World War I - 9 Book Collection: Nelson's History of the War, The Battle of Jutland & The Battle of the Somme. Buchan John
was several times hit, but without serious damage. The light cruisers attacked the enemy with torpedoes, and at 8.40 an explosion was observed on board a ship of the Kaiser class. In these actions four enemy destroyers were sunk by our gun fire.
By 9 o'clock the enemy had completely disappeared and darkness was falling fast. He had been veering round to a westerly course, and the whole British Fleet lay between him and his home ports. It was a strategic situation which, but for the fog and the coming of night, would have meant his complete destruction. Sir John Jellicoe had now to make a difficult decision. It was impossible for the British Fleet to close in the darkness in a sea swarming with torpedo craft and submarines, and accordingly he was compelled to make dispositions for the night, which would ensure the safety of his ships and provide for a renewal of the action at dawn. In his own words :—" I manoeuvred to remain between the enemy and his base, placing our Flotillas in a position in which they would afford protection to the fleet from destroyer attack and at the same time be favourably situated for attacking the enemy's heavier ships." About the same time Sir David Beatty, to the south and westward, had made the same decision on his own account. He informed Sir John Jellicoe of his position and the bearing of the enemy and turned to the course of the Battle Fleet.
The Fourth Stage. Night of May 31st-June 1st.
The night battle was waged on the British side entirely by the lighter craft. It will be remembered that Beatty had with him the 1st, 2nd and 3rd Light Cruiser Squadrons and the 1st, 9th, 10th and 13th Destroyer Flotillas. The 1 st and 3rd Light Cruiser Squadrons were continuously in touch with the battle cruisers and usually ahead of them. There they protected the head of the British line from torpedo attack. The 2nd Light Cruiser Squadron was at the rear of the battle line, and at 9 p.m. it repelled a destroyer attack upon Evan-Thomas's battle ships At 10.20 Southampton and Dublin were in action with five enemy cruisers, and lost many men during the fifteen minutes fight. At half-past eleven Birmingham sighted several heavy ships steering south. These were some of the enemy battle ships slipping past the British stern in the fog and darkness.
In the rear of the line were also Fearless and the 1st Destroyer Flotilla, which during the night observed a battleship of the Kaiser class utterly alone and steaming at full speed. This solitary ship seems to have been attacked by destroyers further astern, for presently from that direction came the noise of a heavy explosion. The 13th Flotilla under Captain James Farie in Champion was also astern of the Battle Fleet. At half-past twelve on the morning of 1st June, a large vessel crossed its rear, opening a heavy fire as she passed on Petard and Turbulent. At 3.30 Champion was engaged with four enemy destroyers, and an hour before Moresby had fired a torpedo with success at four ships of the Deutschland class.
Beatty's destroyers having been in action since 4 o'clock in the afternoon, the principal attacks were made by the 4th, 11th and 12th Flotillas which accompanied Jellicoe and which had had less continuous fighting. Castor (Commodore Hawkesley) in the 11 th Flotilla, sank an enemy destroyer at point blank range. The 12th Flotilla (Captain Anselan J. B. Stirling) attacked a squadron of six large vessels including some of the Kaiser class. The third ship in the line was torpedoed and blew up, and twenty minutes later the fourth ship in the line was also hit. Onslaught, of this Flotilla was severely damaged, but Sub-Lieutenant Kemmis and Midshipman Arnot, the only officers not disabled, took the ship out of action and brought her safely home.
The heaviest fighting fell to the lot of the 4th Flotilla under Captain Wintour. Two torpedoes were observed to take effect, but Tipper art was sunk with the greater part of its crew. Captain Wintour was killed early in the action, when Lieutenant Kemp took command. Two rafts were got away from the sinking vessel and a number of survivors from them were afterwards picked up, but the young Lieutenant went down with his ship. The British destroyers, of all the vessels engaged in the battle, won perhaps the greatest glory. " They surpassed," wrote Sir John Jellicoe, " the very highest expectations that I had formed of them."
