It was standard procedure in the French, Italian, American and, indeed, German fleets to turn away in the face of a massed torpedo attack. It was also something that Jellicoe had said he would do in these precise circumstances and that the Lords of the Admiralty had approved, but the seemingly indecisive outcome of Jutland made this turn-away very controversial.
Jellicoe said that this supposedly new manoeuvre had actually been practised by the Grand Fleet when the war broke out. He felt that in following the tactic he gained a number of critical advantages and avoided another threat. By turning away he altered the silhouettes from that of a full, side-on battleship to the beam of a battleship; from an object that was, taking Malaya as an example, 646ft long if presented broadside to a reduced silhouette of 95ft stern or bow on. Furthermore, the torpedo’s range was around 10,000yds (9,100m). If a battleship could use its full speed to get to that critical 10,000yd line before a strike, it had outrun it. A turn-towards gave the same advantage of silhouette, but increased the rate of closure and introduced a further unknown.129
Jellicoe’s assumption had always been that the Germans would do what the Japanese at Tsushima had already demonstrated: to sow mines in the track of an oncoming enemy.130 He was – as he knew would happen – severely criticised. By the Second World War, the more usually adopted response to a torpedo launch was to turn towards its source, always diminishing the target profile, but ‘combing the tracks’ rather than outrunning them. In his 1932 appreciation, Jellicoe wrote confidently that he had taken the right decision: ‘Experience since the war has shown what a large number of hits may be scored by torpedoes on ships that turn towards or hold their course. These experiences have not been published but they are known to me.’131
Jellicoe’s position – and, it must be said, Beatty’s too, if one looks more closely at his 1917 revised post-Jutland GFBOs – was usually more in favour of the turn-away. This was the case for quite a number of commanders at the time.132 Beatty stressed that he would pursue but stay outside the effective range of 10,000–12,000yds (9,100–10,000m). At the strategic level, Jellicoe’s priority was clear: the continued domination of the North Sea. He did not intend to put that objective at risk – in any form.
Quite a number of historians take a different view. Admiral Lord West, for example, feels that the turn-away ‘was a lost opportunity … [had Jellicoe] turned towards the Germans he would not have lost them’, adding that ‘he could afford to lose ships’.133 In another series (on Admiral Cunningham and the Mediterranean war), West continues the same thought:
This was all very different from the First World War. Then, too many senior commanders seemed risk-averse, reluctant to attack for fear of losing the battle, losing ships, losing men. Twenty years later, many junior commanders from the First World War, men like Cunningham himself… had risen to the top and wanted, and demanded a much more Nelsonian approach: ‘Engage the enemy more closely’. Without the shock of the First World War it is hard to imagine the Royal Navy achieving the same dramatic success as in the Second.
The point that I believe is missed is that it was not a battle that was at stake. It was the war. However, the shock of the First World War was definitely needed to shake the Navy out of its reverie. Despite Fisher’s energetic reforms, the Navy was a deeply stagnated institution.
Many historians – Andrew Gordon or Eric Grove would be just two examples – feel that Jellicoe’s decision was the one, albeit unforgivable, error of the day, one born from timidity; a deep-seated fear of the destructive power of the torpedo on a dreadnought.
I hold a different point of view. If Jellicoe had stated that this is what he would do, if his reasons for doing so were to protect the critical dreadnought balance between the two opposing fleets and if having done so he achieved this objective, then surely those who approved such a premeditated and calculated manoeuvre (including Churchill) share just as much ‘blame’ if the desired outcome shifts to keeping contact?
