Castles of Steel (67 page)

At 5:15 on the morning of December 16, with their ships steaming at an easy speed toward the rendezvous, the officers and men of Beatty’s four battle cruisers and Warrender’s six battleships were ignorant of the danger they were approaching. No one on the British side had an inkling that the High Seas Fleet was at sea. And yet, several hours away, Admiral von Ingenohl was steering toward them with fourteen dreadnought battleships, eight predreadnought battleships, nine cruisers, and fifty-four destroyers. With this overwhelming preponderance, Ingenohl had only to hold his course to encounter and perhaps destroy ten British capital ships. And on December 16, 1914, these ten ships provided the margin of British naval supremacy.

CHAPTER 19
The Scarborough Raid: Hipper Escapes

The night was overcast and Beatty’s seven destroyers—
Lynx, Ambuscade, Unity,
and
Hardy,
followed some distance behind by
Shark, Acasta,
and
Spitfire
—were steaming southeast, ten miles to port of Warrender’s battleships. At 5:15 a.m.,
Lynx,
at the head of the column, became aware of a strange destroyer 500 yards off her port bow. The unknown ship was challenged; when she replied wrongly, and turned away,
Lynx
and her sisters gave chase. Their prey was the German destroyer
V-155,
a part of the advance screen of the High Seas Fleet. Both sides opened fire and, in this encounter, German gunnery proved superior.
Lynx
was hit twice and at 5:41 had to sheer away with a jammed propeller. As she involuntarily turned 180 degrees, the destroyers behind automatically followed and
V-155
scored a hit below the waterline on
Ambuscade,
next astern. At 5:50 a.m.,
Ambuscade,
with five feet of water on her mess deck, dropped out of line.

This skirmish was the beginning of a sporadic, disorderly, close-range battle between a few British destroyers and a far stronger force of German cruisers and destroyers that continued in darkness and heavy weather for the next two hours. At 5:53 a.m.,
Hardy
and
Shark,
in line behind
Lynx,
sighted a light cruiser on their port beam at 700 yards. It was
Hamburg,
which with her two destroyers was also attached to the advance screen of the High Seas Fleet.
Hamburg
had hurried forward as soon as
V-155
reported herself in action. Now, sighting and challenging
Hardy,
the German cruiser switched on her searchlights and opened fire. Almost every shot struck home. Within six minutes,
Hardy
’s steering gear was disabled, the ship was on fire, the engine room telegraph was cut, and the captain was commanding the ship from the engine room hatchway. Nevertheless,
Hardy
managed to hit back, destroying
Hamburg
’s searchlight platform and then firing a torpedo. Some aboard the British destroyer believed that they saw an upheaval of water alongside the German light cruiser and that the torpedo had scored a hit. In fact, the torpedo had missed, but the fact that it had been launched caused
Hamburg
to turn away. Of far greater significance,
Hamburg
reported the torpedo firing to Ingenohl, the German Commander-in-Chief.

The small British destroyer force had been severely mauled. None had been sunk, but three of the original seven had been seriously damaged and were no longer able to fight.
Shark
’s division, however, was able to keep formation and continued at 25 knots to resume station on Warrender’s battleships at daylight. It was now six o’clock and the first streaks of light were beginning to appear in the east. At 6:03 a.m.,
Shark
sighted five destroyers to the east; although there were now only four British ships, they attacked at full speed and the German destroyers retreated. It was at about this time that destroyer captains on both sides began to sense that they were involved in something larger than a chance skirmish of light forces. To the British, it was now clear that they had run into a screen of light cruisers and destroyers and that behind it was a more serious force. At about the same time, the officers of the German light cruisers and destroyers were making a similar assessment: that the British destroyers were screening a larger force, probably including heavy ships.

