Castles of Steel by Robert K. Massie
The German cannonade also broke up the little party of observers standing on Lion’s bridge. “Up to now,” wrote Filson Young,
there had been very little sound but the rush of wind and water, with the occasional roar of our guns, but now the noise of firing was becoming louder and louder; the enemy’s shots were falling on both sides of us quite close so that the spray . . . drenched our decks. The moment had come for an adjournment to the conning tower, that small armored citadel, the mechanical brain of the ship, whence she could be steered and maneuvered and her gunfire controlled by means of a complicated mass of voice pipes, telephones and electric and hydraulic gear. As it was already overcrowded with people indispensable for all these purposes, the Admiral’s staff divided.
Young and another junior officer were dispatched to a “windy eyrie in the foretop”—the small observation platform high up the mainmast, sixty feet above the deck, eighty feet above the sea. For Young, the climb to the foretop was the most dangerous and frightening part of the battle:
As we were climbing . . . a terrific blow and a shake proclaimed that Lion had been hit [this was Blücher’s 9:28 a.m. hit on A turret]. The climb had been bad enough in ordinary circumstances. It was perfectly horrible now. We were already pretty cold from standing in the wind, we were encumbered with thick clothing, life jackets, and oilskins and the wind on the mast . . . was terrific. It shook and tore at us until I really wondered whether my hands would be able to keep their grip on the steel rungs. . . . I felt sure that the end had come when, having dragged myself up step by step to where the floor of the foretop overshadowed us, I found the steel covering of the manhole, giving entrance to it, was shut. . . . It would be impossible to make the man inside it hear and my companion immediately below me on the ladder was hailing me vehemently to hurry up as he could not hold on much longer. Fortunately, the Navigating Commander, who was just leaving the bridge, [looked up and] saw our dilemma and hailed the foretop with the result that the manhole was opened just in time.
Meanwhile, said Captain Chatfield,
to the conning tower [the action station of the captain] I had to go. In it were the Chief Quartermaster, the Navigator, the two telegraph able seamen, and a signalman. It was situated immediately behind B turret, noisy and wet from spray and from steaming at high speed through the vast columns of water which somehow incredibly forced its way through the lens threads of my Ross binoculars. . . . Gradually, we had been closing the enemy who were now all engaged. The salvos fired from their guns looked like the switching on momentarily of large red searchlights; one got into the habit of allowing for the forty seconds before the salvo fell. If it fell over the ship, it was unseen and unnoticed. The Lion being the leading ship, received almost as good a measure of the concentration of the enemy’s fire as had their rear ship, Blücher, the early concentration of our own.
From his perch in the foretop, Young observed the rest of the battle:
It was impossible to endure the wind standing up in this square box, so we knelt on the steel floor and could just rest our elbows on the rim and keep our eyes and [field] glasses over the edge. . . .
The Admiral and his staff did not remain long in the conning tower. The only view from that protected place is through a very narrow slit at eye level, which, although it gives a view of a kind of three quarters of the horizon, was of little use to the Admiral. He was thoroughly enjoying himself and did not like to waste his day in the cramped and crowded security of the conning tower and he and the Flag Lieutenant, the Flag Commander and Secretary were soon up on the compass platform again where the view was perfect although the danger from splinters was considerable. They were flying about us all the time in the foretop. During a lull between salvos, Beatty hailed us in the foretop to ask how we were enjoying ourselves. . . . Very soon after . . . [and following another tremendous blow that shook Lion], I put my head out to look down and see what happened. There was a great drift of cordite smoke all round the compass platform and to my horror, instead of the four figures I had last seen standing there, there were only four tumbled smudges of blue on the deck. After the smoke cleared away, I saw that they were greatcoats and presently to my inexpressible relief, my four friends reappeared eating sandwiches. . . . Being very hot in the conning tower, they had taken their greatcoats off when they came up, and there being at the moment an unusual lot of splinters flying about, the Admiral, much against his will, had been persuaded to return to the conning tower. After five minutes, he broke out again, and came on the compass platform, which he occupied for the rest of the action.
