Falklands, Jutland and the Bight by Edward Barry Stewart Bingham, Barry Bingham

https://archive.org/details/falklandsjutlan00binggoog/

CHAPTER X

THE BATTLE OF JUTLAND

Page 133

Things seemed as peaceful as could be on the afternoon of Tuesday, May 30th, when Maurice Bethell and I went ashore for a round of golf, at Bruntsfield near Edinburgh. After a thoroughly enjoyable game over this course, whose delightful inland surroundings reflected all the charm of early summer, we adjourned for tea to " Rospletha "—the little house I had rented on the side of the links—a nd then found our way down to Queensferry Pier at the regulation hour of 6 p.m., in order to catch the routine boat.
While we stood waiting on the pier amid a throng of fellow-officers, all eyes were suddenly drawn in the direction of the Lion, from whose masthead there floated a string of flags with this message to all ships—"Raise steam for 22 knots and bank fires at half an hour's notice."
Next, observing the significance of the fact that this signal was being made to the seaplane-carrier ships, we not unnaturally concluded

Page 134

that a Pemberton-Billing benefit or air-raid picnic was about to develop. In this state of mind we reached our various ships. Before another half an hour had elapsed the bustling activity and constant changes of signals on board the flagship produced throughout the other ships that atmosphere of suppressed excitement which is the herald of great events. Clearly some further change of plans was in the air. Another half-hour, and then up went those flags for the last time that evening, bearing the message—" Raise steam for full speed with all despatch."
There was now not a shadow of doubt that something considerably more than an air-picnic was impending.
At nightfall the entire force based on the Firth of Forth steamed out of harbour. It consisted of the following units:
(a) The First and Second Battle - Cruiser Squadrons, composed of H.M.S. Lion, HMS Princess Royal, Tiger, Queen Mary, and Australia, New Zealand, Indefatigable.
(b) A squadron of battleships of the Queen Elizabeth class, consisting of H.M.S. Barham, Warspite, Valiant, Malaya. The Queen Elizabeth was unfortunately in dock at the time.
(c) Twelve light cruisers : the Southampton,

Page 135

Nottingham, Birmingham, Dublin, Galatea, Inconstant, Phaeton, Cordelia, Falmouth, Birkenhead, Gloucester, Yarmouth.
(d) The 1st and 13th. Flotillas of destroyers, led respectively by the Fearless and the Champion, and eight destroyers from the Harwich Force temporarily attached.
A Tabulated List of Destroyers with Admiral Beatty's Force

13th Flotilla.	Harwich Force.	1st Flotilla.
Nestor	Lydiard	Acheron
Onslow	Liberty	Ariel
Nomad	Landrail	Attack
Nicator	Laurel	Hydra
Narborough	Moorsom	Badger
Obdurate	Morris	Goshawk
Petard	Turbulent	Defender
Pelican	Termagant	Lizard
Nerissa		Lapwing
Moresby

(e) The seaplane-carrier ship Engadine.
Steaming at high speed eastwards in the direction of the Skagerrack, the force found itself at noon on the following day (May 31st) in a position approximately 120 miles west of the north coast of Jutland. The disposition of the force was as follows:
The 5th Battle Squadron N.N.W. five miles from Lion, screened by Fearless and nine destroyers of the 1st Flotilla. The 2nd Battle Cruiser Squadron was stationed E.N.E. three

Page 136

miles from Lion. The Lion and 1st BattleCruiser Squadron were screened by the Champion and ten destroyers of the 13th Flotilla, with Turbulent and Termagant. Light cruisers were screening on a bearing E.N.E. and W.S.W. Centre of screen S.S.E. from Lion. It was a glorious sunny day, the sea almost a dead calm, the atmosphere clear and conducive to good visibility.
Nothing worth recording occurred until 2.30 p.m., when the light cruisers, who, together with the seaplane-carrier ship, had been thrown out in advance as scouts, reported " Smoke ahead ! "—which smoke they were shortly after- wards able to diagnose as that of the enemy's battle-cruisers, who were bearing E.N.E.
At 3 p.m. the light cruisers spread to the east and formed a screen in front of the BattleCruiser Squadron and 5th Battle Squadron. At 3.30 the signal was hoisted : " Enemy in sight !
" Almost simultaneously the enemy, who had been steaming north, altered course to S.E.
Admiral Beatty steered a course to cut the enemy off and prevent him rounding Horn Reef.
At this moment the " enemy " comprised the following ships:

