroyers ahead of Hipper’s battle cruisers. Concerned that Hipper might order a torpedo attack as a means of relieving pressure on his beleaguered ships, Beatty countered by signaling Tyrwhitt and the Harwich Force: “Destroyers take station ahead and proceed at your utmost speed.” This effort to shield Lion and her sisters failed because of the great speed of the British battle cruisers. At 27 and 28 knots, most of Tyrwhitt’s destroyers could scarcely keep up with Beatty’s big ships. They lacked the additional speed necessary to pull ahead and they continued where they were, on Beatty’s port beam. Only the seven new 30-knot M-Class destroyers were able to respond and gradually to creep out in front of their own onrushing battle cruisers. As it happened, the anticipated German attack did not take place and the long-range artillery duel continued. With Tiger and Princess Royal now pounding Blücher, Lion shifted first to Moltke and then, as they came within range, to Derfflinger and Seydlitz. Meanwhile, Lion herself, leading the British charge, had come under fire. German salvos were straddling the ship and, at 9:28 a.m., one of Blücher’s 8-inch shells struck Lion on her bow A turret, not penetrating the turret’s armor but producing a concussive shock that disabled the left gun.