Castles of Steel (21 page)

There followed on the British side a sequence of events that can only be seen as farce. The cause lay in the Admiralty’s failure to inform all British forces involved in the operation that other friendly forces were present. At 8:10 a.m., Goodenough had intercepted
Arethusa
’s signal that she was in action, and had detached two of his six light cruisers,
Lowestoft
and
Nottingham,
to go to Tyrwhitt’s assistance. At 8:30 a.m., Goodenough and his four remaining light cruisers were steaming toward a position twenty miles southwest of Heligoland; from this position they meant to support Tyrwhitt’s westward sweep. Keyes, supervising his submarines from
Lurcher,
however, had no reason to know or suspect that any four-funneled British light cruisers were in the vicinity. When, therefore, at 8:15 a.m., he made out two four-funneled cruisers (
Lowestoft
and
Nottingham
) steaming on the same course as himself, he signaled
Invincible
that he was in touch with two enemy cruisers. They had not attacked him, Keyes said, and with only his two destroyers, he was too weak to attack them; accordingly, for the moment he would shadow them. Goodenough intercepted Keyes’s signal and, wholly unaware that the ships Keyes was reporting were his own two detached vessels, decided to take his four remaining light cruisers to Keyes’s assistance.

By 8:53 a.m., Goodenough on
Southampton
had
Lurcher
in sight. This meeting compounded the confusion. Keyes, still uninformed that
any
British cruisers were in area, and now seeing four new light cruisers, assumed he was in the presence of four
additional
German cruisers. Believing himself overwhelmingly outgunned, he steered his two small destroyers toward
Invincible
and
New Zealand,
signaling that he was being chased by four hostile cruisers and that he was leading them toward the battle cruisers. This ludicrous but perilous situation was made even worse when Tyrwhitt, hearing Keyes’s message, tried to help his friend by also signaling to Goodenough: “Please chase westward. . . . Commodore (S) [Keyes] is being chased by four light cruisers.” Inadvertently, of course, Tyrwhitt was asking Goodenough for help against Goodenough himself. The episode ended harmlessly when Keyes finally saw and recognized the silhouette of
Southampton
and signaled, “Cruisers are our cruisers [of] whose presence in this area I was not informed.”

This mystery cleared up, Goodenough turned west to follow Tyrwhitt’s sweep. This led to further danger, because it brought his light cruisers over the line of British submarines of whose presence he was unaware. Nor could Keyes, who now knew that the four cruisers were British, communicate with his submarines beneath the surface. Alarmed, Keyes signaled to Goodenough: “I was not informed you were coming into this area; you run great risk from our submarines. . . . Your unexpected appearance has upset all our plans. There are submarines off Ems.” Goodenough’s reply was tart: “I came under detailed orders. I am astonished that you were not told. I have signaled to
Lion
that we should withdraw.
Nottingham
and
Lowestoft
are somewhere in the vicinity.” In fact, an incident of a British submarine and a British cruiser attacking each other had already occurred. A little before 9:30 a.m., the
Southampton
had sighted a periscope at 500 yards. It belonged to
E-6,
which fired two torpedoes at the light cruiser; both missed.
Southampton,
steaming at high speed, swerved to ram, and the submarine escaped only by crash-diving. Goodenough signaled to
Nottingham
and
Lowestoft
to rejoin, but the two separated ships failed to get his signal and wandered off out of action for the rest of the day.

The final misunderstanding caused by British Admiralty blunders occurred at 9:45 a.m., when Tyrwhitt heard Keyes’s signal that
Lurcher
was being chased by four enemy cruisers. Following his appeal to Goodenough to rescue Keyes, Tyrwhitt bravely turned his own damaged
Arethusa
back to the east to do what he could to help. Almost at once, he sighted a three-funneled cruiser, this one a genuine enemy,
Stettin;
with his destroyers, Tyrwhitt pursued her into the mist. Then, at about 10:10 a.m., he encountered the eight destroyers of the
Fearless
flotilla returning from sinking the German destroyer
V-187.
Fearing that he was again getting too close to Heligoland, and aware that other German light cruisers would be emerging from the river mouths, Tyrwhitt broke off the chase, reversed course, and once again headed west.

