Castles of Steel

by Robert K. Massie

  Football (Americans call it soccer) was one antidote. In the autumn of 1914, on the island of Flotta, football grounds were laid out in rectangles burned and smoothed out of the heather and used year-round, whenever the boats could bring players ashore. An eighteen-hole golf course was built, with battleships competing to construct individual holes. The winner was Canada, which imported turf from an established Scottish course and made its green “as smooth as a billiard table.” Nevertheless, said a Grand Fleet officer, “it was, I suppose, one of the very worst golf courses in the world. There were no prepared tees, no fairway, no greens. But there was much bare rock, great tufts of coarse grass greedy for balls, wide stretches of hard, naked soil destructive of wooden clubs, and holes cut here and there of approximately the regulation size.” Despite complaints, the course became so popular that alacrity in play was essential. A foursome would drive off the tee, then have to run down the course in order to be out of range of the next players, already shouting “Fore!” Tennis in its normal form was impossible owing to rain and continual wind, but two courts of gravel and ash were constructed and rarely went unused. There was fishing, boating, and even some shooting of ducks and grouse, although the four resident ducks on Flotta—Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John—were religiously protected. Officers enjoyed walking, hiking, and picnicking; on a summer’s day, the 1,500-foot summit of Ward Hill on the island of Hoy offered a magnificent panorama of emerald-green islands set in sparkling blue water with the gray ships lined up in rows like children’s toys. Flotta offered a pistol range for officers, a rifle range for men, and an annual Grand Fleet boxing championship, which drew 10,000 cheering spectators. Sailing and rowing matches between ships were frequent. Gardening became popular among both men and officers and, although neither soil nor climate were promising, edible vegetables were harvested. These were welcome, because the vegetables brought by sea to Scapa Flow sometimes arrived unrecognizable.

  Most men on the ships remained on board. Deck hockey played with homemade sticks, throwing heavy medicine balls, and tugs-of-war were popular. Officers played billiards, the rolling of the ship even at anchor adding an element of challenge to the game. Motion pictures drew standing-room-only audiences. There were frequent lectures, with officers speaking about famous naval battles, great explorations, visits to the Western Front, and other subjects. Education was encouraged and, at Jellicoe’s request, the Admiralty provided naval schoolmasters who held evening classes for boys and men.

  Two service ships, both primarily storage lockers for frozen meat, played important roles in distracting the crews. Borodino became a nautical canteen, a sort of floating Fortnum & Mason dispensing extras and luxuries, where officers could buy salmon, trout, frozen game, pâté, fruit, nuts, and stuffed olives. Ghourko was the theater ship, fitted with a stage and places for an audience of 600. Amateur reviews, pantomimes, and musical comedies were presented and large sums were spent on props, musical instruments, scenery, and lighting. In addition, Ghourko offered church services, cinema, lectures, and boxing in a full-sized ring. Jellicoe visited Ghourko whenever he could. Although slightly deaf from a burst eardrum, he loved musical comedy, especially Gilbert and Sullivan. Surrounded by his staff and the admirals and captains of the fleet, he sat in a big armchair placed in the front row, smoking his after-dinner cigarette in a holder while he roared at a chorus line of bare-kneed midshipmen.

  Jellicoe was the figure around whom everything in the Grand Fleet revolved. His staff admired him without qualification. “Jellicoe . . . worked with amazing rapidity,” said one of these officers. “When the Iron Duke was in harbour, he sat at a tiny writing table in the middle of his cabin, reading despatches and memoranda, making pencil annotations and corrections, interrupted from time to time by the mass of matters and signals requiring immediate action. . . . Never did the writer see him out of temper or anything but cheerful. . . . His calm outlook never deserted him.” In the evening when not at sea, Jellicoe dined at a round table in his cabin with six or seven officers from his staff and Iron Duke’s captain, Frederic Dreyer. The admiral was abstemious. “Every night,” said the captain, “he would ask me: ‘Will you split an apple, Dreyer?’ and then cut it in halves and offer the plate to me with a charming smile.”

