Jutland:Clash of the Battle Fleets

During the Run to the North, Vice Admiral Sir David Beatty’s Battle Cruiser Fleet, led the German High Sea Fleet, commanded by Admiral Reinhard Scheer onto Admiral Sir John Jellicoe’s much larger Grand Fleet.

At 6:14 pm on 31 May 1916 Beatty informed Jellicoe that the High Sea Fleet was in sight, leaving Jellicoe with a vital decision to make. On which flank should he deploy as he moved his battleships from their cruising formation into their battle line? The starboard flank was closest to the enemy, but his ships would have to turn under heavy fire and probably attacks by torpedo boats. His problem was that the lack of reports from his scouting forces meant that he had to make the decision when the enemy was closer than he would have liked. He chose to deploy to port.

A few have criticised Jellicoe's decision, notably Alfred and Kenneth Dewar, two brothers and RN officers who wrote an internal Admiralty study of Jutland highly critical of Jellicoe. It was so controversial that copies were later recalled for destruction. Other critics include Winston Churchill, whose account of the battle is largely based on the work of the Dewars and Admiral Sir Doveton Sturdee, victor of the Battle of the Falklands and commanding the Fourth Battle Squadron at Jutland.

Most, however, agree that Jellicoe was correct: they include all the Grand Fleet admirals except Sturdee; the British and German Official Histories; the historian Arthur Marder; Scheer's Chief of Staff Vize Admiral Alfred von Trotha; Admiral John Godfrey, later a Staff college lecturer; Vice Admiral John Harper, author of another Admiralty study of the battle; Admiral Sir Reginald Drax, who was onboard Lion at Jutland; Admiral Sir Bertram Ramsay, who commanded the naval forces at the evacuation of Dunkirk and the invasion of Normandy; and Admiral of the Fleet `Viscount Cunningham who commanded the Mediterranean Fleet in the first half of WWII, including winning the Battle of Matapan. and then became First Sea Lord.

The port deployment meant that the Grand Fleet crossed the T of the High Sea Fleet, allowing it to fire full broadsides whilst the Germans could reply with only their forward firing guns. There was a delay, but this benefitted the Grand Fleet as it gave it longer to stretch its line and complete the crossing of the T. It put the Grand Fleet on the High Sea Fleet's line of retreat and gave the Grand Fleet the advantage of the light. Deploying to starboard lost all these advantages in return only for getting into action quickly. The Dewars and Churchill suggested instead a deployment on the centre, but this would have been a complex manoeuvre that had never been practiced.{MarderFDSFIII| p. 106}}

Rear Admiral] Sir Horace Hood's Third Battle Cruiser Squadronhad now joined the Battle Cruiser Force. H.M.S. Invincible scored a series of hits on S.M.S. Lützow, but about 6:30 pm the mist that had been obscuring the British ships cleared. The Germans opened fire and Invincible became the fourth British ship to blow up. There were 1,032 dead and only six survivors.

Some reports claimed that more men got into the alive water from the sunk ships but that they were later run down by the advancing British fleet, which had no time or room to stop or alter course. However, Commander Hubert Dannreuther, Invincible's gunnery officer and the senior survivor of the four ships that blew up, believed that the many kitbags and hammocks in the water could have been mistaken for men from the height of a battleship.

The appearance of the Grand Fleet was a massive shock to Scheer. At 6:33 pm he ordered his battleships to carry out a battle about turn, i.e. to together turn 16 points (180 degrees) so that they were heading in the opposite direction. This was not difficult in practice and good visibility, but was a big risk of collisions when carrying it out in poor visibility, under fire and with several ships damaged. It was, however, completed successfully.

The High Sea Fleet was now out of Jellicoe's sight. At 6:44 pm he turned south east, altering course to south at 6:55 pm in order to put the Grand Fleet on the High Sea Fleet’s route home. Just before this the battleship H.M.S. Marlborough was hit by a torpedo.

Also at 6:55 pm Scheer ordered a second battle about turn, this time to the east. His reasoning for this risky manoeuvre was that he had to do something to gain the initiative and prevent Grand Fleet blocking the High Sea Fleet's route home and attacking it as it retreated. He also sent torpedo boats to help the stricken light cruiser S.M.S. Wiesbaden, which had been badly damaged earlier in the battle. The British mistook this for an attack on the Grand Fleet.

By 7:12 pm the High Sea Fleet was under heavy fire but could see nothing of the enemy except for the flashes of its guns. Scheer therefore issued three orders: at 6:13 pm he ordered the battlecruisers, less the badly damaged Lützow, which had been detached, to charge the enemy; at 6:15 pm he ordered his torpedo boats to attack and to lay a smokescreen; and at 6:16 pm he ordered his battleships to perform another battle about turn in order to escape. This time they were under even heavier fire, but the manoeuvre was again successful.

The German battlecruisers suffered heavy punishment, to which they could offer little response because of the poor visibility, but succeeded in covering the battleship's withdrawal. The German Template:DE-V48 was crippled when retiring after the torpedo attack.

S.M.S. Derfflinger had two of her turrets destroyed by hits from 15 inch shells. According to her gunnery officer, Korvettenkapitän Georg von Hase, her cartridge cases caught fire but 'only blazed, they did not explode as had been the case in the enemy battlecruisers. This saved the ship, but the result of the fire was catastrophic.'

The German torpedo attack persuaded Jellicoe to turn away from the torpedoes at 7:22 pm, which cost several minutes and put him 3,000 yards further away from the High Sea Fleet. No British battleships were hit by torpedoes. In the Second World War the preferred tactic was to turn towards the torpedoes and comb them, thus maintaining contact with the enemy, which in this case was beaten and in retreat. Jellicoe missed an opportunity to cause further damage and perhaps turn a retreat into a rout.

However, navies then had little experience of massed torpedo attacks and Jellicoe was conscious that heavy losses of British battleships might enable the Germans to lift the Allied blockade and win the war.

The sun set at 8:19 pm but there was enough light for the British to continue firing until about 9:00 pm. Jellicoe, having lost touch with the enemy, decided to set a course to intercept Scheer on his route home. He received no information about the enemy’s location until Beatty reported by searchlight at 7:40 pm and wireless at 7:48 pm. These signals, however, did not give Jellicoe enough information to set a course to intercept Scheer.

Bibliography

• Corbett, Sir Julian S. (1923). Naval Operations. Volume III. London: The Imperial War Museum..
• Gordon, Andrew (2005). The Rules of the Game: Jutland and British Naval Command. London: John Murray (Publishers). ISBN 0719561310. (on Amazon.com and Amazon.co.uk).
• Marder, Arthur J. (1978). From the Dreadnought to Scapa Flow, The Royal Navy in the Fisher Era, 1904-1919: Jutland and After, May 1916–December 1916. Volume III (Second ed.). London: Oxford University Press. ISBN 0192158414.
• Tarrant, V. E. (1995). Jutland: The German Perspective. London: Arms and Armour Press. ISBN 1 86019 917 8. (on Amazon.com and Amazon.co.uk).

See Also

• Wikipedia