Castles of Steel

by Robert K. Massie

  Lion could not keep up her speed and the admiral knew that she could not long continue to function as squadron flagship. Beatty was deeply chagrined. His guns had been firing for an hour and a half, but no decisive result had been achieved. It was true that the wounded Blücher was falling behind and that spectacular flames had been observed rising above the stern of Seydlitz. But Hipper’s flagship churned steadily ahead, not losing speed. Heligoland and the Bight were always closer and there was no knowledge as to the whereabouts of the High Seas Fleet. It was imperative, Beatty believed, to force the pursuit, to close in, to bring all of his heavy guns to bear. Accordingly, at 10:35 a.m., he signaled an 11-degree turn toward the enemy. At 10:45 a.m., he ordered another 11 degrees. At 10:47, increasingly anxious, he signaled, “Close the enemy as rapidly as possible consistent with keeping all guns bearing.”

  Meanwhile, the German battle cruisers were concentrating on disabling the British flagship and Lion was under constant, heavy fire from Seydlitz and Moltke. At 10:35, she was hit, then, a minute later, hit again. At 10:41, a shell bursting against the armor of A turret caused a small fire in A turret lobby and a message was sent to the bridge that the fire had spread. “We thought our last moment had come when we got a message up the voice pipe saying that A turret magazine was on fire,” said Filson Young. “We sat waiting for the last gorgeous explosion and the eternal silence that would follow it, but it did not come and after four minutes of suspense, our sentence of death was reprieved in a welcome message that the fire was out.” By 10:52 a.m., the ship had received fourteen hits. Three thousand tons of water, now flooding the lower compartments, caused a 10 degree list to port. Rising water short-circuited her last remaining dynamo and deprived the ship of all electric power. Lion was left with no electric lights and no wireless radio. A few minutes later, the port engine failed and the ship’s speed immediately sagged to 15 knots. The flagship was losing her position at the head of the squadron.

  But not before a command from Beatty had sealed Blücher’s doom. Blücher’s position at the rear of the German line made her fate inevitable. Every overtaking British battle cruiser fired at her before shifting to the larger German ships farther up the line. The armored cruiser’s forward 8.2-inch turret was out of action, although she continued to fire briskly from her other guns. At 10:35 a.m., two shells pierced her armored deck amidships and penetrated down through two decks to explode in an ammunition room. The inferno spread to her two port-side 8.2-inch-gun wing turrets. Both were destroyed and every man inside was killed. The concussion also damaged her engines and jammed her steering gear. Blücher’s speed dropped to 17 knots and she began to fall out of the German line and sheer away to port. Beatty, seeing the armored cruiser burning and listing, leaving Hipper’s squadron and erratically circling off to the north, understood what was happening. At 10:48 a.m., he ordered his rearmost battle cruiser, Indomitable, now finally coming into action, “Attack the enemy breaking away to northward.” If he scored no other success that day, at least this crippled ship would be destroyed.

  As Lion began to drop astern, Tiger, next astern, drew abreast and began to pass her. And now Tiger became the primary German target. She was hit on the roof of Q turret, in the intelligence office—where eight men, including Beatty’s fleet engineer, were killed—and in the boat stowage area between the two after funnels. The ship’s boats were set on fire and the blaze produced plumes of flame that rose above the tops of the funnels. Seen from other ships in the squadron, Tiger looked like a roaring, open furnace. Farther away, officers on Moltke believed that the blaze signified Tiger’s final immolation and, on returning to Wilhelmshaven, they reported that she had been sunk. In fact, within fifteen minutes the fire had consumed everything that would burn and the ship’s damage control parties had the flames under control. The fighting qualities of the battle cruiser remained unaffected.

