Photo 7.1 HMS Tiger and HMS Renown at sea Royal Navy Historical Branch
Little Ships, Submarines, and Aircraft
SCHEER INTENDED A NEW PLAN of submarine traps in September, but the weather was so bad he was forced to cancel the venture on the 19th, when the fleet’s window of availability closed. This released the zeppelins for a raid on England on the night of 23–24 September, while the Second and Sixth Torpedo Boat Flotillas were dispatched to attack merchant shipping off the Dutch coast. Although a battle squadron went to the Baltic for training, Scheer sent out elements of the High Sea Fleet on 25 September to see the torpedo craft home. The British got warning, but in accordance with the new policy the Grand Fleet did not sail. With no indication that the entire High Sea Fleet was involved there was no reason to move. To ensure the security of the southern ports and shipping, the Harwich Force was ordered to rendezvous west of the North Hinder, while the Third Battle Squadron was brought to short notice and additional submarines were stationed off the coast. The First Scouting Group and the First Squadron deployed, however, only to the west of Heligoland to cover the flotillas as they returned from their largely fruitless sortie. A single encounter occurred as dusk was falling on 26 September, when E53 sighted the returning German units but was driven deep by torpedo boats without being able to attack. The German capital ships were at sea for less than a day and saw nothing of the enemy. This type of short-range mission, combined with guard duty in the Bight, would be the main operational employment of the big ships in the future. It was not a stimulating prospect for their crews.
The zeppelin raid was a disaster for the Germans. The four newest airships attacked London, while eight older units made for the Midlands. Already damaged by antiaircraft fire from the ground, the brand-new L33 was crippled by machine-gun fire from an RFC airplane. The airship did not catch fire but came down in marshland where the crew was captured. L32 suffered a similar succession of hits from ground-based fire and was then machine-gunned by an RFC BE2. It crashed in flames, killing all on board. The British, to their delight, received an intelligence windfall from the wreck, including the latest signal book. L33 proved a windfall of another sort since the wreck could be examined in detail. Its clear superiority over contemporary British rigid airships, with ten times the usable “lift,” was such that the Admiralty substituted two copies of L33 for an existing order. It was a curious throwback to the days of sail, when captured French warships became design models for the Royal Navy’s new construction—for similar reasons.
Despite this setback, the Germans tried again on 25 September. L31 under its experienced and aggressive commander, Heinrich Mathy, got as far as Portsmouth, where the local defenses proved effective enough to prevent the zeppelin from bombing the naval dockyard. The airships suffered no casualties on this air raid, but a venture on 1 October brought a loss. L31 was shot down with no survivors over Potter’s Bar. Incendiary bullets from a fighter aircraft did the job again, notably despite the zeppelin’s efforts to gain height, a technique in which the airships usually had the advantage. This was a loss Strasser and his seniors could not ignore, but the full story was worse still. In the bad weather that night, the surviving airships had either been forced to turn back or “wandered” over southern England desperately searching for recognizable targets.1 New, higher-climbing machines would be needed, together with new tactics and more careful use of weather to achieve anything like the results that Strasser promised.
Prospects of renewed main fleet operations promised some relief from the zeppelins’ problems. However, Scheer’s plans to attack Sunderland were brought to a halt by the Admiralstab’s decision on 6 October to order a full resumption of prize warfare. The U-boats’ unavailability to support the fleet prevented long-range sorties into the North Sea. As the High Sea Fleet staff pointed out, the successes of 19 August had awakened “the greatest hopes,” and submarines were essential to continuing the work.2 It is true that the “venomous” memorandum produced by Scheer’s chief of staff with its bitter criticism of the Admiralstab was as much a political as an operational document.3 A key element was Scheer’s and his senior advisors’ view that the only valid form of Handelskrieg (trade war) was unrestricted, and they were desperate to convince the government this was the correct strategy. It was nevertheless still true that the U-boats also remained, as they probably always were, the best instrument for reducing the strength of the Grand Fleet. Without them, the High Sea Fleet ran the risk of being overwhelmed by a force that had overcome many of its weaknesses and whose superiority continued to grow. Scheer still hoped to isolate a substantial British force and cast about for different solutions. He believed that at Jutland the Battle Cruiser Fleet was much farther away from Jellicoe’s battle squadrons than it should have been and that the British could well continue with this policy. Notwithstanding later German comments about the Royal Navy’s unwillingness to run risks, Beatty was considered an aggressive commander, overly ready to put his force to the hazard with ships that were clearly vulnerable. Lack of U-boats meant the Germans had to be circumspect when they deployed, but a comprehensive zeppelin screen could provide the High Sea Fleet with the superior understanding to locate and destroy a detached British formation without becoming entangled with the Grand Fleet.
Scheer’s new concept involved sending the flotillas out to intercept North Sea shipping with the battle squadrons acting as their cover. His venture in October may have been the first of what Scheer intended as a series, with the British (Beatty) assessed as likely to take the bait on a second or third occasion. The autumn weather turned foul, preventing the zeppelins from forming the screen outside the Bight critical to Scheer’s plan. Only on 18 October—just before another window of fleet availability was due to shut—did the weather moderate sufficiently to set the operation in train. Scheer’s radio orders were intercepted by Room 40 a few hours before the High Sea Fleet sailed in the early hours of the following day. The now-customary dispositions were made in the south, while the formations in the north were brought to short notice for sea but did not immediately sail. Submarines were dispatched from Harwich with others sent out from northern bases to take up defensive positions. Jellicoe feared the operation might cover the deployment of disguised commerce raiders into the Atlantic and therefore sent preparatory orders for a strong force of cruisers to patrol between Scotland and Norway.
