Jutland_The Unfinished Battle
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130 Although I should mention Anthony Lovell’s suggestion that the destruction of Navarin was not necessarily demonstrative of the tactic of sowing mines in the track of a pursuing enemy since the battle had ‘essentially run its course’ and that Navarin was ‘dead in the water’ when two Japanese destroyers sensed the opportunity, came in, laid mines and were responsible for her destruction when she eventually got underway (The Dreadnought Project private correspondence).
131 Jellicoe, Errors at Jutland, 1932, quoted in Dreyer, pp164–91.
132 The GFBOs (Grand Fleet Battle Orders) do not seem to elaborate on this critical point as neither do Beatty’s GFBIs (Grand Fleet Battle Instructions). Bacon’s listing was as follows: ‘This method of defeating torpedo attacks was used by: Admiral Jellicoe in the Battle of Jutland, Phase III, Admiral Beatty at the Dogger Bank action, again by him on the way out to Jutland, Admiral Sturdee during Phase 3 of Jutland, Vice-Admiral Evan-Thomas, Phase 1 Jutland, Admiral Burney at Jutland, Phase 3, Rear-Admiral Horace Hood Jutland Phase 2 and Admiral Hipper, Jutland Phase 1’ (Bacon, pp53–4; see also Dreyer, pp181–2).
133 BBC Radio, Britain at Sea – The Navy wins, Admiral Lord West, 2014.
134 Irving comes to a slightly different tally. ‘In all these attacks between 7.00 pm. and 7.45 pm., 28 torpedoes had been fired: 23 of them had been seen and avoided – spent at the end of their run; no ships of the Grand Fleet had been so much as grazed, yet the aim had been good, The Germans had lost one destroyer – the S.35 – and two (S.52 and S.36) – if not three more damaged by shellfire (Irving, pp172–3).
135 Charles Neate, HMS Valiant (see Defence Viewpoints, ‘Notes by Oliver Colvile, MP’).
136 Padfield, Maritime Dominion, p177.
137 Yates, p230, quoting Marder.
138 Brown, Torpedoes at Jutland, p24.
139 Kemp, p102.
140 Cruisers and Destroyers in the General Action, Naval War College, Newport RI June 1937.
141 Farquharson-Robert, p131.
142 Kemp, p102.
143 Kemp, p102.
144 Waldayer-Hartz, p221, quoting Corbett, Naval Operations, vol 3.
145 Macintyre, p140.
146 It is interesting to look more closely at Irving’s footnotes quoting from the Captain’s After Action reports: Marlborough: ‘The enemybattle fleet in sight was observed to turn 8 points until their sterns were toward our line’; Hercules: ‘They then withdrew’; St Vincent: ‘The enemy had turned 8 or 10 points away, disappearing into the mist away from us and broke off the action’; Temeraire: ‘Targetshowed her port side’; Royal Oak: ‘enemy turned away into the mist’; Benbow. ‘Enemy observed turning away to starboard’; Valiant: ‘enemy’s battle fleet now altered course together on opening fire then turned away until stern on, continued to come round to starboard and then disappeared’; Malaya: ‘Owing to the battle fleet’s having turned away.’ (Irving, p177).
147 Gibson and Harper, p206.
148 Ibid, p205.
149 Massie, p672.
150 How Jellicoe defined the role of destroyers in a battle action changed dramatically from when he was subordinate to Sir George Callaghan. ‘Unless conditions are very clearly favourable and enable our light-cruisers to deal effectively with the German destroyers, it is impressed upon all destroyer officers that their primary duty is to stop the German destroyers engaging them in close action before they can fire their torpedoes, and that a torpedo attack on the German battle fleet is secondary to a gun attack on their destroyers’ (Temple Patterson, TJP, vol 2, pp252–3). He had held an opinion which was closer to that of Beatty’s when he was with Callaghan, ie that destroyers should actively be used to spoil an attack on our fleet by actively seeking out opportunities to attack an enemy’s battle fleet. This is a policy Beatty followed at Jutland, but that Jellicoe did not. I am here of the opinion that Beatty’s was the better policy.
151 Bachrach, Jutland Letters, p14.
152 Dispatches, p466.
153 Just moments before, at 19:31 Jellicoe had ordered Castor, at the time to the north westward of Iron Duke, not to go ‘too near’ to the German battle fleet: ‘Tell Castor to come back. Destroyers recalled’ (Irving, p176).
