I was standing amidships at the standard compass on the manceuvring bridge watching the steering of the ship which was guide of the fleet, when at 6.14 p.m. I heard the signalman calling out each word of Beatty's reply as flashed by a searchlight from the Lion:
Jellicoe had made up his mind to accept such risk if he could geta proper return for it, but at 7.15 p.m. on Jutland day it would have been sheer lunacy to turn towards the attack, for we could not see the German Battle Fleet in order to shoot at them, as they had hidden themselves in smoke screens, nor could we overtake them before dark. To turn towards would therefore have merely offered the Grand Fleet as a huge target for enemy torpedoes.
The German flotillas had some 224 torpedoes ready to fire, Owing to Jellicoe now turning away 45 degrees, they only fired 32 of these in the face of the tremendous gunfire of the Grand Fleet and the counter-attack of our light cruisers and destroyers. They then turned and ran after their Battle Fleet. Immediately after this Jellicoe turned back to south by west and then to southwest, and at 8 pum. to west in pursuit in the deepening mist.
Twenty of the German torpedoes passed through our battle fleet, one passing just ahead of the Iron Duke, but owing to the turn away, the torpedoes were running slowly at the end of their run, and could be avoided by manceuvring individual ships.
The German heavy ships had been hit a great many times by our shells from 12in. to 15in. guns, but, unfortunately, our shells were weak and broke up on even medium armour. We thus lost the offensive value of having mounted heavier guns than the Germans at the expense of our having thinner armour.
On Page 15 of "Naval Operations." vol. four, it is stated that the German. battle cruisers were hit 70 times in all and that 50 of these occurred during the battleship action. The kading German battleships were also heavily hit.
Had we been supplied at Jutland with our vastly-improved armour-piercing shell as produced in 1917, there is no doubt that about six of the German capital ships would have been sunk.
Terrific Cannonade "Have sighted bearing S.S.W." enemy battle fleet I then heard at once "the sharp, distinctive step of the Commander-in-Chief approaching the compass (he had steel-shod heels to his shoes).
With iron nerve he had pressed on and on in the mist with his 24 huge. ships, averaging 25000 tons weight for each, until the last possible moment, so as to get into effective range and make the best tactical manœuvre after getting exact news of the position of the enemy battle fleet, which was his objective, I realized as I watched him that the master was as cool and unmoved To give sgme idea of the awful cannonade X medium range from which the Germans twice ran away in the main action, the following table of rounds fired by our turret guns, 12in. to 15in., is of great interest.—
From 616 p.m. onwards From main Battle Fleet 1,539
From Sth Battle Squadron 271 From Battle Cruisers 560 rounds in the main action at medium and short range.
Previous to that, from 348 pin.
10 616 pin.
Sth Battle Squadron 828 Battle Cruisers 1410 as ever.
It was typical of Jellicoe's brilliant mind that in a flash he saw that~by that method he could push his left-hand division to the front. the others forming astern, and thus our battle line would be deployed across the bows of the German Fleet, enfilading them and cutting them off from their home ports.
Moreover, our ships would be invisible to the Germans, while the latter at times presented good targets to shoot at in the mist. He had first thought of forming line of battle on the starboard column, but realised this would be liable to lead to disaster, It was in truth a thunderbolt he launched by the most brilliant manceuvre ever executed at sea.
As the Iron Duke commenced the movement she was straddled by two heavy shells, The ships of our two right-hand columns came under heavy fire from the German Battle Fleet, who, however, made no hit, as the light was so unfavourable for them.
Mr. Churchill makes no mention of that grand deployment of Jellicoe's, but he "correctly describes how Scheer, the German Commander-in-Chief, finding his van in this ghastly situation under a tornado of fre at medium ranges, turned the german Fleet about and ran away into the mist.
The gunnery officer of Hipper's flagship. the battle cruiser Lutzow, says that at this period they were hit by two heavy shells that came in under the armour and exploded—wrecking all watertight bulkheads wuder the forecastle, as a result of which the ship sank that night.
We in the Iron Duke had fired our turret guns at the German cruiser Wies-baden, and then made a lot of hits on the German battleship Konig until she and the rest turned away into the mist—unable to fire at me, as Jellicoe had robbed them of "the light gauge."
Why German Fleet Ran for Home Our Battle Fleet turned 11 degrees towards the enemy Battle Fleet at 644 pin. and a further 45 degrees in columns towards them at 6.51 p.m, bringing our course to due south.
Jellicoe had no information as to the formation of the enemy battle fleet, of whom he never saw more than three at a time. Where were the five Kaiser battleships reported to him as ahead of the "Konigs"? As described above he groped for them to starboard in the mist.
Scheer meanwhile, in his desperate anxiety to run for home, reformed his line on an easterly course, and as correctly stated by Mr. Churchill "ran right into the course of the whole British Fleet" instead of rassing astern of them, as surely must have been his intention.
Total—1,938 rounds in the afternoon, fighting, mainly at long range Making a grand total of 4598 rounds The, Germans. had fired 3597 rounds of lin. and.12in. shells They bad the good luck to find out and neutralize the danger of flash to the magazines by the battle cruiser Sey-blitz nearly blowing up in January, 1915, in the Dogger battle We learned this by three of our battle cruisers blowing up at Jutland.
During the night of the Jutland Battle Scheer made another desperate attempt to get to the eastward to his home ports, and passed through our destroyer flotillas astern of the Grand Fleet in the dark.
Our destroyers gallantly attacked ona sank the battleship Pommern and two light cruisers. but the German ships at each attack turned away and fired effectively at short range. Scheer kept on signalling the course to the Horn Reef and the command "Stand on."
His alternative was annihilation in the morning, He slipped through and home.
When at 3.50 am. on June 1 a Zeppelin repeated the position of our Battle Fleet to the westward of him, he signalled to all the ships of ihe High Sea Fleet to proceed into harbour.
Beatty. who was fourteen miles to the westward of Jellicoe, in a letter te Jellicoe dated June 9, 1916, wrote:
"Your sweep south was splendid, and made certain we should have them I cannot believe now that xot in to the north-eastward of rana feel they must have tried the Jellicoe and Beatty both thought at daybreak on June 1 that the German Fleet was to the westward of us.
At 342 am. Jellicoe, steering north, collecting his Fleet, turned it to west on receiving reports of heavy firing in that direction, which he thought came from the German Fleet.
At 404 am. June 1, Beatty signally ed to Jellicoe: "When last seen enemy was to the west, steering S.W.. and proceeding slowly. Zeppelin has passed astern of me steering west. Submit I may sweep Southwest to locate enemy."
At 430 a.m. June 1 Beatty sígnalled to his battle cruisers: "Damage yesterday was heavy on both sides. We hope to-day to cut off and anni-pilate the whole German Fleet. Every man must do his utmost."
Jellicoe wrote to me on August 24. 1932: "Of course, if the Admiralty had given me the information as to the airship reconnaissance at the Horn Reef I should have altered course in that direction during the night."
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.