Jutland_The Unfinished Battle

by Nicholas Jellicoe

  4 Petard should have taken station behind Pelican and Narborough, but as a result of Nottingham’s actions decided to make the run with Nerissa, Turbulent and Termagant instead.

  5 He had exchanged her position in the group with Nicator.

  6 Turbulent, Termagant, Moorsom and Morris were part of the 10th Flotilla.

  7 Taffrail, p130.

  8 Hase is quoted in The Narrative, p19.

  9 Some versions say it was two from Nestor, one from Nicator.

  10 Fawcett and Hooper, diagram p54, outlining 13th Flotilla attack; also p345, Official Dispatches.

  11 Macintyre, p100. Although Taffrail had a slightly different take on this show of initiative. ‘From the German Commander-in-Chief’s dispatch we now know that this was launched to relieve the pressure on the Lützow, Derfflinger, Seydlitz, Moltke and von der Tann which were suffering severely from the accurate fire from the 5th Battle Squadron’, see pp129–30.

  12 Official Dispatches, p347; Taffrail, p133.

  13 Official Dispatches, pp231–2, Petard, commanded by Lieutenant Commander ECO Thompson.

  14 Obdurate had been about 1,000yds off Lion when the signal to attack had been given and was unable to join the rest of the flotilla. Petard had been behind Pelican and Narborough and, because Nottingham had cut across, had been cut off as well.

  15 No mention of Petard’s rescue was made in the relevant Queen Mary dispatch where only the actions of Laurel were included.

  16 Steel and Hart, p120, quoting Sub Lieutenant Harry Oram, HMS Obdurate, 13th Flotilla.

  17 Signal 16:12, Onslow to Engadine.

  18 Official Dispatches, p238. Alison wrote that ‘it did not justify further expenditure in view of the night work expected to follow’.

  19 Official Dispatches, pp238–9.

  20 Kemp, p152.

  21 Time of fire given as 17:08 for secondary and 17:12 for main armament (Dispatches, p239).

  22 Official Dispatches, p239.

  23 Steel and Hart, pp152–3, Sub Lieutenant Anthony de Salis, 13th Destroyer Flotilla.

  24 Dispatches, p237.

  25 SMS Seydlitz at Jutland (Egidy).

  26 Brown, p25.

  27 Kemp, p79.

  9 The Deployment

  1 Macintyre, p113.

  2 Source: North Sea Pilot (courtesy of Rear Admiral James Goldrick who has had operational experience on the North Sea).

  3 Hawkins, p154

  4 John Travers ‘Jack’ Cornwell became the third youngest recipient of the Victoria Cross in the First World War. He was born on 8 January 1900 at Leyton in Essex. His father, Eli, had spent many years in the Army Medical Corps and then had various jobs that included a tram driver, a milkman and a hospital worker. He had a large family. His first marriage to Alice Carpenter brought two children, the second to Lily (nee King) gave him another three sons and another daughter. Jack was a quiet but conscientious boy and, after leaving school aged only fourteen, worked as a delivery boy on a Brooke Bond tea van. He joined the Scouts (the 11th East Hall Scout Troop) in which he excelled. When war broke out Jack (as he was known to the family) tried to enlist. Even with the glowing references he had received, he was refused because he was too young. The next year, on 27 July 1915, he was finally able to join up and went to Keynsham Naval Barracks, Devonport. After ten months of training he joined HMS Chester for the final twenty-nine days as Boy Seaman 2nd Class (no. J/42563). After joining Chester in Rosyth in April, he was assigned duty at the forward 5.5in gun where he was mortally wounded in the chase north before Invincible was blown up.

  5 Snelling, p138.

  6 Cornwell’s case was raised in Parliament by Admiral Lord Charles Beresford, his body exhumed and then given a public funeral in Manor Park on 29 July 1916. Very quickly Cornwell’s face became a symbol for the British national war effort. Cornwell’s brother, Ernest, stood in as a model for a painting of him standing at his position, steady by his gun. A memorial plaque was erected at Jack’s old Walton Street school and 30 September 1916 was recognised as Jack Cornwell Day. Lord Baden-Powell built up Cornwell’s position as a role model in the Scout movement. Memorial Homes for Sailors were built in Hornchurch and opened by Admiral Jellicoe in 1929, but the plaque honouring Cornwell that stood opposite was stolen in 2012. The Cayzer family had agreed to pay for a new plaque. Unfortunately, I was never able to find the right people locally though I looked far and wide and was helped considerably by the Boy Scout Association, The end of the story was as sad as Jack’s death. Eli died of a bronchial infection at the end of 1916 and is buried beside Jack’s body at the Manor Park Cemetery. Arthur Cornwell, his eldest stepbrother, was killed in France. Almost without any money, Lily had to move out of her home and moved to Stepney. She died in 1919, aged only forty-eight. After her death, the family split up; Alice, his half-sister, went to Canada, where George and Ernest later joined her.

