Warspite

by Iain Ballantyne

  At 10.00a.m. a 6-inch gun opened fire at what looked like a U-boat off the port quarter, which had just fired a torpedo. Despite firing eight rounds Warspite’s gun hit nothing. Commander Walwyn observed: ‘McDonald swore he saw a conning tower and so did the gun-layer.’

  Surgeon Lieutenant Ellis had followed the German torpedo track:

  It had come from astern, and, as we watched, the periscope and top of the conning tower of the submarine from which it had been despatched emerged above the surface about half a mile distant on the port quarter. The gun’s crew of the port 6-inch on the forecastle deck immediately fired in its direction, and the shell pitched sufficiently close for the spray to hide all sight of it. It probably wasn’t hit, but at any rate when the spray subsided it was no longer visible... .

  By this stage everyone’s nerves were very raw. The thought of being picked off so close to home, was more than some could stomach – they showed their anger by turning on each other, two officers almost coming to blows over a petty matter. Commander Walwyn later reflected that the forenoon was ‘about the worst part of the whole show...’.

  Not long after, a submarine periscope was seen right under the battleship’s bows. Despite Warspite’s delicate condition an attempt to ram the U-boat was made – the 6-inch guns opened up too. But it was all in vain, as the target, U-63, disappeared unharmed.

  Commander Walwyn later explained:

  About 11.45a.m., submarine came up on the port bow; if we had not been steering from the engine room we might have got her, but it took a certain interval for the orders to get through. The foremost 3-pounder could not get sufficient depression on to fire as she passed.

  Surgeon Lieutenant Ellis also observed this attack from Warspite’s upper deck: ‘He dived in such a hurry that his tail came up out of the water.’

  After the first submarine encounter, Warspite’s speed had been increased to nineteen knots and then to twenty-one knots. Now she put tremendous strain on her battered structure to make twenty-five knots; an enormous boiling of water behind the battleship as her propellers dug in, smoke billowing everywhere from her punctured funnel.

  At 8.00 a.m. the Warspite had sent a signal requesting some escort vessels to deter submarines – these duly came after the final submarine attack. They turned out to be torpedo boats from Rosyth and Commander Walwyn was not impressed by their screening attempts: ‘...their speed was not up to it and they dropped astern.’ Surgeon Lieutenant Ellis found their arrival comforting: ‘The chances of us seeing the Forth Bridge had, up to then, been a question of some doubt in my mind.’

  As the Warspite finally reached the Firth of Forth, Commander Walwyn could relax and, far from being on the receiving end of insults from railway workers, he was quite touched by the reception his battered warship got. ‘I am bound to say I heaved a sigh of relief as we passed the bridge, and the cheers from the troops made one feel quite gulpy.’

  Maybe they were jeers, not cheers, and the Commander misunderstood.

  Shedding Tears & Licking Wounds.

  The Queen Elizabeth was immediately moved to allow Warspite to be docked down. She would be under repair for nearly two months.

  The dockyard workers and railwaymen may well have initially expressed a nation’s anger at the Jutland result but, as Warspite’s fourteen dead and eighteen wounded were brought ashore down the gangways, people surely realized the injustice of their reaction.

  The Warspite’s male voice choir added to the emotional impact of the scene by assembling on the upper deck to sing a sombre ‘Comrades in Arms’ as farewell to dead shipmates. There were sobs and tears on all sides. Of the burns cases two more died in hospital, but the rest survived. Warspite officers who had no accommodation due to their cabins being blown apart went to live temporarily aboard HMS Dreadnought and HMS Queen Elizabeth.

  Despite her fragile condition, the Warspite still made a game bid to ram a German U-boat which was unwise enough to attack her as she sailed back to Rosyth. Specially commissioned painting by Dennis C. Andrews.

  Surgeon Lieutenant Ellis was given the opportunity of a decent night’s sleep in a comfortable cabin which seemed to have ‘every conceivable luxury’, including a box of chocolates donated by the officer who had vacated it for his benefit. But, even now, he found he could not sleep. The next morning he went to look Warspite over as she lay in dry dock. He found the sight of the battleship which had carried him safely on a rollercoaster ride through the Battle of Jutland an emotional experience:

  I felt I just loved her. And I think now that there is no other ship in the world like her...may her name always be honoured.

