Jutland_The Unfinished Battle

by Nicholas Jellicoe

  * Irving calculated that 50 per cent of seventy-eight destroyers with six torpedoes apiece would mean a total of 239 launches. To reduce the 40 per cent probability of a hit, Jellicoe, in Irving’s words, ‘preferred to manoeuvre his line by subdivisions of two ships thereby vastly increasing the ratio of water-space to ship-target and thus reducing the experts’ estimated assessment of 40 per cent obtainable hits to rather less than 2 per cent’ (Irving, pp166–8).

  † Frost, p367, ‘It is a curious fact that there is on record no signal ordering Flotilla II to attack’.

  * Scheers orders were for the battle-cruisers to attack the British line (at 19:13) followed by the 19:21 orders for the torpedo boats to do the same. Heinrich had already left at 19:15 with the thirteen boats of the 6th and 9th Flotillas.

  † Max Schultz, who died later in January 1917, had known John Jellicoe in China during the Boxer Revolution. In fact, I was told a lovely story by his grandson, Jürgen Schultz-Siemens. Apparently Max had not eaten anything for two days, other than some sardines. He and Jellicoe ended up sharing what Jellicoe had – two eggs. They became friends and, with their wives, spent time together at the Kiel Week Regatta in 1910.

  * During this period, visibility played a critical role: according to Irving it was between 10,500 and 9,000yds in a north and south direction and 13,000–15,000yds to the west (Irving, p180). I saw this at first hand on the 2015 expedition with Innes McCartney. Visibility could close down to less than 2,000yds in minutes, while shifting around the compass could produce completely different ends of the spectrum in terms of visibility.

  * Sir Shane Leslie said that it was that single moment which caused Beatty to change his opinion about Jerram. From then on Beatty had nothing but contempt. When Beatty later saw him in Scapa, after the battle, he was stony cold. In Leslie’s words, he ‘markedly cut Jerram dead’ when he was attending a concert on King George V. He did not utter a single word to the other man. He even maintained that Beatty asked Jellicoe to have Jerram court-martialled (Macintyre, p151). It was certainly a failure to support strong battlefield intelligence with action, though the ensuing darkness still came too quickly.

  The SMS Lützow memorial at the Ehrenfriedhof in Wilhelmshaven. (Author’s photograph)

  Admiral Sir John Jellicoe (later Earl Jellicoe of Scapa), commander of the Grand Fleet. Painting by Sir Arthur Stockdale Cope (1857–1949) in 1921. (Private collection)

  Admiral Reinhard Scheer, commander of the German High Seas Fleet. (Private collection)

  Vice Admiral Sir David Beatty (later Earl Beatty of the North Sea), commander of the Battle Cruiser Fleet. Painting by Sir Arthur Stockdale Cope (1857–1949) in 1921. (BHC2537 © National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, London)

  Vice Admiral Franz (later Ritter Franz von) Hipper, commander of the German scouting forces. (Courtesy of Laboe Marine Memorial Collection)

  Scapa Flow, the Grand Fleet’s base in the remote but relatively safe Orkneys. In the foreground is the 12in-gunned dreadnought Colossus. (Courtesy of Martin Bourdillon)

  The High Seas Fleet leaving Wilhelmshaven led by Friedrich der Grösse and the 3rd Squadron, as seen from Osfriesland. (Courtesy of the German Bundesarchiv)

  The three Lion-class ships, known as the ‘Splendid Cats’, were the pride of Beatty’s Battle Cruiser Fleet. (Private collection)

  Warspite and Malaya on 31 May, around 14:00 GMT, seen from Valiant. The four 15in-gunned Queen Elizabeth-class ships of the 5th Battle Squadron attached to the Battle Cruiser Fleet should have given Beatty a decisive advantage over Hipper’s 1st Scouting Group. (Courtesy of Martin Bourdillon)

  Jellicoe’s flagship, Iron Duke, opening fire at Jutland, painted by William L Wyllie (1851-1931). (Private collection)

  Claus Bergen’s (1885-1964) depiction of the ‘crossing of the T, in Prof Arthur Marder’s words, ‘the greatest concentration of naval gunfire any fleet commander had ever faced.’ (Courtesy of Laboe Naval Memorial Museum © 2016, ProLiterris, Zürich)

