CHAPTER XXIV EThe Battle of Jutland (Continued)

VI. THE COURSE OF THE ACTION

What in fact happened was this. Beatty, as we have seen, had led due east at six o’clock, closing the enemy from 14,000 yards to 12,000 yards, and was overhauling the head of his line rapidly. At 6:20 Hood, in Invincible, with Inflexible and Indomitable, was seen ahead returning from a fruitless search for the Germans, which he had made to the southwest an hour before. Hood was one of Beatty’s admirals with the Battle-Cruiser Fleet temporarily attached to the Grand Fleet. When, therefore, his old Commander-in-Chief ordered him to take station ahead, he had not the slightest difficulty in divining his leader’s intentions. It was characteristic of this force that the rear-admirals and commodores in command of the unit squadrons acted without orders throughout the day. Hood formed before the Lion and led down straight on the German line. By 6:25 he had closed the range to 8,000 yards and had Lützow, Von Hipper’s flagship, under so hot a fire that she was disabled and abandoned almost immediately. By an unfortunate chance his own flagship, Invincible, was destroyed by the first and almost the only shell that hit her, the Rear-Admiral and nearly all his gallant companions being sent to instant death. But their work was done and the van of the German fleet was crumpled up.

E For diagrams illustrating this chapter, see end of book.

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Scheer by this time had had his fleet on an easterly course for five and thirty minutes, waiting for the opportunity to turn a right angle or more, so as to retreat under the cover of his torpedo attacks. Up to this time the main body of his fleet had only been under fire for a brief interval, during which the rear division of the Grand Fleet had been in action. Scheer had, no doubt, watched the deployment of the Grand Fleet and had realized that the method chosen had not only given him already a quarter-of-an-hour’s respite, but had supplied him with that opportunity for counter-attack and the evasion it might make possible, which he had been looking for. The battle cruisers were well away to the east. The van and centre of the Grand Fleet, though well on his bows, were only just beginning to open fire.

It is probable that the van was now converging towards him and shortening the range. Scheer was trying to make the gunnery as difficult as possible by his smoke screens, but probably soon realized that, if the range was closed much more, his fleet would soon be in a hopeless situation. At about a quarter to seven, therefore, he launched the first of his torpedo attacks. This had the desired effect. “The enemy,” says the Commander-in-Chief, “constantly turned away and opened the range under the cover of destroyer attacks and smoke screens as the effect of British fire was felt.” “Opening the range” means that the object of the torpedo attacks had been attained. For a quarter of an hour or more the closing movement of the Grand Fleet was converted into an opening movement. Scheer had prevented the close action that he dreaded. He had gained the time needed to turn his whole force from an easterly to a southwesterly course.

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A. Battle-Cruiser Fleet; B. Grand Fleet; C. German Fleet

Sketch plan of the action from 6 p.m. when the Grand Fleet prepared to deploy, till 6:50 when Admiral Scheer delivered his first massed torpedo attack

Sir David Beatty’s account of his movements up to now is singularly brief. “At six o’clock,” he says, “I altered course to east and proceeded at utmost speed.... At 6:20 the Third Battle Squadron bore ahead steaming south towards the enemy’s van. I ordered them to take station ahead.... At 6:25 I altered course to E.S.E. in support of the Third Battle-Cruiser Squadron, who were at this time only 8,000 yards from the enemy’s leading ship.” Nothing is said of his movements in the next twenty minutes. “By 6:50,” he continues, “the battle-cruisers were clear of our leading Battle Squadron, then bearing N.N.W. three miles from Lion.” (Lion was now333 third ship in the line). “I ordered the Third Battle Cruiser Squadron to prolong the line astern and reduced to eighteen knots.” There was nothing now to hurry for. The daylight action was, in fact, over. For that matter good visibility was at an end. From 6:0 to 6:50, though never perfect, it had been more favourable to us than to the enemy. Could the British forces have been concentrated for united effort during this period, what might not have resulted? But from 6:0 to 6:17 Scheer had been engaged by Sir David Beatty’s four battle-cruisers only. For a short period after 6:17 it was engaged by some ships of the rear division as well. From 6:30 till the torpedo attacks broke up the Grand Fleet’s gunnery, it was engaged intermittently and at longer range by all three of the main squadrons. But by this time Sir David Beatty had passed ahead, and the survivors of the enemy’s van had begun their turn.
THE GERMAN RETREAT

The next phase of the action was a fruitless chase of the enemy from seven o’clock until 8:20. “At 7:6,” says Sir David Beatty, “I received a signal that the course of the fleet was south.... We hauled round gradually to S.W. by S. to regain touch with the enemy (who were lost to sight at about 6:50), and at 7:14 again sighted them at a range of about 15,000 yards.... We re-engaged at 7:17 and increased speed to twenty-two knots. At 7:32 my course was S.W. speed eighteen knots, the leading enemy battleship bearing N.W. by West.... At 7:45 P.M. we lost sight of them.”

