Warspite

by Iain Ballantyne

  Casualties of High Expectations

  The railwaymen lining the Forth Bridge hurled coal to express their disgust at the battleship limping in below them apparently battered, bruised and defeated.

  The super dreadnought’s superstructure was pocked with shell holes, her upper decks a shambles, littered with charred lifebelts and shattered cutters. Benches and tables had been pulled up from the mess decks ready to be thrown overboard for the crew to cling onto if she went down.

  The railwaymen shouted abuse at HMS Warspite’s crew. ‘You ran away you bloody cowards,’ shouted one, according to Midshipman Bill Fell.1

  With the sorely damaged battleship coming alongside at Rosyth Dockyard other workers got their chance to show their anger too. Midshipman Fell recalled:

  We were received at Rosyth with very, very great disapproval by the local people. They were all in mourning black hats and black arm-bands. They all felt the Grand Fleet had suffered complete defeat and that some ships, like the Warspite, had run away.’2

  Warspite’s crew were stunned by this reception, for, far from having fled from the enemy, they had fought with great bravery despite being hit time after time by heavy shells. Ordered home to Rosyth, because there was every danger she might sink, the Warspite had shown her defiance by almost ramming a U-boat on the way back. Behind her in the North Sea, the Royal Navy had chased the German fleet back to its bases where it would largely skulk for the rest of the war. But, in those vital first hours after the battle, the British public’s perception of the titanic clash which had just taken place was of an overwhelming victory for the enemy.

  In Whitehall, faced with a German tactical score sheet which included three British battlecruisers blown apart, obscuring the true strategic state of play, the Government of the day was frozen with fear, unable to decide what to do. It did nothing. While the British politicians remained mute, Germany’s propagandists seized the initiative immediately, releasing triumphant accounts of their High Sea Fleet’s success to the newspapers of neutral nations. And so across America, Greece, Holland and South America, via a carefully orchestrated campaign of media hype, the Battle of Jutland was initially perceived as a humiliating defeat for the Royal Navy. Britannia ruled the waves no more and the message had swiftly been picked up in Britain.

  The Forth Bridge was the gateway to the Rosyth Naval Base, from where Warspite sailed for action at Jutland. This photograph was taken from Warspite’s upper deck as she arrived at Rosyth in May 1916. On her return from Jutland railway workers working on the bridge would pelt the battleship with lumps of coal. Franklin Collection.

  By 1 June 1916, when the Warspite sailed back under the Forth Bridge, the British public were convinced their Navy had well and truly flunked what should have been its finest hour. The huge investment of treasure and blood, sweat and tears in building a magnificent fleet appeared to have been in vain. National pride had apparently received a shameful blow and thousands of British sailors had died. People asked themselves how it could possibly have come to this. They had been led to believe the British Grand Fleet was more than a match for the German High Sea Fleet. An inability to catch up with the British dreadnought building capacity had seemed to leave the Germans incapable of defeating the Royal Navy in a fleet action. Everyone else lay even further behind. Battleship construction competition between France, Turkey, Austria and Italy in the Mediterranean and between Russia and Japan in the Far East, seemed irrelevant, such was the Royal Navy’s apparent superiority. Meanwhile the Americans stood back from it all and quietly built the foundations of a powerful navy that was, by the middle of the twentieth century, to eclipse all others.

  At the outbreak of war in August 1914, the Royal Navy’s operational dreadnought fleet consisted of twenty vessels. The King George V Class battleship Audacious was sunk on Loch Swilly in October 1914 by a mine laid by a U-boat and many of her rescued crew ended up drafted to the Warspite.

  HMS Benbow and HMS Emperor of India, the remaining ships of the Iron Duke Class, were completed in November 1914. By the beginning of 1915 the Royal Navy had twenty-four dreadnoughts in service to the Germans’ seventeen. The British also had nine battlecruisers while their opponents had just five. The most powerful additions to the British fleet at this point were HMS Queen Elizabeth and HMS Warspite. In reply to the Queen Elizabeth ships, the Germans had laid down just two Bayern Class battleships carrying 15-inch guns, in 1913 and 1914. But Bayern would not be completed until 1916 followed by Baden in 1917 - too late to contribute to the clash of battle fleets.