  Aware that his health and power of concentration were vital assets to the fleet, Jellicoe did everything possible to maintain his own physical fitness. He went ashore and walked furiously up hills and over moors. In the evenings, he played with the heavy medicine ball on Iron Duke’s upper deck. “It’s splendid,” he told Beatty. “I’ve already sprained a finger and a knee.” At one point, Jellicoe was dissuaded with difficulty from trying out for Iron Duke’s gun room rugby team. His favorite exercise was golf, played on the Flotta course. Always allowed to play through, Jellicoe nevertheless played at the run, practically sprinting between holes. Wearying, the Bishop of London, an old friend, once cried a halt: “Look here, Jack, is this golf or a steeplechase?” At night in his cabin, Jellicoe did what he could to slough off the weight of responsibility by reading thrillers “of a particularly lurid description.”

  Nevertheless, “living over the shop” on Iron Duke, he found his health deteriorating. Telegrams flowed in; streams of people arrived. There were constant civilian visitors: the king, who could not be ignored; the prime minister, who also must be attended to; the Chancellor of the Exchequer, the Archbishop of Westminster, the Archbishop of York, forty colonial MPs, “five French gentlemen of eminence,” and “a representative of the United States press.” Always reluctant to delegate, Jellicoe received them all. Meanwhile, beneath his veneer of calm and hospitality, his worries—awareness of the weak points of the British navy, fear of German submarines, constant arguments with the Admiralty; above all, his sense of the unique immensity of his own responsibilities—wore him down. Inevitably, nervous strain brought physical repercussions.

  By the beginning of January 1915, he was suffering severely from hemorrhoids. On January 25, he had a particularly bad attack. “I am not at all well,” he wrote to Beatty. “Crocked up yesterday. Very bad attack of piles and general run down.” Beatty, just back from fighting at the Dogger Bank, was concerned. “You must take the greatest care of yourself,” he replied to the Commander-in-Chief. “What we should do without you, Lord knows.” To a former colleague still at the Admiralty, Jellicoe wrote, “I am laid up for a bit. It is of course due to the worry of trying to get things done which ought to be done without my having to step in. I hope to be right early next week, but the doctor says at present it is dangerous to move out of bed.” Late in January, he entered a hospital ashore to have an operation under the name “Mr. Jessop.” Fisher sent up a specialist surgeon from London to take charge. Subsequently, the First Sea Lord wrote:

  My beloved Jellicoe:

  It is good news that the doctors telegraph to me that you are doing so well. Now do please take it easy, and damn Rosyth and everything else that worries you and simply play bridge. You are worth more than a hundred Rosyths or dozens of battleships so put that in your pipe and smoke it and take things easy.

  A minor operation corrected the physical ailment, but it was a month before he returned to duty, “feeling really fit for work, though going a little slow at first.” But before the end of the summer of 1915, his health began to deteriorate again. Beatty noticed and wrote, “Please don’t overdo yourself. You are our only hope and must take care of yourself.” In September, Jellicoe, suffering from rheumatism and neuralgia, sent for a specialist, who diagnosed pyorrhea and pulled two teeth. The Admiralty suggested that he go ashore to rest, which he did at Kinpurnie Castle in Forfarshire, belonging to his father-in-law. He paid several visits to an Edinburgh dentist and, after a fortnight, returned to Scapa Flow, still under medical supervision, but temporarily refreshed and declaring himself “a totally different being.”

  Through all of this, Jellicoe’s relationship with the men in the fleet deepened in mutual respect and affection. Both officers and men
sensed that, beyond the requirements of command, the admiral would do everything in his power to ease their lot. Once when Jellicoe read in a newspaper that one of his young staff officers had become a father, he sent for him. The young man was told to go to London and call at the Admiralty eight hours after arriving in order to bring back any official papers there for the Commander-in-Chief. Jellicoe paused, then added, “I expect you will know how to employ those eight hours.” Somehow, Jellicoe managed to remember the names of an extraordinary number of ordinary seamen in the fleet and it was said that he knew and spoke to every member of the crew of Iron Duke. On these occasions, when the admiral approached and the sailor sprang to attention, Jellicoe always said, “At ease,” and wanted to know what the sailor was doing. Reports of this behavior spread through the fleet. One day, a small boat carrying a victorious regatta crew back to its ship passed near the stern of Iron Duke, where Jellicoe was walking alone on the quarterdeck. When he saw the silver trophy in the bows of the boat, Jellicoe leaned over the rail, “smiling, clapped his hands, applauding. . . . A wild tumult of frantic cheering burst out almost like an explosion from every throat. . . . There was gratitude and passionate loyalty in the demonstration and it continued long after the figure on the quarterdeck had turned away. ‘That’s what I likes about ’im,’ said a bearded seaman hoarsely. . . . ‘E’s that ’uman.’ ”

