Battle of Jutland

The Battle of Jutland, known in Germany as the Battle of the Skagerrak (Skagerrakschlacht), was the largest naval battle of World War I, and the only full-scale clash of battleships in that war. It was fought on 31 May–1 June 1916, in the North Sea near Jutland, the mainland of Denmark. The combatants were the Kaiserliche Marine's High Seas Fleet, commanded by Vice Admiral Reinhard Scheer, and the Royal Navy's Grand Fleet, commanded by Admiral Sir John Jellicoe.

The fleet action

In the meantime Beatty and Evan-Thomas had resumed their engagement of Hipper's battlecruisers, this time with the visual conditions to their advantage. With the battle-worthiness of his ships greatly attrited, Hipper turned back to Scheer around 18.00, just as Beatty's flagship Lion was finally spotted by Jellicoe on the Iron Duke. Jellicoe promptly demanded the latest positioning data of the German forces from Beatty, who failed to respond to this questioning for almost ten minutes.

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Jellicoe, having overestimated the enemy forces, was in a worrying position, needing to know the position of the Germans in order to judge when and how to deploy from columns to single line. The deployment could be onto either the western or the eastern column and had to be carried out before the Germans arrived; but early deployment could mean losing any chance of a decisive encounter. Deploying to the west would bring his fleet closer to Scheer, gaining valuable time as dusk approached, but the Germans might arrive before the maneuver was complete. Deploying to the east would take the force away from Scheer, but Jellicoe's ships might be able to cross the "T" and would have the advantage of silhouetting Scheer's forces to the west. Deployment would take twenty irreplaceable minutes, and the fleets were approaching at quite a high speed. Jellicoe ordered deployment to the east at 18:10 ❷.

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Meanwhile Hipper had rejoined Scheer, and the combined High Seas Fleet was heading north, directly toward Jellicoe. Scheer had no indication that Jellicoe was arriving from the northwest and was distracted by the intervention of Hood's ships to his north and east. Beatty's four surviving battlecruisers were now crossing the van of the British dreadnoughts to join Hood's three battlecruisers; in doing so, he nearly rammed Rear-Admiral Arbuthnot's flagship Defence. Arbuthnot's obsolete armoured cruisers had no real place in the coming clash between modern dreadnoughts, but he was attracted by the drifting hull of the crippled Wiesbaden. With Warrior, Defence closed in for the kill, only to blunder right into the gunsights of Hipper's and Scheer's oncoming capital ships. Defence was destroyed in a spectacular explosion viewed by most of the deploying Grand Fleet, sinking with all hands (903 officers and men). Warrior was hit badly but spared immolation by the mishap of the nearby superdreadnought Warspite. Warspite had been steaming near 25 knots (46 km/h) to keep pace with the 5th Battle Squadron as it tailed Beatty's battlecruisers in the run north, creating enough strain to jam her rudder. Drifting in a wide circle, she appeared as a juicy target to the German dreadnoughts and took thirteen hits, inadvertently drawing fire from the hapless Warrior. This maneouvre from Warspite was known as "Windy Corner". Despite surviving the onslaught, Warspite was soon ordered back to port by Evan-Thomas. As Defence sank, Hipper moved within range of Hood's 3rd Battlecruiser Squadron. Invincible inflicted two below-waterline hits on Lützow that would ultimately doom Hipper's flagship, but about 18:30 abruptly appeared as a clear target before Lützow and Derfflinger. A series of 12 inch (305 mm) shells struck Invincible, which blew up and split in two, killing all but six of her crew of 1,032 officers and men, including Rear Admiral Hood.

Related Topics:
''Defence'' - Armoured cruisers - ''Warrior'' - ''Warspite'' - Windy Corner - ''Lützow''

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By 18:30 the main fleet action was joined for the first time, with Jellicoe effectively "crossing Scheer's T" ❸. Jellicoe's flagship Iron Duke quickly scored a series of hits on the lead German dreadnought, König; but in this brief exchange, which lasted only minutes, as few as ten of the Grand Fleet's twenty-four dreadnoughts actually fired shots. The Germans were hampered by poor visibility in addition to being in an unfavorable tactical position. Realizing he was heading into a trap, Scheer ordered his fleet to turn and flee at 18:33. Amid a pall of smoke and mist Scheer's forces succeeded in disengaging.