Seven British submarines were already disposed around the likely exit routes from the Heligoland Bight. E38, operating north of Terschelling, spotted the First Scouting Group at dawn on 19 October. The submarine could not get close enough to either the battle cruisers or the battle squadrons that followed them, and an attack on a light cruiser failed when E38 lost depth control. She had more luck when another light cruiser operating in the rear of the fleet came in sight; this was the elderly München. At 0843, E38 fired two torpedoes, one of which hit, causing substantial flooding and damage to München’s condensers, which contaminated her feed water. The crippled cruiser was taken in tow, first by a torpedo boat and then by the cruiser Berlin, although not before the latter avoided another torpedo fired by E38. This was the submarine’s last effort, as her battery was almost exhausted. Her captain, Jessop, could console himself with one success amidst his repeated setbacks.4
Scheer was now subject to the same fears as Jellicoe. The cruiser Stettin was convinced that she had also only just avoided submarine attack. There was thus the possibility that the fleet was facing the type of submarine trap that Scheer had set for the British in previous sorties. The C-in-C turned to the east-northeast at 1030 to make for the Horns Reef passage. Scheer’s assessment that the operation should be curtailed was confirmed by reports from Neumünster, which indicated British submarines were taking up special dispositions, something that suggested the British knew the High Sea Fleet was at sea. This judgment was supported by L14, which reported sighting the Harwich Force to the southwest. Well over a hundred miles away and with the weather deteriorating, this was no sort of quarry for Scheer to risk remaining at sea to engage. The conditions were increasingly unsuitable for his light forces and the zeppelins, so Scheer ordered a general withdrawal. The final approach to the Horns Reef passage was made after dark and of the three British submarines in the area, only G3 had a brief encounter with screening torpedo craft, which forced her deep. By midnight, the High Sea Fleet was in safe waters. Scheer’s order to the zeppelins to return home was intercepted by Room 40, confirming the brief sortie was being wound up. The Admiralty then recalled the Harwich Force and canceled the cruiser operation in the north. The British were irritated at the continuing inability of their torpedoes to sink major German warships, and fitting 21-inch tubes in new submarine designs received further impetus. As Jellicoe commented, “They are very difficult to sink, or else our torpedoes don’t hit hard enough.”5 This was not entirely true. Despite the High Sea Fleet’s shortage of light cruisers, whose losses since 1914 had yet to be made up, München was not considered worth a full repair. Patched up, she became an accommodation ship.
This was the last sortie by the entire fleet for eighteen months. Circumstances and his own judgment made further operations less attractive for the German commander. Sheer did not give up hope entirely, but caution permeated every aspect of the attempts that followed. The onset of winter reduced the opportunities for both torpedo boats and zeppelins but there were other factors at work. The absence of his own submarines and the presence of the enemy’s in such numbers created the prospect the Germans would suffer attrition rather than the Grand Fleet. Mines were another consideration, despite the minesweepers’ work keeping the passages out of the Heligoland Bight clear. Had Scheer known of the Grand Fleet’s determination to avoid night action, the short days of winter might have provided him with opportunities for harassing actions involving only part of the High Sea Fleet, with relatively little risk of interception. In the meantime, Scheer intended to reinforce the Flanders Command with the Third and the Ninth Flotillas in late October. While the Third Squadron went to the Baltic for training, the First Squadron and the Scouting Groups remained available to cover the dispatch of the flotillas from the edge of the Bight, and plans were under way for the torpedo craft to leave on 22 October. The movement, however, was subject to an unexpected interruption.
Operations against the High Sea Fleet
Whatever its disappointment at yet another aborted encounter with the High Sea Fleet, the Harwich Force was occupied with its own offensive plans. The long awaited Coastal Motor Boats had achieved operational status. Tyrwhitt’s intention to use them for an attack on the Schillig Roads was delayed by the High Sea Fleet’s sortie of 19 August and then by a combination of weather and short notice operations. What was essential for a CMB raid was surety of targets before the boats were dispatched and confirmation the anchorages were not protected by surface booms that could rip their bottoms out. This required air reconnaissance of the German estuaries. What followed showed the difficulties of both aircraft and light naval craft operations in the North Sea. Either the wind and sea state were such that the seaplanes and CMBs could not be launched, even if they had not already been damaged in their stowages, or calm conditions brought the almost inevitable fog. Heavy weather curtailed a first attempt at reconnaissance on 29 September. This resulted in the seaplane, launched from a coastal base, being called back. Attempts to refuel and then tow the aircraft resulted in its damage and eventual sinking. That an England-based machine had been considered capable of this task was a sign of increasing capability, but the experience suggested its employment was premature. Seaplanes brought much closer to their target by a carrier remained the more practical option. A further attempt on 22 October with two machines launched from Vindex fared better, but fog in the Bight was so thick that both were forced to return. Only No. 9760, with Lieutenant Erskine Childers (of The Riddle of the Sands fame) embarked as the observer, saw anything of the enemy in the form of a half-flotilla of torpedo boats—and two seaplanes launched from Heligoland in pursuit. Stymied by low-lying cloud, her crew even brought No. 9760 down on the sea to get a better view, but still saw little of value.
