Account of Anthony Boyce Combe at the Battle of Jutland

Account of Anthony Boyce Combe at the Battle of Jutland, taken from notes made on H.M.S. Lion notepaper found in RNMN/Combe/2 in the Liddle Collection of the Special Collections in the Library at the University of Leeds.

Account

It was on the afternoon of May 31^st 1916 that I was having tea in the gunroom of H.M.S. Lion, The time being about 3.30 in the afternoon. We had just come down from "Control" during which there was rangefinder practice and so on. I was having a boiled egg & bread & butter enjoying my food immensely when "Control" again sounds off. Why they sounded off Contol 5 ^mins after they had been at Control for an hour I couldn't make out at the time. But I wasn't going to leave my boiled egg or my tea until my hunger had been appeased. At 3.35 I thought I might as well stroll up and see what was doing and upon coming onto the Bridge I enquired why they had Sounded off again and the Chief Yeoman of Signals told me that there were some hostil cruisers on the Horizon. This sounded rather exciting so I thought and proceeded immediately up to the "Foretop" which is my station during action. Upon arriving up there I found the Gunnery Lieut Com^dr (now promoted to Com^dr) and Lieut Lake (assistant spotter) and the Fleet Paymaster (Dumaresq Operator) and 2 Seamen 1 who works the "time of flight" card and the other who takes down on some paper Spotting correction & so forth. I was cursed for being so late but I was in high spirits so didn;t mind and took my seat by the voice pipes which I look after. I can remember feeling very excited and pleased with life at the prospect of there being an action with the Huns. A little later on H.M.S. Galatea (Commodore Sinclair) reported 2 light cruisers & Destroyers and at about 3.40 H.M.S. New Zealand reported Enemy Battlecruisers in sight on her Port bow therefore placing them right ahead of H.M.S. Lion. What I thought was rather bad luck was when H.M.S. New Zealand & Indefatigable were ordered to take station astern of us, however it meant that H.M.S. Lion would be the 1^st into action. I could hardly believe my ears when I heard that [2] the Enemy Battle Cruisers were actually in sight and that I should get a glimpse of them in a few seconds when H.M.S. New Zealand got astern of us. It was when H.M.S. New Zealand & Indefatigable had taken station astern when the Captain reported German Battle Cruisers in sight right ahead and that he was going to alter course to Starboard. There were 5 of them altogether:— Seydlitz, Lutzow, Derflinger, Moltke, Von der Tan. Ahead of the Battle Cruiser arranged in a sort of fan formation you could see their destroyers. It was a very impressive sight and I don't suppose I shall ever forget it especially when their leading Battle cruiser opened fire. It was a very fine sight. It was a rippling Salvo which means that one gun fires after another in quick succession each gun being set to a different range so that the shot which falls nearest to the Enemy ship the range of which is put onto the remaining guns. The Ship which opened fire first was the Seydlitz. Almost immediately after the enemy had opened fire the Captain said "open fire" to the Foretop and the Gunnery Lieut Com^dr opened fire with 4 13.5 guns all at once. You could hear the firing bell in the T.S. ring and the director layer pressed the trigger at which the guns went off with a tremendous great crash. Then I set myself down at my voice pipes trusting to luck that the Foretop would be spared! After a bit the firing of the Enemy got hotter as time went and soon they began hitting us. Shells were all over the place and splinters by thousands were flying all over the whole ship and the air was full of them. It was a wonder the officers & men on the Bridge weren't hit, as it was, the ladder from the Bridge to the Director Tower was shot away at the bottom and consequently had to be made fast to one of the stanchions on the forebridge. It was during the 1^st ¾ of an hour of hard fighting that H.M.S. "Queen Mary" & H.M.S. "Indefatigable" blew up. It was also at the end of the first 1^st ¾ of an hours run that our Battle cruisers ran into their High Seas fleet which were right ahead. So for a short time of about 20 minutes we [3] were under 2 fires, So we turned about and steamed away from their High Seas fleet. When we turned about their Battle cruisers turned about as well and so we steamed parallel to each other