  7 Taffrail, p146.

  8 Yates, p159.

  9 Hayward, p121.

  10 Massie, p615, quoting Gibson and Harper.

  11 Yates, p160.

  12 An archaeological dive that was made on the Defence in 2003 by Dr Innes McCartney, however, found that the wreck was almost intact, suggesting that she did not blow up but, in fact, that something else had happened. What the divers said was that they ‘saw an enormous ship which is largely in one piece, the turret roofs blown off suggesting a blast in the passage-way’. I was lucky enough to go with Innes when he went back with Gert Normann Andersen at the end of April 2015. Gert had kindly invited me to join Innes and his crew on his cable-laying ship the L/S Vina on an eight-day expedition to look at the wrecks of Jutland. We had considerably better fortune than the Royal Navy’s HMS Echo which was not only delayed right at the start by a Force 8 gale, but also unable to find some of the critical wrecks, like the Wiesbaden or the Rostock. We were lucky enough to see both. We looked again at the Defence but starting from the opposite end from the one on which he had originally dived. He commented that there had been quite a significant amount of degradation. But what was extraordinary for me was that, at one point, I was able to see the fully extended torpedo launch rail in the hull.

  13 Harper suggested that Wiesbaden was probably being hit by German fire as well, before also having been torpedoed by Onslow. Iron Duke herself fired on her around 18:23 (Harper, The Truth, p86).

  14 Oberheizer Zenne was later picked up by a Norwegian steamer, Willy. It was his testimony that corrected British assumptions that Wiesbaden had gone down at around 18:45. He had had enough time to make a thorough inspection of the ship, bow to stern, and said that it must have been closer to around 03:00 on 1 June. On 12 June his detailed report was presented to the Admiralty Chief of Staff.

  15 Wolz, Lange Wart, p129.

  16 Gibson and Harper, p163.

  17 Beatty Papers, vol 2, p443. Beatty’s reaction to Harper’s point was that ‘errors in dead reckoning were unavoidable, and also that there were errors by cipherers and operators, which, by inference, were avoidable, which was unjust’.

  18 On Hercules, the moment was estimated by the Russian observer at 17:55, saying that ‘every face was radiant with enthusiasm and delight’, Gordon, p433; Massie, p609. At 16:51 Jellicoe informed the admiralty: ‘Fleet Action imminent’.

  19 Gordon, p433, quoting Roger Kirk Dickson, Acc 13S09/13586 (NLS). The quote is handled slightly differently.

  20 Gordon, p433.

  21 Bacon, p152, quoting Filson Young.

  22 Ranft, TBP, vol 1, p319; Jellicoe to Beatty, Iron Duke 4 June 1916, Beatty Papers, vol 1, BTY/13/22/13.

  23 McLaughlin, p130.

  24 Brooks, p258.

  25 Bacon, Scandal, p83, diagram 28.

  26 See p175, ‘Comparative Allocation of Broadside Weight at the Deployment 1914–1916’.

  27 Massie, p613, quoting Sir Reginald Corbett.

  28 Ibid, p613, quoting Prof Arthur Marder.

  29 Gordon, p441.

  30 Padfield, The Battleship Era, p230.

&n
bsp; 31 Gibson and Harper, p173.

  32 Letter, Commander Frank Marten, HMS Galatea, Dorset County Library records.

  33 Wallace, p243.

  34 King-Hall, p140.

  35 Yates, p159.

  36 Thompson, p308, quoting Lieutenant Briand, HMS Malaya.

  37 Bacon, p151.

  38 Fawcett and Hooper, p134.

  39 Thompson, p309, quoting Lieutenant Bowyer-Smith, HMS Marlborough.

  40 HMS Bellerophon was fondly known to those who sailed on her as ‘Billy Ruffian’.

  41 Gordon gives a fascinating account of the court martial explaining the ambiguity of the existing signals, at the time of the sinking of Victoria by Camperdown (Gordon, pp264–74).

  42 Gordon, pp435–7, discussion on the complexities of the deployment.

  43 Yates quotes this exchange from the 14 July meeting of the Board of the Admiralty, The discussion started when the conversation turned to Hercules getting straddled during the deployment (Yates, p264).