The Germans were thoroughly alerted to the possibility of a British surface raid, believing that any seaplanes operating so far east had been launched from a ship. The flotillas’ departure for Zeebrugge was placed on hold to screen the fleet. The routine zeppelin patrols were supplemented by an order for every available airship to launch and the First Scouting Group and the First Squadron with their supporting units began to move into the Bight. These orders were intercepted by Room 40, causing concern in the Admiralty that the unsupported Harwich Force might be cut off. Just after his ships sighted zeppelin L17, Tyrwhitt was ordered to withdraw. L17 did not attack but maintained contact for more than two hours before losing sight of the British force. One of the limitations of the zeppelins was forcibly demonstrated. So strong was the southeasterly crosswind the airship could not keep up with the twenty-two knots of the surface ships. Even the more powerful L34 was unable to join in time to take over the pursuit. Significantly, heavier-than-air machines not only gave chase to the British aircraft, but seaplane No. 722 bombed the British ships—an observer commenting, “He must have done a good flight as we were a good 80 miles from Borkum at the time.”6 No. 722’s attack was ineffective, but the increasing capabilities of heavier-than-air craft were beginning to change the priorities of German naval aviation.
Operations in the English Channel
Events conspired to delay a CMB attack indefinitely. By freeing up the flotillas, the restrictions on the High Sea Fleet allowed the Germans to increase their pressure on the British ports and shipping routes in the south. Deployment of the Third and Ninth Flotillas to Flanders strengthened the German forces threatening the Channel. This put the Harwich Force back on the defensive. The Admiralty became aware of planned movements by the High Sea Fleet late in the morning of 23 October. The nature of the sortie was not apparent and the Grand Fleet was once more brought to short notice for sea. Commodore (T) was ordered to a position off North Hinder and was on station before dawn on the 24th. By this time, further radio intercepts indicated at least one German flotilla had gone south. In the darkness, the light forces of the two sides did not make contact and, after further intercepts confirmed the Germans were already well clear, Tyrwhitt headed home. The transfer clearly presaged an attack on the Channel, and on 26 October the Admiralty ordered Commodore (T) to dispatch a light cruiser and four destroyers to Dunkirk as a reinforcement for the Dover Patrol. This was too little, too late. Commodore Michelsen, commanding the High Sea Fleet flotillas, had gone ahead of his ships to Zeebrugge to prepare for a raid. Even as the additional Harwich units made their way south, the German force was leaving harbor.
The Allies’ defensive problem in the Channel had been simplified by Admiral Bacon’s admission of defeat over the Flanders Barrage, not only through enemy action, but bad weather as well. The underpowered monitors with the firepower to keep German light forces at bay were practically unmanageable in the southwesterly gales that were increasingly frequent (and sudden) as autumn drew on, while the nets needed calm weather for any repairs. The Germans were also strengthening their shore batteries and had plans to install 38-cm guns in the new “Deutschland” battery, with a range of more than 50,000 yards. General Wolfe had already been straddled by the 28-cm “Tirpitz” battery at 32,000 yards and Prince Rupert at 34,000. As Bacon noted, “there was no help for it but to discontinue the patrol.”7 Unfortunately, although the barrage claimed more U-boats than initial postwar analysis suggested, Bacon remained overly sanguine as to its effects and attributed increases in German activity in the western Channel to the barrage’s reduced effectiveness, rather than the Germans’ own changes in their operations. This attitude would not help him in 1917. In any event, the Germans removed substantial components of the net lines and the deep minefields, despite facing their own difficulties from the weather of autumn and winter. The work was assigned to the old torpedo craft that the German navy (not having the same requirement to protect shipping as the British) used as minesweepers in preference to converted fishing vessels.
Fearing a night attack, Admiral Bacon later asserted he took one precaution that proved vital, the nighttime passage of loaded troopships was suspended and there were only a few empty transports at sea. He may have been strictly correct about troop carriers, but there were fifty-seven supply ships in the Channel that night. As so often happened in night warfare, however, darkness shielded all but one from the German raiders. Despite Bacon’s precautions, the Dover Patrol was neither well organized nor mentally prepared for the attack. Bacon later argued cogently in his memoir of the impossibility of maintaining surveillance of the Channel at night with the forces available.8 He wrote to the Admiralty, “It is as easy to stop a raid of express engines with all lights out at night … as to stop a raid of 33-not [sic] destroyers on a night as black as Erebus.”9 However, there were three closely associated problems that affected the British response on this and later occasions. The first was Bacon’s inability to delegate and keep his subordinates informed. His chief of staff later in 1917 commented that Bacon “planned and did many things with which I was quite unacquainted.”10 Second was the lack of arrangements that allowed a sighting unit to be immediately sure whether another ship was friend or foe. Deficient recognition systems were only a part of this problem. More critical was the need for the movement of all units to be organized such that there was no risk of any ship being in the wrong place. The Channel’s navigational challenges made this extremely difficult, but more could have been done, particularly through the rigid demarcation of operating areas. This would have made a great difference to the tendency, understandable in units patrolling night after night, conscious of dozens of other Allied craft in the area, to assume an unexpected sighting was of a friendly unit. Too many British—and French—ships were frightened to fire first, lest they hit the wrong target. A wider anxiety to avoid accidents in a crowded seaway may have contributed to at least one British destroyer operating with navigation lights on, helpful to an errant drifter wanting to keep out of her path, but very dangerous in the presence of enemy surface forces.
