Churchill says that "the That situation was entirely due to Jellicoe having altered into column total of 56 degrees to starboard ince he formed line of battle at 415 pin. Once more Scheer was out-mancuvred. The High Sea Fleet were met by a devastating fire from the turret guns of the Grand Fleet, from which they recoiled and ran away, making heavy smoke-screens.
Scheer ordered all his destroyer flotillas to attack the Grand Fleet. By now it was 7.15 pin. and the light failing.
Jellicoe was ready with and had practised the Fleet in alternative manceuvres to meet this great German tactic, namely to turn his battleships in sub-divisions of two ships each, either "towards" or "away from" the torpedo attack.
"When the torpedo attack is made in successive waves there is considerable risk in turning towards, as ships are then liable to be confronted with shoals of torpedoes coming from different directions, British Battle Fleet was never seriously in action.
He may be a bit staggered by the tables of shells fired and hits made, which I have given above.
He remarks only one of our battleships was hit and only two men killed, but fails to comment on this being due to the skill of Jellicoe in taking the light gauge in his masterly deployment. No one complained when Carpentier knock ed out Joe Beckett and Billy Wells in turn without being touched himself!
Only one ship, the Marlborough, was hit by a torpedo and had to be sent home. But for the turn away we might have had 150 tor-pedees through our line and five or six capital ships sunk with nothing to justify such loss.
As-Capt. Glassford, U.S. Navy, remarked in December, 1930, one cannot blame Jellicoe because his enemy at Jutland would not fight, "but dived through the ropes as soon
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.