  The presence of the 15-inch guns of Warspite and her sisters at Jutland was to prove an important factor in preventing the Germans from achieving in reality the crushing victory claimed by the Kaiser’s propaganda machine.

  Commissioned in early March 1915, Warspite’s first full crew went aboard a few weeks later. She immediately felt right to her sailors, as one of her 15-inch gunners recalled:

  I immediately felt that I would be at home and happy. This happened to be so throughout the time I served in her. She was commanded by Captain Phillpotts and we were in good hands being commanded by such a gallant gentleman.

  Members of Warspite’s crew watch another Queen Elizabeth Class battleship prove Churchill’s gamble on 15-inch guns was a success, during gunnery exercises off Scapa in 1915. Franklin Collection.

  The ship’s 15-inch guns were a much bigger armament than any other battleship had carried before. It was something new and at the same time something strange. The ship herself soon proved everything that was expected of her, having been built in Plymouth and starting from Plymouth with a West Country Captain.3

  During acceptance trials that August in the Irish Sea, while on the way to Scapa Flow to join the Grand Fleet, Warspite proved herself fast. In a ninety minute sprint the Spite maintained 24.5 knots, showing she would be able to catch up with, or out-distance, German battleships only able to do twenty-two knots maximum. In initial trials her guns demonstrated superb hitting power, well capable of inflicting fatal blows on enemy vessels while still beyond the range of their smaller calibre guns. The gunnery trials were successfully completed off Scapa over three days in August 1915, with accuracy superior to the 13.5-inch guns of other British dreadnoughts emphatically demonstrated.

  Weighing 1,950 lbs, the velocity of the 15-inch shell was 2,655 feet per second, compared with 2,700 feet per second for the (1,250lbs) 13.5-inch shell. Despite the slightly lower velocity the heavier weight of the 15-inch shell gave it a bigger punch. It was also able to retain its accuracy at ranges over 15,000 yards whereas smaller calibre shells could not. Geoffrey Penn4 explains that the combined weight of a Queen Elizabeth Class broadside was 15,600 lbs whereas the German Kronprinz, completed in February 1915, had ten 12-inch guns which could manage barely more than half that impact. It could be said Winston Churchill’s super dreadnought gamble showed every sign of paying off. Churchill wrote that the first time he witnessed the new 15-inch fired he felt ‘delivered from a great peril.’5

  Despite her design concept appearing to be a proven success, inspiring foreboding in the German high command, Warspite’s early career was marred by mishap after mishap. During the period May to September 1915 she deployed on routine gunnery and manoeuvre exercises with the Grand Fleet without incident. In mid-September HMS Warspite visited Rosyth and was grounded off Dunbar. Darkened and making fifteen knots in foggy weather at 5.30a.m., she was concentrating on avoiding enemy submarines.

  She was mistakenly led down the small ships channel by escorting destroyers from the Rosyth-based Battle Cruiser Fleet.6 Fortunately the Spite managed to extricate herself by going astern. An Admiralty board of inquiry held aboard Warspite was critical of the battleship’s speed, suggesting she should have slowed by the time she reached Dunbar. However, bearing in mind wartime conditions forcing commanding officers to take risks, no members of the crew were found guilty of negligence but Warspite’s Captain Phillpotts and his navigator were reprimanded.

&n
bsp; The battleship’s outer hull bottom was damaged seriously enough to warrant spending two months in a floating dock on the Tyne for repairs.

  Grand Fleet commander Admiral Sir John Jellicoe was deprived of one of his most effective units at a time when pressure for action against the Germans was mounting. The Kaiser’s ships had staged a series of hit and run raids against ports on the north-east coast of England which had outraged public opinion, mainly because the British fleet seemed unable to stop them. The Germans managed to nip across and unleash their bombardments and then escape back home before the Grand Fleet’s major vessels could get anywhere near an interception. The Royal Navy’s Battle Cruiser Fleet had pursued and savaged a German force in January 1915, at the Battle of Dogger Bank, but still the raiders came. Scapa Flow was thought by many to be too far north and it was being suggested to Jellicoe that Rosyth and the Humber would be better bases for the Grand Fleet. Sir John was not, however, keen on these two bases as he considered them very vulnerable to attack. Splitting his ships would also hamper his ability to concentrate overwhelming force against the enemy when the decisive fleet v fleet action came.