The Germans allocated twenty-four torpedo boats to their raid. The plan was for the two half-flotillas of the Ninth Flotilla to proceed southwest down the Channel to attack the main shipping route between Folkestone and Boulogne. An hour behind them, two half-flotillas of the Third Flotilla would attempt to “roll up” the drifters and other small craft tending the antisubmarine net barrage. In addition to the separation in time between the two full flotillas, each half-flotilla was well removed by distance from its partner, in the hope of avoiding confusion. The first wave began its approach to the British patrol areas just after 2000. The Germans passed through the barrage, sighting the destroyers of the newly arrived Harwich Force division on their way to Dunkirk—but not being sighted in turn—and a lone Dover Patrol destroyer, Flirt. The latter saw the Germans but was confused by V30 immediately flashing back the same recognition code that Flirt had signaled. The Germans rapidly passed out of sight and an uncertain Flirt decided that they were from the Harwich Force. She did not report the encounter. This meant the vital knowledge that there were already German forces south of the barrage was not available to Bacon or the ships of the Dover Patrol. Much of the later confusion can be ascribed to this information gap.
As the Ninth Flotilla searched for Allied transports, the Third Flotilla began its approach. At 2210 the drifter Waveney came under attack. Flirt, alerted by the gunfire, made her way north and found the sinking Waveney. The old destroyer’s priority was to rescue the drifter’s survivors. This was another critical error; on the testimony of the few survivors of Flirt, there were destroyers in sight when she stopped to conduct the rescue, but Flirt’s captain thought they were French. The armed yacht Ombra’s assessment at 2220 was more accurate. The Germans were finding it difficult to locate any targets and began to use their searchlights. Ombra’s experienced captain immediately radioed “Enemy’s warships 20 miles east of Dover” and set about getting the drifters away from the barrage. At this point, the last half-flotilla of German torpedo craft arrived and sighted the hapless Flirt. The elderly destroyer was blown out of the water, with the loss of all on board. Only the boat’s crew dispatched earlier to help Waveney survived. Ombra’s signal alerted Bacon, who immediately ordered out the destroyers from the western side of the Channel and directed the additional Harwich Force division to leave its anchorage off Dunkirk. The cruiser Carysfort was also ordered out, but—at two hours’ notice for sea—she would not sail in time. The other Harwich Force division, led by Lawford, did not move from the Downs because of a mistake in interpreting Ombra’s signal—“warships” was read as “airships.”
The Third Flotilla sank only six drifters during an hour spent near the barrage. The darkness that cloaked their approach and contributed to the defenders’ confusion made it very difficult to detect the small vessels. In the southwest, the Ninth Flotilla also had only limited success. They were seen by the hospital ships Jan Brydel and St Denis. The first recognized the Germans for what they were, the second did not. In any case, neither could report a sighting because of their noncombatant status. The sole victim was the transport Queen, on passage showing her navigation lights and oblivious to a tail of five enemy torpedo craft until she was challenged, stopped, and boarded. Her crew took to the boats before the Germans attempted to sink the ship. Queen was still afloat when the torpedo boats withdrew and did not actually founder until about 0500. The Eighteenth Half-Flotilla encountered two French patrol vessels. The trawlers Montaigne and Albatros II had heard firing but thought a zeppelin raid was in progress. One of Albatros II’s gunners did his best to convince his commander that “the enemy is in sight,” but both ships assumed the contacts were friendly. Montaigne was sunk and Albatros II damaged. The latter managed to make off in the darkness with four dead and many wounded, getting into Boulogne the next morning.11
By 2330 the Third Flotilla was withdrawing from the barrage and the Ninth Flotilla had also turned for home. Shortly afterward, the patrol vessel P34 found the survivors of Queen and signaled that there were German destroyers in the area. This was received correctly by Lawford, which at last began to move south from the Downs. There were other British forces converging on the barrage at the time the German Ninth Flotilla approached it, but their actions demonstrated continuing confusion. The destroyer Nubian sighted and challenged the Seventeenth Half-Flotilla, but initially believing they were from the Harwich Force, only realized the units in sight were hostile after two torpedoes had been fired at her. Primitive fire control arrangements and lack of preparedness for night fighting meant that only Nubian’s forward gun fired, word never getting to the torpedo tubes or the after gun mount. Another German torpedo blew away most of the front half of the ship, although the remainder remained afloat.
Her sister ship, Amazon, made the same assumption that the ships sighted were British L-class destroyers. So sure was Amazon her response to being fired upon was to issue the challenge. She was lucky to survive with heavy damage. A division of three other Tribal-class destroyers fared little better. They also issued the challenge and were met by gunfire that damaged Mohawk. Her rudder jammed, Mohawk’s movements confused the situation so much that her consorts could not turn around in time to give chase to the fast-disappearing Germans. By 0100 the latter were clear of the British defenses, with no chance of being overhauled. All the British could do was pick up survivors and attempt to salvage the stricken Nubian. Despite the best efforts of Lark, the destroyer’s remains drove ashore on the South Foreland. Nubian’s construction must have been robust, because the wreck endured the pounding effects of two gales before being salvaged and brought back to Dover. By the time this was done, Nubian’s sister ship, Zulu, had her stern blown off by a mine on 8 November. Zulu was found by the French destroyer Capitaine Mehl and towed into Calais.12 The remains of both ships were taken to Chatham dockyard and the bows of Zulu successfully mated to the stern of Nubian. Aptly and cheerfully renamed Zubian, the resulting conglomeration was back in service in June 1917 and did good work.
