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CHAPTER 1 Introduction: North Sea Fleet Operations, 1914 to Jutland No NAVAL BATTLE has attracted so many attempts at its description as the Battle of Jutland fought on 31 May and 1 June 1916 between the two largest fleets of the time, those of Britain and Germany. The actions and supposed motives of the Admirals of both sides have been examined in many works. Far less attention, however, has been paid to the actual details of the fighting and to the damage and losses inflicted and these matters are fully described for the first time in this book. In the era of the armoured battleship Jutland stands alone, the fleets engaged being so much more powerful than those of the Russian and Japanese Fleets at Tsushima, the second greatest battle of the period fought 11 years earlier. By the time that the greatest battles of World War II - Midway, the Philippine sea and Leyte - were fought, the battleship had yielded pride of place to the aircraft carrier, and Britain to the USA as the chief naval power. From the British declaration of war on 4 August 1914 until Jutland little fighting was seen between the main fleets of Britain and Germany in the North sea, known respectively as the Grand Fleet and the High seas Fleet. The British were not willing to hazard their sea supremacy and the long range blockade of Germany, which were vital to them and their allies, by seeking a battle in unfavourable circumstances, as a major victory over the German fleet would not necessarily win the war, and a great disaster to the British fleet would certainly lose it. The Germans did not realise that certain defects in British dreadnought battleships and battlecruisers, which are discussed on later pages and mainly concerned the ammunition, gave their own ships an individual superiority over their opponents of the same date, and did not wish to seek battle with the whole British fleet until the numerical superiority of the latter had been reduced by mines or submarines or by a successful action against an isolated part of the fleet. This was the Germans' great error of judgement; their chances of winning a fleet action were far better in the early part of the war than by mid-1916. On 1 6 December 1914, when the Germans raided Scarborough, they had their best opportunity of defeating an important detached part of the Grand Fleet; the latter if concentrated, would have had twentytwo dreadnought battleships, and four battlecruisers against their fourteen and four. At Jutland the figures were twenty-eight dreadnought battleships and nine battlecruisers versus sixteen and five, respectively, and six of the British battleships had 15in guns compared with none in 1914. In addition, the Grand Fleet was short of destroyers in the early part of the war though the German destroyers in service in 1914 were far inferior to most of theirs at Jutland. Furthermore, the extremely valuable intelligence source provided by the deciphering of German wireless signals had not yet been developed. The origin of this was the German naval cyphers and other documents recovered by the Russians from the light cruiser Magdeburg wrecked in the Baltic on 26 August 1914. Although the Grand Fleet, based on the north and east of Scotland, had the advantage of a better geographical location, and the bases in use were not identified by the Germans for some time, there were initially few facilities for a large fleet in this area, as the main dockyards were in southern England. The new dockyard at Rosyth was not useable until 1916, and the anchorages at Scapa Flow, Cromarty and Rosyth had no defences against submarines until October - November 1914, so that for a time the Grand Fleet used Loch Ewe in the north-west of Scotland and then Lough Swilly in the north of Ireland and Loch Na Keal in Mull. Permission was even given by the Admiralty on 20 October 1914 to withdraw to Berehaven in the extreme south-west of Ireland but this was not found necessary. In the southern part of the North sea the British had the Harwich Force of light cruisers, destroyers and submarines, and some of the pre-dreadnought battleships were at times stationed at the Nore. The High seas Fleet was based on the principal German dockyard at Wilhelmshaven in the Jade, and the estuaries of the Elbe, Weser and Ems, as well as the outpost of Heligoland, could provide anchorages for some units, while a canal ran from the Elbe to the other main dockyard at Kiel in the Baltic. The Flanders flotilla of small submarines based on Bruges, Ostend and Zeebrugge, was developed by the Germans from 1915, and some destroyers were subsequently included in this force. The danger from submarine attack seriously restricted the Grand Fleet's activities throughout the war and the range of the screening destroyers became the limiting factor in the operations of both fleets. However,