Of the thirty-one torpedoes fired, twenty-one still reached the British line and were spotted at 19:33.134 Marlborough, previously hit, spotted three and avoided them. She first steered to port and then starboard, and they passed ahead and astern of her. Revenge turned to port and also avoided two torpedoes, the first passing 10yds (9m) from the bow, the second passing 20yds from her stern. Hercules and Agincourt also spotted torpedoes and broke out of the line with a 60-degree turn. Agincourt had one torpedo pass either side of her. One torpedo ran between Iron Duke and Thunderer. One passed close to Collingwood’s stern. One followed Neptune’s track. Two torpedoes narrowly missed Valiant, ‘one about 20 yards ahead and one about five yards astern’.135
It seemed that the turn-away had been executed just in time. ‘It was only sharp lookouts, skilful manoeuvring and a measure of good fortune, however, which preserved several ships from damage’.136 Had a turn-towards been made, the time taken would have been considerably longer and might have presented an even more dangerous battleship silhouette to the attacking German torpedo boats. The Dewar brothers’ criticism of Jellicoe’s turn-away was based on massive hindsight and went largely in the face of accepted naval policy of the day. Marder pithily commented that ‘Crystal balls, alas, are not standard issue in the Royal Navy’.137 Nevertheless, a chapter heading from Carlyon Bellairs’s book, The Battle of Jutland, sarcastically jibed: ‘Eleven Destroyers Dismiss 27 Battleships’.
An emotional, perhaps subconscious desire to win a crushing annihilation rather than maintain a strategic supremacy may just cloud our collective appraisal of Jellicoe’s reasoning. If ‘leaving something to chance’ had resulted in heavy dreadnought losses and he had still not been able to maintain contact, what would the verdict be now? Should not faster fleet elements be used for maintaining contact, in any case, not behemoth battleships?
Did Jellicoe make the right decision? Undoubtedly yes: ‘though this manoeuvre has been hotly debated ever since, most modern writers see it as correct, even inevitable’.138
For Kemp, Jutland was ‘the story, largely, of a new and still untried weapon, that ‘the new weapon, in its then state of development, had failed’.139 The German attacks were very well-executed.
These two salvos were fired almost simultaneously, from good target angles and at firing ranges within effective range. The spread, as measured from a single firing destroyer, was approximately thirteen and a half degrees in one case and nine degrees in the other. About 42 per cent of the torpedoes fired passed through the target formation, but unfortunately the density was not enough. It averaged about one torpedo to 500 yards in one salvo and one to 200 yards in the other.140
The turn-away seemed to have been at 90 degrees to the strike origin but on a lesser, and indeed decreasing, angle to the van of the German fleet, meaning that the weight of gunnery – should there have been an opportunity to fire a broadside – would not have been totally compromised.
The Torpedo at Jutland
According to Farquharson-Roberts, Jutland ‘showed that the torpedo had been overrated as a weapon. Before the war’, he continued, ‘it was seen as a battle winner; indeed there were some, such as the French jeune école, who felt it was all a navy needed.’141 The torpedo was one of the newest of the untried weapons. Though it had ‘largely failed to live up to its reputation, at any rate against heavily armoured ships’,142 the weapon should not be minimised in hindsight. It was a very real perceived threat at the time. It is clear that weapons systems can only be best exploited once sufficient knowledge has been garnered from experience in battle and that was lacking. The course of the battle was heavily influenced by the weapon: ‘Jellicoe had declined a night action largely through the fear of a torpedo attack on his fleet at night, though confident that he would still meet the enemy in daylight on 1 June. Scheer, on the other hand, had braved torpedo attack through fear of having to meet Jellicoe’s guns in daylight.’143
Its development was rapid: effective range increased from 5,000yds (4,500m) (1906) to 10,000 (1914)
and around 17,000yds (15,500m) in 1917. Nevertheless, the successful threat of the torpedo lay in a well-spread launch. Bacon calculated that for a typical line of dreadnoughts (say twenty-four, the length at Jutland), a ship target area of 4,800yds (4,400m) with 6,900 non-target yards (6,300m) would result (using 300yds (275m) to be the non-target space between ship). The chance of a single torpedo hitting a target ship would be 40 per cent. But the density of the torpedo launch was also important.
At Jutland there were 826 ‘tubed’ torpedoes (of which 426 were German). Looking at destroyer actions alone (the most important torpedo activity), the Germans fired more torpedoes (89, or 56 per cent of the day’s total). They also fired them in different circumstances, by far the largest proportion in daylight hours rather than during the night action. The British torpedo performance later came in for criticism by the Germans, who said that they often fired at too fine an angle, making a turn easier as well as while still closing, and that the attacks were not organised as flotillas to create a ‘fan’, rather they were usually individual, unco-ordinated attacks.
