The Great War at Sea: 1914-1918

by Richard Hough

  This cruiser’s navigator, Lieutenant Ralph ‘Paddy’ Ireland, had worked out a plan for just this desperate situation which any scouting force was likely to find itself in. He ‘steered the ship in the direction of the last splash, with the notion that the enemy having registered an “over” would reduce the range for the next salvo, by which time our range would, in fact, have increased. Thus we were enabled, without damage, to continue making enemy reports so long as we maintained touch with the enemy.’(20)

  The navigator of the Nottingham, who was to survive, too, found the experience stirring. ‘Salvo after salvo we were able to dodge in this way,’ he wrote, ‘and although I think one may say that the man who says he enjoys a naval battle on the whole is well, – not exactly accurate, I must confess that I never had a more interesting and, in a way, really amusing half hour than I had conning the ship at that time.’(21)

  By contrast, the Lion had been severely battered although not as disabled as at the Dogger Bank. Two of her eight heavy guns were out of action, there were many wounded and dying about the ship. Her electrics had gone for the time being and she was reduced to using the Princess Royal as signalling ship as she had only short-range W/T left to her.

  On receipt of Goodenough’s first sighting signal, Beatty ordered the Lion to alter course slightly in her direction. Almost at once he had visual confirmation that the High Seas Fleet, far from still being in the Jade, as the Admiralty had insisted, was less than twelve miles away, deployed in a single line fix action, and already firing heavily on his light cruisers. He told Seymour to make a general signal to turn in succession 16 points to starboard thus reversing his fleet’s course, with the intention of drawing Scheer towards Jellicoe as rapidly as possible. If he had been surprised by the sudden appearance of the German battle squadrons, he was also quite certain now that Scheer had no idea that Jellicoe with his battle squadrons was in close proximity, too. The duty of his battle-cruisers, like those of his own light scouting squadrons earlier, was to report on and to lure on the superior enemy force. The fact that he had lost two of his ‘bloody ships’ was merely a regrettable statistic which in no way affected his duty or his decisions.

  Evan-Thomas’s 5th Battle Squadron was eight miles behind Beatty’s rearmost ship, the New Zealand, when the Southampton sighted the German Fleet. The enemy battle-cruisers at that time were almost abeam, and the Barham was firing at the Moltke. ‘The enemy presented a fair target at a range of 18,000-17,000 yards, and was frequently straddled’, reported the flag-captain. ‘Three certain hits only were seen, but after we started using AP Lyddite, hits could not be seen. This would naturally be the case, however, and it was noted that the enemy hits on Barham, though doing great internal damage, did not show outside the ship.’(22)

  The Lion’s flag signals were too distant to be read by the Barham. Visibility had suddenly deteriorated, according to Captain Craig, and the British battle-cruisers themselves were evidently half-obscured because, when they reversed course, he thought they had turned to port onto their northerly direction instead of to starboard. What he could see – but only just – was that the German battle-cruisers had turned north, too. For a moment, Evan-Thomas and his Staff were puzzled by this new development. Why this turn! Was Hipper pursuing Beatty north, or were the Germans in retreat, heading perhaps for the Skagerrak and the safety of the Baltic? The flagship’s W/T office had not taken in the Southampton’s sighting report, nor had the distant morse searchlight signal been readable. Beatty had not repeated either the sighting report from the Southampton by search light, or the order to the Battle Cruiser Fleet to turn 16 points. It was not until the Barham herself sighted the vanguard of the German line that Evan-Thomas recognized the reason why both German and British battle-cruisers were now driving north through the deteriorating visibility, firing intermittently at one another.

  And so it came about that at 4.48 p.m. Evan-Thomas with his four super-dreadnoughts still steaming south, was approaching Beatty steaming north at a combined closing speed of 50 knots, 26 knots by Beatty, 24 by Evan-Thomas. Just before the 5th Battle Squadron thundered past on the Lion’s port beam, Beatty hoisted a flag signal ordering it to turn through 16 points to conform to his own northerly course the turn to be made in succession (ship by ship) to starboard. However, the signal was not executive until it was hauled down. By then five more minutes had been lost, and as a consequence and because Beatty had ordered a starboard turn, Evan-Thomas was almost out of touch with Beatty’s rear and dangerously close to Scheer’s battle squadrons.