  Scheer’s apparent willingness to lead the High Seas Fleet to sea led to dialogue between the Admiralty and the British sea admirals. Jackson suggested further seaplane raids to draw the Germans out, but Jellicoe continued wary. “I am being pressed to plan another [air raid], the idea being that it will bring the German fleet out,” he wrote to Beatty. “But if carried out at daylight and the German heavy ships do move, they won’t be clear of the minefields and in a position where we could engage them before about four p.m. This is no time to start a fight in those waters. It also involves our hanging about for a whole day in a bad locality, using up fuel, especially of our destroyers. . . . Patience is the virtue we must exercise. . . . What do you think?”

  Beatty, despite his eagerness to fight the Germans, agreed: “You ask me what I think? I think the German fleet will come out only on its own initiative when the right time arrives. . . . Your arguments regarding the fuel question are unanswerable (and measure the situation absolutely). We cannot amble about the North Sea for two or three days and at the end be in a condition to fight the most decisive battle of the war. . . . When the Great Day comes, it will be when the enemy takes the initiative.”

  Nevertheless, the staff on Iron Duke cudgeled its brains to devise a plan that would tempt the Germans out of harbor. By the end of May, Jellicoe was ready with a scheme he hoped would lure Scheer out to a position farther north than the High Seas Fleet had yet ventured. Beginning at dawn on June 2, eight British light cruisers would sweep down the Kattegat as far south as the Great Belt and the sound between Denmark and Sweden. The ships were meant to be seen from shore so that German agents would communicate with Scheer and provoke him to act. Behind the light cruisers, a single British battle squadron would cruise in the Skagerrak while, hovering to the northwest, the entire Grand Fleet would wait to pounce. This plan differed from previous bait offerings in that the cruisers would press deeper, suggesting that they meant to enter the Baltic to attack German communications. If the High Seas Fleet did not take the bait and come out far enough, Jellicoe still hoped that the German ships might venture far enough to pass over three Harwich submarines, which, as part of the plan, would submerge and wait for them from June 1 to June 3 just south of Horns Reef on the northern edge of the Bight.

  Before this plan could be executed, however, the Admiralty began pick-ing up signals that suggested that the German fleet might move first. Since May 17, Room 40 codebreakers had been peeking at Scheer’s plans. The signals arranging the departure of the U-boats from their bases were the first to be deciphered; these messages were subsequently confirmed by the unusual number of signals coming from submarines in the northern North Sea. Strong antisubmarine patrols had been sent out. By May 28, it was clear to the Admiralty that something unusual was afoot: the numerous U-boats in the North Sea were not molesting merchant ships; the German fleet was assembling in the mouths of the Elbe and Jade. Early on Tuesday morning, May 30, Room 40 began deciphering signals from Scheer ordering his U-boats to remain at sea and telling the High Seas Fleet to assemble in the outer Jade by 7:00 p.m. Later that morning, Room 40 intercepted the German signal “31 G.G. 2490” addressed to all units of the High Seas Fleet. Although its meaning was unknown, it seemed likely to be an operational order of supreme importance. From the number 31, the cryptologists deduced that an operation by the German fleet was to begin the following day.

  The Admiralty waited no longer. At noon, using the land telegraph direct to the flagships at Scapa Flow and Rosyth, Whitehall told Jellicoe and Beatty that the High Seas Fleet was assembling in the outer Jade and that there were indications the Germans were coming out. At 5:16 p.m. the Admiralty ordered the main fleet and the Battle Cruiser Fleet to raise steam. And then, at 5:40 p.m., a further message came to Jellicoe and Beatty: “Germans intend some operations commencing tomorrow morning leaving via Horns Reef. You should concentrate to eastward of Long Forties ready for eventualities.”