By 9:35 a.m., New Zealand had come within range of Blücher and had opened fire; now only Indomitable remained out of action. Having four ships within range of Hipper’s four, Beatty decided to give structure to the battle and signaled his squadron, “Engage the corresponding ship in the enemy’s line.” His intention was a ship-for-ship distribution of fire: Lion should take on Seydlitz, leading the German line; his second ship, Tiger, should fire at Hipper’s second ship, Moltke; the third British ship, Princess Royal, would engage Derfflinger; and New Zealand would continue to hammer Blücher. In sending this signal, Beatty assumed that all of his captains understood that Indomitable still was not within range and therefore was not included in this command. Unfortunately, Captain Henry Pelly of Tiger misunderstood the intended alignment. Believing that Indomitable was already engaging Blücher, Pelly, in his calculations, moved every British ship one vessel forward against the German line. Therefore, as Pelly saw it, with Indomitable firing at Blücher, New Zealand would take on Derfflinger, and Princess Royal would engage Moltke. This left the first two British ships, Lion and his own Tiger, to concentrate on Hipper’s flagship, Seydlitz. Pelly thought this made good sense, especially in light of a Grand Fleet Battle Order that decreed that where there were more British than enemy ships, the two leading British ships were to attempt to incapacitate and destroy the first German. The other British captains, however, knew that Indomitable was excluded; they had correctly understood the intended assignments, and carried out Beatty’s order. But, with both Tiger and Lion firing at Seydlitz, nobody engaged Moltke. To leave an excellent gunnery ship like this German battle cruiser undisturbed was to invite disaster. Already, most of the German squadron was aiming at Beatty’s flagship and now, says Arthur Marder, “the unmolested Moltke was able to make excellent target practice on Lion.” Pelly’s mistake was compounded by the fact that his inexperienced gunnery and turret officers were aiming poorly and that Tiger’s shells were falling 3,000 yards beyond Seydlitz. They did not recognize this because they took Lion’s shells, which were straddling the German flagship, to be their own. When Commodore Goodenough, observing the battle from the bridge of Southampton, signaled “Salvos of three, apparently from Tiger, falling consistently over,” Tiger did not receive the message.
By the time Hipper had correctly identified his pursuers as battle cruisers, Beatty had closed the range to 28,000 yards (fourteen miles) and it was too late for Hipper to avoid battle. “At nine a.m.,” Scheer wrote in his history of the naval war, “our battle cruisers were on a southeasterly course so that all the ships could open fire from the starboard on the English battle cruisers. Our light cruisers and both the destroyer flotillas were ahead of our battle cruisers, slightly on the starboard side.” At 9:08 a.m., the German battle cruisers opened fire at 20,000 yards. Aiming was difficult, even with the excellent German stereoscopic range finders, because “the view . . . from the fire control was very much hampered and partially blinded as the result of dense smoke.” Despite this handicap, Hipper was pleased by the conduct of his ships and captains: “The action signals were coming through perfectly and the movements were carried through as though at maneuvers. In spite of the high speed at which the action was being fought, the formation was keeping distance [between ships] very accurately.” Hipper rarely signaled during this part of the chase. Unable to push his ships to higher speeds, he simply steered a course southeast for Heligoland
By 9:43 a.m., Lion was straddling Seydlitz at 17,000 yards. Then, at 9:45 a.m., a 13.5-inch armor-piercing shell from Lion struck the after deck of Seydlitz and pierced the armor of the aftermost turret. The powder charges being brought up were ignited by the explosion and flash fires shot upward into the turret—setting fire to the charges being delivered to the gun—and downward into the magazine. The magazine crew, seared by the flames, tried to flee forward by opening the steel doors leading to the compartments of the adjacent turret. As a result the fire spread forward, setting alight the charges there, spreading to the adjacent magazine and upward to C turret. In this way, two turrets were destroyed by a single hit and the entire crews of both turrets died almost instantly. Filson Young, staring through binoculars from Lion’s foretop, saw “a great glowing mass of fire appear . . . on the after part of Seydlitz. Well do I remember seeing those flames and wondering what kind of horrors they signified.” Chatfield, witnessing the same catastrophe, had a laconic, professional reaction: “A shell struck Seydlitz on the after turret and a sheet of flame and smoke went up about two hundred feet in the air. I hoped she was out of action.”