Page 137

(a) Five battle-cruisers, viz. Lutzow, Derfflinger, Seydlitz, Moltke, Von der Tann.
(b) Two light cruisers.
(c) A flotilla of fifteen destroyers.
Admiral Beatty formed battle line on a course parallel to that of the enemy, placing the Champion and twelve destroyers (i.e. eight of the 13th Flotilla, two of the 10th Flotilla, and two of the 9th Flotilla) half a mile ahead in order that their smoke might not interfere with his gunnery.
At 3.48 p.m. both sides opened fire almost simultaneously at 18,500 yards, and Admiral Beatty reduced speed to 21 knots, in order that the battleships of the Queen Elizabeth class might close up on him. Being only 24-knot ships, they had been left behind when the speed was increased to 27 knots by the Admiral on sighting the enemy.
In order to make certain our exact rate of speed, and thereby to obtain accurate data for their calculations, the Germans made an unsuccessful attempt to send a wireless signal ordering the British Fleet to steam at 23 knots.
From 4 o'clock onwards, the Lion and battlecruisers altered course on two or three occasions one point to throw the enemy off the range. At 4.5 (approx.) H.M.S. Indefatigable was hit

Page 138

by three shells falling together. She blew up and sank almost immediately. When the action commenced, the Nestor was about half a mile ahead of the battle-cruisers, from which position we had the best point of vantage for observing the enemy's salvoes falling around the Lion. The enemy's shooting appeared good, and it was clear that he was concentrating on Admiral Beatty's flagship. Shortly after 4 p.m. the admiral signalled that the flotilla of destroyers ahead was to attack the enemy's battle-cruisers with torpedoes. * Captain D " in the Champion immediately repeated this order, adding that the Nestor and her division were to lead the attack. The attacking destroyers of the 13th, 10th, and 9th Flotillas were as follows : Nestor, Nomad, Nicator, Narborough, Pelican, Petard, Obdurate, Nerissa, with Moorsom and Morris of the 10th Flotilla (Harwich Force), Turbulent and Termagant of the 9th Flotilla (Harwich Force). The Onslow was detached on special service with Engadine. I immediately hoisted the signal for full speed and ordered the destroyers to form a single line astern of me. Then, shaping course a point and a half in towards the enemy, we

Page 139

order to reach an advantageous position on the enemy's bows, such as would' enable me to launch the torpedo attack with the greatest possible prospect of success. On drawing out to this position, we observed the enemy's fifteen destroyers coming out with the object of making a similar torpedo attack on our battle-cruisers. At 4.40 p.m., having reached the desired position, I turned to N. (approximately fourteen points to port), followed in succession by the rest of the destroyers, with this objective : (a) to frustrate the intended torpedo attack by enemy destroyers on our battle-cruisers by intercepting them and bringing them to action ; (b) to push home our torpedo attack on the enemy's battlecruisers. The German destroyers then immediately turned on a course parallel to ours, and the destroyer action thus commenced at a range of 10,000 yards. I promptly manoeuvred to close this range. At 4.45 the Nomad, my immediate follower, was hit in the boiler-room and hauled out of line disabled. We in the Nestor got the range very quickly, and pumped in three or four salvoes from our 4-in. guns. Two German destroyers disappeared beneath the surface,an full speed at 35 knots for half an hour, in

Page 140

and though it is unreasonable definitely to claim the credit of sinking a given ship where many are concerned, my control officer is still prepared to affirm that the Nestor's guns ac- counted for one of them. At 4.50 p.m. the enemy's destroyers turned tail and fled. Pursued by the British they divided themselves into two portions, one half of which made for the head, while the other took cover under the tail, of the German battlecruiser line. It must be remembered that although they were numerically superior to us, the enemy's destroyers were neither so large nor so heavily armed. The British boats promptly turned to chase the enemy's fleeing T.B.D.'s, and while I proceeded with my division, now reduced to two boats (i.e. Nestor and Nicator), after those of the enemy's destroyers who were making for the head of the battle-cruiser line, the other two divisions of the T.B.D.'s went after the remaining, and larger, portion of the German destroyers. Just then the enemy's battle-cruisers altered course four points to port, that is, forty-five degrees to the left. Most probably this manoeuvre was prompted by the warning splashes that marked the discharge of the British