The two quotations I have made from Sir David Beatty’s despatch divide themselves naturally in this way. The first deals with the plan he had attempted to334 make possible and to share, the second describes his course after that plan had proved abortive. Between them they make it clear that Sir David kept an easterly course at full speed from six o’clock till 6:25. He then turned a quarter of a right angle to the south, that is, to his right, and held this course for twenty-five minutes when, having lost sight of the enemy and, the Grand Fleet being still three miles from him, he dropped his speed from say twenty-seven or twenty-eight knots and awaited developments. As soon as he heard that the Grand Fleet, after recovering from the first torpedo attack, had turned south in pursuit of the Germans, he increased his speed by four knots, hauled round to the southwest, found and re-engaged the enemy at 7:14. By this time, as we have seen, the enemy’s whole line would be following the leading ships on a southwesterly course, so that Sir David Beatty’s movements between 6:0 and 7:14 were approximately parallel to those of the enemy. He had been able to keep parallel by availing himself of his ten or eleven knots’ superiority between 6:0 and 6:50 and by his four or five knots’ superiority between 7:0 and 7:14.

On hearing that at last he was to be supported, Sir David Beatty raised his battle-cruiser speed to twenty-two knots and made a last effort to get in touch with the retiring enemy. He soon found and engaged him at a range of 15,000 yards and contact coincided with a sudden improvement in the seeing conditions. Four ships only, two battle-cruisers and two battleships, evidently the van of the enemy’s line, were visible, and these were at once brought under a hot fire, which caused the enemy to resort to smoke-screen protection, and, under cover of this he turned away to the west. At 7:45 the mist came down again and the enemy was lost to sight. The First and335 Third Light Cruiser Squadrons were then spread out. They swept to the westward and located the head of the enemy’s line again, and at 8:20 the battle-cruisers—whose course had been southwest up to now—changed course to west and got into action apparently with the same four ships as before, at the short range of 10,000 yards. The leading ship soon turned away emitting high flames and with a heavy list to port. She had been brought under the fire of Lion. Princess Royal set fire to one of the two battleships. Indomitable and New Zealand engaged a third and sent her out of the line, heeling over and burning also. Then the mist came down once more and the enemy was last seen by Falmouth at twenty-two minutes to nine.

The Commander-in-Chief is far less explicit as to the occasions on which his ships got into action. The action between the battle fleets, he said, lasted intermittently from 6:17 to 8:20. At 6:17 we know that Burney’s division got into action, and at 6:30 until some time up to 7:20 the other divisions also. But no details of any kind of encounters later than that are mentioned. It is clear that after 6:50 the weather made any continuous engaging quite impossible. There was a second torpedo attack during the stern chase—and once more the enemy “opened the range.”
THE NIGHT ACTIONS AND THE EVENTS OF JUNE 1

The form that the deployment actually took, and the fifteen minutes’ respite from attack won by the torpedo attack at 7:40 which enabled Scheer to get his whole fleet on to a southeasterly from an easterly course were, tactically speaking, the explanation of the German escape on the 31st. It is more difficult to understand exactly336 why they were not brought to action on the following day. Very little is actually known of what happened in the course of the night, and the despatches throw little light on it because, though many incidents are mentioned, very few have any definite hour assigned to them. The facts, so far as they can be gathered, are as follows:

The Grand Fleet seems to have lost sight of the Germans altogether after 8:20 and Sir David Beatty’s scouts saw the last of their enemy at 8:38. The Vice-Admiral continued searching for forty minutes longer and then fell back east and to the line which was the course of the Grand Fleet when he was last in touch with it by wireless. Both fleets seem to have proceeded some distance south and to have waited for the night in the proximity of a point about equi-distant—eighty miles—from the Horn Reef and Heligoland. One destroyer flotilla, the Thirteenth, and one light cruiser squadron were retained with the capital ships for their protection. The rest were disposed, as the Commander-in-Chief says, “in a position in which they could afford protection to the fleet and at the same time be favourably situated for attacking the enemy’s heavy ships.” They must have been placed north of the British forces. No British battle or battle-cruiser squadron was attacked during the night, but the Second Light Cruiser Squadron, which was disposed in the rear of the battle line, got into action at 10:20 with five enemy cruisers, and at 11:30 Birmingham sighted several heavy ships steering south or west-southwest. The Thirteenth Flotilla, which seems to have been associated with the Second Light Cruiser Squadron astern of the battle fleet, reported a large vessel half an hour after midnight, which opened fire on three of the flotilla, disabling Turbulent. At 2:35 another, Moresby, sighted four337 pre-Dreadnoughts and had a shot at them with a torpedo. We are not told the course they were steering.