  The Germans were, however, claiming to have sunk the Warspite. While the 150 holes in her bore testimony to the ferocity and accuracy of the German gunnery, she had obviously lived to fight another day.

  According to Captain Donald Macintyre, in Jutland, the battlecruiser Invincible’s death, was mistaken for Warspite’s destruction. In reality Warspite’s casualties and damage were minimal and good evidence of her solid construction. But, like many others fretting in the vacuum created by the British failure to swiftly release a detailed account of the battle, the family of Warspite’s Midshipman Fairthorne feared for the worst. They didn’t want to believe their son’s ship was gone, but they had no information to contradict the German claims.

  Midshipman Fairthorne recalled:

  At home my family, on opening the morning newspaper of 3 June, had been confronted with several versions of the encounter, one of which was the German claim to have sunk the new battleship Warspite. Luckily I had the foresight to send a telegram of reassurance when the Marine postman went ashore, so they were kept in suspense only till that afternoon.26

  In Plymouth – home port of the Warspite – the news of Jutland had a devastating effect. Aside from lingering anxiety over the Warspite’s fate, hundreds of families in the city had suffered the loss of a husband, son or brother on the destroyed Indefatigable and Defence. Both warships were Devonport manned ships and the Indefatigable was built at the Plymouth dockyard. The Defence had been a Plymouth-based warship since 1909.

  Telegrams from sailors aboard ships which had not been sunk arrived before official confirmation of the casualties. Carrying their own confused accounts of the action, and ship losses, these telegrams further increased confusion and distress. Plymouth’s newspapers reported tragic scenes. Crowds of worried relatives gathered at the dockyard, outside the office of Commander-in-Chief Plymouth, and at the Western Morning News building in the city centre. Once reports based on an official Admiralty communique were placed in the windows of the Western Morning News building, the effect was immediate. Seeing the names of lost ships and their men confirmed in black and white, wives and mothers broke down and were escorted away by relatives. A few sad souls remained late into the night, lingering outside the newspaper offices hoping for more news which might hold out some hope that a loved one had survived after all.

  On the morning of 3 June the Western Morning News revealed:

  At a late hour last night it was reported that a woman fell dead in a Plymouth street upon being informed that a ship in which two of her sons were serving had been lost.

  When a statement finally emerged from the Admiralty it was downbeat and lame. The incurably reticent Jellicoe – an inveterate hater of the press – failed to amplify his strategic victory. Further communiques did, however, try to convey the fact that the Royal Navy had retained overwhelming strategic control and the Germans had turned and fled.

  Surgeon Lieutenant Ellis found emotion welled up inside him when he went to look the battered battleship over in dry dock at Rosyth. Ellis Collection.

  Winston Churchill, who had resigned as First Lord of the Admiralty a few months earlier, partially came to the rescue on 3 June by writing a fresh communique to the press. He paid full tribute to the success of the super dreadnoughts he had created by saying: ‘The fast division of Queen Elizabeths seem to have vindicated all the hopes repo
sed in them.’27 However, estimates of German losses the Admiralty was giving out were not to be borne out by the truth. It was claimed the Germans had lost two battleships, two battlecruisers, four light cruisers, nine destroyers and a submarine.

  As the battleship lies in dry dock at Rosyth, a dockyard worker stands by the hole in Warspite’s stern which betrays the entry point of the shell which damaged her steering and caused her to run out of control at Jutland. Franklin Collection.

  In fact German losses were one battleship, one battlecruiser, four light cruisers and five destroyers. The total British vessels lost were three battlecruisers, three armoured cruisers and eight destroyers. In terms of casualties, the Royal Navy lost 6,097 killed (most of them on the battlecruisers) while the Germans suffered 2,551.

  The amount of damage done to the tougher German capital ships was considerable and effectively removed the High Sea Fleet from the stage for a long time. The Grand Fleet was ready for battle again on 2 June – such was the overall British materiel and strategic superiority.