Page 141

torpedoes, of which, the Nestor had just fired her first two.1 Thus I found myself with the solitary Nicator hot in the track of the fleeing destroyers and now rapidly approaching the head of the German battle-cruiser line, who were not slow in giving us an extremely warm welcome from their secondary armament. At a distance of 3,000 to 4,000 yards the Nestor fired her third torpedo and immediately afterwards at 4.58 turned away eight points to starboard, in order to get clear of the danger zone and to regain the line of the British battle-cruisers. Suddenly from behind the head of the enemy's line there came a German light cruiser, who opened hot fire and straddled us. It was just about 5 o'clock when two boilers were put out of action by direct hits. From the bridge I saw at once that something of the kind had happened. A huge cloud of steam was rising from the boiler-room, completely enshrouding the whole ship, and it was painfully apparent

Page 142

Our speed died away gradually, until at 5.30 p.m. we came to a dead stop. Nothing daunted, the engine-room staff applied themselves with all the means in their power to the work of setting the engines in motion. But it was all without avail. The damage was of a nature which required, above all, time. Before anything could be done, the boilers had to be cooled off, and all pipes were in the overheated condition that results from a high-speed run. The German light cruiser having crippled us, almost immediately turned back and rejoined her own battle-cruisers. Seeing our plight the Petard (LieutenantCommander E. C. O. Thompson), now returning from the chase of the major portion of the German flotilla, gallantly offered a tow; but I had no hesitation in refusing an offer which would have meant the exposure of two ships to the danger that properly belonged to one. Curiously enough, when our speed gave out, we found ourselves brought to a standstill at a spot only two miles west of the Nomad, our only comrade in misfortune. But though crippled, we had guns that were still intact, and a hostile destroyer, swooping down on what she thought an easy prey, washat our speed was dropping every second.

Page 143

greeted with volleys of salvoes from our invaluable semi-automatic guns. After such a warm reception, the German destroyer sheered off post-haste. While lying helpless and broken down, we sa,w the opposing forces of battle-cruisers retracing their tracks to the N.W., fighting on parallel courses. The rival squadrons quickly disappeared behind the horizon, engaged furiously, and we were now left with the ocean to ourselves. But it was not to be for long. Fifteen minutes later my yeoman-of-signals reported : " German battleships on the horizon, shaping course in our direction/' This was more than I had ever bargained for, and, using my own glasses, I was dumbfounded to see that it was in truth the main body of the German High Sea Fleet, steaming at top speed in a N.W. direction and following the wake of their own battle-cruisers. Their course necessarily led them first past the Nomad, and in another ten minutes the slaughter began. They literally smothered the destroyer with salvoes. Of my divisional mate nothing could be seen : great columns of spray and smoke alone gave an indication of her whereabouts. I shall never forget the sight, and mercifully it was a matter of a few minutes

Page 144

impossible that any one on board could have survived. Of what was in store for us there was now not the vestige of a doubt, and the problSm was, how to keep all hands occupied for the few minutes that remained before the crash must come. While the sub-lieutenant and myself were " ditching " all charts, confidential books, and documents, the first lieutenant and the men were executing my orders in providing biscuit and water for the boats ; lowering these to the water's edge ; hoisting out Carley floats ; and generally preparing for the moment when we should be obliged to leave the ship. These orders were rapidly executed, and there was still time on our hands ; for nothing had as yet happened. By a brilliant inspiration, Bethell then suggested to me that the cables might be ranged on deck—ostensibly for use in case of a friendly tow, but in reality to keep the men busy to the last. This suggestion I readily accepted, and the hands were still thus employed when the end came. From a distance of about five miles, the Germans commenced with their secondary armament, and very soon we were enveloped in a deluge of shell fire. Any reply from our own before the ship sank; at the time it seemed