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Conscious of the risks to his capital ships posed by torpedoes, Jellicoe did not seek chase but headed south, determined to keep the High Seas Fleet west of him. Scheer knew that it was not yet dark enough to escape, and his fleet would suffer terribly in a stern chase, so at 18:55 he doubled back to the east ❹. In his memoirs he wrote, "the manoeuvre would be bound to surprise the enemy, to upset his plans for the rest of the day, and if the blow fell heavily it would facilitate the breaking loose at night."

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Commodore Goodenough's 2nd Light Cruiser Squadron dodged the fire of German battleships for a second time in reestablishing contact with the High Seas Fleet shortly after 19:00. By 19:15, Jellicoe had crossed the "T" yet again ❺. This time his arc of fire was tighter and deadlier, causing severe damage to the Germans, particularly Rear-Admiral Behncke's leading 3rd Battle Squadron. At 19:17, for the second time in less than an hour, Scheer turned to the west, ordering a major torpedo attack by his destroyers and a "death ride" by Scouting Group I's four remaining battlecruisers — Lützow being out of action and abandoned by Hipper — to deter a British chase. In this portion of the engagement the Germans sustained thirty-seven heavy hits while inflicting only two, Derfflinger alone receiving fourteen. Nonetheless Scheer slipped away as sunset (at 20:24) approached. The last major engagement between capital ships took place as the surviving British battlecruisers caught up with their German counterparts, which were briefly relieved by Rear-Admiral Mauve's obsolete pre-dreadnoughts ❻. As the King George V and Westfalen exchanged a few final shots, neither side could have imagined that the only encounter between British and German dreadnoughts in the entire war was already concluded.

Related Topics:
''Lützow'' - ''King George V''

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At 21:00, Jellicoe, knowing of the Grand Fleet's deficiencies in night-fighting, hoped to avoid a major engagement until early dawn. He placed a screen of cruisers and destroyers behind his battle fleet to patrol the rear as he headed south to guard against Scheer's expected escape to Ems ❼. In reality Scheer opted to bypass his wake and escape via Horns Reef. Luckily for Scheer, Jellicoe's scouts failed to report his true course while Jellicoe himself was too cautious to judge from extensive circumstantial evidence that the Germans were breaking through his rear. While the nature of Scheer's escape and Jellicoe's inaction indicate the overall superiority of German night-fighting proficiency, the night battle's results were no more clear-cut than the battle as a whole. Southampton, Commodore Goodenough's flagship that had scouted so proficiently, was heavily damaged but managed to sink the German cruiser Frauenlob which went down at 22:23 with all hands (320 officers and men). But at 02:00 on 1 June, Black Prince of the ill-fated 1st Cruiser Squadron met a grim fate at the hands of the battleship Thüringen, blowing up with all hands (857 officers and men) as her squadron leader Defence had done hours earlier. At 02:10, flotillas of British destroyers launched daring torpedo runs on the German battle lines and at the cost of five destroyers sunk and some others damaged, they managed to sink the predreadnought Pommern with all hands (844 officers and men), as well as torpedoing the light cruiser Rostock and causing another, Elbing, to be rammed by the dreadnought Posen and abandoned. The battlecruiser Lützow was scuttled at 01:45 after being abandoned by her 1,150 survivors. In addition to Jellicoe's caution, the Germans were helped by the failure of British naval intelligence in London to relay a critical radio intercept giving away the true position of the High Seas Fleet. By the time Jellicoe finally learned of Scheer's whereabouts at 04:15 it was clear the battle could no longer be resumed. There would be no "Glorious First of June" in 1916.

Related Topics:
Horns Reef - 1 June - Glorious First of June

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