The performance of the torpedoes on both sides was fairly similar. The standard British torpedo at Jutland was the Mark II, with a hitting charge of 400lbs of amatol. The latest version available at Jutland could, on a high-speed setting of 45 knots, travel its 4,200yds (3,800m) effective range in just three minutes (1,500yds a minute). Its medium 29 knots setting would let it travel 10,750yds (9,800m) at a slightly cut-down speed of 1,000yds a minute. Battleships and battle-cruisers were actually equipped with a slower speed 18-knot version that could reach up to 17,000yds but at 600yds (550m) a minute they would strike only after having run for 28 minutes.
German torpedoes were fairly similar in capability, although Jellicoe was, mistakenly, under the impression that there had been great advances made on hiding the bubble track. The Germans had a larger 23.6in version with a 5401b hexanite charge but none scored any hits in the battle. The smaller 19.7in G7 version carried a smaller 4401b charge and was the staple torpedo. At its 35- and 28-knot settings it was slightly slower to its maximum ranges than the Mark II: 5,450yds in 4.7 minutes and 10,950 in 11.8.
The British escaped with only Marlborough suffering any torpedo damage. The British hit on Seydlitz could have been decisive had she been re-engaged in the night action. The number of close-run torpedo misses was alarmingly high and maybe, had the Germans not used up so many when it was still light enough to spot tracks, the results would have been different. Six months after Jutland, at the Horns Reef, the British submarine J.1 achieved four hits on a four-torpedo spread. Three hit Großer Kurfürst aft and the last one Kronprinz on the bow. Jellicoe’s predictions about the lethal potential of the submarine came true, although this time it was to the benefit of the British.
See Table ‘Torpedo Hits at Jutland’ in Chapter 13.
Scheers attempts to charge the British line were costly: there was severe damage to the battle-cruisers and five destroyers were lost. But the destroyer actions, forcing Jellicoe to turn away, had gained Scheer critical miles from the Grand Fleet and used up the last fighting daylight. Many see this as Scheers genius as a commander:
It was not due to any merit of Jellicoe that the ‘crossing of the T’ position was attained. It was a matter of chance due to low visibility which was entirely in favour of the British … Scheer proved himself a master of the situation. His confidence in the discipline and navigational skill of the fleet justified him in repeatedly turning as he liked in the midst of the heaviest of enemy fire. By his repeated rushes at the British line he determined the course of action and his achievement was ‘glorious enough to place him among the greatest commanders of all time’.144
Macintyre goes on to say:
Thus … the British Commander-in-Chief, with the enemy fleet tactically beaten and in flight, relinquished the possibility of crowning the success his previous tactics had given him. Now the two fleets were opening out at a speed of 20 knots from each other with sunset half an hour away, the chances of a further full-scale clash were drifting away with every second. Twenty-eight torpedoes and a fixed determination to take no chances with his battle fleet had robbed Jellicoe of decisive victory.145
Jellicoe did not know that Scheer had himself turned away; many of his subordinate commanders did and Jellicoe was ill-served by their not keeping him as fully informed as possible.146
On Friedrich der Große reports started to come in about how badly the fleet had been hit. Heavy damage to Markgrafs boiler room would reduce the fleet’s speed. Conditions for the sailors were appalling:
Feverish labour was going on in the damaged ships – burned and torn human bodies were being lifted on to stretchers and carried below to the over-taxed surgeons and their assistants in ill-ventilated battle-dressing stations. Among the wounded seamen the suffering from picric-acid burns was heartrending; the blind, the scalded, the mangled lay in agony. Nauseating smells penetrated the close, stuffy decks – the sweetish reek of blood, the strangling stink of cordite, of burned paint and linoleum and electrical insulation, the stifling hazy atmosphere of charred corpses.147
Scheer was not in a good position. Jellicoe was. ‘None of [Scheers] purposes had been accomplished. He had not rescued the Wiesbaden. He had sunk no enemy battleships. He had not surprised Jellicoe, nor affected the latter’s plans for the night. He had not gained the easterly position, with its advantages of visibility and its open line of retreat.’148 Scheers own flag lieutenant, Ernst von Weizsäcker, described the atmosphere of almost panic on the German flagship: ‘Scheer had but the foggiest idea of what was happening during the action and … his movements were not in the least dictated by superior tactical considerations. On the contrary, he had only two definite ideas: to protect the Wiesbaden and, when that was no good, to disentangle himself and go home’.149
British scouting after the turn-away
Jellicoe was blind again. He could only guess where his adversary was. This was the downside. He had his forces intact but he had lost contact with his foe. Holding off the German flotilla attacks, as Jellicoe had outlined in his GFBOs, and not scouting was the destroyer flotillas’ primary function.150 Only in bad weather, or when the fleet was turning away, would Jellicoe not just permit, but dictate, that the roles be reversed and that attacking the German battle fleet (that implicitly supported scouting) be enforced.