The presence of British destroyers on the Dogger Bank had been reported to Admiral von Ingenohl as early as 4:20 a.m., when the German destroyer
S-33,
unable to find Hipper and returning home alone, saved herself by pretending that she was British. The report worried Ingenohl. Like Warrender, the German admiral feared a destroyer torpedo attack on his battleships, especially a night torpedo attack. An hour later, at 5:23 a.m., when news of the destroyer action reached his flagship,
Friedrich der Grosse,
the admiral’s apprehension markedly increased. Already, he had stretched his instructions by taking his battleships so far out to sea. And now here he was in the middle of the North Sea in the darkness of a December night, seeing the flashes of guns on the horizon, with British destroyers reported in action, a British torpedo in the water, his screen retreating, the British pursuing—and an hour still remaining before daybreak. Ingenohl was convinced that the British destroyers were part of the massed flotillas that would be screening the entire Grand Fleet. In this state of alarm, the kaiser’s command that the High Seas Fleet not risk action outside Heligoland Bight loomed urgently in his mind, and his courage took leave. At 5:30 a.m., he made a general signal for all squadrons to reverse course and turn southeast. The German admiral, said Sir Julian Corbett, author of the official British naval history, “fairly turned tail and made for home, leaving Hipper’s raiding force in the air.”
Lynx
and her small sisters little knew that their brisk offensive action had ultimately caused the great German armada to flee.

Even setting aside his abandonment of Hipper, Ingenohl’s decision was wrong. The German fleet had reached the rendezvous point on the eastern edge of the Dogger Bank when
V-155
’s reports began to come in. At the moment the German Commander-in-Chief decided to retreat, the British battleships and battle cruisers were only ten miles southwest of the port wing of the High Seas Fleet. Had Ingenohl continued on course, then between eight and nine o’clock in that morning’s clear weather, his scouts would have come within sight of the British battle cruisers and battleships coming down from the north. A battle would have been inevitable. A British Naval Staff monograph published later showed no doubt as to what was at stake: “Here at last were the conditions for which the Germans had been striving since the beginning of the war. A few miles away on the port bow of the High Seas Fleet, isolated and several hours’ steaming from home, was the most powerful homogeneous battle squadron of the Grand Fleet, the destruction of which would at one blow have completed the process of attrition and placed the British and German fleets on a precisely even footing as regards numerical strength.” Ingenohl had only to turn west again, and within twenty minutes in fine clear weather, he would have had the British Battle Cruiser Squadron and six prized battleships at his mercy. But by nine o’clock, the opportunity had slipped away. “Never again,” as James Goldrick observes, “would such an opportunity to redress the balance present itself to the Imperial Navy.” Most German admirals already understood this. Said Scheer, who that day commanded the German 2nd Battle Squadron, “Our premature turning onto an east-southeast course had robbed us of the opportunity of meeting certain divisions of the enemy.” Tirpitz went further, proclaiming that this was the one heaven-sent, never-recurring opportunity for a battle with the odds enormously in the Germans’ favor. “On December 16,” he wrote, “Ingenohl had the fate of Germany in the palm of his hand. I boil with inward emotion whenever I think of it.”

Churchill later rejected Tirpitz’s assumption that Ingenohl would have won a crushing victory had he not turned away. Writing after the war, the former First Lord attempted to exonerate himself and the Admiralty from the charge that, by refusing Jellicoe’s request to send the whole Grand Fleet, they were responsible for placing Warrender and Beatty in jeopardy. The British ships, Churchill argued, could easily have run away:

There was . . . no compulsion upon Admirals Warrender and Beatty to fight such an action. . . . In this part of the sea and at this hour the weather was quite clear. They would have known what forces they were in the presence of before they could become seriously engaged. There would not have been any justification for trying to fight the High Seas Fleet of twenty-two battleships with six battleships and four battle cruisers even though these comprised our most powerful vessels. Nor was there any need. The British Second Battle Squadron could steam in company at twenty knots or could escape with forced draft at twenty-one, and only six of Von Ingenohl’s ships could match that speed. As for the battle cruisers, nothing could catch them. The safety of this force, detached from the main British Fleet, was inherent in its speed. Admirals Warrender and Beatty could therefore have refused battle with the German Fleet and it would certainly have been their duty to do so.

Undoubtedly, Churchill was correct as to the sailor’s duty to avoid a much superior foe and as to the higher speed of the British ships. Yet on the heels of Troubridge’s court-martial for avoiding battle and Cradock’s heroic, suicidal charge at Coronel, running away at high speed was not a tactic that British naval officers, particularly David Beatty, were likely to employ. Jellicoe understood this. Churchill did not.