Seydlitz now faced the danger of a final, annihilating explosion that would detonate all of the magazines and cause the ship to disintegrate. Three men saved her: Lieutenant Commander Hagedom, Chief Artificer Hering, and Gunner’s Mate Müller. Making their way through searing heat to the valves for flooding the magazines, they spun the handles and drowned the threat of explosion by permitting 600 tons of seawater to flow into the magazines. Remarkably, although 165 men had been killed and two of her five turrets destroyed, Seydlitz not only survived but continued in action and maintained her speed. It was an extraordinary demonstration of the excellence of German warship design and the extensive watertight subdivision of her hull.
During this crisis, Admiral Hipper stood, silently chain-smoking, on the bridge. Damage reports from different parts of the ship came to the captain standing nearby: no reply could be heard from the steering room; the two rear heavy turrets were out of action; 600 tons of water had been flooded into the magazines. Hipper seemed unaffected, almost detached. After the war, he remembered looking back and seeing “the two after turrets . . . spouting huge volumes of flame. This lasted about two minutes, then ceased for a time, to leap up afresh about a minute later. It was a strange sight to see the after part of the ship fiercely ablaze, while the three forward turrets were still firing vigorously.” Hipper realized that the damage to the Seydlitz dramatically altered the balance in favor of the British. Beatty had five battle cruisers; Hipper had three, one of which was heavily damaged. His reaction was to send an urgent signal to Ingenohl at 9:55: “Need assistance badly.” The Commander-in-Chief received the signal at 10:00 a.m., and within ten minutes the order was given to sail. But Ingenohl could not possibly be in a position to support Hipper until 2:30 p.m. As a ploy to scare off the British until he could come closer, Ingenohl replied to Hipper at 10:03 in a clear, uncoded signal: “Main fleet and flotillas will come.” In code, he appended the grim reality: “. . . as soon as possible.”
When Hipper appealed for help, Seydlitz was not the only German ship in difficulty; Blücher, battered by one British battle cruiser after another, her steering gear damaged, was dropping behind Hipper’s formation and yawing away to the north. This course brought her within range of Goodenough’s light cruisers, keeping their lookout station to the north of the British battle cruisers. Despite the pounding she had taken, Blücher’s fighting capacity still remained formidable and she opened an accurate fire with her 8.2-inch and 5.9-inch guns, forcing Goodenough to keep away. Nevertheless, the punishment of Blücher by New Zealand continued. At 10:30 a.m., a 12-inch hit put Blücher’s bow turret out of action. Soon after, a serious fire broke out amidships, her speed dropped to 17 knots, and the gap between the armored cruiser and the three German battle cruisers continued to grow.
Implacably, the British were overtaking their enemies. Lion had been hit, but appeared to have shrugged off these blows. Beatty’s principal concern became the straggling out of his squadron and, to rectify this, at 9:53 a.m. he slowed to 24 knots. In consequence, the range to the German squadron, which had been decreasing for an hour, temporarily remained constant. For young officers in the British fleet, the morning was providing vivid images. “It was wonderful to see our battle cruisers steaming at top speed with spits of flame and brown smoke issuing every minute or so from their bows and sides—and in the far distance the enemy’s guns flashing in reply,” wrote an officer on Aurora, one of Tyrwhitt’s Harwich light cruisers. From Indomitable, struggling to catch up, a young turret officer observed “the Lion, Tiger, Princess Royal and New Zealand on our starboard bow, cleaving the water at full speed. . . . We slowly gained on . . . [the Germans] . . . [then] through the navy phone came, ‘A turret open fire.’ . . . At 10.31 the enemy altered to port and so did we and this brought my turret [Q turret, amidships] into action against Blücher. In and out recoiled the guns as we pounded the enemy. ‘Left gun ready,’ shouts someone and another 850 pounds of explosive goes hurtling towards the enemy.” Not every young officer had as good a view. Inside a turret on New Zealand, Prince George of Battenberg grumbled, “My range finder was useless. I was soaked through to the skin by spray coming in through the slit in my hood, hitting me in the face and then trickling down outside and inside my clothes and I was frozen by the wind which came in with the spray. My eyes were extremely sore and I was blinking all the time.”