  Powered by the revolutionary Parsons steam turbine, Von der Tann, the first German battle-cruiser, reached 24.75 knots during her speed trials. (Courtesy of Blohm und Voss, Hamburg)

  The forward 11in SK L/45 guns of Von der Tann. British battle-cruisers were more heavily armed, and faster, but the German ships were better protected and could withstand heavy damage. (Courtesy of Blohm und Voss, Hamburg)

  The German flag hoist for torpedo attack, the red pennant of the ‘Stander-Z’ by Willy Stöwer (1864-1931). Flotilla torpedo attacks were thoroughly rehearsed by the German navy. (Courtesy of Hamburg International Maritime Museum © 2016, ProLiterris, Zürich)

  In lellicoe’s mind, the chief function of British destroyers was to fend off German torpedo-boat attacks, and in an attempt to obtain a degree of control the flotillas were commanded from larger ‘leaders’ like Broke seen here. However, during the confusion of the night actions on 1 June, Broke collided with Sparrowhawk, one of her own 4th Destroyer Flotilla. (N03104 © National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, London)

  The 935-ton destroyer Spitfire colliding with the 20,000-ton battleship Nassau in the early hours of 1 June. (Courtesy of Alan Bush)

  The heavily damaged Spitfire entering the Tyne at 14:00 GMT on 2 June. (Courtesy of Alan Bush)

  The battleship Malaya burying her dead at sea, 1 June. (Author’s collection)

  The German poet Johann Kinau (1880–1916), is better known under his nom de plume Gorch Fock. He died on the light cruiser Wiesbaden.

  Repairing Warspite’s battle damage at Rosyth. Shown is a 12in shell hit beneath the after Y turret. (N16494 © National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, London)

  A lone sailor stands silhouetted in the gaping shell hole on Derfflinger, one of the German ships most heavily damaged at Jutland. (Courtesy of the German Bundesarchiv)

  Sir John Jellicoe bidding farewell to the Grand Fleet, leaving to take up the position of First Sea Lord, 29 November 1916. (Author’s collection)

  Sir Hugh Evan-Thomas (left) with Admiral Beatty after being awarded the KCB by King George V using Beatty’s sword, 25 June 1917. (Courtesy of Martin Bourdillon)

  John Jellicoe was laid to rest on 3 December 1935 in Nelson’s shadow in the crypt of St Paul’s. The procession passing Ludgate Hill. (Courtesy Illustrated London News)

  On the news of Jellicoe’s death, the flags of three nations’ navies, including that of Hitler’s Kriegsmarine, were lowered. (Author’s collection)

  10

  David and Goliath: Scheers Escape

  Night was falling. Even if Jellicoe was reasonably pleased with the situation – he did not yet know about the calamities of Queen Mary or Indefatigable – and felt that he had a good chance of keeping the High Seas Fleet caged in, he did not want to be drawn into a night action, partly because he did not think the British either well enough equipped or adequately trained for such, but also because of the very high degree of faulty identification of ships at night. Jellicoe put his trust in his destroyers alerting him if Scheer were to attempt to break through astern of the British battle fleet.1

  Jellicoe’s mind was made up. He would not go looking for a night action. In his words, it was ‘far too fluky an affair’ in these days of ‘destroyers and long-range torpedoes’. He went on:

  The result of night actions between heavy ships must always be very largely a matter of chance, as there is little opportunity for skill on either side. Such an action must be fought at very close range, the decision depending on the course of events in the first few minutes … The greater efficiency of German searchlights at the time of the Jutland action, and the greater number of torpedo tubes fitted in enemy ships, combined with [the Germans’] superiority in destroyers, would I knew give [them] the opportunity of scoring heavily at the commencement of such an action.2

  Jellicoe felt that he would have lost the advantage if too much was left to chance. Most of his admirals agreed. The critical question before him was to decide in which direction to take the battle fleet. He estimated
there to be four possible routes home open to the Germans.

  First, there was the 350-mile route over the northern edge of Denmark into the Baltic. This would be the longest route and, though there would be few British ships around, Scheers fleet had been significantly slowed down by the damaged battle-cruisers: Scheer feared that they would not make it back at all and Jellicoe assumed that this was his position.

