Naval Battles of the First World War by Geoffrey Bennett

Author:Geoffrey Bennett [Bennett, Geoffrey]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Naval Institute Press
Published: 2014-06-29T23:00:00+00:00

* For details of the battlecruisers of both sides involved in this battle see Appendix E on p. 173.

APPENDIX E

Particulars of Battlecruisers at the Dogger Bank Battle

9

Beatty versus Hipper

* * *

Jutland: the battlecruiser action

On the afternoon of Wednesday 31 May a naval engagement took place off the coast of Jutland. The British ships on which the brunt of the fighting fell were the Battlecruiser Fleet supported by four fast battleships.

Admiralty communiqué, 2 June 1916

From the bombardment of Lowestoft Scheer learned an important lesson: that although this operation had ‘forced the enemy to send out his forces’, the High Seas Fleet had crossed the North Sea too far south to trap any part of Jellicoe’s fleet. He designated Sunderland, much farther to the north, as the next target for Hipper’s battlecruisers, on 17 May 1916. But this plan would only be executed if Scheer’s zeppelins reported that the Grand Fleet was not already at sea for some sweep of its own; and if as many as 17 U-boats were able to decimate Jellicoe’s and Beatty’s strength by laying mines off the British bases, and by torpedoing any units seen to leave them.

Too late to recall these submarines, Scheer learned that the Seydlitz would be undergoing repairs for longer than he had expected; moreover, seven ships of his 3rd BS developed condenser defects. The operation was, therefore, postponed to the 23rd, when U47 reported Sunderland clear for the attack. Unfortunately, the Seydlitz was still not ready, which required Scheer to order a further postponement, this time to 29 May, which was very near to the last day his U-boats could remain on patrol. By this time, too, British patrols had destroyed U74; another boat had developed leaks in her tanks, compelling her to return with her mines unlaid; U75 had laid hers to the west of the Orkneys (where, on 5 June, they were destined to sink the cruiser Hampshire when she was carrying Lord Kitchener on a mission to Russia); and although UB27 managed to penetrate the Firth of Forth, her Captain’s plan to torpedo the Battlecruiser Fleet at anchor was foiled by the anti-submarine nets off Inchkeith. As a consequence of these and other vicissitudes, only four U-boats remained in positions where they could sight the Grand Fleet leaving harbour. So, when adverse winds prevented zeppelins taking the air on 30 May, Scheer decided to execute a less risky, alternative plan. His fleet would draw the British by attacking merchant shipping to the west of the Skagerrak, and by showing itself off the SW coast of Norway, for which purpose all units were to assemble in the outer Jade by 2000.

The 1st SG, of five battlecruisers with Hipper’s flag in the Lützow, sailed at 0200 next morning, accompanied by the 2nd SG, of four light cruisers under Boedicker in the Frankfurt, and 30 torpedoboats of the 2nd, 6th and 9th flotillas, led by Commodore Heinrich in the light cruiser Regensburg. These were followed by Rear-Admiral Behncke in the König heading

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