  Until this moment, Beatty had conducted the battle almost without error; the only serious flaw had been Pelly’s failure to understand that Moltke, not Seydlitz, was his designated target. Now, however, at the moment when Tiger, Princess Royal, and New Zealand were sweeping past the crippled flagship, there occurred a series of British mistakes that were to determine the outcome of the battle. It began with an error in observation and judgment made by Beatty. “At 10.54 a.m., submarines were reported on Lion’s starboard bow,” Beatty reported to the Admiralty after the battle, “and I personally observed the wash of a periscope . . . on our starboard bow.” To avoid this danger, he ordered a 90-degree turn to port, heading his ships almost north and cutting at a right angle across the wake of the fleeing Germans. What made Beatty’s signal confusing and harmful was that Lion hoisted the “Alter Course” flag without the “Submarine Warning” flag; the proper sequence, which would have made the situation clear, would have been the submarine warning first, then the turn signal. The explanation is that all but two of Lion’s signal halyards had been shot away, so that the attempt to hoist complete, coherent signals was severely hampered. At any rate, the Battle Cruiser Squadron promptly obeyed the admiral and turned sharply to port, but Beatty’s captains did not understand why. Afterward, Captain Pelly of Tiger wrote: “Lion hoisted the signal, ‘Alter course 8 points [approximately 90 degrees] to port.’ Whilst this signal was still flying I observed the flagship developing a big list. She was evidently badly damaged. She began to drop back and from then on took no further part in the action. Tiger steered to pass between her and the enemy, and the Germans’ fire was concentrated on her. For nearly five minutes this ‘Alter course’ signal remained flying and giving us all plenty of time to comment on it. I remember asking my navigating officer if he could explain the meaning of it for to my mind it seemed to be breaking off the action. He replied, ‘I have no idea, unless Lion has better knowledge of minefields about than we have.’ ”

  In fact, Beatty was the only officer on Lion’s bridge who saw a periscope, and he ordered the turn without giving any explanation. Chatfield, Lion’s captain, standing at Beatty’s elbow, saw nothing. Plunkett, the Flag Commander, astonished by the order, turned to the admiral and said, “Good heavens, Sir, you’re not going to break off the engagement?” Beatty was aware that the new course, north by east—almost at right angles to Hipper’s—meant losing ground before the chase could be resumed, but he believed that he had no choice. He had seen something that looked like a periscope and he worried that he might be leading his ships into a submarine trap, set not by one submarine but by several. He knew that the laying of this kind of trap was one of the tactics by which the German Naval Command hoped to whittle down the numerical superiority of the Grand Fleet. Jellicoe had emphasized the danger of being drawn over submarines in his letter to the Admiralty of October 30, 1914, and Beatty, although less worried than the Commander-in-Chief, was familiar with these fears.

  Beatty was also concerned about mines. He knew that some German destroyers and light cruisers were equipped to lay mines from rails on their sterns and he feared that, even at such high speeds, these ships might roll mines off into the path of his pursuing ships. Striking a mine, as the Audacious had proved, could be as catastrophic as being hit by a torpedo. He was determined, therefore, to avoid steaming directly in the wakes of the German light ships. Once clear of the track of the German destroyers, his ships could turn back to a course parallel with Hipper. Indeed, almost immediately the admiral realized that his turn had been unnecessarily wide; four minutes later, he modified it by signaling, “Course North East.” This new course converged with Hipper’s.

  After the battle and for many years, questions were asked about whether Beatty’s turn to port was necessary. Following the action, Fisher disgustedly declared that there were no German submarines within sixty miles. Later, it was suggested that the “periscope” Beatty had seen might have been a German destroyer’s torpedo surfacing after its run. (The destroyer V-5 had fired a torpedo at 10:40 a.m., which should have finished its run and come to the surface at about 10:54 a.m.)
Beatty also was criticized because, even if there had been a U-boat where he thought he saw one, the submarine could not possibly have endangered his other battle cruisers, already two miles ahead of the flagship. Admiral Sir Reginald Bacon believed that “had he [Beatty] turned and steered straight for the supposed periscope and done nothing more than warn the [destroyer] flotilla commander to send one or more destroyers to search for the submarine, then our battle cruisers would have continued the chase and we should have sunk at least two of the enemy battle cruisers and probably more.” Jellicoe shared this opinion: “The best course was to turn direct at the submarine not eight points [approximately 90 degrees] away. . . . I should say that Beatty himself broke off the action by his unfortunate signal to alter course to port.”

