Jutland_The Unfinished Battle by Nicholas Jellicoe

Author:Nicholas Jellicoe
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Battles, Naval, World War I
ISBN: 9781848323230
Publisher: Seaforth Publishing
Published: 2016-03-15T04:00:00+00:00

The point that I believe is missed is that it was not a battle that was at stake. It was the war. However, the shock of the First World War was definitely needed to shake the Navy out of its reverie. Despite Fisher’s energetic reforms, the Navy was a deeply stagnated institution.

Many historians – Andrew Gordon or Eric Grove would be just two examples – feel that Jellicoe’s decision was the one, albeit unforgivable, error of the day, one born from timidity; a deep-seated fear of the destructive power of the torpedo on a dreadnought.

I hold a different point of view. If Jellicoe had stated that this is what he would do, if his reasons for doing so were to protect the critical dreadnought balance between the two opposing fleets and if having done so he achieved this objective, then surely those who approved such a premeditated and calculated manoeuvre (including Churchill) share just as much ‘blame’ if the desired outcome shifts to keeping contact?

Of the thirty-one torpedoes fired, twenty-one still reached the British line and were spotted at 19:33.134 Marlborough, previously hit, spotted three and avoided them. She first steered to port and then starboard, and they passed ahead and astern of her. Revenge turned to port and also avoided two torpedoes, the first passing 10yds (9m) from the bow, the second passing 20yds from her stern. Hercules and Agincourt also spotted torpedoes and broke out of the line with a 60-degree turn. Agincourt had one torpedo pass either side of her. One torpedo ran between Iron Duke and Thunderer. One passed close to Collingwood’s stern. One followed Neptune’s track. Two torpedoes narrowly missed Valiant, ‘one about 20 yards ahead and one about five yards astern’.135

It seemed that the turn-away had been executed just in time. ‘It was only sharp lookouts, skilful manoeuvring and a measure of good fortune, however, which preserved several ships from damage’.136 Had a turn-towards been made, the time taken would have been considerably longer and might have presented an even more dangerous battleship silhouette to the attacking German torpedo boats. The Dewar brothers’ criticism of Jellicoe’s turn-away was based on massive hindsight and went largely in the face of accepted naval policy of the day. Marder pithily commented that ‘Crystal balls, alas, are not standard issue in the Royal Navy’.137 Nevertheless, a chapter heading from Carlyon Bellairs’s book, The Battle of Jutland, sarcastically jibed: ‘Eleven Destroyers Dismiss 27 Battleships’.

An emotional, perhaps subconscious desire to win a crushing annihilation rather than maintain a strategic supremacy may just cloud our collective appraisal of Jellicoe’s reasoning. If ‘leaving something to chance’ had resulted in heavy dreadnought losses and he had still not been able to maintain contact, what would the verdict be now? Should not faster fleet elements be used for maintaining contact, in any case, not behemoth battleships?

Did Jellicoe make the right decision? Undoubtedly yes: ‘though this manoeuvre has been hotly debated ever since, most modern writers see it as correct, even inevitable’.138

For Kemp, Jutland was

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.