Page 145

guns was absolutely out of the question at a range beyond the possibilities of our light shells ; to have answered any one of our numerous assailants would have been as effective as the use of a peashooter against a wall of steel. Just about this time we fired our last torpedo at the High Sea Fleet and it was seen to run well. It was a matter of two or three minutes only before the Nestor, enwrapped in a cloud of smoke and spray, the centre of a whirlwind of shrieking shells, received not a few heavy and vital hits, and the ship began slowly to settle by the stern and then to take up a heavy list to starboard. Her decks now showed the first signs of havoc amongst life and limb. It was clear that the doomed Nestor was sinking rapidly, and at that moment I gave my last order as her commander, " Abandon ship." The motor-boat and Carley floats were quickly filled; and as the dinghy was badly broken up by shell fire, there seemed to remain for me only the possibility of a place in the whaler. Bethell was standing beside me, and I turned

to him with the question, " Now where shall

Page 146

we go ? " His answer was only characteristic of that gallant spirit, " To Heaven, I trust, sir ! " At that moment he turned aside to attend to a mortally wounded signalman and was seen no more amidst a cloud of fumes from a bursting shell. I clambered into the whaler, where I found about eight others waiting, and we remained alongside until the last possible moment, hailing the partially submerged ship vigorously, in the unlikely event of any survivors being still on board. Finally we pushed off clear. The whaler, however, had also been hit, probably at the same time as the dinghy, and before we had gone half a dozen strokes she filled and sank. We then struck out, I luckily having my " Miranda 93 life-saving waistcoat on, for the well-loaded motor-boat, lying some fifty yards ahead of the Nestor, where some of us were pulled in, the rest supporting themselves by holding on to the gunwale. Looking now towards the Nestor, we saw the water lapping over the decks, and the forecastle high in the air, still the target of the German gun-layers, some of whose projectiles fell uncomfortably near us in the motor-boat and rafts.

Page 147

In about three minutes, the destroyer suddenly raised herself into an absolutely perpendicular position, and thus slid down, stern first, to the bottom of the North Sea, leaving a quantity of oil and wreckage to mark the spot where she had last rested. As she sank, her sharp stem and stockless anchors alone visible, we gave our gallant but cruelly short-lived Nestor three rousing cheers and sang " God Save the King/' A reverential pause followed, broken almost immediately by the voice of a typical "A.B.," "Are we down-'earted ? No!" Then "Wot abart a Tipperary ' ? " His words and spirit were infectious, and all joined lustily in the chorus of that hackneyed but inspiring modern war song. The song was thus in no small! degree re- sponsible for a frame of mind in which it was possible calmly to face the situation of finding oneself afloat, sixty odd miles from the nearest shore, in an over-laden, leaking, and brokendown motor-boat, with nothing in sight except the enemy's High Sea Fleet vanishing in the distance. It was now about 5.30 p.m. and the weather was still calm and fine, but the slightly freshening breeze increased my anxieties as to the

Page 148

length of time the motor-boat would remain afloat. In about fifteen minutes' time we saw a division of German destroyers shoot out from the rear of the battle fleet and steam towards us at high speed. Rapidly closing, one of them picked us up and carried off our motor-boat as a prize ; while another took the men off the Carley floats. Once aboard, the wounded were placed in the ward-room, the officers in the captain's cabin, and the rest of the men in the stokeholds and engine-rooms. The captain of the destroyer, which turned out to be the S 15, sent for me and interviewed me on the bridge. He saw that I was wet through from my immersion, but never offered me a change of clothes. He interrogated me without gaining any information, and his manner all through was typically Prussian and discourteous. We were, however, fed until our arrival at Wilhelmshaven the fol- lowing evening. What occurred from the moment we were shut down in the captain's cabin until we disembarked next evening can only be a matter of conjecture from the movements of the propellers, supplemented by the observations of Dr. Alexander Joe, who was once called forward

Page 149

about 8.30 p.m. to minister to two British sea- men, picked up from the Indefatigable. But by putting two and two together, we gathered that our captor was escorting the " lame ducks 99 of the High Sea Fleet back to the base ; further, from the intermittent firing of the guns over- head and from the many sudden and rapid reversings and alternating movements of the engines, we inferred that, if the main battle had ceased, destroyer attacks were in progress on both sides. Lying on top of the captain's bunk in semidarkness, with clothes slowly drying on me, weary and feeling that one had reached the end, no wonder if I began to reflect about the immediate future. How was it all going to end ? Assuming that the British sank this German T.B.D.—an eventuality one's patriotism demanded and thoroughly expected, because she was one of an old type and no kind of match for any of our destroyers—should we pull through, after a scuffle with the sentry, another bath in the North Sea, t and with the remote chance of being picked up by a British destroyer in the dark? Probably not. On the other hand, if the German destroyer came through unscathed, one would emerge from the business with a whole skin, with a certainty of a dreary