  That afternoon, the Honorable Barry Bingham, captain of the destroyer Nestor attached to the battle cruisers at Rosyth, was ashore playing golf with a friend near Edinburgh. “After a thoroughly enjoyable game,” he wrote later, “we adjourned for tea to the little house I had rented on the side of the links, and then found our way down to Queensferry Pier at the regulation hour of 6:00 p.m. to catch a routine boat. While we stood waiting on the pier amid a throng of fellow officers, all eyes were suddenly drawn in the direction of the Lion from whose masthead there floated a string of flags with their message to all ships: ‘Raise steam for 22 knots and report when ready.’ ”

  At Scapa Flow and Cromarty as at Rosyth, signal flags snapping at the halyards of the flagships sent streams of boats scurrying from ship to shore, picking up crew members, while scores of funnels billowed black smoke showing that furnaces were raising steam. At Scapa, officers just beginning a game of deck hockey on board the new battleship Revenge began behaving like schoolboys, cheering, dancing, and hugging one another. That night, the sun set with a “blazing red and orange coloring caused by storm clouds . . . which seemed a foreboding of something dreadful about to happen.” Twilight arrived and through the summer evening air came the shrill of boatswains’ pipes as ship’s boats were hoisted aboard, followed by the clank of anchor chains coming in. Ship after ship hoisted the flag signal, “Ready to proceed.” At 9:30 p.m., beacons marking Hoxa Sound flashed on and the boom defense trawlers began to haul away the system of nets and flotation buoys and open the gates. In the growing darkness, the gray ships began to move, passing in procession through the harbor, down the four miles of Hoxa Sound, and out through the net defenses into the rolling swell of the open sea. There, the night was calm, with an overcast sky covering the stars and the islands receding into the heavy, wet mist. The dreadnoughts, silent and black, were seen by their neighbors only as shadowy forms except for a small, shaded light on the stern of each. On the bridges, officers stared ahead, while the crews at the guns looked out in all directions. “Inside the ships,” wrote coauthors Langhorne Gibson and J.E.T. Harper, “in another world of bright electric light, and intense heat, the turbines hummed with steady drone and the stokers’ shovels rasped as they fed coal into the boiler fires.”

  When the last vessels of Jellicoe’s fleet cleared Hoxa Sound, the great anchorage was practically deserted. The admiral had left five warships behind, four of them deliberately: these were the new 15-inch-gun battleship Royal Sovereign, commissioned only three weeks before, and three destroyers. By mistake, the aircraft carrier Campania, which Jellicoe had so much wanted with him, was also left behind. Anchored in an isolated bay inside the Flow, she had somehow not
received the order to sail. By the time Campania’s captain was told and got his ship to sea, he was far behind; unwilling to risk a large ship steaming unescorted in the North Sea, Jellicoe ordered her back to harbor. The Commander-in-Chief thereby deprived himself of a significant asset—aerial reconnaissance—he might have used the following day.

  From Scapa Flow, on that eve of Jutland, Jellicoe in Iron Duke brought two battle squadrons (sixteen dreadnought battleships) and three battle cruisers (Hood’s Invincibles), plus four old armored cruisers, eleven light cruisers, and thirty-six destroyers; in all, seventy warships. From Cromarty came another twenty-three ships: eight dreadnoughts, another four armored cruisers, and eleven destroyers. In the Forth, Beatty’s six battle cruisers slipped silently past the waterside cottages and under the iron spans of the great railway bridge. Close behind followed the four Queen Elizabeths led by Rear Admiral Hugh Evan-Thomas in Barham. Beatty also brought three squadrons of light cruisers—twelve ships in all—including the veteran 2nd Light Cruiser Squadron commanded by Commodore William Goodenough in Southampton. He had twenty-seven destroyers and the small aircraft carrier Engadine carrying three seaplanes: fifty ships in all. Elsewhere, other British ships and squadrons made ready for sea. The Admiralty believed that a German thrust might aim at the Channel, so the Harwich Force was ordered to raise steam. And the 3rd Battle Squadron—Dreadnought herself, and the seven remaining predreadnought King Edwards—was ordered to raise steam and to concentrate off the Thames estuary.