  Two of the leading German battleships opened fire on the Barham as she completed her turn and, assisted by the favourable light conditions, scored a hit almost at once, wrecking the flagship’s medical store and Auxiliary W/T office, causing casualties among the medical and wireless stalls. ‘Large pieces of the shell also penetrated the middle deck,’ the Captain reported, ‘and a piece entered the lower conning tower mortally wounding Lieutenant Blyth, assistant navigating officer. The Platform deck, forming the roof of the forward 6-in. magazine was also pierced, and the G-in. magazine and shell room filled with smoke. There were three other heavy hits during this part of the action.’(23)

  The Valiant and Warspite, turning on the same point in succession, were luckier and although straddled frequently and with hundreds of gallons of water streaming across their decks from near misses, emerged unscathed. For the last in the line, the Malaya, the German gunners seemed to have reserved all their pent-up fury at their failure to sink the others. For the five minutes occupied by the turn and for some fifty minutes after as she shaped course due north again, the Malaya was the target of the 12-inch guns of most of the crack ships of Behncke’s 3rd Squadron. At one time, six salvoes a minute were falling around the super-dreadnought. The battleship’s strength and armour, together with the skilful evasive tactics of her captain, Algernon Boyle, saved the ship. By sudden changes of course, the Malaya made herself a difficult target, and at one’ point the chief gunnery officer, Archibald Domville, order the starboard battery of 6-inch guns to fire rapidly into the sea at close’ range to provide a moving screen of waterspouts. But two heavy shells in rapid succession at 5.30 knocked out this battery and caused a fire before a single gun could be fired. Five hits were suffered between 5.20 and 5.35 p.m. One heavy shell struck the roof of ‘X’ turret aft but failed to penetrate the one-foot-thick hardened steel. Two more struck below the water-line, and the water that came pouring in caused the Malaya to assume a 4-degree list, which in turn restricted the elevation of her own big guns.

  In spite of this handicap, the heavy odds against her (Hipper’s battle-cruisers plus four to seven battleships), a hundred casualties, and the intermittent shudders from hits, the Malaya kept up a steady and accurate return fire. Conditions were difficult for all the 5th Battle Squadron ships. ‘I simply could not see in what direction we were travelling,’ recounted one gunner rating, ‘for we were shaping course and zig-zagging all the time. For a good part of the battle the sun made it difficult to sight our guns on their ships. They could see us but we could hardly see them.”(24) Four of Hipper’s five battle-cruisers and two of Behncke’s battleships were hit by 1,900-pound 15-inch shells. Five hits were made on the Seydlitz alone, one of them tearing a 10 by 13-foot hole which let in such vast quantities of water that she came close to sinking. By this time the von der Tann did not have a single heavy gun working, but Captain Wilhem Zenker decided to keep his ship in the line to take her share of the punishment.

  Towards the end of this ‘run to the north’ the light advantage changed in favour of the British ships if intermittent smoke shrouded glimpses of the enemy at 16,000 yards may be called advantageous. But the German gunners now had the low sun straight in their eyes, making both ranging and spotting difficult. At 5.35 Beatty altered course from NNW to NNE to effect his meeting with Jellicoe, and five minutes later he as able to reopen fire on Hipper’s hard-pressed ships on their converging course with his own.

 
; All four captains of the surviving Battle Cruiser Fleet – Chatfield Walter Cowan (a real fire-eater) of the Princess Royal, Henry Pelly of the Tiger, and John Green of the New Zealand had every reason to feel exhilarated by the fighting and confident of the outcome. In cricket jargon, after losing two of their leading batsmen, they were now playing themselves in. In all only two turrets were out of action and all the ships were capable of full speed. Jellicoe’s squadrons were not far distant, and as Walter Cowan was shortly to remark, ‘We felt like throwing our caps in the air, it looked a certainty we had them.’ Certainly the spirit of the men was as high as ever, only a handful of observers above deck having witnessed the destruction of the Indefatigable and Queen Mary; and Captain Cowan’s feeling that ‘we had them’ was shared by all.