The best view belonged to Filson Young, kneeling in the foretop of Lion.
Many . . . details registered . . . the smell and taste of cordite smoke as the wind drove it back from the mouths of our guns . . . the silences; lulls that came at the very heat of battle when sometimes for five or ten seconds there would be no sound but the soft brushing of the wind and its harp-like harmonies in the rigging, until a salvo from our guns would split the heavens again and, like its echo, the hollow growl of the enemy’s guns. . . . One could see clearly the flashes of salvos from Seyd-litz and Moltke, both of which were firing at Lion and, timing their flight with a stopwatch, know to a second when their arrival would be signaled either by an explosion . . . or by the uprising of a group of lovely and enormous fountain blossoms, where the water slowly rose in columns two hundred feet high that mushroomed out at the top, stood for five or ten seconds, and then as gracefully subsided, deluging our decks with tons of water. . . . It was strange to think, observing those flashes and the little black second hand ticking around the dial of the watch, “I have perhaps twenty-three seconds to live; when the little hand reaches that mark, then—oblivion.” . . . Sometimes from the foretop one could see the shell coming, a black speck in smoky atmosphere, growing larger. . . . I remember observing in the Admiral [Beatty] and the Flag Captain [Chatfield]—who enjoyed this performance more than I have ever seen anything enjoyed by anyone—a child-like blandness of demeanour which I had at no other time observed in either of them, but which had nothing of insanity in it. And . . . the officer in charge of the fore-transmitting station, who, after the explosion of a shell . . . followed by an outbreak of screams and cries, was heard to observe: “That means either Kingdom Come or ten days’ leave”—the inference being that the damage was so serious that it would mean the explosion of a magazine [
At this stage of the action, Lion, the principal target of German guns, was, said Young, “very nearly smothered with fire.” At 10:01 a.m., an 11-inch shell from Seydlitz pierced her side armor at the waterline. Water flooded in and spread to the main switchboard compartment, where it short-circuited two of the ship’s dynamos and shut down the circuits for the secondary armament and the after fire control. The ship began to list to port, but still maintained a speed of 24 knots.
Then, at 10:18 a.m., Lion was staggered by a massive blow, “so violent,” said Young, “that we thought she had been torpedoed, and the mast to which the foretop was secured, rocked and waved like a tree in a storm. . . . [He and his companions in the foretop] looked at one another and prepared to alight from our small cage into whatever part of the sea destiny might send us, but nothing happened.” The shock was so great that Chatfield, the captain, also believed that “we must have been struck by torpedoes.” In fact, his ship had been hit almost simultaneously on the port side below the waterline by two heavy shells from Seydlitz or Derfflinger. One of these pierced the 6-inch main belt armor on the waterline and exploded behind it. Very quickly, all the adjacent compartments were flooded up to the main deck. In addition, a shell splinter slashed a pipe leading to a feed tank containing fresh water for the port boiler condenser, allowing salt water to pass into the system. Soon, this contamination would clog the boiler pipes and close down the port engine. The second shell exploded below the waterline against the main armored belt, not penetrating it but driving in several heavy armor plates 9 inches thick and 15 feet long. The plates were forced back two feet and more seawater entered.