  This is believed to be Captain Phillpotts, seventh Warspite’s first commanding officer; a photograph taken aboard the battleship in 1915. Franklin Collection.

  Warspite left the Tyne and headed north to rejoin the Grand Fleet on 22 November but within a fortnight hit more bad luck. Back at Scapa she became part of a new combat formation - the 5th Battle Squadron - which had been created for the Queen Elizabeth Class vessels. In November 1915 it consisted of HMS Barham, squadron flagship, HMS Queen Elizabeth and HMS Warspite. The remaining members of the class - HMS Malaya and HMS Valiant - would join in 1916. At the beginning of December, while steaming in formation during a Grand Fleet exercise, HMS Warspite was in collision with the Barham. Signal flags on the Barham instructing the 5th Battle Squadron to do eight knots were misinterpreted as ‘do eighteen knots’.

  A view from Warspite’s foretop of a Queen Elizabeth Class sister ship while steaming in pursuit of the German High Sea Fleet in early 1916. Franklin Collection.

  As a result the Warspite came charging on behind the much slower Barham, her bows hitting the squadron flagship’s stern. Heavy seas made for a horrifying accident - Barham’s stern descending into a chasm...Warspite carried high upon a mountain of sea...Warspite’s plunging bow twice slamming hard into her sister ship’s rising stern...then momentarily grinding against it; a horrifying metallic crunch. Sub Lieutenant Bertie Packer gave a graphic description of what this collision felt like below decks in a letter to his father.

  The ship bent and jumped like an india-rubber thing, engines full steam astern and our cable going out with a run and a rattle. I thought we’d caught a mine.

  A marine bugler sounded ‘Collision Stations’ as steam poured through the corridors and water ‘swished in the for’d’ threatening to drown defaulters in the ship’s cells whom Sub Lieutenant Packer immediately released.

  His letter added: ‘Our bow was split like a pea-pod...’7

  The Barham had ripped away the Warspite’s port anchor and the latter’s bows were so badly crushed it seemed she might sink. However, with her crew working throughout the night to keep damaged compartments shored up, she managed to limp back to Scapa Flow through stormy submarine-infested seas, taking it very carefully at ten knots. Miles from any docking facilities, some ingenuity was employed in inspecting the battleship’s bows to ascertain the extent of the damage. Hundreds of shells from A and B turrets were transferred to the quarterdeck, pushing her stern down into the water and lifting her bows. It was decided the damage could be shored up enough for Warspite to sail south to Devonport for major repairs. With yet another reprimand for a serious mishap ringing in his ears, the hapless Captain Phillpotts set course for Plymouth six days after the accident. Met by tugs at the breakwater, Warspite was shepherded through the snaking, deep channel of Plymouth Sound. Threaded very carefully through the Devil’s Narrows, nudged into the dockyard, she was settled gently into a gigantic dry dock.

  An inspection of Warspite’s torn bows, following her collision with HMS Barham. Franklin Collection.

  Warspite returned to Scapa on Christmas Eve, denying her crew an extended shore leave. The combat readiness of the Grand Fleet could not be relaxed for a moment.

  Another Fool’s Errand?

  In late April 1916 the Germans sent their five battlecruisers and attendant cruisers and destroyers across the North Sea to pound Lowestoft. In response the Battle Cruiser Fleet and Grand Fleet tried to trap them, making a mad dash to get between the Germans and home. Despite the best efforts of British light cruisers from Harwich to delay them, and lead them into a position where they could be cut off, the Germans avoided a major action. Lowestoft suffered only four dead and some minor damage to property but the public was still incensed at the British navy failing once again to punish the German raiders.

  Pressure for the main battle fleet to move closer to the action was stepped up. The Government tried again to persuade Sir John to make the move but he dug his heels in and refused to budge. Battle Cruiser Fleet commander Vice Admiral Sir David Beatty had for some time been agitating for the 5th Battle Squadron to be added to his force at Rosyth. Jellicoe had resisted. As far as he was concerned the role of the Queen Elizabeths was to act as heavy cavalry for the Grand Fleet. If a part of the British dreadnought battle line looked like it might weaken, the 5th Battle Squadron would use its speed and heavy guns to stiffen it. Likewise, if the enemy looked likely to break, it would be ordered to charge, hammering the weak point swift and hard.