  In making the turn, Beatty, of course, had no intention of breaking off the action. His plan at that moment was that Indomitable would intercept and destroy the crippled Blücher while Tiger, Princess Royal, and New Zealand would overtake and annihilate the damaged Seydlitz and, if possible, Moltke and Derfflinger. Nothing of this kind occurred because Beatty—in Churchill’s words, “the whole spirit and direction of the battle”—was about to be stripped of effective command of the battle cruisers. To make matters worse, the final signal that the admiral managed to send was mishandled by his signal staff and consequently misinterpreted by the other ships. The cause was the heavy damage inflicted on Lion and the consequent breakdown of the system of communication between ships. From the beginning of the battle, Beatty’s ships had operated under wireless silence and had communicated first by flashing light and then, when daylight was sufficient, by signal flags. Up to this point, there had been no difficulty: for several hours, Lion had snapped out crisp flag signals every few minutes. But now the flagship was severely wounded. She had been struck by fifteen heavy shells, she was listing to port, and her port engines were stopped. All three of her dynamos were gone. She had no electricity and thus no electric lights, no searchlights, and no wireless. She could communicate only by flag hoist and—of critical importance—all but two of her signal halyards had been shot away. Visual signaling by flag hoist was in the ancient tradition of the Royal Navy; in the days of sailing ships, it was the primary—in daylight, the only—means of communication. But here warships steaming at up to 28 knots were placing new, previously unimagined strains on the signalmen working on the bridge. There was, in the first place, the wind. Filson Young wrote that “it was impossible to endure the wind standing up” in the foretop of the Lion, yet a few feet beneath him, the flagship’s signalmen were working under these same conditions. Smoke was another problem. Lion’s funnels were pouring out thick clouds of oily, black smoke, which obscured her signal halyards from other ships. In addition, cordite fumes from the guns of the forward main turrets swept back over the signal bridge. And this exposed area was continually drenched by spray and riddled by splinters from bursting shells. Not surprisingly, the signalmen working there made mistakes.

  Beatty’s frustration, as he watched Hipper’s three battle cruisers drawing steadily away to the southeast even as his own flagship was losing speed, was extreme. As Lion dropped astern, the admiral did his best to impose his will on the deteriorating situation and make clear his intentions. Ironically, this attempt did further damage. At 11:02 a.m., Beatty had ordered “Course North East” in order to countermand his previous 90-degree turn and substitute a 45-degree turn, which would bring his battle cruisers more quickly back on Hipper’s trail. For Beatty, however, a simple course correction was not enough; his nature required exhortation. Thus, while the “Course North East” flags were still flying from one halyard, he ordered Seymour to hoist “Attack the rear of the enemy” on the other remaining halyard, which happened to be adjacent. Herein lay the source of the confusion that followed. The Lion was now simultaneously flying two separate signals that Beatty did not intend to be connected. The other battle cruisers did not understand this. As they read the arrangement of the flags, Beatty was sending one signal, not two. The admiral, they believed, was ordering them to “attack the rear of the enemy course northeast.” Lucklessly, the two signals were hauled down together and the damage was done.

  [In naval practice, the hoisting of a flag signal merely alerts all ships of the admiral’s intent. Hauling down the flag is the order to execute the command immediately.]

  Blücher at that moment bore less than 8,000 yards to the northeast. Within minutes, all four British battle cruisers obediently swung away from the pursuit of Hipper’s big ships and steered for the single, battered, isolated ship.

  Beatty, watching what was happening and lacking electric power to operate searchlights or wireless, was beside himself. Trying one last time to restore order and make his intentions clear, he asked his Flag Commander, Reginald Plunkett, to suggest a suitable signal. “What we need now is Nelson’s signal: ‘Engage the enemy more closely,’ ” said Plunkett. “Yes, certainly. Hoist it!” Beatty replied. Flag Lieutenant Ralph Seymour looked through his signal book and, to his dismay, discovered that the signal, in use since Trafalgar, had been removed from the book. The only modern alternative he could find was “Keep nearer to the enemy.” With Beatty’s permission, he hoisted this signal, but it was too late. Lion had dropped so far astern and the halyard was so obscured by smoke that none of the other battle cruisers saw the signal.