  But no one could dispute that the Battle Cruiser Fleet’s daring, combined with its overall poor gunnery and vessels too vulnerable to risk a fight with battleships, had proved to be the Royal Navy’s Achilles heel. It was equally clear the four Queen Elizabeth Class battleships helped save the Battle Cruiser Fleet from complete annihilation. Their good shooting with 15-inch heavy guns, plus their speed and protection, had enabled them to hold off the entire German fleet.

  Rosyth workers begin the task of repairing the Warspite after Jutland. Franklin Collection.

  The Grand Fleet had arrived too late but deployed superbly and in such a manner that it opened up a trap into which the Germans nearly fell. Macintyre summed it all up bluntly. He said the British battlecruisers were designed to pursue and bring ‘an unwilling enemy to action.’ He continued:

  The Germans, on the other hand, had succeeded in building ships that were almost unsinkable by gunfire, a skill which they showed they had not lost in the Second World War. That the British shells were found wanting in action, breaking up on impact instead of penetrating as they were designed to do, only stressed the superiority of German ship design, from a defensive angle.

  The Germans were ‘forced, nevertheless, to pay deep respect to the shooting of the Queen Elizabeths of the 5th Battle Squadron.’ Macintyre added:

  When Jellicoe’s battle squadrons came partially to action, a few minutes of their cannonade only was sufficient to make Scheer turn tail.28

  Later, while the Grand Fleet formed a wall between the Germans and their bases, it proved easy to penetrate due to poor British night fighting skills. During the day the failure of British scouting cruisers and Beatty’s battlecruisers to pass proper reports on enemy positions to Jellicoe also denied him crucial information which could have made the British trap tighter.

  King George V -‘The Sailor King’ – who had fought so hard over the naming of the Warspite and her sisters with Winston Churchill, found himself joining forces with his old antagonist in the aftermath of Jutland to soothe the fleet’s wounds.

  A message, released to the press 3 June, paid tribute to the Royal Navy’s bravery at Jutland and commended it for achieving a strategic victory. The King remarked that the Germans, in turning away from a full confrontation, had stolen the chance of ‘gaining a decisive victory.’

  During a later visit to Rosyth, King George used the Warspite as a backdrop to address massed ranks of Jutland veterans. ‘You drove the enemy into his harbours,’ he told his sailors.29

  That much at least was true. But it was no consolation for a British fleet accustomed to thinking it ruled the waves. The Royal Navy had gone looking for a victory on the scale of Trafalgar and for a number of reasons been denied it. There would be bitter recriminations for many years, with Jellicoe and Beatty – Grand Fleet and Battle Cruiser Fleet – blaming each other.

  Within the Grand Fleet Beatty was widely regarded as a self-aggrandizing egotist who let Jellicoe and the nation down by being cavalier with his ships and losing touch with the 5th Battle Squadron. The King appeared to make his displeasure – and that of the Grand Fleet – felt when he later went aboard Warspite. He had spent two hours aboard, surveying repairs to the damage, when his chief guide – Beatty – provoked his anger. Eager to get the King over to HMS Lion for lunch, Admiral Beatty suggested the tour should be cut short.

  Admiral Beatty and the King pose for a photograph during the post-Jutland visit to Warspite. The King was not amused by Beatty’s attempts to interrupt his inspection of the battleship. Franklin Collection.

  King George V - ‘The Sailor King’ - made a special effort to inspect repairs of Warspite’s battle damage during a morale-boosting visit to the Grand Fleet after the battle. Franklin Collection.

  According to Warspite’s Paymaster Cadet G.H. Bickmore, the King rounded on Beatty and snarled: ‘I didn’t come here to have lunch with you. Let it wait!’30

  The bravery of the Warspite was not in doubt and the King had rightly allowed no one, not even an Admiral, to stop him seeing the scars of war she bore. Her exploits at Jutland – particularly her alleged sacrificial shielding of the Warrior from German heavy guns – made her a legend in the eyes of the British people once the full facts of the battle were known.

  The sailors of the Warrior paid due tribute to Warspite by sending a deputation to her with gifts. According to one newspaper report of the time, the Warrior’s sailors found themselves rebuffed.

  Take ‘em mates, said the sailors of the Warrior. You saved our lives.

