Jutland_The Unfinished Battle

by Nicholas Jellicoe

  Eighteen British battleships had opened fire on the enemy battle-cruiser charge: the entire British line was strafing the Germans, who were facing ‘the greatest concentration of naval gunfire any fleet commander had ever faced’.112 In the ten minutes before 18:19 Derfflinger was hit fourteen times by 15in fire, either from Valiant or Barham. Her ability to absorb punishment was impressive. No wonder she was nicknamed ‘the iron dog’ by the British. But just before the hour, at 18:55 she received a hit critically damaging her bow. Within minutes she took on 300 tons of water (equivalent to around 270 cubic metres). She emerged with two main gun turrets out of action and the majority of her turret crews dead. Hase described this moment when the Germans were ‘im absoluten Wurstkessel’ – right in the frying pan, so to speak.

  A perfect hail of projectiles beat on us. A 15-inch burst in the turret called Caesar. The flames penetrated to the working chamber, where two other cartridges caught fire; flames leapt out of the turret as high as a house, but they did not explode, as the enemy’s cartridges had done. The effect was appalling: seventy-three out of seventy-eight men of the turret crew were killed outright. A 15-inch shell hit the roof of Dora turret; again charges were set fire to, roaring up into the sky from both turrets like funeral pyres. The enemy had our range to an inch.113

  Seydlitz, already low in the water, was hit five more times. Even though she could not add firepower, Von der Tann was also hit at the foot of the aft conning tower, although the explosion was felt throughout the ship. Deep in the boiler room the passages were filled with lethal gas and smoke. The combination of not being able to see what you were doing while feeling trapped inside the respirators must have been hellish. And the poor Lützow continued to be pounded by Monarch and Orion, who between them landed another five shells on the dying ship. Only Moltke was left relatively unscathed. A grateful Scheer lauded his battle-cruisers: ‘[Their behaviour] … is specially deserving of the highest praise; crippled in the use of their guns by their numerous casualties, some of them badly damaged, obeying the given signal “at the enemy”, they dashed recklessly to the attack’.114

  In twenty-five minutes from 19:05 to 19:30, the Germans had taken thirty-seven hits;† the British had taken just two, both on Colossus, from Seydlitz. Injuries and fatalities among Grand Fleet sailors were miraculously light: there were five wounded on Colossus and two dead on Marlborough. Over half of the thirty-seven hits on the Germans had come from the guns of five British ships: Revenge, Royal Oak, Colossus, Barham and Valiant. None had come from Beatty’s ships. The idea later put about that the Grand Fleet had been barely engaged, the proof being the light casualties suffered, is not borne out by these engagements, which very nearly destroyed three of Germany’s proudest battle-cruisers in the space of a half-hour: Jellicoe’s sailors were, understandably, happy that he had not needlessly risked their lives.

  After the war, the myth that the Grand Fleet had never really been engaged reared its ugly head early. Admiral Brock (who had been brought over to the Admiralty from the Battle Cruiser Fleet by Beatty as his chief of staff) said that he thought that the Harper record gave the impression that the British came off distinctly worse at Jutland than the Germans:

  It does convey to me the impression that not only was a great battle fought between the British and German fleets, but it was one in which we got the worst of it. Neither of these impressions is correct; a great battle was not fought, the opposing battle fleets never really came into action, and far from getting the worst of it, the direct result of the day’s fighting was to drive the German fleet ignominiously into its ports.115

  The fact that there were light casualties on the battleships was now even used as evidence of the minimal role that Jellicoe had played. Temple Patterson highlighted the aggressive and biased style of writing in the Naval Staff Appreciation: ‘The battle fleet which had put to sea full of hope and ardour, superior to the foe in numbers and gun-power, at least his equal in discipline, individual skill and courage, returned home with two killed and five wounded. It had never seriously been in action.’116

  Beatty insisted on adding his own wording. On 21 June 1920 at an Admiralty meeting, significant text changes to the wording of the Harper record were discussed. Here Beatty suggested adding a foreword that echoed Brock’s earlier sentiments. The wording was a very deliberate attempt to play down any role that the Grand Fleet might have played:

  [This] narrative of events … shows that the enemy’s advanced forces were reinforced by their main fleet some hours before the British fleet was able to reach the scene of the action. During this period, therefore, the British were in greatly inferior force. On hearing of the approach of the British main fleet the Germans avoided further action and returned to base [my italics].117

  It was in many ways extraordinary that Beatty acted as judge and jury of his own actions four years earlier. Jellicoe’s position had always been that there should be no blurring of the lines, that mixing these roles should be avoided at all costs – the temptation to write your own history in its best light is always too great.