As the German battle squadrons wheeled to port, heading southeast, the armored cruiser
Roon
and her destroyers, which had been directly ahead of the battleships, found themselves in the rear of the new formation. For forty minutes, the two fleets were steaming on almost parallel courses, the British destroyers south of the Germans, the British battle cruisers and battleships to their southwest. The screens continued to brush against each other. At 6:16 a.m.,
Roon
saw and was seen by
Lynx
and
Unity,
and
Roon
turned away. Her captain recognized the destroyers as British and worried about the risk of torpedo attack. Earlier, Ingenohl had received
Hamburg
’s report of her encounter with
Hardy,
including the fact that the British destroyer had launched a torpedo. Now, from
Roon,
he heard about another destroyer contact. Confirmed in his belief that the sea was swarming with enemies, Ingenohl at 6:20 a.m. signaled a further turn to port and at high speed made directly for Germany.

To the north, with
Lynx
out of action, command of the small group of British destroyers had passed to Commander Loftus Jones, the captain of
Shark.
Jones now had four destroyers left, one of which,
Hardy,
had managed to repair her steering apparatus. At 6:20 a.m., Jones ordered these ships onto a southeast course, hoping to sight either Warrender’s British battleships or more Germans. At 6:50 a.m., Jones saw smoke to the southeast and at 6:59, he discovered five German destroyers. What Jones was seeing was
Roon
’s group of ships, which had been a part of the advance screen of the High Seas Fleet, but had now become the German rear guard. Along with
Roon
and a number of destroyers, the group contained the light cruisers
Stuttgart
and
Hamburg.

Unaware of the identity or number of their enemies, the British destroyers attacked at full speed. Visibility was limited in the dawn light and it was several minutes before Jones recognized the shape of a large, four-funneled cruiser looming behind the German destroyers. Jones identified the ship as
Roon.
Quickly sheering off to the northeast, he signaled Beatty at 6:50 a.m.: “Am keeping in touch with large cruiser
Roon
and five destroyers steaming east.” Unfortunately,
Shark
’s effort to report was beset by problems. Initially, she had difficulty sending because of German jamming and, accordingly, the message was held up until 7:25 a.m. In addition, in the darkness and confusion of battle, Jones,
Shark
’s captain, had lost his true position and his report placed his ships fifteen miles from where they actually were. Warrender in
King George V
received the message, as did the battle cruiser
New Zealand,
assigned by Beatty to act as guard ship for transmissions to the battle cruisers by the British destroyers. But for no discernible reason other than incompetence,
New Zealand
failed to pass this information to Beatty.

Meanwhile, Jones in
Shark
continued to maintain contact with
Roon.
At 7:40 a.m., when the British destroyers were still hoping to reach a position from which to launch torpedoes, Jones suddenly discovered that he was confronting not simply
Roon,
but also
Stuttgart
and
Hamburg.
The two German light cruisers turned to pursue and Jones, his small ships in peril, hastily reversed course, increased speed to 30 knots, and signaled Beatty, “I am being chased to westward by light cruisers.” The British destroyers rapidly outdistanced their pursuers, even though the patched-up
Hardy
could make no better than 26 knots. At 8:02 a.m.,
Roon
signaled
Stuttgart
and
Hamburg
to give up their pursuit, reverse course, and head southeast in the wake of the retreating High Seas Fleet. Jones, running away as fast as he could and not realizing that the Germans had broken off the chase, continued to the northwest, where he was now rapidly approaching Beatty. At 8:50 a.m., Jones and his four battered British destroyers reached Goodenough’s four light cruisers, which were serving as Beatty’s screen.

Meanwhile, Warrender was trying to understand what was happening. Since 5:40 a.m., when
Lynx
had signaled that she was engaging German destroyers, he had known that a German surface force was at sea, but no one had provided him with accurate positions, courses, or speeds. As a result, Warrender decided to continue southeast for the morning rendezvous point.
Shark
’s signal that she had identified a large armored cruiser
(Roon)
did not alter his plan; if there was a German cruiser force behind him to the northeast, it would be better to let them get as far behind him as possible before he and his battleships turned north to cut off their retreat. By 7:10 a.m., Warrender could see Goodenough’s light cruisers and, a few minutes later, Beatty’s battle cruisers. Warrender was also expecting to see Tyrwhitt and his destroyer flotillas, but Tyrwhitt was nowhere to be seen. In fact, he was still where he had been told by the Admiralty to be: 100 miles away, inside the minefields off Yarmouth, awaiting orders. Nevertheless, at 7:30 a.m., as the British squadrons maneuvered to take up daylight steaming positions, all portents seemed favorable. Daylight was breaking with a cloud-flecked sky, a calm sea, and all the visibility that a clear winter’s morning could provide. If there were German ships in this part of the North Sea, there seemed no place where they could hide.