Page 150

spell of captivity, but with the hope of serving under the White Ensign at a future date. And so the long-drawn torture of this ghastly night crept on until the first tinge of dawn found its way into the cabin, and with a silent prayer of heartfelt gratitude for the miraculous preservation of my life, I sank into sleep from sheer exhaustion. At 7.30 a.m. the sub-lieutenant of the destroyer came below, and after ordering some breakfast for us, announced that the battle was over and that the destroyer was shaping course for Wilhelmshaven. It was only natural to ask him which side had gained the victory. His short but emphatic reply suggested a very slight acquaintance with the niceties of the English language. He simply said " I/' and pointed to his chest. At greater length he vaguely enumerated the ships lost by the British; of those lost by his own side he would admit to none. As we were nearing Wilhelmshaven, English submarines were apparently in evidence, and the guns on deck began again: the last time we were to hear that bark for many a long and weary day. Arriving alongside the destroyers' wharf at Wilhelmshaven, we were immediately landed,

Page 151

marched off under the personal supervision of Grand Admiral von Capelle—an officer with Prussianism stamped all over him—through the town, and taken to the Naval Barracks. Here, to our amazement, we found old friends from the Nomad. Remembering the terrible plight of that ship, we had given up for lost all on board, and never expected to see one of them again. The captain, Lieut.-Commander Paul Whitfield, however, was in the hospital, suffering from several wounds, some of them serious. To the same hospital our wounded were transferred, one of whom died almost immediately after his arrival there. Our casualties were : killed, two officers and five men ; seriously wounded, three ; wounded, six; and the Nomad had even lower figures to show. In our case such few casualties were due to the fact that the German shells had in the majority of cases struck the Nestor in the after-part of the ship, while the men were al- most exclusively forward all the time. Had the fore-part of the ship met with the same treatment, very few of us would have been left alive. It is pathetic to record that the two officers were precisely the same two who had borne the

Page 152

greatest responsibility and done the most to- wards assuring the Nestor a high place among the boats of the flotilla. Of Bethell I have already tried to write, and this is the proper place for a warm though imperfect tribute to the memory of the other. Engineer-Commander Norman Roberts was one of those stern, quiet men who do great things without ever emerging into the light of day to receive the praise and the fame which are theirs. A master of his craft, he was a remarkably hard worker, and his enthusiasm burned with the steady flame that comes with the experience of riper years. Such a man invited, and received, the implicit trust of his captain, who knew that any order given to Roberts would be executed in the most thorough manner possible. In those last awful moments he was working at his hopeless task with a grim determination that recalled the happier hours when he had controlled the engines of a ship running at 35 knots. A shell struck him as he stood on the top rung of the engine-room ladder, and, as befitted the unobtrusive manner of his life, that heroic spirit passed quietly away. Two days later the officers were transferred from Wilhelmshaven to Mainz, and the men to Brandenburg. At Mainz our arrival almost

Page 153

coincided with the appearance of a German naval lieutenant, speaking perfect English, who had come on a special mission from headquarters to enquire after all details regarding our comfort. As a matter of fact this was camouflage ; he really came down to see what information he could gather from us. His efforts were singularly unsuccessful, for we realized wherein his real mission lay. Four days later a chance visit from representatives of the American Embassy enabled us to communicate to relatives news of our safety, which news was published in England on Saturday, June 10th. In ten days' time all the British prisoners of war, naval and military, were moved from Mainz to Friedburg in Hessen, and after a stay of nine and a half months, a third of the above, including the writer, were transferred to Augustabad, Neubrandenburg. Terminal hora diem : terminet auctor opus

Page 154

There was also Hope for every one, that Hope that " springs eternal in the human breast." Finally, life in captivity was very much the same for one and all; many good books are being written and have been written on this subject by men who were longer in banishment, and had more thrilling experiences of escapes to write about, than the humble author of this short narrative.

B. B.

Printed by Hazell, Watson & Viney, Ld., London and Aylesbury, England,