  Now it is the Grand Fleet that turns away

  Scheer still had significant destroyer resources at his disposal: six flotillas with around 224 torpedoes.118 He had started the day with sixty-one destroyers and had most of these still intact (save for the early losses of V.4, V.27, V.29 and V.48).

  Such an attack covering a German withdrawal was what Jellicoe had always expected and, because he had fully calculated its potential risk, he was fearful of its potential to wreak havoc on his dreadnought line. In fact, it was clear that Jellicoe had over-estimated the numbers. He had assumed there would be seventy-eight destroyers at sea and thought that if that fully half of them would mount six torpedo tubes apiece they would, if fired at a line of ships simultaneously, be expected to have a 40 per cent chance of a successful hit.* Those were pretty high odds when so many British lives were at risk.

  But the added numbers actually probably did not make that much difference. A speeding torpedo in the water was a huge threat to a lumbering dreadnought whichever way you looked at it. The standard German 19.7in torpedoes carried a large, 4401b hexanite charge and, like British torpedoes, were fast – the latest G7 model was capable of 35 knots at around 5,500yds (5,000m). They were also numerous – German destroyers at Jutland mounted 326 tubes.119 What they were not, which Jellicoe was wrongly informed about, was wake-less. The telltale bubble line would still give its position away.

  Scheer signalled his flotilla commanders his intentions: use these remaining elements and throw these fast forces into a last manoeuvre that would allow the main battle fleet elements to get away. That he would do so was not a surprise to Jellicoe. The timing was. For what happened was that the attacks were initiated before Scheer came to his own decision. From the bridge of the Iron Duke, destroyer groups could already be seen gathering around Regensburg at 19:12 (Rostock, the other light cruiser flotilla leader, was not visible).120

  Heinrich and Michelsen reacted immediately to Scheers signal because at least one of the two, Heinrich, had already started the actions that would turn out to be fundamental for the eventual escape of the German fleet.

  Kommodore Heinrich’s 6th and 9th Flotillas had come back from the attack on the 3rd BCS, the 2nd from the attacks on Canterbury and was regrouping around the Regensburg. He was missing quite a large number of his boats. V.45 and G.37 from the 12th Flotilla had been taken by Michelsen to protect Lützow and three other boats (V.69, V.46 and S.50) had stayed with 2nd Flotilla (which had not been sent the attack orders).† He was left with four boats from the 6th Flotilla – G.41, the leader, V.44, V.86 and V.87. The 9th had already lost V.27 and V.29 in the afternoon actions so was left with nine boats: thirteen in total.

  For Kommodore Michelsen, it was a similar picture. The 3rd Flotilla was back with Rostock after the attempt to rescue crew from the sinking Wiesbaden, but S.54 and G.42 had not yet come back The flotilla was only four boats strong and the group wa
s now well out to the starboard of the 3rd Squadron. So, between the three immediate attacking flotillas (the 6th, 9th and 3rd) there was only a total of seventeen boats.

  The attack would eventually be launched in waves from behind the curtain of smoke that had been laid as a protective screen around Lützow. The smoke masked what they were up to, but the wave attack was odd. It might have been better to overwhelm the British line and concentrate the release of a devastating fan of torpedoes simultaneously to reduce the odds for the British. It stems from the fact that Heinrich was acting independently of Scheer and had anticipated the latters orders by around six minutes.* His independent actions ‘contributed largely to saving the High Seas Fleet from very serious losses’.121