  At 5.30 p.m. the battle had been raging, with scarcely a break, for two hours, the tide flowing implacably from one side and then from the other. The initiative now lay firmly in the hands of Beatty, tactically and in terms of gunfire, now that the 5th Battle Squadron was out of range of the German Battle Fleet’s vanguard, by a margin of forty-six heavy guns to twenty-four. The Derfflinger had been badly hit several times. Von Hase found that he could not answer the’ very long-range’ fire of the 5th Battle Squadron, which he found ‘highly depressing, nerve-wracking and exasperating. Our only means of defence’, he wrote, ‘was to leave the line for a short time, when we saw that the enemy had our range.’(25)

  Beatty’s tactical initiative was emphasized when he began altering course to the east while ahead of and easily outpacing, Hipper. It was a masterly move which forced the German battle-cruisers onto an easterly course, like a wrestler overpowering backwards his opponent. Then at 5.35 p.m. there came the sound of medium-calibre gunfire from a new and more distant quarter towards the north, where the horizon was lit by the flashes of a sharp engagement. Hipper now suspected that this gunfire was only the precursor to heavier intervention, that the whole Grand Fleet was not far distant, that he in his turn was being driven into a trap. A few minutes before 6 o’clock, 12-inch shells began to fall among his ships from the north-cast. They could not come from Beatty’s battle-cruisers, which were on a NNW bearing. The hydra had produced one more head or three more battle-cruisers to add new problems and new dangers faced by the German battle-cruiser commander.

  One by one the squadrons on both sides had been drawn into the tumult and fury of this greatest sea engagement of all time, first the light cruisers as an overture to the Beatty and Hipper duel, then Evan-Thomas, next the vanguard of the High Seas Battle Fleet, now the British 3rd Battle Cruiser Squadron; and soon, under this quiet evening sky washed by swirling mists and lit by a dying sun, the full might of both battle fleets must now inevitably collide.

  At 6 p.m. Jellicoe was 80 miles SSE of Lindesnes, the south-eastern tip of Norway, and just 100 miles west of the north Danish coast. Over an hour had passed since he had signalled the Admiralty ‘Fleet action is imminent’. Not a word had he heard from Beatty since. Now he despatched an impatient appeal to him. ‘Where is enemy battle fleet?’ Hipper’s battle-cruisers were only eight and a half miles to the south-east, flashes lit the horizon and the gunfire was like the riffle of a thousand drums. But still Jellicoe could see nothing of the enemy, and still his numerous scouting forces told him nothing.

  JUTLAND: BATTLE FLEETS IN ACTION

  The Grand Fleet’s deployment dilemma and Jellicoe’s decisiveness – Admiral Hood engages the enemy – Hipper’s shock at discovering more of the enemy offset by further successes – The end of the Defence and Invincible a preliminary to the main fleets’ contact – Scheer’s first turn-about and retreat – The manoeuvre repeated – Hipper’s ‘death ride’ – Brief renewed contact – The blind side to the south – Night actions – Chances missed by the Grand Fleet before the High Seas Fleet reaches safety at dawn

  Admiral Jellicoe’s signal ‘Fleet action is imminent’ sent a tremor of excitement through the Admiralty unequalled since the first news of the Dogger Bank engagement had been received sixteen months earlier, in Churchill’s time. Since then, the Admiralty’s sense of urgency had declined into a state of relative torpor. Every department got on with its own work and it sometimes seemed as if the maintenance of the bureaucratic machinery of the Royal Navy was the only consideration of importance, and warfare – certainly offensive warfare – of no consideration at all. Now a growing awareness that something big was afoot, stemming from Room 40’s first hint that the German Fleet intended a major enterprise, percolated along every corridor.

  Jacky Fisher, the officer who was more responsible than anyone else for bringing into being the dreadnought, creating the Grand Fleet with all its merits and defects, who had long before sponsored Jellicoe as C.-in-C. and anticipated this modern Trafalgar, knew nothing of the inevitable coming clash of arms. Fisher, who could still have been here in command of events, and was wanted back by so many (‘Destiny has not done with you yet’ – Winston Churchill(1)) was at his office at the Board of Inventions at 36, Berkeley Square, Mayfair.

  For others, there was much to be done, contingencies to be prepared for, messages to be decoded, the King, members of the Cabinet and War Council to be informed. Hospitals had to be warned of imminent casualties, forts put on alert, the Army informed in case the operation was only the overture to an invasion. ‘Dockyards all round the coast were astir,’ wrote Corbett, ‘and tugs were getting up steam to assist crippled ships, and nowhere was the tension higher than in the squadrons that were still chafing in port.’ The life of the nation and empire, the fate of the Allies, the course of the war and of history itself, rested upon the slender shoulders of one man out there in the middle of the North Sea, and on the performance of his subordinates.

