Jutland Part 5 - The Night Action

The stalemate in the North Sea finally ended in May of 1916. The battle began with a clash between the two side's battlecruisers. David Beatty then lead the German High Seas Fleet into the arms of John Jellicoe's Grand Fleet. Jellicoe managed to pound the High Seas Fleet, but Scheer eventually broke contact. Unfortunately, Jellicoe was still between him and his base, and it was now night.

Jutland: The Night Action

After darkness fell, Jellicoe kept his fleet moving south, trying to cut off the direct path to Wilhelmshaven. To cover the possibility that the Germans would make for Horns Reef instead, he dispatched a minelayer to the area to join the submarines already on station. For the night, he placed his battleships in four columns alongside each other, and placed his destroyers behind his fleet to catch the Germans if they tried to cut behind him. The cruisers were spread out on the flanks and ahead. Beatty was steaming parallel to Jellicoe, ahead and to the west. He had cut ahead of the Germans, and was directly in front of them by 2230.

The night action is when the British performance really began to fall apart. Reporting up the chain of command was basically nonexistent, apparently because most officers assumed that Jellicoe already knew the situation. Of the few ships that did attempt to return radio signals, some were jammed by the Germans. Jellicoe’s orders were not entirely clear, which didn’t help. Many of his subordinates thought that they were not supposed to engage without orders, at least partially because of a fear of the Germans having superior night-fighting capability and equipment. Most notably, the British spotlights took time to warm up, and their filaments continued to glow after they were shut down, providing a target for the Germans, who did not suffer from either disadvantage. There were also the lingering effects of the stagnation the Royal Navy had undergone in the 19th century, as the reminders of the Napoleonic Wars faded. This is often overstated, but the night action at Jutland gives critics plenty of ammunition.

In fairness to the British, night actions are inherently risky things, and the chance of a German victory changing the balance of forces in the North Sea was too great. A particular risk is that ships on the same side would start to engage each other,¹ and the British after the battle put much more emphasis on ship recognition. Likewise, the initiative that is so often considered necessary to military success is a double-edged sword. While it is important in single-ship or small-unit actions, it can become disastrous in cases where large numbers of powerful units are operating in close proximity.

Things began to go wrong at 2200, when Lion, who had lost her codebooks, signaled Princess Royal for the night’s recognition codes. This signal, and part of the reply with the code, was seen by a German cruiser, and contributed to the later confusion. At 2245, Jellicoe transmitted a position signal to the fleet, then fell into a fitful sleep on the flag bridge of Iron Duke.

At the same time, Scheer was turning his fleet southeast for Horns Reef. He sent several signals, which Room 40 picked up. Some of them were transmitted on to Jellicoe, but not enough to overcome the distrust that the report placing Scheer in the Jade that morning had produced. There is speculation that not all of the information was sent, to prevent the Germans realizing the British had broken their codes, although this is impossible to confirm.

I’m not going to go into detail on all of the actions that occurred between the British destroyers and the German fleet. There were seven, spread between 2300 and 0430. The first was a skirmish between British and German destroyers, which blunted an attempted German destroyer attack with no losses on either side. A few minutes later, another group of British destroyers clashed with German cruisers, the British light cruiser Castor, leading the destroyers, suffering heavy damage. Unusually, this incident was reported to Jellicoe, who misinterpreted the cruisers as supporting a German destroyer attack on the Grand Fleet, instead of being part of the main body’s screen.

Goodenough’s 2nd LCS was also a participant, fighting a short action with a group of German cruisers at around 2320. This time, the German cruiser Frauenlob was torpedoed and sunk, but Southampton, lucky earlier in the day, was badly damaged by 18 hits. Goodenough’s radio was damaged, and his report did not reach Jellicoe for over an hour. Jellicoe and the battleships could hear and see these actions, but did not respond, for reasons that are not apparent a century later.

HMS Broke, one of the survivors of the 3-way collision

An hour later, the British finally encountered the German main body. Due to the problems of recognition at night, the destroyer leader Tipperary managed to close to within 700 yards of three German battleships, who pummeled her with 5.9” fire. Her destroyers scattered, fighting a wild, chaotic night action that saw three of them collide at high speed, and two of the crews involved attempt to abandon ship into the other vessel.² The German cruiser Elbing was also rammed by the battleship Posen, and had to be abandoned after both engine rooms flooded.

HMS Spitfire after the battle

A third collision occurred when the destroyer Spitfire hit Nassau, the first German dreadnought. Spitfire’s bow was badly damaged, but the Germans discovered that Nassau’s guns could not depress enough to bear on her. However, their muzzle blast was sufficient to blow away her bridge, funnels, and boats. Eventually, Spitfire got free and returned home, bearing a 20-foot length of Nassau’s side plating. The British attempts to launch torpedo attacks were totally unsuccessful, and two more of their destroyers were sunk by gunfire during this phase of the action. The armored cruiser Black Prince, part of the same squadron as Defense and Warrior, blundered into the middle of the action, and was sunk with all hands around midnight by the fire of five German battleships. This was made even more tragic by the fact that at least one British battleship, Thunderer, saw the action, and could have intervened if her captain had not been afraid of betraying the fleet's location.

At around 0200, after a brief lull, the British destroyers again clashed with the German fleet. They were running low on torpedoes, and several were damaged. One, Turbulent, was sunk when rammed by Rheinland. Again, no report was made to Jellicoe.

SMS Pommern

The British finally managed to score a serious blow at 0307, when the 12th Destroyer Flotilla launched a torpedo attack which hit the pre-dreadnought Pommern. Pommern shared the fate of Black Prince, lost with all hands. By this point, Scheer was well to the east of Jellicoe, and only 16 miles from the entrance to Horns Reef and safety. A last, indecisive, clash half an hour later brought the battle to a close.

The survival of Moltke and Seydlitz was particularly surprising. Moltke passed right by Thunderer, and survived only due to her captain’s insistence on not giving away the battle fleet. Seydlitz apparently passed three British dreadnoughts, and even exchanged recognition signals with them. Marlborough’s gunnery officer later regretted not disregarding orders to hold his fire. Seydlitz nearly ran aground on Horns Reef but managed to avoid taking any more damage.

SMS Lutzow

Lutzow was not so lucky. At around 0300, it became obvious that she was not going to survive, and most of her crew was taken off by destroyers. Some were unable to evacuate, and a total of 597 men went down with her.

At 0330, Jellicoe ordered the Grand Fleet back to the north, and reformed it into daylight formation at 0513. Two minutes later, he learned that the Germans had in fact reached safety. He didn’t learn of the loss of Indefatigable and Queen Mary until 1100, a final example of Beatty’s tardiness in reporting, and it took another round of signals to learn the circumstances of their loss. After a few hours of searching for survivors (or any remaining German ships), the British turned for home.

The greatest clash of dreadnoughts was over, but the controversy it sparked would rage on for decades, with some issues undecided even today, over a century later. That will be our subject for next time.