The Germans had mixed feelings about their success. While they conducted the operation without loss, the results were limited, particularly against Allied transport vessels. Despite the care taken to separate the four formations, on at least two occasions German units sighted each other and very nearly fired on their own side. Night combat remained risky for all concerned. In the meantime, it was clear to the British that the Channel was vulnerable. The barrage was no obstacle to surface vessels and the Dover Patrol’s strength insufficient to be certain of an effective response to a night raid. The French could not help. Even with reinforcement units from the Atlantic and the Mediterranean, they could provide only five 800-ton destroyers and a handful of torpedo craft, useful against submarines, but not of a capability to face the German flotillas with any surety of success.13
The affair also contributed to growing concerns about the Admiralty itself. German raiders striking so close to British shores and escaping unscathed struck further at public confidence in the Royal Navy. British credibility was not helped by the Admiralty claiming two German torpedo craft had been sunk. The First Lord, Arthur Balfour, hedged on the assertion a few days later, stating there was “ground for thinking” two ships had been destroyed by mines—but none for their destruction by gunfire.14 The Germans quickly denied they had suffered any losses. A complete lack of supporting evidence eventually forced the Admiralty to drop the claim, adding fuel to the campaign against the Balfour-Jackson regime that was under way in press and parliament.15
Bacon’s losses were made up by transfers from other local flotillas in the south, while the Harwich Force was ordered to detach yet another division of destroyers to the Channel. Tyrwhitt was less than pleased by this further reduction in strength. Not only was his offensive capability substantially depleted, but the “Beef trip” convoys depended upon the availability of destroyers. With so many units operating in the Dover area, he could safely conduct only one round-trip a week. Tyrwhitt’s concern that there were other problems than Dover was confirmed when the German Ninth Flotilla mounted an attack on shipping off the Dutch coast on 1 November. The British had been alerted by Room 40 to the German sortie but did not know what Michelsen’s ships intended. Tyrwhitt was forced to dispatch his remaining destroyers to reinforce Dover, while he took his cruisers to patrol off the Scheldt in case the High Sea Fleet flotillas were on their way home. The Germans had originally intended to repeat the attack on the Channel, but the combination of an aircraft report of a substantial British fleet off the Gravelines and radio intercepts by the Flanders Command intelligence center made them believe the British were warned and ready. There was justifiable (and correct) scepticism in von Schröder’s headquarters regarding the aircraft’s assessment that it had sighted eleven battleships, but the report had to be given some weight. Believing that all the flotilla would find would be alerted enemy cruisers and destroyers, the sortie was canceled and a sweep for shipping on the shipping lanes to the Netherlands substituted.
The Ninth Flotilla succeeded in capturing three ships, all of which were dispatched to Zeebrugge with prize crews embarked. Early on the morning of 2 November, their work was interrupted by Tyrwhitt’s force, which intercepted the third prize, the Dutch merchant ship Oldambt, and shortly afterward sighted five German torpedo boats, themselves in pursuit of another Dutch vessel. The old problem of identification raised its head and Tyrwhitt himself had to be persuaded the ships in sight were neither Dutch nor French.16 A sharp little action followed, but the range was never less than eight thousand yards and rapid deployment of a smoke screen by the retiring Germans meant neither side suffered any damage before contact was lost. The belief the British had strongly reinforced their units in the south to match the German strength on the Flanders coast confirmed the decision to send the Third Flotilla home. It sailed on the night of 2 November and was in German waters the next day. The British were not alerted to the movement, but eventually realized there had been a transfer of forces back to the North Sea. This reduced the pressure on the Dover Patrol and the Harwich Force, but the continuing presence of the Ninth Flotilla in the Flanders ports suggested the Germans had further operations in mind.
Operations in the North Sea
To the north another saga was unfolding. On the evening of 2 November U30, operating off the Norwegian coast, reported that her diesels had broken down and she required assistance. This message was taken in by U20, which joined her early the next morning, ready to take the stricken submarine in tow. The signal had also been intercepted by Room 40. The British immediately sent destroyers with cruisers as cover to intercept U30, but, unaware of the assistance the U-boat had received, the first group into the area looked too far north and the rendezvous for the other formations was set astern of the submarines’ track. The British called off their effort when they decrypted U30’s report on the afternoon of 3 November that she had fixed her engines and was proceeding homeward at twelve knots. Reality in the U-boat’s engine-spaces was nothing like so good. U30 broke down repeatedly and her rate of progress overnight was closer to four knots. After another temporary fix, speed was increased on the morning of 4 November, but at this stage a thick fog enveloped the Skagerrak. Uncertain of their position, the submarines were set much farther northeast than they realized. That evening both ran aground on the Danish coast near Bovbjerg. U30 lightened herself enough to get clear, at the price of losing her ability to submerge, but U20 was caught fast. The would-be rescuer now found that her own diesel engines were out of action. With battery exhausted, U20 could not be refloated without help. When the news reached Admiral Scheer just after 2100, he ordered the outpost forces to sea under von Hipper in Seydlitz, reinforced by Moltke and no fewer than eleven battleships, including the Third Squadron, just returned from the Baltic. A half-flotilla of torpedo boats was sent ahead to attempt the salvage of U20 and this was on scene early on the morning of 5 November. Repeated attempts to pull the submarine off failed and Scheer approved the boat’s destruction. Conditions were calm enough to allow confidential books and equipment and even her remaining torpedoes to be removed before U20 was blown up.