The destroyers sent out to attack the enemy got several opportunities for using their torpedoes, three of which were probably successful, and a fourth attack resulted in the blowing up of a ship. The despatch does not say, however, whether the destroyers were able to keep in wireless communication with the main fleet, whether any were instructed to keep contact with the enemy and just hang on to him till daylight; whether, in fact, either the Commander-in-Chief or Sir David Beatty had any authentic information at daylight as to the enemy’s formation or movements. Champion’s encounter with four destroyers at 3:30 is the only occurrence we hear of after daybreak, until the engagement of a Zeppelin at 4:0 A.M. All we are told is to be gathered from these words of Lord Jellicoe’s:

“At daylight, June 1, the Battle Fleet, being then to the southward and westward of the Horn Reef, turned to the northward in search of enemy vessels and for the purpose of collecting our own cruisers and torpedo-boat destroyers.... The visibility early on June 1 (three to four miles) was less than on May 31, and the torpedo-boat destroyers, being out of visual touch, did not rejoin until 9 A.M. The British Fleet remained in the proximity of the battlefield and near the line of approach to German ports until 11 A.M. on June 1, in spite of the disadvantage of long distances from fleet bases and the danger incurred in waters adjacent to enemy coasts from submarines and torpedo craft. The enemy, however, made no sign, and I was reluctantly compelled to the conclusion that the High Sea Fleet had returned into port. Subsequent events proved this assumption to have been correct. Our position must338 have been known to the enemy, as at 4 A.M. the fleet engaged a Zeppelin for about five minutes, during which time she had ample time to note and subsequently report the position and course of the British Fleet. The waters from the latitude of the Horn Reef to the scene of the action were thoroughly searched.... A large amount of wreckage was seen, but no enemy ships, and at 1:15 P.M., it being evident that the German Fleet had succeeded in returning to port, course was shaped for our bases, which were reached without further incident on Friday, June 2.”

At this time of year and in this latitude, it will be daylight some time before 3:30. The fleet, therefore, made for the scene of the action at this hour—principally, it would seem, to pick up the cruisers and destroyers—and remained in its proximity until 11 A.M., when the waters between the Battle Fleet and the Horn Reef were searched. The Commander-in-Chief does not tell us of any search made for the enemy at all. But from the fact that he had gone northward to look for his own destroyers and cruisers, it is evident that, whatever information he had got during the night, pointed to the probability of the enemy having retreated from the battlefield not south or west, but east and northwards. At 8:40 on the previous evening he was last reported at a point 120 miles from the Horn Reef lightship, bearing almost exactly northwest from it. It is highly probable that at least ten of the German ships had been struck by torpedoes, in addition to the one sunk. And though Lützow was the only ship sunk by gunfire, many others had suffered very severely. If the fleet’s maximum speed before the action was eighteen knots, it is highly improbable that after the action it exceeded fifteen. At fifteen knots it would have taken the Germans eight hours to reach the Horn Reef lightship, had339 they started for that point directly after contact with the British main squadrons was lost. Having suffered so severely and escaped so miraculously, it was not only obvious that Scheer’s one idea on June 1 would be to make the most of his luck and get safely home, it was also to the last degree probable that he would shape a course for home which would bring him soonest under the protection of whatever defences the German coast could offer. He would not, that is to say, attempt to regain Heligoland by trying to get round the British Fleet to the south and west, and then turn sharply east to Heligoland; he would probably try to creep down the Danish and Schleswig coasts, where wounded ships might, if necessary, be beached, and the islands might supply some form of refuge if the situation became desperate. It was on this route also that the submarines sent out to cover the retreat could be stationed. The best chance of bringing the Germans once more to action on the morning of June 1 would then appear to have been a sweeping movement towards the Horn Reef. The German fleet could not possibly have reached this point before half-past four, and probably not before half-past six. The fast, light forces and the battle-cruisers could have got across to the Schleswig coast in two and a half hours and the battleships before seven o’clock.

If the despatch tells us all that was done, one is rather driven to the conclusion that the Commander-in-Chief assumed that it was not our business, but the Germans’ business, to resume the action. Why else should he say that “the enemy made no sign”? or exult in the fact that he knew from his Zeppelin at four o’clock where the British fleet was if he liked to look for it? Why should the enemy make a sign? Was it not obvious after the events of the340 preceding day that he could have but one idea and that was safety? Scheer and Von Hipper had certainly done enough for honour. They had inflicted heavier losses than they had suffered. If they could get home they had anything but a discreditable story to tell. If the Commander-in-Chief really thought it was not his first duty to find and bring the enemy to action again; if the risk of approaching the Jutland coast seemed too great; if the frustration of any ulterior object the enemy might have contemplated the day before seemed cheaply purchased by the losses the Battle Cruiser Fleet had suffered, so long as our main strength at sea was not impaired, then the proceedings on June 1, as communicated to us, are perfectly intelligible.

Yet there must have been many among his officers and under his command who took a diametrically different view. After engaging for the last time at 8:40 on the previous evening, Sir David Beatty says: “In view of the gathering darkness, and of the fact that our strategical position was such as to make it appear certain that we should locate the enemy at daylight under most favourable circumstances, I did not consider it desirable or proper to close the enemy battle fleet during the dark hours. I therefore concluded that I should be carrying out your wishes by turning to the course of the fleet, reporting to you that I had done so.”

On the events of June 1 Sir David Beatty’s despatch is silent, but it is obvious that it was not his opinion overnight that the morrow should be spent in waiting for the enemy to give a sign, but that, on the contrary, it was certain that he could and should be found and brought to action.