  44 Bradford, p88, quoting King George VI.

  45 Massie, p621, quoting Scheers flag lieutenant, Ernst von Weizsäcker.

  46 Wallace, pp254–61.

  47 Wallace, p258.

  48 Fawcett and Hooper, p149.

  49 Imperial War Museum, online exhibition.

  50 See ‘Allocation of Broadside Weight’ on p175.

  51 Campbell, p155. ‘The range finders could not get a range initially, and an estimated 10,000 yards was used and later 13,000 yards’.

  52 Harper, The Truth, p86.

  53 Behncke was hospitalised when the fleet got back to Kiel where the Kaiser visited him.

  54 Brown and Meehan, p99.

  55 Marder, FTDTSF, vol 3, p102. ‘His first information of the British Battle fleet was the flash of its guns to the northward’.

  56 Groos, p105. The 1926 Admiralty version translated by Lieutenant Commander W T Bagot put it very similarly. ‘Ahead of the German column extending from northeast to northwest, nothing could be seen but the flash of gunfire from an unbroken line of enemy ships, while all around us, salvo after salvo struck in the immediate vicinity. The situation appeared all the more grave, as the fire could not be effectively returned since none of the British capital ships were distinguishable in the smoke of battle’.

  57 On the site, Jutland1916.com, are some examples of Bergen’s paintings.

  58 Harper, The Truth, pp89–90. The quote is not from Bacon.

  59 St Vincent herself, one of the last dreadnoughts in the line, engaged the third German ship in the line according to The Dreadnought Project. Her captain, William Fisher: ‘The German ships opened fire with quick ripples almost simultaneously with St Vincent’s first broadside which was directed against their third ship considered to be a Kaiser [class], The third ship was chosen as there were many ships ahead of St Vincent who could attack the two leading ships. And this was clearly done, all ships being continuously surrounded by splashes’. The Dreadnought Project, on which lama contributing editor, is a valuable web resource for dreadnought-related information.

  60 Tarrant, Battle-cruiser Invincible, p103, quoting Captain Kennedy of HMS Indomitable.

  61 Those who survived were William Griffin, Stoker Petty Officer Charles Filleul, Charles Howell, and Ordinary Seamen Charles Hope, Charles Smith and Thomas W Swann.

  62 After the war ended, Margaret Jones took her daughter, Linnette, to see the memorial at Fiskebackskil. Later in the 1960s the grave was moved to Kvivborg Cemetery in Gothenburg.

  63 The flag gave the signal: ‘Am in danger of sinking of injuries received in action’.

  64 Taffrail, p152.

  65 Ibid, p152.

  66 Kemp, p88.

  67 Invincible’s fire on Lützow caused her serious damage: the damage that later proved fatal to Lützow was from five hits from Invincible (nos. 12, 13, 14, 15 and 16) in conjunction with damage from two earlier hits from Princess Royal (no. 3 and 4) but either way the fatal damage arose from 12 and 13.5in projectiles (source: Great War Forum).

  68 Source Records of the Great War, vol IV, ed Charles F Horne (National Alumni, 1923).

  69 Gibson and Harper, pp 180–1.

  70 Massie, p618.

  71 Massie, p618.

  72 Tarrant, Battle-cruiser Invincible, p107.

  73 Ibid. Tarrant puts the time at 18:34.

  74 Gordon, p455, quoting Roger Kirk Dickson, Acc 13509/13589 (NLS).

  75 Arthur, p52, quoting Midshipman Brian de Courcy-Ireland, HMS Bellerophon.

  76 James William Fisher, p68.

  77 Official Dispatches, p79, also reports Oak standing by.

  78 Massie, p618.

  79 Dannreuther, a godson of Richard Wagner, and his father Edward had founded the London Wagner Society in 1872. His son lived to a hundred years later and only died in 1977.

  80 Scheer, pp151–2.

  81 After the battle, yearning for a real engagement in which he could prove his mettle, the young prince wrote back home: ‘life is going on as usual, very dull and monotonous … the action seems years ago and we are longing for another one’ (Bradford, p91).

  82 Thompson, p310, quoting Midshipman Hext on HMS Collingwood.

  83 Anthony Lovell (DreadnoughtProject.com) describes the German signalling for the manoeuvre: ‘The German turn-around was effected by a single flag which was green in the upper right half and white in the lower left half … A flag entirely red would have done the same turn, but to port rather than starboard, The flag being hauled down indicated the lead ship was putting her helm over that moment and that all ships were to turn together. Had the compass course signal been hung beneath either flag, it would have been the heading for the turn rather than the 16 point turn implied by there being no such compass course signal below’. Barnett, p160, maintains that the manoeuvre was ‘unknown to the British fleet’. This does not seem to be the case, more that because of the additional cable’s length between the German ships, such a manoeuvre was more likely to be executed without mishap or collision, but it also meant that the line became significantly more extended.