Dispatching substantial forces to cover the salvage attempt was a reasonable risk, since Neumünster advised that there was no indication that major British units were at sea. But there was a greater hazard in the relatively small number of torpedo craft available to screen the major units. Although von Hipper’s two battle cruisers and his light cruisers each had a torpedo boat in company, the battleships had only a handful between them. Matters were not improved by the heavy ships running a north-south line as they waited on developments, doing so at twelve knots to make life easier for the escorting torpedo boats. This was a gift for a submarine. J1, under the command of Baltic veteran Commander Noel Laurence, had arrived in her patrol area on the morning of 5 November and dived for the day. Laurence, who put a torpedo into Moltke in the Baltic in 1915, was one of the Royal Navy’s most skillful submarine commanders. He sighted four battleships on the submarine’s starboard quarter in the haze at 1150. Laurence was forced to go deep and reverse course to get into an attack position. When he came to periscope depth again, conditions were so bad that J1 broke surface, but Laurence forced her down without being spotted. When he had his boat under control and could take another look, it was clear the battleships had reversed course and were heading south and opening from J1. Laurence immediately fired all four bow tubes at a range of approximately three thousand yards. That he could launch a salvo this size demonstrated the capability of the newest submarines, such as the big and fast J class. That any weapons would hit when fired from such a range showed the increasing skills of the best submarine captains. One torpedo struck Grosser Kurfürst aft and a second Kronprinz forward.
Both ships suffered substantial damage, but managed to return to harbor without assistance, further confirmation of German capital ships’ robust underwater protection and the British need for a heavier torpedo. However, the incident showed that the High Sea Fleet had failed to adjust to the new threat environment. Scheer’s dispatch of capital ships with minimal escort was one questionable decision, but the risks involved were greatly increased by the on-scene commanders. The handling of the force by Behncke, the Third Squadron’s commander, would have been understandable in August 1914, but not at this point of the war. Failure to zigzag combined with slow speed made the battleships a much more inviting target than they should have been, even if the Third Squadron was unfortunate in coming within Laurence’s reach. These errors were indicative of the minimal seagoing experience the High Seas Fleet’s operational employment allowed its leadership, but they also showed the same failure of imagination for which British admirals like Lewis Bayly were justly criticized in the wake of British losses in 1914 and 1915. Jellicoe may have consulted his fears too much in handling the Grand Fleet, but his opponents had clearly not thought through the submarine threat they themselves faced. The nineteen knots with which the Third Squadron hastily departed the attack scene should have been maintained for the entire operation.
The kaiser was highly critical of Scheer’s decision to hazard the battleships to support the recovery of a single U-boat. Part of the C-in-C’s motivation may have been to avoid handing the Allies the propaganda victory inherent in the destruction of the submarine that sank Lusitania, but he defended himself stoutly, arguing that the submarines were the German navy’s primary fighting element and their crews needed to believe they would be supported by the fleet in every way possible. Scheer had a point, one the kaiser accepted after a personal interview. The C-in-C also noted that “English torpedoes have never yet proved fatal to our big ships,” a statement not unreasonable in the circumstances, but which failed to address the tactical failures involved.17
Developments in the Main Fleets
The damage to the two battleships and the demands of the refit program were further restraints on major fleet operations over the winter months and Scheer accepted an operational pause. This allowed the First Scouting Group the opportunity for tactical training in the Baltic and the C-in-C to reorganize the remainder of the battle fleet. The encounter with J1, confirming the requirement for constant high speed, may have been the final nail in the coffin of the Second Squadron. With manpower required for the U-boats and the completion of the 38-cm gunned Bayern and Baden, the High Sea Fleet could be reconstituted, and in December the eight oldest dreadnoughts were placed in the First Squadron and the most modern divided into the Third and the new Fourth Squadron. One important German tactical doctrine changed with the departure of the pre-dreadnoughts, curiously at odds with the direction the Grand Fleet was taking. The Second Squadron’s commander had authority to maneuver independently of the line of battle, “risking his force regardless of the consequences” if the likely results justified it. This discretion was specifically withdrawn with the formation of the Fourth Squadron.18 The old Deutschland class may have been expendable, but the super-dreadnoughts were not.
Friedrich der Grosse remained fleet flagship until Baden became operational in March 1917. The Second Scouting Group and the Fourth Scouting Group were also reorganized and now contained only the most modern light cruisers, including the first products of the replacement program for the losses of 1914. The Fourth Scouting Group included the new cruiser-minelayers Bremse and Brummer, which would be among the most active offensive units during the remainder of the war. As for the Second Squadron, one ship was retained as the Baltic guard ship, while the others were disarmed for training or accommodation duties. That their guns were modified to serve as railway weapons on the western front was another indication of shifting priorities. Yet this stand-down of the fleet over the winter showed that neither the Admiralstab nor the High Sea Fleet were thinking through their multifront problem. The months in which the northeastern Baltic was under ice provided an opportunity to focus totally on the North Sea and the Channel, which the Germans never properly exploited. The winter of 1916–17 was particularly harsh but the social and morale problems that inadequate food and fuel were creating in the nation and in its navy might have not been so severe had there been more evidence of offensive activity against the enemy.