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no dreadnought battleship or battlecruiser was sunk by a submarine in World War I, and no British one was damaged, though British submarines made a total of five torpedo hits on German ships of these types, four in the North sea and one in the Baltic. German submarines might well have had more success against the capital ships of the Grand Fleet if the greater part of their effort had not been directed at merchant shipping. Submarines capable of operating at sea, had not been in existence in previous major wars, but mines had had great success in the RussoJapanese War of 1904-5, and had been used effectively in the Confederate War of 1861-5, and their neglect by the British navy in the years before World War I was unfortunate. The Audacious struck a mine 28 miles from Lough Swilly on 27 October 1914 and sank, but she was the only dreadnought battleship or battlecruiser to be lost from this cause in 1914-18, and in the North Sea and waters round the British Isles only two other such ships, both German, were damaged by mines. Of the four Admirals on whom the responsibility for the decisions in the Battle of Jutland mainly fell, three had held their command since the outbreak of war: Admiral Sir John Jellicoe, C in C of the Grand Fleet; Vice Admiral sir David Beatty, in command of the battlecruisers or Battle Cruiser Fleet, as it was officially described from February 1915; and Vice Admiral Hipper, commanding the German scouting Forces. Vice Admiral Scheer, the C in C of the High Seas Fleet, was, however, the third Admiral to hold this position since August 1914. Initially, Admiral von Ingenohl had been in command, but after the Battle of the Dogger Bank, 24 January 1915 he had been replaced in February 1915 by Admiral von Pohl, and on the Tatter's retirement from ill health in January 1916, Vice Admiral Scheer had been appointed. Scheer was a better choice than either of his predecessors, and together with Jellicoe, Beatty and Hipper can be considered as sufficiently able, and though the spark of genius was lacking in all four, the conditions of Jutland were singularly unsuited to the display of this quality. Dissatisfaction in Britain over the result of Jutland subsequently caused a virulent paper war between the supporters of Jellicoe and Beatty, but there was far less difference between the views of the two Admirals than Beatty's partisans were willing to believe. Jellicoe was cautious in seeking battle for the strategic reasons given previously, and also in his intended tactics when the High seas Fleet might be encountered, as he feared that the Germans would turn away with the intention of leading him over mines and submarines and he would decline to be so drawn. The difficulties of close co-operation between a fleet and its submarines were not appreciated, and much unrewarding effort was expended by the British from 1915 to 1918 in the construction of the notorious 24-knot steam-driven K class submarines in the hope that they could work closely with the fleet. With regard to mines the Japanese had lost two of their meagre total of six battleships on one day, 15 May 1904, to Russian mines laid in one of their probable tracks off Port Arthur, and among other mining successes of the Russo-Japanese War, Jellicoe probably knew that the old Russian battleship Navarin had been finally sunk in the night after Tsushima by one of twenty-four mines dropped close ahead of her by three Japanese destroyers. There was no reason why the Germans should not have developed such techniques. Jellicoe was much keener to fight a battle with the High Seas Fleet than the foregoing might indicate, but it was impossible to tempt the Germans to an action with the whole Grand Fleet unless quite unacceptable risks were taken. A major attempt was made on 4 May 1916 to draw the High seas Fleet out, and in preparation on the previous night, 80 mines were laid south of the Vyl lightship and 530 about 35-40 miles north-westward of Borkum, the ninth occasion that the Heligoland Bight had been mined. Three submarines were stationed off Terschelling and seven off the Vyl and Horns Reef lightships. The bait was to be provided by a raid on the Tondern airship sheds by eleven seaplanes from the Vindex and Engadine, 5 miles north of Horns Reef and escorted by a light cruiser squadron and a destroyer flotilla. The bait was however non-existent as only one seaplane took off successfully and dropped its bombs in Danish territory, so that the Grand Fleet battleships spent the morning of 4 May manoeuvring about 75 miles to the north-westward of the seaplane launching position with the battlecruisers 30 miles to the southward of the battleships, and at 1400 Jellicoe turned for home followed by Beatty. Some of the British ships had been reported, but the situation was not clear to the German command, and preparations were made to meet an attack on 5 May. Details of these were intercepted by the Admiralty, and wirelessed to Jellicoe between 1630 and 2030 but his destroyers were too short of fuel for him to return to the vicinity of Horns Reef at daylight on 5 May. With the Grand Fleet based in the north, the English east coast was an obvious target for raids by the