By this time,
Arethusa
could steam no faster than 10 knots. In the engagement with
Frauenlob,
her feed tank had been holed, her torpedo tubes demolished, all her guns except the forward 6-inch put out of action. As Tyrwhitt’s two destroyer flotillas were now concentrated around her and no enemy was in sight, it seemed a favorable moment for making repairs. Accordingly, at 10:17 a.m. Tyrwhitt signaled the 1st Flotilla to cover his crippled ship and told Blunt in
Fearless
to come alongside. For the next twenty minutes, both British light cruisers lay dead in the water, their engines stopped, while the
Arethusa
’s engine-room crew and repair parties worked frantically. By 10:40 a.m., the hole in the feed line was plugged, the ship was able to resume at 20 knots and all but two of her 4-inch guns were unjammed and ready for action.

It was approaching 11:00 a.m. British forces had been in the inner Bight for four hours and it was certain that a vigorous enemy counterattack would be coming. Indeed, it was on the way.
Stettin
was prowling about, emerging from and disappearing into the haze, and three more German light cruisers,
Köln, Strassburg,
and
Ariadne,
were approaching from Wilhelmshaven. Admiral Maass, commander of High Seas Fleet destroyers, who was on board
Köln,
did not know whether the battle was continuing, but he hoped at least to be able to pick off some British cripples or stragglers. Meanwhile, Hipper had ordered a fifth light cruiser,
Mainz,
to attack Tyrwhitt’s destroyers from the rear.
Mainz
sailed north from the Ems at 10:00 “to cut off the retreat of the hostile ships,” as her executive officer put it. In Wilhelmshaven, the German battle cruisers were raising steam and at 8:50 a.m., Hipper had requested permission from Ingenohl to send out
Moltke
and
Von der Tann
at the first opportunity. The Commander-in-Chief had approved, but because of the tide, the heavy ships could not yet cross the Jade bar.

Thus, as
Arethusa
was restarting her engines, three German light cruisers were about to join
Stettin
on the scene. Fortunately for Tyrwhitt, Admiral Maass was so eager to fall upon and annihilate the intruding British destroyers that he did not take time to concentrate his force. Maass never imagined that Goodenough and Beatty were anywhere near. One by one, the German cruisers arrived and attacked.
Strassburg
appeared first and opened fire on
Arethusa.
“We received a very severe and most accurate fire from this cruiser,” Tyrwhitt wrote in his report. “Salvo after salvo was falling between twenty and thirty yards short, but not a single shell struck. Two torpedoes were also fired at us, being well-aimed, but short.” Outgunned in a crippled ship, Tyrwhitt ordered twelve destroyers to attack
Strassburg
with torpedoes. One torpedo passed near
Strassburg
’s bow, another under her stern, and the German ship turned away. Tyrwhitt, ever more anxious to get away to the west, gathered his destroyers to turn again in that direction. But as he did so,
Köln,
with Admiral Maass on board, appeared from the southeast. The weary British ships turned to engage her and Tyrwhitt, mistaking
Köln
for a powerful
Roon
-class armored cruiser, urgently signaled Beatty: “Am attacked by large cruiser. . . . Respectfully request that I may be supported. Am hard pressed.” Beatty responded by ordering Goodenough to send two more of his light cruisers to assist
Arethusa.
Instead, Goodenough came himself with his entire squadron at high speed. Tyrwhitt, meanwhile, had gained another respite:
Köln
liked facing the massed torpedo tubes of the Harwich destroyers no more than
Strassburg
had, and she also retreated into the mist. For a fourth time, Tyrwhitt’s force turned west.

At 11:00 a.m., when Tyrwhitt was entangled in what he described as “a hornet’s nest,” Beatty and his five battle cruisers were still marking time forty miles to the northwest. Around 10:00 a.m., the admiral had broken radio silence to give his position and to tell all British ships that for the time being he would remain where he was. Through the morning, he had been “intercepting various signals [from Tyrwhitt, Keyes, and Goodenough] which contained no information on which I could act.” He had understood that Keyes had mistaken Goodenough’s cruiser squadron for the enemy and subsequently that Tyrwhitt’s force was heavily engaged and in distress. But why was Tyrwhitt still so close to Heligoland? Why had he made so little progress to the west? During the four hours since the fighting began, Tyrwhitt had advanced barely fifteen miles. Now, the British light forces, hotly engaged only twenty miles west of Heligoland, were still within easy reach of Wilhelmshaven. Beatty possessed a copy of the German coastal tide tables and knew that soon after noon, Hipper and Ingenohl would be able to send their dreadnoughts to sea. Already, Beatty had ordered Goodenough’s light cruisers to hurry to Tyrwhitt’s assistance, but he realized that against at least four, and possibly as many as six, German cruisers—including perhaps one large armored cruiser—this might be insufficient. With every minute, the possibility grew that the British light cruisers and destroyers would be overwhelmed.