154 Dispatches, Beatty to Jellicoe, Time of Dispatch 19:47, Time of Origin 19:50.
155 Gibson and Harper, p209.
156 Yates, p180.
157 See Groos, map 32; note that the German time used is Berlin summer time, ie two hours ahead of GMT.
158 Macintyre’s comment comes from Beatty’s report but should be looked at in addition to an earlier signal which just said that the bearing was northwest by west. The 19:45 signal added information to say the enemy ‘was on a course of about south-west’. This additional data reduced the confusion caused by Goodenoughs signal that he (Goodenough) had seen a group of ships detach at 18:15 and head on a northwest course (Macintyre, pp143–5).
159 Dispatches, p465, sent by WT via a wireless transmission from Princess Royal.
160 Brooks, Jutland: British Viewpoints, pp13–14; private correspondence.
161 Macintyre, p144.
162 The 1st and 3rd Light Cruiser Squadrons were ordered by Beatty at 19:50 to try to regain contact which had been lost five minutes earlier (Dispatches, 467, Time of Dispatch (TOD) 20:00).
163 The ships that Falmouth spotted were Stettin, München, Frauenlob, Stuttgart and Hamburg.
164 After the battle Jerram wrote to Jellicoe that he had ‘negatived the attack with Whitehead torpedoes ordered by Caroline as I was certain the vessels seen on our starboard beam were our own battle-cruisers. The Navigating Officer of my Flagship, who had just come from the battle-cruiser Fleet, was also certain that they were ours and saw them sufficiently clearly to give their approximate course which I reported to you.’ (Power at Sea: The Age of Navalism 1890–1918, Lisle A Rose). Jerram signalled Jellicoe at the time, ‘Our battlecruisers in sight bearing 280 degrees, steering 210 degrees.’ (Jutland. Death in Grey Wastes, Steel and Hart)
165 Caroline was also the target of a torpedo attack according to one crew member, L S Smith, ‘The huns sent three torpedoes at the “Carrie” but missed’. He maintained that Caroline fired two torpedoes at the enemy ships in the evening ‘one of which took effect’.
166 Macintyre, p151.
10 David and Goliath: Scheer’s Escape
1 Stern, p56. Jellicoe ‘hoped there would be no accidental encounters with friendly forces’.
2 Massie, p636.
3 Steel and Hart, p285, suggests that Abdiel was ordered forward at 21:32.
4 The night deployment order to the Grand Fleet was made executive at 21:17: ‘Assume 2nd Organisation’.
5 By this point Warspite had already returned to port. Eventually, at 22:03 the three battleships of the 5th BS turned back to cover Marlborough which was labouring to keep station. Inside, her stokers were working under increasingly difficult conditions, most knee-deep in water. When Jellicoe finally ordered her out of the line, Fearless came alongside to take Vice Admiral Sir Cecil Burney off and transfer him to Revenge. Then Revenge, Hercules and Agincourt stayed with Marlborough, as did the remaining Queen Elizabeths of the 5th BS.
6 Hawksley flew his flag on Castor, but only had four of the 11th Flotilla with him; the remainder were commanded from Kempenfelt as the divisional flotilla leader.
7 Irving quoted Lions log which read ‘Challenge and reply passed as requested’. The incident was played down as much as possible: the Admiralty said the visual message was made with a flashlight. Massie points out that neither Groos in the official German history nor Corbett in the official British history even mention the incident, while Tarrant (Battlecruiser Invincible, p103) suggests that the recognition signals were discovered by the German navy from intercepted wireless traffic and lists the WT messages in Jutland: The German Perspective in the Signals Appendix. However, Castor maintained that a searchlight was actually used (Irving, p205). If this were the case it would be an extremely strong light for a 5
00yd gap. Yates (pp190-l) outlined how the event itself might have happened, highlighting the traffic from Elbing and Frankfurt (Yates, p286).
8 Gibson and Harper, p216.
9 Ibid, p218.
10 Ibid, p217.
11 Admiral von Trotha, Steel and Hart, p289.
12 Steel and Hart, p288, quoting Hase, SMS Derfflinger, 1st Scouting Group.
13 Tarrant, Jutland: The German Perspective, p183.
14 Scheer, p159.
15 Bacon, Scandal, p129.
16 James, p119; for an overview see pp118–20.
17 Room 40 had done their work and passed the first message to Vice Admiral Oliver at 19:40, but the signal was not forwarded to Jellicoe on Iron Duke for another hour and twenty-five minutes. Similarly, the instructions for the U-boats to advance north and for further destroyer actions (Michelsen’s orders to the Horns Reefs rendezvous) were available, respectively, at 20:40 and 20:31, but were not sent to Jellicoe. The failure to pass on intelligence in a timely manner partially resulted from the fear of betraying the success of the decryption operations, but it meant that intelligence that would have put Jellicoe where he wanted to be for a successful morning engagement was withheld (Yates, p198). For a general overview of Room 40 operations and Jutland see Beesly, pp160–1. Beesly unequivocally steers the blame entirely away from Room 40 (Beesly, p160, ‘These signals were all in the Operations Division within three-quarters of an hour of their being made. But none of them was passed on to Jellicoe.’).