  Heinrich’s first attack was launched at 19:15 by the thirteen boats out of the greatly reduced combined strength of the 6th and 9th Flotillas. As soon as they broke through the smoke screen it got rough and G.41 was hit by a 6in shell around 7,000yds (6,400m) distance from the British line. The forecastle exploded and two officers and ratings were killed but the boat’s severely wounded torpedo officer, Leutnant Wagner, still managed to launch two torpedoes. Next hit was G.86: there was carnage after a heavy calibre shell hit her bow around 19:25. Nine men and the captain, Korvettenkapitän Grimm, were seriously wounded and the radio room completely destroyed. From the front of the V formation, G.41’s commander, Fregattenkapitän Max Schultz,† ordered a launch at around 7,500yds as the attackers turned and sped off, under long-range fire from the guns of the 4th LCS. Between 19:22 and 19:24, eleven tubes hissed, delivered their torpedoes into the water and all got away, including G.86 and G.41, even if the former’s speed had been cut to 25 knots (G.41’s even more).

  Right behind Schultz came the 9th Flotilla led by Fregattenkapitän Goehle on V.28. The flotilla came in some way under the protection of 6th Flotilla’s smokescreen, but it then seemed that the entire firepower of the British line had been switched from the damaged German battle-cruisers to the real threat of the attacking boats. V.28 was damaged by a direct hit from British secondary armament fire holing her bow at the waterline. Every boat managed to launch – eighteen torpedoes between 19:26 and 19:28 and another two around 19:30 (calculated from the time they passed through the British line). From around 7,000yds, twenty torpedoes streaked towards the British line. Three only managed a one-torpedo launch (V.28, S.51 and S.36), but S.51 got off two and the remainder three apiece. They were not as lucky as the 6th Flotilla had been. Korvettenkapitän Ihn’s S.35 (which also had on board the rescued crew from V.29), was heavily hit and sank when she split into two. S.51 got hit at 19:30, putting her boiler and steering engine out of action. Both V.58 and S.51 got back, limping, V.58 at a dangerously vulnerable 17 knots.

  In total, Heinrich’s independently launched attack managed to get thirty-one torpedoes through to the Grand Fleet battle line, mostly concentrated around the ships of the 6th Division (Marlborough, Revenge, Hercules and Agincourt). His boats had braved a hail of fire to do so. Of the thirteen boats, one was sunk and four badly hit.

  The British line had no other choice now, but to concentrate on the immediate destroyer threat. Heavy secondary, and then primary, fire had been opened up as the boats came within range running up the line. At 19:15 Royal Oak had opened up; two minutes later Agincourt, Marlborough, Temeraire and Vanguard. The same group – four torpedo boats – were spotted from Iron Duke approaching from 40 degrees before the starboard beam at around 19:20. Spotting became increasingly difficult for the British gunners. Between 19:17 and 19:25 the German smoke started to drift across the waters in front of the British fleet. Iron Duke opened secondary fire at 19:24 at a range of around 10,000yds (9,100m) and within four salvos registered a hit, and then saw one of the destroyers sinking after she had been hit another three times.122

  Jellicoe had already decided two years prior what his overall tactic would be: to turn away. At 19:21 he felt the moment had come. At 7,500yds he felt that Heinrich’s torpedo boats were in their optimal firing position. Now he gave the order.

  He was criticised for the basis of the order. Surprisingly, Frost put the blame fairly and squarely with the Admiralty: ‘If that was not what the situation demanded, the fault lies with the Admiralty not with Jellicoe. If the Admiralty desired to carry on a Nelsonian plan of campaign, it should have relieved Jellicoe upon the receipt of his letter on October 30th, 1914.’123 Where Frost is damning was on Jellicoe’s handling of the manoeuvre: ‘In that confusing tactical situation, Jellicoe was well served by his division commanders. They brought the battle line into order despite his confusing and conflicting signals’.124 He had slowed the battle line to 15 knots at 19:20, after his series of orders from 19:12 reallocating positions had clearly created confusion.

  At 19:22 Jellicoe had signalled Le Mesurier’s 4th Light Cruiser Squadron to ‘proceed with the utmost speed and attack the enemy’s torpedo vessels’, but initially their fire was not that effective as they were not yet in the best position. When they went to meet Heinrich’s first attacks, they were 9,000yds (8,200m) off, but aboard Calliope, the squadron’s leader, Commodore Le Mesurier, was himself nearly caught by torpedoes. Four of them passed right beside his ship.