  Take ‘em back, came the reply. We didn’t save you. We couldn’t help chasing our tail. The helm was jammed!31

  No doubt the Warrior’s sailors would not take no for an answer and pressed their gifts on the Warspite’s matelots. For God must have smiled on the Warrior to make Warspite run out of control at that precise moment. The Warspite had proved to be a lucky ship in battle even if she couldn’t help being accident prone.

  Notes

  1 Max Arthur, The True Glory.

  2 Ibid.

  3 J.J. Hazelwood, Sound Archives, Imperial War Museum.

  4 Geoffrey Penn, Fisher, Churchill and the Dardanelles.

  5 Winston Churchill, World Crisis.

  6 Andrew Gordon, The Rules of the Game.

  7 Joy Packer, Deep as The Sea.

  8 From an account published in Nautical Magazine, December 1973.

  9 Ellis Papers, Imperial War Museum.

  10 J.J. Hazelwood, Sound Archives, Imperial War Museum.

  11 Phillpotts Papers, Imperial War Museum.

  12 J.J. Hazelwood, Sound Archives, Imperial War Museum.

  13 Mark Simmons, WARSHIPS IFR magazine, June 2000.

  14 Chessman Papers, Imperial War Museum.

  15 J.J. Hazelwood, Sound Archives, Imperial War Museum.

  16 von Hase, Kiel and Jutland.

  17 Vaux Papers, Imperial War Museum.

  18 J.J. Hazelwood, Sound Archives, Imperial War Museum.

  19 In a letter to his brother published in Naval Review, 1985.

  20 Commander Walwyn in the Phillpotts Papers, Imperial War Museum.

  21 In a letter to his brother published in Naval Review, 1985.

  22 J.J. Hazelwood, Sound Archives, Imperial War Museum.

  23 Chessman Papers, Imperial War Museum.

  24 Bickmore Papers, Imperial War Museum.

  25 J.J. Hazelwood, Sound Archives, Imperial War Museum.

  26 From an account published in the Nautical Magazine, Dec 1973.

  27 Western Morning News, 3 June 1916.

  28 Captain Donald Macintyre, Jutland.

  29 The Great War.

  30 Bickmore Papers, Imperial War Museum.

  31 Western Morning News, June 1916.

  Chapter Four

  ARMISTICE & MUTINY

  No Triumph in Victory

  With the sour aftertaste of Jutland still strong in its mouth, the Royal Navy was, in the summer of 1916, hu
ngry for another chance to engage the German fleet.

  But, with capital ships decisively flawed in both attack and defence, and despite holding the strategic upper hand, the British were forced to follow caution. Sweeps in search of the enemy could be mounted, but for some time there would be anxiety about what might happen when battle was next joined.

  The fact that shells for the Royal Navy’s big guns were defective, plus adequate flash and armour protection fatally lacking in some vessels, was kept secret from the population at large and knowledge of it within the Service was restricted.

  A view of HMS Warspite’s A and B turrets as the battleship steams at speed. US Naval Historical Center.

  It was hoped the munitions flaw could be counterbalanced by sheer weight of fire power. One thing was certain – fragile battlecruisers would be kept at a safe distance. Where necessary the improvement of armour plating over ammunition magazines and flash protection was taken in hand. The shells problem would not finally be solved until the spring of 1918 with the issue of new munitions.

  Luckily the Germans had been too badly battered at Jutland to pose much of a threat for several months and that allowed a breathing space.

  The effects of Jutland were also swiftly felt in dockyards where new ships were being constructed for the Royal Navy. Battlecruisers ordered in the wake of the Battle of the Falklands victory of December 1914 suddenly looked a dreadful waste of resources. One of the vessels ordered in the warm afterglow of this South Atlantic triumph was the gigantic HMS Hood, lead vessel of a class originally conceived as a speedier version of the battleship Warspite and her sisters. The Hood was laid down at John Brown on the Clyde on 31 May 1916. However, with faith in battlecruisers blown apart at Jutland that same day, work on her was immediately halted. Hood was laid down again that September but with thicker belt armour. Ultimately, after further changes, she was completed in May 1920 carrying belt armour twelve inches thick, displacing 42,670 tons (standard), and packing eight 15-inch guns. With such protection, and a mighty punch, plus a top speed of thirty knots, she was every inch a racier version of the Warspite.