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German battlecruisers. The most serious was on 16 December 1914. Hipper's battlecruisers (the Seydlitz, Moltke, von der Tann, Derfflinger), the fast armoured cruiser Blucher, four light cruisers of which the Kolberg carried 100 mines, and eighteen destroyers, were to reach the Yorkshire coast at dawn when the heavy ships would separate into two groups to bombard Hartlepool and Scarborough, while the Kolberg laid her mines off the coast. The main High seas Fleet under von Ingenohl with fourteen dreadnoughts (the Grosser Kurfurst, five Kaisers, four Ostfrieslands, four Nassaus), eight pre-dreadnoughts, two armoured and seven light cruisers, and fiftyfour destroyers, was to be in 54 40'N, 300', about 130 miles east of Scarborough at daylight. The Admiralty knew from deciphering intercepts of some of the orders, that the German battlecruisers would be out for two days, but they drew the dangerous conclusion that the battleships were very unlikely to come out, and their dispositions, based on this conclusion, might have led to irretrievable disaster. It was intended to intercept the raiders on their return, and the following ships were to concentrate at 0730 in 54 10'N, 300'' only 30 miles south of the High Seas Fleet's dawn position: the 2nd Battle Squadron (the King George V, Centurion, Ajax, Orion, Monarch, Conqueror), the four available battlecruisers (the Lion, Queen Mary, Tiger, New Zealand), four weak armoured cruisers, four light cruisers, and seven destroyers. Vice Admiral Sir George Warrender was in command in the King George V. The Harwich Force was to concentrate off Yarmouth at daylight to await events. At 0515 the British destroyers made contact with the starboard wing of the screen ahead of the High seas Fleet, and though the Germans had the better of the resultant fighting, von Ingenohl believed that his screen was in contact with the destroyer screen of the whole Grand Fleet and, too mindful of orders from the Kaiser against risking the battle fleet, turned 1 6 points to port to a reciprocal course at 0542, and 40 minutes later made for home. The port wing of the German screen had been less than 10 miles from the 2nd Battle Squadron. It is not necessary to describe subsequent events on this day and whether the High seas Fleet would have destroyed the 2nd Battle squadron at small cost to itself and thus obtained superiority over the Grand Fleet, if von Ingenohl had pressed on, must remain a matter of conjecture, but at least there would have been a chance of so doing. It has been sometimes maintained that Beatty was unlucky in not meeting Hipper, at one time 12 miles away, but the four German battlecruisers were superior in fighting power to Beatty's four and it was probably fortunate for the British that Ripper was not engaged. Of the Grand Fleet's battlecruisers three including Princess Royal had been detached to deal with von Spee's armoured cruisers. The next German operation resulted in the Battle of the Dogger Bank, an action in which the British had considerable success, though on closer examination matters were not so satisfactory. It was decided to make a reconnaissance of the Dogger Bank to discover the supposed British method of watch. Serious opposition was not expected and battleship support not considered necessary. The Germans were weak in the North Sea at this time as the Konig and Kaiser classes had gone to the Baltic for exercises, and the only dreadnoughts available were three Ostfrieslands and four Nassaus. The von der Tann was repairing defects, and Ripper's force comprised the Seydlitz, Moltke, Derfflinger and Blucher, four light cruisers and eighteen destroyers. Orders wirelessed to Ripper were deciphered by the Admiralty at 1115 23 January, 5'/Z hours before the Germans left, and indicated that he was to be on the SE side of the Dogger Bank at dawn next day. Ripper requested extensive air reconnaissance for the early morning of 24 January, and three airships were ready but did not go up in time. The Admiralty dispositions were as follows. Beatty with the five available battlecruisers, the Lion, Tiger, Princess Royal, New Zealand, Indomitable, which were now based at Rosyth, and four light cruisers, was to meet the Harwich Force of three light cruisers and thirty-five destroyers at 0700 24 January in 55 13'N, 3 12' and endeavour to locate and engage the enemy. Six King Edward class pre-dreadnoughts and three weak armoured cruisers, also at Rosyth, were to be in 55 35'N, 2 00'E at 0745 in case the Germans came north, and the main body of the Grand Fleet from Scapa, and units from Cromarty, were to concentrate in 57 00'N, 2 20' at 0930 and proceed southward. For this operation twenty-one dreadnoughts were available. The first contact between the British and German light cruisers was at 0705, and by 0800 the German battlecruisers were in sight from the Lion in exceptionally good visibility with a slight sea and a northeasterly breeze. Beatty made for a position on their starboard quarter and at 0837 settled to a long chase.