What of his scouting elements? Napier (3rd LCS) had kept his station. Alexander-Sinclair (1st LCS) was busy trying to re-form his squadron on the battle-cruisers, and Le Mesurier (4th LCS) was still heavily engaged in holding off the remnants of the three German torpedo attacks.
Our first chance came soon after 7.30 when they slipped some destroyers at our leading battle squadron: we got two German TBDs on that occasion. And luckily all their torpedoes missed us (four close to Calliope) – our second little excursion came soon after eight o/c: another German destroyer attack. This time I only took out three ships: we pushed the German destroyers back, when suddenly, out of the haze, loomed large the High Seas Fleet about four miles off: we held on a bit and fired torpedoes at ’em – Calliope had good ground for thinking that hers got home – and then ran billy-oh for shelter – with at least three big battleships plunking at us. A most uncomfortable five or 10 minutes, as their shooting was 100 A1 – we were hit, in Calliope, three times, and lost, I am sorry to say, close on a dozen killed and many wounded.151
Goodenoughs reconnaissance skills now failed him. At 19:45 he misleadingly reported that the enemy had detached a number of ships that were heading northwest. ‘Urgent. Enemy has detached unknown number of ships, type unknown, which are steering NW at 19:15. My position Lat. 56° 50′ N, Long. 6° 27′ E.’ The reason for this erroneous message from Goodenough, who, up to now, had been notable for his brilliant, timely and accurate scouting reports, is a mystery.152
The Grand Fleet had been steering 135 degrees off Scheers course to the west. At 19:35 Jellicoe, believing that the Germans were six or seven mi
les to his west behind the shroud of mist and fog, ordered another 5 points to starboard, south-by-west. ‘Alter course leading ships together rest in succession to S by W.’
At 19:45 Jellicoe recalled Castor (leading the 11th Destroyer flotilla) and he turned his force, by divisions, another 3 points to starboard (southwest).153 Sunset was twenty-five minutes away. Beatty was around six miles ahead of King George V in the van of the Grand Fleet. He was frustrated by the turn-away and wanted to find a way to pursue the High Seas Fleet – with the eight dreadnoughts of Admiral Jerram’s 2nd Battle Squadron at the head of the Grand Fleet.
At 19:47, dispatched at 19:50, Beatty issued what was to become a much-quoted (and much-criticised) signal: ‘Submit van of battleships follow van of battle-cruisers. We can then cut off whole of enemy’s battle fleet.’154 The message was perplexing to Jellicoe but ‘coming from his chief subordinate commander, it demanded consideration’.155 Why the ‘whole of’ the enemy fleet ‘cut off’? From where? The Germans were already cut off from their bases. Where exactly was Beatty, anyway? Jellicoe later termed Beatty’s signal as ‘bordering on insubordination. It seemed now that when Jellicoe read it, it was Jellicoe who was actually closer to the High Seas Fleet than the signal implied.
Many still see this as symbolising Beatty’s Nelsonian spirit. However, he may not have been able to see the enemy. His own battle-cruisers were, at the time, ‘at least thirteen miles from the nearest enemy battle-cruiser and more than seventeen miles from any of Scheers battleships – much too far away to be in visual contact with the German fleet’.156 There is, as is always the case, disagreement on the relative distances. The maps, done for the official German Groos narrative, put the distances closer, but with Beatty still only slightly nearer than the 1st Division of the British battle fleet.157 Five minutes before, he had said that he had lost sight of the Germans: ‘The destroyers at the head of the enemy line emitted volumes of grey smoke covering their capital ships as well as with a pall, under cover of which they undoubtedly turned away, and at 7.45 pm we lost sight of them’.158
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