  84 German ships used a mixture of chemical- and oil-based fires for laying smokescreens. Mostly destroyers employed oil fuel smoke while artificial fog could be created using a mixture of chlorosulphuric acid and sulphur trioxide (Campbell, p204).

  85 For a very readable description of this phase, see Yates, pp166–7.

  86 Yates, p167.

  87 The number launched was put at six (Harper, The Truth, p92).

  88 Barnett, The Swordbearers, p161.

  89 Bacon, Scandal, p114.

  90 Ibid, p163.

  91 Ibid, pp115–16, see explanatory diagrams 34 and 35.

  92 Brown, Torpedoes at Jutland, p25.

  93 Wallace, pp244–5.

  94 Goldrick, Before Jutland, p25.

  95 Ranft, TBP, vol 2, pp433–7.

  96 Ernie Chatfield, who was on the bridge, later said that he handed over the conn to Beatty’s chief of staff, Captain Rudolf Bentinck. In itself this was odd as technically – apparently – the helm should have been handed over to Strutt (Admiral Chalmers memo to Roskill MSS, quoted in Marder and cited by Gordon, p457).

  97 Gordon, p457.

  98 Gordon, p457.

  99 Massie quoted Scheers later defiant comment after the battle: ‘So gehe Ich hier nicht weg!’ (I will not leave here in this manner). (Massie, p625; Marder, pill; quoted by Commander Friedrich Forstmeier, ‘Zum Bild der Personalichkeit des Admirals Rheinhard Scheer 1863–1928’, Marine-Rundschau, April 1963).

  100 Massie, p625, quoting Scheer.

  101 Massie, p625; also Marder, FTDTSF, vol 3, pp 110–11. See footnotes quoting Ernst von Weizsäcker, Scheers flag lieutenant.

  102 Yates, p171.

  103 Source Records of the Great War, vol IV, ed Charles F Horne (National Alumni, 1923).

  104 Massie, p619, quoting Erich Raeder, Scheers chief of staff.

  105 Tarrant described the bravery of Von der Tann in the following way: ‘Zenke
r, Von der Tann’s commanding officer, decided to remain with the squadron so that the enemy, having to take his ship into account, would not be able to concentrate his fire against the other battlecruisers. A steady course requisite for accurate shooting, Zenker was able to manoeuvre Von der Tann in such a manner as to avoid enemy salvos’, Tarrant, Jutland: The German Perspective, p107.

  106 Macintyre, p136.

  107 Bacon, Scandal, p116.

  108 Yates, p172.

  109 Yates, pp166–7.

  110 Irving, p163, quoting Hase.

  111 Barnett, p165.

  112 Massie, p627.

  113 Irving, pp160-l.

  114 Scheer, p156.

  115 Temple Patterson, Jellicoe, p233.

  116 Ibid, p236.

  117 Temple Patterson, Jellicoe, p233; Winton p284.

  118 Tarrant, p165.

  119 Brown, p25.

  120 Irving, p165.

  121 Frost, p368.

  122 Dispatches, p54.

  123 Frost, p375.

  124 Ibid, p372.

  125 Irving, p171.

  126 Groos (p133) says that this was G.68 but it could not have been. G.88 was part of the 3rd Flotilla. It was probably a transcription error in the ONI copy that I have used.

  127 See the ships database on Jutland1916.com for complete details of each of the destroyer types.

  128 Bacon, Scandal, p53.

  129 Jellicoe’s letter to Secretary of the Admiralty dated 30 October 1914 cites why he said that he would not be drawn into pursuit of a withdrawing fleet. ‘If, for instance, the enemy battle fleet were to turn away from an advancing fleet, I should assume that the intention was to lead us over mines and submarines, and should decline to be so drawn … I feel that these tactics, if not understood, may bring odium upon me. but so long as I have the confidence of their Lordships I intend to pursue, what is, in my opinion, the proper course to defeat and annihilate the enemy’s battle fleet, without regard to unrestricted opinion and criticism’. The decision to turn away was also based on presenting a smaller profile and outrunning the enemy’s torpedoes (cited in Temple Patterson, The Jellicoe Papers, vol 1, pp75–6. Jellicoe put a copy of the letter in his bank as he was convinced that he had to do the right thing. Odium was, indeed, poured upon him). Jellicoe – as it turned out mistakenly – was convinced that all German torpedo boats and destroyers carried mines. Temple Patterson says that at Jutland only twenty-five did (Temple Patterson, Jellicoe, footnotes p66).