  At the Admiralty it was known when the battle-cruisers came into action. Of the progress or outcome of this battle, as of everything else beyond Jellicoe’s signal, the OD and the members of the Board, Jackson and Wilson and the Chief of Staff, knew little more.

  Imagine two giant tridents, aimed south-cast from Scotland towards Denmark and the Baltic. There are six parallel columns, each made up of four battleships. The right hand, or most westerly spearhead of this double trident is the Marlborough flying the 1st Battle Squadron’s flag of Vice-Admiral Sir Cecil Burney. His 2nd Division is commanded by Rear-Admiral Ernest Gaunt. Leading the 4th Battle Squadron with his flag in the Benbow is the ubiquitous Doveton Sturdee; on his port beam the C.-in-C. himself in the Iron Duke, then Rear-Admiral Arthur Leveson with his flag in the Orion leading her 13.5-inch gunned sister ships Monarch, Conqueror, and Thunderer; and finally, on the extreme cast wing, Vice-Admiral Sir Martyn Jerram’s flagship King George V.

  This cruising formation of six parallel columns was standard for the Grand Fleet and had been practised interminably in peace and war. An aerial observer poised above the fleet could attest to the precise handling of the big ships in geometric pattern, and two and a half cables (500 yards) between the ships in line ahead and four cables between the columns. Although now called dreadnoughts, these great turbine-driven, 20,000-ton-plus men o’war were still ships-of-the-line like Nelson’s, and it was for the rapid formation of this single line that this arrangement had been devised. No matter from what quarter the enemy might appear, the columns could, within fifteen minutes, be transferred into a single line, turning (or deploying) to port or starboard in a form of follow-my-leader. Two critical deployment decisions had perforce to be made. The first related to timing. Deploy too soon and the long line of twenty-four ships might be left steaming away in the wrong direction, allowing the enemy to escape, if so he wished, or to ‘cross his T’, with the full broadsides of the enemy line concentrating on the vulnerable van. Deploy too late and the enemy might find himself able to concentrate the full weight of all his batteries on a part of the fleet in the throes of an evolution, deprived of co-ordination and the ability to make full use of its guns.

  The second decision related to direction; whether to deploy to p
ort or to starboard, or, much more awkwardly, on the centre, which required all but the chosen lead column making two go-degree turns to fall into line behind.

  Deployment success depended on accurate knowledge of the enemy’s whereabouts, course, and speed, and on the C.-in-C.’s interpretation of this knowledge. Jellicoe had made every possible provision for learning well in advance this vital information, with the exception of bringing along his only aircraft-carrier. His heavy scouting force (Beatty) had its own three light-cruiser squadrons scouting ahead of it. His main battle fleet had its own heavy scouting force in the three 1-class battle-cruisers of the splendidly able Horace Hood, two armoured cruiser squadrons of doubtful value hut with as keen-eyed look-outs as any other ships and a turn of speed marginally better than his own, the five fast cruisers of the 4th Light Cruiser Squadron, the best of their class in the Fleet, and four more cruisers, one assigned to each battleship squadron. Spread out on both sides were some fifty destroyers, primarily as a screen against torpedo attack but also acting as eyes of the Fleet.

  Finally, Jellicoe had the Admiralty. It was the secret ears of the OD through Room 40 which had brought the Grand Fleet out of its bases even before the German Fleet had sailed. This was of incalculable value, as it had been in the past. But past performance also tended to show that, once at sea, the information provided, via the direction finding coastal stations, Room 40, and OD was by no means reliable, and even misleading. After being misinformed at 2 p.m. that Scheer was still in the Jade at 11.10 a.m. three hours later Jellicoe heard: ‘At 4.9 p.m. Enemy Battle Fleet Lat. 56°27′ N Long. 6°18′ E. Course NW 15 knots’. Admiral Scheer had therefore covered 200 miles in five hours, according to Admiralty intelligence, which also failed to correct the earlier, now clearly false, information. No wonder that Jellicoe, from now onwards, took any Admiralty signals with a pinch of salt!