  Secondly, there was the possibility of going southeast to the Horns Reef light-vessel and into the Jade river behind the British-laid Amrum Bank minefields. From there Jellicoe thought that Scheer could take one of two channels, either the Lister Deep to the east of the Amrum Bank or through a known gap in the British minefields and to the west of the bank. This would be Scheers shortest route: around a hundred miles. Jellicoe doubted that Scheer could get ahead of the Grand Fleet to make this route, but later that night he sent the minelayer Abdiel steaming off at 31 knots to lay mines, just in case, to cover the Horns Reef and the Amrum channel.3 Setting off at 22:15, she reduced speed fifteen miles from the lightship at Vyl where, as at the Horns Reef, the waters were heavily mined. Here she laid forty mines, ten to a mile on a southeast course and then another forty on a southwest course. This was in addition to the three submarines -E.50, E.26 and D.1 – that had already been positioned respectively four, twelve and twenty miles west of the lightship. By 02:00 on 1 June the task was completed. The third possibility was to go southwest to Ems and then east to Wilhelmshaven, again behind a British minefield. The last possibility was to head south to Heligoland and then to the Jade Bay behind Wilhelmshaven. In the end, Jellicoe chose to sail directly south to be in a position to intercept if the German fleet went for either the Ems or Heligoland entrances.

  The British fleet closes up for the night

  Sunset was at 20:00. By 21:00 it was night. A quarter of an hour after darkness fell, the Grand Fleet was closed up for night steaming. Jellicoe signalled the fleet, saying that he had no intentions for the night but gave no update on the fleet’s status or disposition.4

  Some officers criticised this lack of information, but one can imagine he did not want to give the Germans any leading information. In theory, the known positions of the German fleet elements (they were to the west) could have been valuable information for his forces, but his captains knew about as much as he did. Maybe more clarification of his own deployment would have been useful, as indeed some of his destroyer captains in the rear were so confused that the lack of information only added to the risks associated with a night action.* Jellicoe may have felt that it was ‘axiomatic’, as Nigel Steel and Peter Hart suggested, that if an enemy vessel was encountered it should be attacked, but the facts of the night action showed that many captains did not think this way.

  The battle fleet was divided into four parallel columns, each a mile apart; three were planned, but with Marlborough lagging back and barely managing 16 knots, it became four.5 As Marlborough could not keep up the pace, she and her three 6th Division companion ships steadily fell back behind the 5th. Again, Jellicoe probably should have risked sending Marlborough back out of the line, so as not to compromise the rest of his fleet. But it was a large risk and he would have had to further deplete his already stretched destroyer flotillas.

  At the westernmost flank were the eight battleships of the 2nd Battle Squadron headed by Vice Admiral Jerram. Next in line, to the east, was the 4th Battle Squadron led by Iron Duke, with his second-in-command, Vice Admiral Sturdee on Benbow. In the third line was the wounded Marlborough leading the 1st Battle Squadron under the command of Vice Admiral Sir Cecil Burney. The last line, Evan-Thomas’s 5th Battle Squadron, held the easternmost flank.

  As they pushed south they could see no light in the dark murk, except the screened lanterns directed astern of each ship, a barely visible guide for the next ship in line. The concentration on each ship was intense as visibility was extremely bad.† The fifty-eight destroyers attached to the fleet, under the overall command of Commodore Hawksley (who at the same time commanded the 11th Destroyer Flotilla) were placed by flotilla around five miles astern in five parallel columns. At 21:27 they started to move to their allocated areas.6 Their role would be to guard against the anticipated German torpedo attacks, keep German destroyers from attacking the rear of the British fleet, and safeguard against any German ships crossing the rear of the fleet and making for the Horns Reef. The protection of the rear of the fleet would turn out to be critical, as this was where the Germans would eventually probe and – one by one – cross over the lines of British destroyer groups disposed west to east.

  Ahead, and on the flanks, were the cruiser forces. To port of the head of the battle fleet was Le Mesurier’s 4th Light Cruiser Squadron (LCS), with Goodenough’s 2nd LCS on the western flank, near the end of the line, about six and a half miles from the starboard quarter of the King George V, then at the van of the battle line. Three cruiser groups went forward to join up with Beatty’s battle-cruisers ahead of the battleships: Rear Admiral H L Heath’s 2nd CS, the 1st LCS under Edwyn Alexander-Sinclair and Napier’s 3rd LCS.