  With Beatty unable to communicate and therefore no longer in control of his squadron, command passed automatically to Rear Admiral Moore in New Zealand, now the third ship in line. There was no precise moment at which Moore succeeded Beatty; indeed Beatty, now rendered mute by circumstance, never formally transferred authority to his second in command. There was a period of confusion when neither admiral seemed to be directing the actions of the fleet. It was amid this confusion that victory slipped away.

  Sir Archibald Moore, who had been Third Sea Lord during much of Churchill’s tenure at the Admiralty, had begged for a sea command and been given the 2nd Battle Cruiser Squadron. Now, with little experience, he faced a supreme challenge: command of the British battle cruiser force in action against Franz Hipper. Moore was hampered by the fact that, at first, he was not certain that he had succeeded Beatty, of whom he was in awe. And, given his deference to Beatty, he was unusually reluctant to assume control. Eventually, it was impossible for him not to know that the command had descended upon him; twenty minutes after the turn to port, Lion was out of sight. Moore wished to carry out Beatty’s orders. But what were they? Neither Moore nor any of Beatty’s captains was certain. The squadron had just turned sharply away from Hipper’s course and the range was opening fast. Moore, of course, had not sighted a periscope and was unaware of the reason that had prompted Beatty to order an abrupt turn to the north across the rear of a fleeing enemy. When he saw the two signals “Course North East” and “Attack the rear of the enemy” flown and hauled down together, he may have wondered at Beatty’s reasons, but to question and countermand what he believed to be Beatty’s orders was not in the nature of Sir Archibald Moore.

  The problem was the Beatty legend. Already, after only six months of war, this most famous and flamboyant of British admirals, in command of the celebrated battle cruisers for over three years, had a reputation for infallible judgment as well as courage. Moore reasoned that Beatty must have had good reasons for his signals, and Moore was ready to obey. But what did Beatty mean? Where was “the rear of the enemy”? Was it Blücher? On what compass bearing was Blücher to be found? Northeast. The signal read, “Attack the rear of the enemy bearing northeast.” True, it was unlike Beatty to give up pursuit of the primary prey when there was still an opportunity of catching it, but how else should the admiral’s signals be interpreted? Moore now concluded that he had no choice. He was under direct orders from Beatty to attack Blücher and he issued no fresh orders modifying or countermanding Beatty’s last signal. At 11:09 a.m., therefore, Tiger, Princess Royal, and New Zealand ceased firing at the fleeing German battle cruisers and swung
around to join Indomitable in the final destruction of the already doomed armored cruiser Blücher.

  Beatty’s turn away from the supposed periscope and Moore’s continuation of this turn in the direction of Blücher saved a number of German destroyers from destruction. For some time before the British battle cruisers turned away from him and toward Blücher, Hipper had been considering possible methods of assisting this lagging and beleaguered armored cruiser. The most effective help he could give—rushing back with his own battle cruisers—would mean bringing on the all-out, general engagement he was doing his utmost to avoid. But there was the alternative of ordering a destroyer attack; possibly, as the British vessels maneuvered to escape his destroyers’ torpedoes, Blücher might escape.

  Up to that point in the battle, the German destroyers accompanying Hipper had been a liability. As the chase began, he had placed them ahead of his own battle cruisers, as far away as possible from the guns of the British battle cruisers, where he hoped they would be out of harm’s way. Even so, some of the small ships were having trouble maintaining speed. Now, sending these frail vessels to attack the onrushing British force would bring the certainty of heavy losses. To have a chance of scoring hits, the destroyers needed to get within 3,000 or 4,000 yards of their targets; to do this in daylight, charging into the concentrated gunfire of a number of British battle cruisers, light cruisers, and destroyers, would be something close to suicide. Nevertheless, to save Blücher, Hipper decided to try it—and even to support the destroyer attack by closing the range with his battle cruisers. At 10:58 a.m., he made a preliminary move by ordering his big ships to turn southwest into the path of the British battle cruisers. At 11:00 he signaled, “[Destroyer] flotillas stand by to attack.”