  Following the Lowestoft raid, Jellicoe was faced with two difficult choices; either to move the entire Grand Fleet south or to send the 5th Battle Squadron to join Beatty’s force. He saw his opportunity to act without losing face when the 3rd Battle Cruiser Squadron came north to Scapa Flow to carry out some badly needed gunnery practice. Beatty was to be allowed to have the 5th Battle Squadron, but only while the 3rd Battle Cruiser Squadron was in the north.

  After the monkish existence of barren Scapa Flow, the sailors of the 5th Battle Squadron turned a hungry gaze on the Firth of Forth, as their vessels sailed into their new temporary home on 22 May 1916. In place of the bleak, uninhabited Orkney landscape here was civilization and all the, often dubious, diversions a sailor could desire. The Scottish capital of Edinburgh was just minutes away. The crews of the warships made excellent use of this playground - cinemas and pubs for the junior officers and ordinary ranks, hotels for discreet philandering by senior officers. Those who preferred to keep body and mind pristine for battle took bracing country walks along the banks of the wide river, pursued games of golf on nearby links or tested themselves against each other in robust sports.

  The boredom of barren Scapa Flow was relieved by the performance of amateur dramatic shows, at which Warspite’s crew proved to be the best in the fleet. Franklin Collection.

  Midshipman Richard Fairthorne joined Warspite on the day of her arrival at Rosyth, finding that the sight of the battleship at anchor on the Forth sent his spirits soaring. He had just come from the dull routine of serving aboard the ancient cruiser Leviathan on the boring West Indies Station. Midshipman Fairthorne was delighted there was no prospect of the ‘indescribable tedium’ of coaling.

  A group of fresh-faced Midshipmen shortly after joining Warspite at Rosyth in May 1916. Franklin Collection.

  Nearly sixty years later Fairthorne wrote that, on boarding the Warspite ‘...one sensed at once that she was a happy and efficient unit.’8 The Warspite was an immaculate vessel, all spick and span, with the brass polished to blinding perfection, the paintwork pristine and wooden decks unblemished. Another new arrival aboard the Warspite was Surgeon Lieutenant Gordon Ellis. On 30 May Surgeon Lieutenant Ellis went ashore for a walk in the early evening, returning to Hawes Pier for a boat back to the battleship at around 7.30p.m.

  While waiting for his ride he saw a light cruiser flotilla
leader anchored off South Queensferry hoisting ‘a long string of flags, which appeared to be a steaming signal.’9 In fact shore patrols had also been sent into Edinburgh to recall people and a football match organized by the Warspite was abandoned, its participants hurrying back to the ship.

  Radio intercepts that morning had revealed the High Sea Fleet was raising steam to come out. Possibly another raid on the east coast of England was in the offing, but the level of activity at the main German base of Wilhelmshaven suggested something bigger brewing. Accordingly, shortly before 6.00p.m. while Surgeon Lieutenant Ellis was still on his walk, the Admiralty sent instructions to Jellicoe and Beatty to take their full forces to sea and converge in the North Sea, east of the Long Forties.

  Beatty’s flagship, the battlecruiser HMS Lion, had sent a familiar message to the warships at anchor on the Forth: ‘Raise steam for twenty-two knots and report when ready to proceed.’ This was followed by: ‘Proceed out of harbour 9.30pm.’ All visible lights darkened, the menacing shapes of the ten battleships and battlecruisers slowly slid out under the Forth Bridge.

  Surgeon Lieutenant Gordon Ellis. Ellis Collection.

  HMS Lion led the Battle Cruiser Fleet, with Princess Royal, Tiger, Queen Mary, New Zealand and Indefatigable following on. In the 5th Battle Squadron Warspite was third in line behind Barham and Valiant, with Malaya last. The Queen Elizabeth was in a Rosyth dry dock for an extensive refit following bombardment duties in the Dardanelles.