18 Gough, Dreadnought, p276.
19 Tarrant, Jutland: The German Perspective, p209.
20 Tarrant, Jutland: The German Perspective, p210; also see Massie, pp641–2. On another occasion: ‘Of course, if the Admiralty had given me this information, I should have altered in that direction during the night’.
21 Macintyre, p163.
22 Elbing had fallen out of station with engine trouble and later joined the 4th Scouting Group on the starboard bow.
23 Steel and Hart, p397.
24 ‘Destroyers take stations five miles astern of battle fleet’ (22:15), logged as dispatched from Iron Duke at 21:27 (Irving, p207). Admiral Scheer and the official German naval history deny Scheer ever received this signal, a claim that Sir Julian Corbett felt was ‘entirely improbable’. Diplomatically, however, in the 1940 revision of the British official history he maintained that while the message must have reached the flagship (Friedrich der Größe) it may not have been seen by Scheer himself.
25 Koever, Hans Joachim, Room 40: German Naval Warfare 1914–1918, vol II, The Fleet in Being (LIS Reinisch 2009); see appendix pp661–5 for a copy of TNA, PRO HW 7/1.
26 Jason Hines, ‘Sins of Omission and Commission: A Reassessment of the Role of Intelligence in the Battle of Jutland’, Journal of Military History 72 (October 2008). Sources: ‘Records of messages at Jutland’, PRO ADM 137/4710, TNA, Transcript list of key German signals intercepted during Battle of Jutland, included as an appendix to Clark and Birch, A Contribution to the History of German Naval Warfare 1914–1918, vol 1, pp1–3, PRO HW 7/1, TNA.
27 Hines, p1151. Like Tarrant, the author cites the meeting times to have been 04:00. The time would have been late for the first arrivals.
28 Beesly, p162.
29 Ibid, p168.
30 Yates, p198.
31 Tarrant maintains that the flotillas had been running so fast during the day that ‘their fires were dirty and their stokers exhausted’ (Tarrant, Jutland: The German Perspective, p185), while Groos (p159) says that ‘in order, however, to get the fires of these coal-burning destroyers in condition for smokeless steaming preparatory to night operations, after their slacking as a result of the daylight attacks, Koch was forced to keep the speed below 18 to 21 knots in steaming up to position at the head of the battleship column. Even at 15 knots these boats were easily visible on account of the sparks and smoke from the stacks’.
32 Tarrant, p192. Groos (p165) puts the time of launch at 21:58.
33 Campbell, p279.
34 Groos, p165. He puts the time of signal at 22:02.
35 Tarrant, p192.
36 Hamburg had her radio antenna destroyed and the crew of no. 3 gun had been ‘severely wounded’.
37 Steel and Hart, p298, quoting Leutnant Heinrich Bassenge, SMS Elbing, 2nd Scouting Group, HSR Groos (p166) states that the ships that had opened fire were Hamburg and Elbing.
38 Taffrail mentions that this could have been as close as 1,500yds (p392); Corbett puts it around 2,000yds.
39 Official Dispatches, Report of HMS Castor.
40 Steel and Hart, p299.
41 The squadron was composed of HM Ships Southampton, Nottingham, Birmingham and Dublin.
42 Steel and Hart, p300, Lieutenant Stephen King-Hall, HMS Southampton, 2nd LCS.
43 Irving, p202.
44 Etienne (King-Hall), p149.
45 Steel and Hart, p303, Machinist Max Müller, SMS Frauenlob, IV SG.
46 Ibid, p302.
47 Taffrail’s summary of the casualties is different. Frauenlob – 342 officers and men lost, Stettin – thirty-six killed and wounded, München – twenty-six killed and wounded, Hamburg – thirty-nine killed and wounded. He also noted that some of these casualties ‘may have been inflicted earlier in the day’ (sources: Taffrail, p158; Tarrant, p194, quoting Groos, Der Krieg in der Nordsee).
48 Campbell, p281, says there were nine survivors after she capsized.
49 Brown, Torpedoes at Jutland, p26.
50 Taffrail, p158.
51 King-Hall, p153 (Etienne).
52 Tipperary was followed by Spitfire, Sparrowhawk, Garland, Contest, Broke (the divisional leader), Achates, Ambuscade, Ardent, Fortune, Porpoise and Unity.
