Jutland:
The Battle, Part Eight:
After the Great Battle, Part Two
By Mike Bennighof, Ph.D.
June 2024

On the other side of the North Sea, the Grand Fleet reached its bases throughout the day on 2 June, and observers lining the Forth Bridge at Rosyth immediately noted the gaps in the line of battle cruisers. The Admiralty claimed victory, but did not attempt to hide the cost in lives and ships lost. Jellicoe himself reported a feeling of depression, which seemed to seep throughout his fleet. The Royal Navy expected to win battles, not to simply avoid losing them.

Sir David Beatty’s flagship, the battle cruiser Lion, had suffered thirteen heavy shell hits, including one that destroyed Q (amidships) turret; only the heroic dying actions of Marine Major Francis Harvey, the turret commander, saved the ship from a devastating magazine explosion. Following procedure, the transmitting station then asked for the order to be repeated – fleet orders held that a magazine could not be flooded without a second, confirming order from an officer. No second officer could be found, nor could Harvey, who had died in the meantime, repeat the order. Stoker 1st Class William Leo confirmed it anyway. Had the magazine not been flooded, later examination showed, the magazine doors would not have protected the charges within from flash, as they did not fit snugly together.

Dockyard workers in Rosyth’s new Royal Naval Dockyard – it had just opened for business in March 1916 – removed the twisted steel and ruined heavy guns of Q turret, and on 19 July the ship returned to service as Beatty’s flagship with only three main turrets rather than her usual four. A new Q turret would be fitted in September.

The burned-out Q turret of the British battle cruiser Lion.

The fast battleship Warspite took fifteen hits from heavy shells, most of those after her steering gear became disabled and she turned in circles, becoming a helpless target for the German battle line. She also went into Rosyth’s dockyard for repairs, proving the worth of the new investment, as she did not need to be given temporary repairs and escorted somewhere to the south for the heavy work (as had happened with Lion after the Battle of Dogger Bank in January 1915, adding extra weeks to her return). Warspite returned to service on 23 July, and went to sea the next month in pursuit of German raiders. The inexperience of the new Rosyth yard showed; the steering gear had not been properly repaired and it failed, causing Warspite to collide with her sister ship Valiant.

No heavy shells hit Marlborough, but a torpedo from the German light cruiser Wiesbaden caused extensive flooding that almost sank her as she returned home. She went to the Humber rather than one of the British bases, and from there to the Tyneside shipyards for repair work. That lasted until 2 August.

Balancing those losses somewhat, the battleship Emperor of India completed her refit on 1 June, and the fast battleship Queen Elizabeth three days later. The new battleship Royal Sovereign had arrived at Scapa Flow but been left behind when the fleet sortied on 30 May as the fleet commander felt her new crew not up to the mission; Jellicoe now relented and added her to the Grand Fleet.

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Tiger also survived fifteen heavy shell hits, and went straight from her return to Rosyth on 2 June into the new drydock. Repairs lasted until 1 July, and she served as Beatty’s flagship while work continued on Lion. Lion’s sister, Princess Royal, took nine heavy-caliber hits and after temporary repairs went to Plymouth in southern England for more extensive work. That finished on 15 July and she re-joined the Battle Cruiser Force six days later.

Unlike Scheer, Jellicoe did not have the luxury of a pause in operations. The German admiral still had the initiative in the North Sea, and the Grand Fleet had to be prepared to react to another enemy probe, no matter how unlikely. To reinforce the battle cruisers while repair work continued, he attached the sole survivor of 1st Cruiser Squadron, Duke of Edinburgh, to the 2nd Cruiser Squadron to replace Hampshire which had struck a mine on 5 June while ferrying Lord Horatio Herbert Kitchener to Russia. The armored cruisers would temporarily join the Battle Cruiser Fleet.

The battle cruiser Australia had left Devonport on the morning of the Battle of Jutland, following repair work for a collision with New Zealand, and arrived at Scapa Flow on 3 June after sailing west around Ireland. That gave Beatty four battle cruisers (all of them less-capable, first-generation ships) and four armored cruisers. While Jellicoe believed that the German battle cruisers had also suffered heavy damage, he could not be completely sure of their status.

Most importantly, Jellicoe had to enforce the harshest lessons of Jutland. Three battle cruisers and two armored cruisers had been blown apart by magazine explosions, resulting in the deaths of 5,069 British sailors between them. Only eleven men had survived among the five ships. And the near-run escapes of Lion and Malaya from the same fate showed conclusively why those men had perished: an obsession with rapid fire during combat. Armored doors leading from magazine to shell room to turret, designed to keep fire from flashing between them, had been propped open. In the armored cruisers, the flash baffles that would have saved at least Defence had been stripped away at the order of the squadron commander, all in the pursuit of a greater volume of fire.

Throughout the fleet – battleships as well as battle cruisers – the existing rules would now be enforced, with doors shut and baffles in place. New, more stringent procedures took effect as well, much more easily accepted in the wake of over five thousand dead. Eventually both new and existing ships would receive thicker deck armor, though deficient deck protection had not been a cause of any of the ship explosions or near-explosions at Jutland.

Jellicoe also pondered his handling of the fleet during the battle, coming back to a point he’d made in the May conference in Rosyth two weeks before the fleet action. The Grand Fleet was simply too large; it had taken a great deal of time to deploy into line of battle, and for long stretches only some of the battleships were involved in the fighting or even aware it was going on.

His earlier suggestion now became policy; once the anchorage at Rosyth had been enlarged, only the battleships armed with 13.5-inch and 15-inch guns would be based there. Those with 12-inch guns, except Agincourt (considered to have sufficient fighting power, with fourteen such guns, to operate with the big ships) would go to Cromarty, rather than Hull as in the May proposal. But the Grand Fleet would now be centered on fewer but more powerful ships.

In addition to its cumbersome size, the fleet has also suffered from poor reporting practices. Multiple British captains and admirals had known where the Germans were to be found in the early hours of 1 June, but they failed to tell Jellicoe. It would take a full generation to overcome the “cult of the senior officer present” then rampant in the Royal Navy.

Gunnery would also have to improve; in particular, Jellicoe instituted the use of radios to coordinate the fire of two or more ships against one target. With the Grand Fleet likely to outnumber the Germans in any engagement, the current practice of each British ship firing at one distinct German target and no other had been unworkable from the start.

In contrast to Scheer, Jellicoe grounded his improvements within the capabilities of his fleet and its personnel. It could be re-organized, magazines could be better-secured, and information flow could be improved. The Grand Fleet became a much more capable fighting force after Jutland.

The Grand Fleet would not leave its bases again, however, until 17 July, when the battle fleet and the armored cruisers responded to a false report of a German sortie. They then steamed around the Shetland Islands for exercises and gunnery drills, as the Grand Fleet absorbed the lessons of Jutland. They would not take the field again until 18 August, in response to Scheer’s next move.

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Mike Bennighof is president of Avalanche Press and holds a doctorate in history from Emory University. A Fulbright Scholar and NASA Journalist in Space finalist, he has published a great many books, games and articles on historical subjects; people are saying that some of them are actually good. He lives in Birmingham, Alabama with his wife, three children, and his new puppy. His Iron Dog, Leopold, could swim very well.

Daily Content includes no AI-generated content or third-party ads. We work hard to keep it that way, and that’s a lot of work. You can help us keep things that way with your gift through this link right here.