Beatty, pacing on
Lion
’s bridge, understood that the responsibility was his. As vice admiral commanding the Battle Cruiser Squadron, he far outranked the three commodores, Goodenough, Tyrwhitt, and Keyes. The decisions he faced were not easy ones. If he went forward, he exposed his ships to enemy mines and submarines—and to British submarines, ignorant of his presence. In addition, there was the strong possibility that within a short time, German battle cruisers and perhaps battleships would be coming out. The mist to the east was thickening and for his battle cruisers to be surprised by the sudden appearance of German dreadnoughts could mean catastrophe. One of these dangers—submarines—Beatty felt he could ignore. The sea was glassy calm, which made periscopes easy to detect, so no submarine could close in without danger of being rammed. Besides, his ships traveling at high speed could rush past a submerged submarine before it reached a position to fire.

Still, for a moment, Beatty hesitated. “What do you think we should do?” he asked Captain Ernle Chatfield of
Lion,
standing beside him on the battle cruiser’s bridge. “I ought to go forward and support Tyrwhitt, but if I lose one of these valuable ships, the country will not forgive me.” Chatfield, admitting later that he was “unburdened by responsibility and eager for ex-citement,” replied, “Surely we must go.” Beatty nodded, and at 11:35 a.m., counting on high speed and surprise to see him through, he swung
Lion, Queen Mary, Princess Royal, Invincible,
and
New Zealand
around to the southeast and steamed in a single line at 26 knots into the Bight. Ten minutes later, he increased speed to 27 knots and signaled to Tyrwhitt and Blunt, “Am proceeding to your support.”

Even at 27 knots, Beatty was still an hour away from the embattled Harwich force. Meanwhile, Tyrwhitt faced another new antagonist, the German light cruiser
Mainz,
which had sailed independently from the Ems estuary. About 11:30 a.m., British destroyers steaming west six miles ahead of
Arethusa
sighted
Mainz.
Both sides opened fire.
Mainz
had better aim, frequently straddling although not hitting the destroyers. Eleven British destroyers fired torpedoes; all missed. This action continued for twenty minutes when, to the astonishment of the British, their German antagonist abruptly reversed course. This strange behavior was subsequently explained by the fact that
Mainz,
racing north and battling the destroyers, had suddenly seen “heavy smoke clouds . . . to the northwest and a few minutes later three cruisers of the Town class emerged from them.” These were Goodenough’s light cruisers coming south at full speed to the aid of
Arethusa.
Southampton
and her consorts opened fire at 6,000 yards and
Mainz,
wrote one of
Southampton
’s officers, “very wisely fled like a stag.” “Even in the act of turning,” said one of
Mainz
’s officers, “the enemy’s first salvos were falling close to us and very soon afterwards we were hit in the battery and the waist.” It was an unequal contest:
Mainz
was under fire from fifteen 6-inch guns to which she could reply only with her two after 4.1-inch guns. The German light cruiser, hit at least twice, disappeared into the mist, hoping to escape. She did not. Fleeing south at 25 knots with Goodenough in pursuit,
Mainz
suddenly found herself running directly across the bows of
Arethusa
and the Harwich destroyers. Tyrwhitt, not knowing that the British light cruisers were in hot pursuit, immediately ordered twenty British destroyers to attack
Mainz
with torpedoes. The destroyers charged at close range, some approaching within 1,000 yards of the German ship.
Mainz
fought desperately and her fire was remarkably accurate. The destroyer
Laurel
fired two torpedoes, but was herself hit three times and crippled.
Liberty,
the destroyer next astern, was hit on the bridge, and her captain was killed.
Lysander,
the third destroyer in line, was not hit, but
Laertes,
the fourth, was struck by all four shells of a single German salvo and, temporarily, came to a standstill. Thirty-three British torpedoes had been fired; one observer described the sea as “furrowed” by the tracks of whitened, bubbling water.