  At 21:00 someone on Lion made a bad mistake. At the time she was about fifteen miles west-southwest of Iron Duke. In earlier fighting, the signals covering identification and challenge had been lost. Now she flashed Princess Royal: ‘SO [senior officer] BCF to Princess Royal. Please give me challenge and reply now in force as they [the signals] have been lost.’7 The original signal was seen by Castor (seven miles from Lion) and the reply by Manners. The Germans were even closer. The 2nd Squadron was only four miles away and ships of the 2nd Scouting Group, Elbing, Rostock and Frankfurt, saw the exchange and caught part of Princess Royal’s response. While they were able to find out only that the response to a challenge should begin with the letters ‘UA’, it was enough to cause some dangerous confusion later in the night.

  At 00:30 the van of Mauve’s pre-dreadnought squadrons, the 3rd and 4th Divisions, were able to see burning embers glowing red in the funnel smoke of the 2nd Cruiser Squadron, as well as a masthead light from Shannon. As the squadron joined the rear of Beatty’s battle-cruisers, it had inadvertently been left on.

  In front of Scheer now stood a twenty-three by eight mile armoured block. Jellicoe hoped that he could keep him contained as the German battle fleet moved southwards. ‘The night formation of the British fleet was like the mighty British lion – head, body and claws. The course was south, the speed was 17 knots, the general arrangement was roughly a reversed “L”, with the Germans caught within the angle.’8

  With the night formation laid out, Jellicoe signalled Iron Duke’s position as a reference point to the fleet. It was 21.45: ‘Latitude 56 degrees, 26 minutes north, longitude five degrees, 47 minutes east, course south, speed 17 knots’. It was a crucial signal that, if properly understood at the time of communication, would have avoided a lot of the later confusion. And after having deployed the fleet for the night, Jellicoe fell into a fitful sleep, fully clothed, on the bridge of his flagship.

  The German fleet night deployment

  As the darkness of the night fell, Scheer was in bad shape, even if his fleet was – in Jellicoe’s eyes at least – more skilled at the necessary tactics, and better equipped, for this stage of the battle. He had started it with 101 ships. Now he had ninety-five afloat, very few torpedoes left in the destroyer tubes and, after damage inflicted, his fleet had lost ‘between a fifth and a quarter of its fighting value’.9

  He had lost one battle-cruiser, the Lützow, one light cruiser, the Wiesbaden, and four destroyers from the line. Had this been the only damage, his situation would have been less serious; but of his four battle-cruisers still in company, only one was fit for action. Three of his dreadnoughts had sustained marked injuries, and six pre-dreadnoughts were a liability rather than an asset. He had only 17 effective capital ships to meet the enemy’s 33–38.10

  Unlike Jellicoe’s force dispersal, Scheers fleet was kept in a single ‘column-ahead’ formation steaming at 16 knots. At 21:10
he signalled: ‘Battle fleet’s course south, south-east by a ¼ east. The course is to be maintained. Speed 16 knots.’ The German word that he used was ‘durchhalten’ (to hold out to the end of something, or stay the course), which made it very clear that the formation and direction were to be maintained. Scheer also ordered airship reconnaissance off the Horns Reef. Both messages were intercepted by the Admiralty’s Room 40 but, with their significance to Jellicoe’s planning completely underrated, they languished in the corridors of the Admiralty for hours.

  Jellicoe looked forward to daylight; Scheer needed to avoid it. A daylight encounter with the Grand Fleet in his condition would be disastrous. If he failed to avoid the action, he would be annihilated; hence his decision to head for the Horns Reef gap – his closest safe port – and target of his air-reconnaissance request.

  Scheer redeployed. He put the slower dreadnoughts Westfalen, Nassau, Rheinland and Posen in the van. Friedrich der Große remained in the centre. Many of the König class were in bad shape: König herself had been hit ten times; Großer Kurfürst, Markgraf and Kaiser had received fifteen heavy shell hits between them. Wiesbaden, long ago left behind, was sinking. Four destroyers had been sunk.

  Trotha, Scheers chief of staff on Friedrich der Große, told of the palpable sense of tension on the German ships: ‘Not a word sounded, only whispers, no light was shown. Silent darkness! Tense attentiveness! Each sector of the dark horizon was searched with night glasses under the direction of an officer.’11 Despite the extreme fatigue that prolonged action brings, few could sleep. Each ship followed the dark silhouette of the next in line, the only light, as one officer described it, the ‘weak shimmering light of his stern lantern playing on the foam of the propeller wash’.