An officer on one of the flotillas has described that uneasy darkness. " We couldn't tell what was happening. Every now and then out of the silence would come bang, bang, boom, as hard as it could go for ten minutes on end. The flash of the guns lit up the whole sky for miles and miles, and the noise was far more penetrating than by day. Then you would see a great burst of flame from some poor devil, as the searchlight switched on and off, and then perfect silence once more." The searchlights at times made the sea as white as marble on which the destroyers moved " black," wrote an eye witness, " as cockroaches on a floor."
At earliest dawn on June 1st, the British Fleet, which was lying south and west of the Horn Reef, turned northward to collect its light craft and to search for the enemy. But the enemy was not to be found. Partly he had already slipped in single ships astern of our fleet during the night; partly he was then engaged in moving homewards like a flight of wild duck that has been scattered by shot. He was greatly helped by the weather, which at dawn on June 1st was thicker than the night before, the visibility being less than four miles. About 4 o'clock a Zeppelin passed over the British Fleet and no doubt by wireless signalled to any remaining German units where lay the safe passage. All morning till 11 o'clock Sir John Jellicoe waited on the battlefield, watching the lines of approach to German ports and attending the advent of the enemy. But no enemy came. " I was reluctantly compelled to the conclusion," wrote Sir John, " that the High Sea Fleet had returned into port." Till 1.15 p.m. the British fleet swept the seas, picking up survivors from some of the lost destroyers. After that hour waiting was useless, so the fleet sailed for its bases, which were reached next day, Friday, 2nd June. There it fueled and replenished with ammunition, and at 9.30 that evening was ready for further action.
RESULTS.
The German Fleet, being close to its bases, was able to publish at once its own version of the battle. A resounding success was a political necessity for Germany, and it is likely that she would have claimed a victory if any remnant of her fleets had reached harbour. As it was she was over-joyed at having escaped annihilation, and the magnitude of her jubilation may be taken as the measure of her fears. It is of the nature of a naval action that it gives ample scope for fiction. There are no spectators. Victory and defeat are not followed, as in a land battle, by a gain or loss of ground. A well-disciplined country with a strict censorship can frame any tale it pleases, and stick to it for months without fear of detection at home. Therefore Germany claimed at once a decisive success. According to her press the death blow had been given to Britain's command of the sea. The Kaiser soared into the realms of poetry :—" The gigantic fleet of Albion, ruler of the seas, which since Trafalgar for a hundred years has imposed on the whole world a bond of sea-tyranny, and has surrounded itself with a nimbus of invincibleness, came into the field. That gigantic Armada approached, and our fleet engaged it. The British Fleet was beaten. The first great hammer blow was struck, and the nimbus of British world supremacy disappeared." Germany announced trivial losses —one old battle ship, Pommern, three small cruisers Wiesbaden, Elbing and Frauenlob, and five destroyers.
It is a striking tribute to the prestige of the British Navy that the German fairy tale was received with incredulity in all Allied and in most neutral countries. In a small mountain village in the Apennines, the inhabitants of which, owing to economic difficulties, had small enthusiasm for the war, the news arrived that the British Navy had been beaten. " That is a lie " was the unanimous decision of the village. " Nothing on earth can defeat the British Navy." But false news, once it has started, may be dangerous, and in some quarters in America, even among friends of the Allies, there was at first a disposition to accept the German version. The ordinary man is apt to Judge of a battle, on land or sea, by the crude test of losses. The British Admiralty announced its losses at once with a candour which may have been undiplomatic, but which revealed a proud confidence in the invulnerability of the navy and the steadfastness of the British people. These losses were : one first class battle cruiser, Queen Mary ; two lesser battle cruisers, Indefatigable and Invincible; three armoured cruisers, Defence, Black Prince and Warrior ; and eight destroyers, Tipperary, Ardent, Fortune, Shark, Sparrowhawk, Nestor, Nomad and Turbulent. More vital than the ships, was the loss of many gallant men and officers, including some of the most distinguished of the younger Admirals and Captains.
Even if Germany's version of her losses had been true it is scarcely necessary to say that they were heavier than