The British undertook their own reorganization. Resumption of the U-boat campaign against shipping in home waters combined with the continuing German and Austrian submarine operations in the Mediterranean to increase shipping losses substantially in October and again in November. The Admiralty seemed to have little answer to the U-boat, and its professional component was exhibiting neither the energy nor the judgment necessary to find one. Jellicoe himself pressed the need for action upon the First Lord, Arthur Balfour, as well as other politicians. (One of his informal channels was breakfasting with the daily dispatch carriers who were often younger members of parliament.)19 The First Sea Lord, Jackson, recognized his own limitations and was willing to step aside. In the circumstances, the First Lord’s only choice as his replacement could be Jellicoe and in late November the latter was offered and accepted the post. Jellicoe did so with reluctance, partly because he could never lead the fleet to the decisive action it sought. One of his staff officers believed Jellicoe left the Grand Fleet on “the bitterest day of his life.”20 Experienced in Whitehall, he had no illusions as to the workload or the infighting to come. The reality was even worse than he expected, for only a few days later, David Lloyd George became prime minister at the head of a coalition government, whose other changes included Balfour’s transfer to the Foreign Office. Jellicoe respected Lloyd George’s energy, but he neither trusted nor liked a man who was too political an animal for the tired admiral. That Balfour’s replacement as First Lord, Sir Edward Carson, proved a congenial colleague would not, in the end, be enough. Despite Jellicoe’s misgivings, Beatty was his only logical successor as C-in-C. Jellicoe’s first choice, Madden (who, though older, was junior to Beatty as a flag officer), was made second in command and commander of the First Battle Squadron. Both were appointed acting full admirals with “war seniority” to ensure they remained senior to any routine promotions. This was necessary because, although two of the squadron commanders—Burney and Jerram—were replaced, Sturdee remained in the Fourth Battle Squadron.21
A key change was in the battle cruisers, which reverted under their new flag officer, Rear Admiral Sir William Pakenham, from being the “Battle Cruiser Fleet” to the “Battle Cruiser Force,” a designation from the first days of the war. That Beatty should have endorsed this reduction in the status of the Grand Fleet’s advanced formation is significant. Although the new commander had worked closely with him as flag officer in the Second Battle Cruiser Squadron, Beatty clearly believed that he required closer control than Jellicoe had imposed on the battle cruisers. In Beatty’s correspondence in 1917 and 1918, there is evidence he intervened, albeit generally through private conversation or personal letter, in affairs within the Battle Cruiser Force much more frequently than his predecessor as C-in-C. As a first step in such closer supervision, Beatty obtained the Admiralty’s agreement to the battle cruisers’ temporary transfer to Scapa Flow. This was to give them the concentrated gunnery training difficult to conduct at Rosyth and the opportunity for a tactical exercise with the battle fleet. It would also allow Beatty to ensure that Pakenham understood his C-in-C’s intentions.
There were many other changes in the Grand Fleet. Jellicoe took several of his closest subordinates to the Admiralty, while Beatty brought most of his staff to Iron Duke. This was inevitable and, although there was renewed energy to pursue some key issues, the change was more of manner than matter. Beatty knew he had much to learn. The challenges of operating the Grand Fleet were outside his experience—as they were for anyone except Jellicoe himself—and Beatty was shrewd enough to hold fire on matters such as the Grand Fleet Battle Orders until he had settled in. This settling process also included gaining both the confidence of his immediate subordinates and the Grand Fleet as a whole. Jellicoe had his own charisma and Beatty was very much on trial as far as the battle squadrons were concerned. Awareness of this attitude on board Iron Duke may have contributed to his desire to transfer his flag to the larger, faster, and more heavily armed Queen Elizabeth. On board her, Beatty’s grander manner would not be contrasted unfavorably with that of his quiet predecessor.
The Grand Fleet’s exercises were marred by the loss of two destroyers in the early hours of 21 December after a collision that demonstrated the hazards of the new antisubmarine weapons. Sailing in close formation, Hoste’s rudder jammed. Her unexpected turn brought Hoste across the bows of Negro, which ran into her stern. Serious damage became critical when Hoste’s two depth charges were dislodged and went overboard. Both exploded, breaking Hoste’s back and flooding Negro’s engine room. With the weather worsening, attempts were made to take the crippled Negro in tow, but with her bulkheads collapsing, the destroyer suddenly sank by the stern just after 0400. Despite desperate efforts, only thirty-four of her crew were saved. Hoste’s ship’s company fared better. Heavy seas eventually tore the destroyer’s stern off, but her consort, Marvel, repeatedly got alongside in a considerable feat of seamanship and took off Hoste’s crew. Oil pumped on the water by another ship helped reduce sea and spray, although a heavy swell remained for what was no easy task. Three died, caught between the hulls, and one was injured. Remarkably, when a lone survivor suddenly appeared on Hoste’s upper deck after Marvel’s captain had thought his grueling task was done, the evolution was repeated and the tardy sailor saved.
The absence of the battle cruisers in the north between 10 and 21 December worried the Admiralty. The High Sea Fleet’s reorganization had not yet been detected and Scheer’s program of exercises was not immediately recognized for what it was. There were false alarms about the High Sea Fleet’s movements when it was simply assembling to practice the new commanders and their formations. Scheer had plans for minor forays, but the stormy weather marking the start of a hard winter meant these were repeatedly delayed and then canceled outright. Given that the light cruisers of two scouting groups, the Second and the Fourth, and the torpedo boats were now the C-in-C’s key offensive force, this dependence on good weather was inevitable. The German battle cruisers, like their opposite numbers at Rosyth, were now on much shorter apron strings than had been the case before Jutland. The only substantial operation was on 27 December, when four light cruisers and the bulk of the High Sea Fleet flotillas were dispatched to the Great Fisher Bank to intercept merchant traffic. The weather was so bad Regensburg was forced to send the light craft home. Finding no targets, the cruisers turned back soon afterward. Regensburg’s liberal use of radio gave the British a reasonable idea of what was going on through a combination of direction finding and decryptions, but their assessment was greatly helped by Scheer himself continuing to use radio in harbor for changing the readiness of the fleet as whole.