  Why Jellicoe had to resort to signalling this order does raise a question: why did Le Mesurier even need to be told? It was curious that the Grand Fleet did not have an amply prepared destroyer and light cruiser screen out on the engaged side. Especially after seeing the proximity of the destroyer groups at 19:12. It was also, but this can only really be seen in retrospect, that at the times of the first launches, the Grand Fleet was actually turning towards the threat by turning west 3 points and only then, four minutes later, resuming a southern course. This was the nature of the invisible threat that torpedo attack under these conditions represented.

  Irving concluded: ‘That the battle fleet should have been left to its own gunfire and manoeuvring capacity to defend itself against these last two attacks is quite incomprehensible’.125 Maybe here was a more telling indictment of Jellicoe: that he had left his engaged side too open?

  Eight minutes after Heinrich had initiated the decisive destroyer action, at 19:23 came a third wave. This one was made up of the five remaining boats from the 3rd Flotilla led by Fregattenkapitän Wilhelm Hollmann’s boat, the Schichau-type S.53. The conditions were becoming very difficult indeed. The mixture of drifting chemical smoke, the mass of shell splash and the sombre, shifting North Sea fog banks all made for almost minimum visibility. This was going to be a lightning fast game, a blindman’s bluff, except that it was not even dark yet. The flotilla had been even further north than either the 6th or 9th Flotilla attacks, so maybe it was not so surprising that the targets were not there. The onlyboat that was in the end able to discern any real shapes on the British line was Korvettenkapitän Karlowa’s S.54. His boat had been lagging behind the others by around 1,000yds, but had passed the rest of the group as they launched and turned and had ventured far deeper to the east. Nevertheless, it was still almost 10,000yds off when she fired her tubes at 19:45. The group was then, in turn, hunted by British destroyers from Stirling’s 12th Destroyer Flotilla. Additional chemical smoke billowed out in their wake as they tried to lose their pursuers. One of the German torpedo boats, G.88, even tried unsuccessfully to torpedo them.126

  The 5th and 7th Flotilla attacks were, in Groos’s opinion, ‘more difficult’. Koch thought that he was too far away (they had been around five miles down the line protecting the 2nd Squadron) and decided to hold his position. So he kept his 7th Flotilla stationed off the 2nd Squadron’s port bow to maintain the protective shield. Oskar Heinecke, however, pulled the 5th Flotilla back to Rostock when Scheers attack signal came through and prepared his group’s attack. He started heading east, leading the flotilla from G.11, but by the time he was in position it was already 19:50 and, like Hollman, he could not find any capital ship targets and did not want to waste his torpedoes. After two minutes he headed back.

  The 2nd
Flotilla attack was assembled, set in motion, but was never consummated. With Schuur’s B.98 as the leader, the ten-destroyer group would have been a powerful force.127 They had been following the 6th Half-Flotilla (3rd Flotilla) through the German line, when their view of the British line was completely obscured. Ironically, it was their own force’s smoke that was causing the problems.

  Back on Regensburg Kommodore Heinrich now decided that the attacks were not going to achieve anything more. The critical objective – taking British pressure off the main battle line – had been achieved. The signal ‘Follow the leader’ was hoisted and brought in any destroyers which had not made the run. With the signal he was calling back thirteen boats (ten from the 2nd Flotilla and the three from the 6th Half-Flotilla) which had been carrying sixty-three torpedoes. The British were lucky.

  Fire from the British line had significantly diminished, so he had concluded that Jellicoe must also have turned away. So not only had the gunnery pressure on the main German battle line and the battle-cruisers been much alleviated by his anticipated execution of Scheers tactics, but he had also bought precious time for the night.

  Reginald Bacon suggested that the approach of the day, the dividing point between the two options of either ‘turn-away’ or ‘turn-towards’, was to choose the former method ‘if the torpedoes were fired from any position between abeam and half-way to right-ahead’.128 Complying with these pre-agreed options, Jellicoe at 19:22 ordered the Grand Fleet to turn away from the threat by going 2 points to port. Three minutes later a further 2-point turn-away was ordered, making 44 degrees in total.