Jutland 1916 by Innes McCartney

Author:Innes McCartney
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781844864140
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
Published: 2016-12-10T16:00:00+00:00

Fig. 7.2 The historic and accurate wreck positions of HMS Shark, SMS V48 and SMS S35 overlaid on Harper Chart No. 10. These losses occurred while the Fleet Action was raging around them.

HMS Acasta came to the Shark’s aid and was hit at least three times while doing so. Shark’s captain Commander Loftus William Jones apparently waved the Acasta away (as had Nestor in the same position), telling her ‘not to get sunk for him’.3 Interestingly, Acasta’s captain made no mention of this in his narrative of the battle, simply stating that he received no answer to his offer of help.4 In any case, the Acasta was hardly in a condition to help and could only limp away, unable to steer and just reaching the disengaged side of the British battle fleet before coming to a stop. Temporary repairs got her going and, luckily, during the afternoon of 1 June HMS Nonsuch appeared and towed the Acasta back to Aberdeen. The Christopher and Ophelia were also driven off at this time, later joining the screen of the Battlecruiser Fleet, which was now rapidly approaching from the north-west.

Now alone in ‘no man’s land’, the Shark was attacked by two German torpedo boats at around 18.15. These are thought to have been V48 and S54, returning from their own foray.5 V48 was hit and slowed down, but S54 struck the Shark with a torpedo, which ultimately caused her to sink at around 19.00.6 The positions of the three wrecks examined in this chapter can be seen in Fig. 7.2.

Now SMS V48 was in trouble as she was fired on by the passing British ships. Seeing V48 disabled, G42 attempted to tow or at least to rescue V48’s crew but had to retire or also risk the near certainty of getting sunk.5 With the tables turned, V48 now endured hits from the Second Light Cruiser Squadron, the Second Destroyer Flotilla, Fifth Battle Squadron and ultimately the Twelfth Destroyer Flotilla, and finally succumbed to the sea at around 19.35.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.