To be fair, the continuing anxiety within the Admiralty was justified by the assessment that the Germans would use the short periods of daylight and poor weather to slip surface raiders through the blockade. This was correct, but by the beginning of December the first two raiders had already sailed, Möwe via the Kattegat on 23 November and Wolf on 30 November. Möwe beat the British at their own signals intelligence game and gleaned sufficient information from the Tenth Cruiser Squadron’s radio traffic to dodge around its patrols. Wolf, on her third attempt, was helped by poor weather and went through undetected.22 Initially shepherded by U-boats, she risked the ice of the Denmark Strait to minimize the chance of contact. It was months before her activities made it clear to Allied authorities there was a raider in the Indian Ocean. Matters had been confused for the British by a report an outward-bound German raider was expected to pass Christiana on 12 December. This was a local misinterpretation of the merchant ship Prinz Friedrich Wilhelm attempting to get to Germany through Norwegian waters. Although forces were deployed to the Norwegian Sea to intercept the expected movement, there was no raider and Prinz Friedrich Wilhelm escaped, helped by the fact the British cruisers and destroyers were looking the wrong way.
The British feared there were more raiders to come and they were right. The Germans adopted the novel solution of converting a sailing vessel with auxiliary propulsion for the attack on commerce. Seeadler’s departure was delayed by the fracas over Prinz Friedrich Wilhelm, but things quietened sufficiently for her to clear the Heligoland Bight late on 21 December. Disguising Seeadler as a Norwegian timber carrier bound for Melbourne proved effective. She was stopped and examined by the armed boarding vessel Patia and allowed to proceed. In the new year Seeadler started her work in the South Atlantic. The combined global efforts of the three raiders were a continuing distraction for the Admiralty during 1917 as they took a substantial toll of Allied shipping and diverted large numbers of cruisers and patrol vessels to fruitless searches of the world’s oceans. Not one was intercepted. Möwe returned home in March 1917, the more cautious but wide-ranging Wolf in January 1918, while Seeadler was wrecked in the Society Islands in the Pacific in August 1917.
Problems in the Channel
The closing weeks of 1916 suggested that the Belgian Coast and the English Channel would be the most active areas of war for surface forces. Both sides faced problems in balancing their local efforts, although the British, increasingly preoccupied with the submarine threat, had more to be worried about. Matters were not helped by divided command arrangements. The return of a detachment of the Ninth Flotilla to Harwich from Dover renewed Tyrwhitt’s concerns about their employment by the Dover Command—and Bacon’s fitness for his job. Bacon insisted on ships at anchor remaining “almost entirely at instant or 10 minutes’ notice for sea,” for “seventeen days in succession” without allowing opportunity for rest or maintenance.23 Tyrwhitt remonstrated with the admiral but got nowhere. Finally, despite Bacon’s vast seniority, Commodore (T) wrote directly to the Admiralty, stating firmly, “Even disregarding human endurance, it is obvious to anyone with the slightest knowledge of destroyers, that the mechanical element must inevitably deteriorate rapidly.”24 Bacon later defended himself by asserting that the war was a once in a lifetime event and “therefore everyone had to be prepared to expend the energy of a lifetime.”25 A destroyer’s commanding officer disposed of the argument, “This is all very well, but there is a limit to human endurance.”26
Notably, there is no record of Tyrwhitt being admonished by the Admiralty, despite his direct criticism of a senior officer. This may have been because Bacon’s fixation on immediate readiness for action had embroiled him in a dispute about other elements of destroyer operations. Bacon’s dispositions were generally endorsed by the Admiralty, but his piecemeal approach to dispatching his forces into the dark was rightly criticized. Part of the confusion of the night of 26 October resulted from the Tribal-class destroyers leaving their anchorage individually, rather than operating in divisions. Bacon supported this procedure, but a court of enquiry and the Admiralty pointed out this was a recipe for exactly the sort of problems the British had experienced. Professional opinion was turning against the admiral. Tyrwhitt’s flag captain, Domvile, was scathing and told Vice Admiral de Robeck, new commander of the Second Battle Squadron, “the Rasher had made a priceless balls of everything the other night—I wish they would send him back to his sty.”27 As Tyrwhitt was similarly abusive on the subject of “the Streaky one,” whom he described as his “bugbear” in private correspondence, it is clear feelings ran high in the Harwich Force.28
There were two wider issues at play. One, which also applied to the Harwich Force and other commands but manifested most clearly in the Dover Patrol, was the failure to allow ships enough time to work up and conduct weapon practices. So anxious was Bacon to have the maximum fighting strength available that little time was given his small ships to train, most notably to cope with the complexities of night warfare. The admiral was not alone in this attitude, and many local commands pressed new arrivals into service with little thought as to a ship’s readiness for operations. What became even more apparent in the coming months was that lack of service-wide doctrine and procedures meant detachments from the major elements of the forces in home waters were unfamiliar with the practices of the new command they joined. There were many differences, big and small, explicit and implicit between the way the Dover Patrol, the Harwich Force, and the Grand Fleet did their business. Bacon made the local problem worse by his apparent inability to take criticism or counsel. He was less than encouraging of the initiatives of his immediate subordinates and no better when responding to external inquiries.29 Yet Tyrwhitt, too, was not sufficiently sensitive to the need to indoctrinate new arrivals. One of the necessary changes to the British approach in the time ahead would be the achievement of a more coordinated approach to every aspect of operations in home waters.
On the night of 29–30 December, the minelayer Abdiel deployed an eighty-mine field across one of the swept channels in the Heligoland Bight. It caused the immediate loss of a German auxiliary and twelve days later, a narrow escape for U57. This was too early for such an operation to be considered the first swallow of spring, but it was a start.