53 S.13-class destroyers each carried two 88mm (3.5in) guns and four 500mm (19.6in) tubes and each displaced 568 tons. Campbell (p285) quotes Groos saying that the 11th DF ‘was probably following the German fleet in mistake for the British, and it would seem that it passed astern of the German line at about the time that the leading battleships became engaged with the 4th Flotilla’. As a flotilla the 11th still had considerable torpedo resources – fifty-seven (while the 4th had around twenty-four).
54 Stern, p62.
55 Westfalen was firing at ranges, Groos reports (p171), of ‘between 1,800 and 1,400 metres’ (Tarrant, Jutland: The German Perspective, p198).
56 Groos, p172.
57 Stern, p65.
58 Tarrant maintains that ‘thirty feet’ was sliced off, not five (Tarrant, p201).
59 Steel and Hart, p373, quoting Telegraphist J J R Croad, HMS Broke, 4th Flotilla.
60 Tarrant, Jutland: The German Perspective, p201
61 Ibid, p200.
62 Taffrail, p160.
63 Ibid, p160.
64 WO Phillip White, HMS Spitfire, as recounted by his grandson.
65 Fawcett and Hooper, p322.
66 Rupert Berger was born in 1896 and was only sixteen and a half when he joined the Navy in 1912. After the war he was involved in the CSU (Christliche Soziale Union) and was even briefly imprisoned in Dachau for his opposition to the Nazis. After the Second World War, Berger became involved in politics, becoming the mayor of Traunstein and then serving twice as a parliamentary deputy for Munich.
67 See Marinekameradschaft Salzburg newsletter, Das Bullauge April/May 2012 edition for accounts of Berger, Schlager and Thomas on SMS Nassau.
68 Heinz Bonatz’s account can be found in Nigel Steel and Peter Hart’s Jutland 1916: Death in the Grey Wastes. Part of the stories of Rupert Berger, Otto Thomas and Sepp Schlager can be found online in the newsletter of the Salzburg Navy Veterans (Das Bullauge, April-May 2012), an account written by Fritz Lahner.
69 Steel and Hart, pp315–16, Cadet Hans Bonatz, SMS Nassau, 2nd Division, 1st Battle Squadron (on duty on the port 5.9in battery).
70 Trelawny’s and Bush’s accounts were written up in the Strand Magazine, April 1928, and in the Official Dispatches. See also ‘Sequel to Jutland’, Evening Post (Wellin
gton, New Zealand), vol cvi, issue 7, 10 July 1928.
71 Stern (pp63–4) writes that Spitfire was doing at least 27 knots. Groos (p172) said that ‘The two vessels struck with a speed of twenty metres per second’ (ie 38 knots). If, however, one takes Spitfire’s probable speed of 27 knots and adds the average speed of the German battle fleet during the night (16 knots) one arrives at a closing rate of 43 knots, around 79km – 49 miles – an hour.
72 Scheer, p162.
73 Alan Bush, Athelstan Bush’s grandson, with whom I made contact through the Imperial War Museum’s wonderful story-sharing platform, sent me a photo from his collection.
74 ‘On the Spitfire at Jutland’, April 1928 issue of the Strand Magazine (vol 75, pp335–42); Trelawny: ‘I may mention that this souvenir was later on dispatched to the USA in connection with a propaganda campaign, and there perhaps it still is. I have never been able to trace it.’
75 Groos, p172.
76 ‘A Narrow Escape: Spitfire’s Adventure’.
77 ‘A Narrow Escape: Spitfire’s Adventure’ (Wellington), Evening Post, vol cvi, issue 7,10 July 1928, p14.
78 Tarrant, Jutland: The German Perspective, p203.
79 Taffrail, p162. Taffrail thought that the damaged ship was either Derfflinger or Seydlitz, but a footnote corrected the identification to that of Black Prince.
80 Massie, p647.
81 Tarrant, p203; Ostfriesland at 00:07, Nassau at 00:15, and Friedrich der Größe at 00:14.
82 Ibid, p203.
83 Along with Kapitän zur See Wilhelm Höpfner, Kapitänleutnant Rabius, the secondary armament fire control officer, the second searchlight officer, the signals officer and four men, and wounding three other officers and nine men, including the helmsman and the officer of the watch (Tarrant, Jutland: The German Perspective, p203).
84 Steel and Hart, p323, quoting Fritz Otto Busch.