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Ripper had turned to 1220[.1]* at 0735 as smoke clouds thought to come from eight large ships had been sighted to the north-westward, but it was not until 0840 that the British battlecruisers were seen from their opponents, due mainly to the German funnel smoke and windward position. The Lion fired her first shot at 0852 when the range was over 20,000yds, and although Beatcy's ships chased for an hour at their highest speed, it never fell much below 16,000yds. The Tiger opened at 0900, the Princess Royal at 0907 and the German ships between 0911 and 0920, while the New Zealand opened at 0935 when Beatty gave the order to engage corresponding numbers, but the Indomitable which could not keep up and was handicapped by old type shell that restricted the guns to 16,300yds did not open until 1045. Fire distribution was irregular on both sides and the most visible target tended to be engaged. The Germans do not seem to have exceeded 23kts, while the Lion probably attained 27kts. The Tiger kept station, but the Princess Royal and New Zealand fell somewhat astern, and at 0952 Beatty reduced to 24kts so that his ships could close up. In this first hour of the action the British shooting was considerably better than that of the German ships which were handicapped by their own funnel smoke. The Seydlitz and Derfflinger were each hit twice, the Blucher once and the Lion twice. Except for one hit on the Seydlitz at 0943 by the Lion which put two turrets out of action from a very serious ammunition fire, none was of much importance. Beatty increased speed again at 1010 but in the period of the battle between 0952 and 1030 only one hit was obtained on the Seydlitz which had little effect, while four damaging hits were scored on the Lion. At 1030, however, the Blucher was hit by the Princess Royal and a disastrous ammunition fire occurred as well as damage in a boiler room which reduced her speed to cl7kts so that she fell astern. It is not known how many hits were made on her in the next half hour, but they were probably not numerous. The German battlecruisers now had the Lion's range and from 1035 to 1051 ten hits were scored on her and she was put out of action. The Tiger which overtook the Lion at 1045 was also hit twice and only one hit was scored on the Derfflinger in return. An imaginary submarine was now sighted on the Lion's starboard bow at 1054, and on Beatty's orders the Tiger, Princess Royal and New Zealand turned 90 to port together at 1102. This turn caused the cancellation of a German destroyer attack, and Beatty intended that these three battlecruisers should continue the chase under Rear Admiral Sir Archibald Moore in the New Zealand while the Indomitable dealt with the Blucher. His signals, however, were misunderstood and all four engaged the Blucher, while Ripper after some hesitation made off. Since the 90 turn four hits had been scored on the Tiger and a final hit on the Lion. The Blucher proved very hard to sink, and eventually capsized at 1213 after about fifty hits from the battlecruisers and two torpedoes from the light cruiser Arethusa. She made one hit on the Tiger and one on the Indomitable and put the destroyer Meteor out of action. The Lion eventually reached Rosyth in tow of the indomitable at 0635 on 26 January with a screen which at one time after the Grand Fleet had come up, numbered fifty-five destroyers. British casualties were extraordinarily small at 15 killed and 32 wounded, while the Germans lost 954 killed, 80 wounded and 189 prisoners. Very few hits were scored on the German battlecruisers, a total of three each on the Seydlitz and Derfflinger and none on the Moltke, as against 16-11 in or 12in hits on the Lion and six on the Tiger, and it was probably just as well for the British that the chase was broken off, as Nipper's three ships were superior to Moore's three. Under von Pohl the High seas Fleet showed little activity, but Scheer was more aggressive, and on 6 March 1916 the battlecruisers came as far as Brown Ridge, and the battleships to a position off the Texel. The presence of German battleships off the Dutch coast was not known to the Admiralty until 0700, 21/2 hours before they turned back. The bombardment of Lowestoft and Yarmouth on 25 April 1916 was intended as a demonstration in aid of the Irish rebellion, Nipper was ill and Rear Admiral Boedicker was to carry out the raid with the Seydlitz, Lutzow, Derfflinger, Moltke and von der Tann, six light cruisers and two destroyer flotillas, while the rest of the High Seas Fleet, which included 17 dreadnoughts, was in support to the west of the Texel and about 70 miles from the English coast. The Seydlitz struck a mine on the afternoon of 24 April and was sent back, Boedicker transferring to the Lutzow. It was clear to the Admiralty by 1900 on 24 April that the Germans were coming westward, but Jellicoe had only returned that morning from his latest sweep, and the Grand Fleet needed to refuel. The weather was good in the south but there was a heavy southerly gale in the north and it was doubtful if the destroyers could face it. The Harwich Force of three light cruisers and eighteen destroyers sighted the battlecruisers shortly before

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0400, but the latter first shelled Lowestoft and then Yarmouth and did not open fire on the Harwich Force until 0449. The light cruiser Conquest and one destroyer were damaged, but the British ships scattered, and Boedicker broke off the action after 7 minutes and started for home while Scheer turned back at 0520. The various units of the Grand Fleet which included twenty-eight dreadnoughts and eight battlecruisers put to sea from Scapa, Cromarty and Rosyth between 2110 and 2300 on 24 April, and proceeded southward as fast as possible against the gale, but at 0500 the battlecruisers were still about 10 miles north of the latitude of Newcastle, and the leading battle squadron in the latitude of Aberdeen, and it was impossible to catch the Germans.
[.1]All courses and bearings are true unless otherwise stated (Variation c13W ), and Greenwich Mean Time is employed throughout.

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