The greatest naval battle of the First World War. Battle of Jutland [tables with pictures] Bolnykh Alexander Gennadievich

Devastation in the heads

Devastation in the heads

First of all, let's see what Sir David Beatty intended to do at this time. Paradoxically, he, having specially prepared for the battle with Hipper’s battle cruisers, ended up being completely unprepared for it. Let's take a closer look at his marching order. Outwardly, it looked reasonable: ahead was a reconnaissance screen of light cruisers, behind it was a rehearsal ship, and then the main forces. The curtain turned out to be quite wide; the cruisers captured a strip of 25 miles. But the main forces turned out to be scattered for completely unknown reasons. If the complex marching system of Admiral Jellicoe’s Battle Fleet can still be justified, then such actions by Beatty are extremely difficult to explain. It is not known why he kept the 2nd squadron of battlecruisers 3 miles to port abeam, and the 5th squadron of battleships 5 miles astern. A wake column of 25 battleships is indeed unlikely to be able to maneuver, but for what purpose are 6 battlecruisers divided into two groups? More precisely, for what purpose were the 2 ships of the 2nd squadron of battlecruisers separated? In addition, Evan-Thomas' battleships were initially too far away. The assertion that Beatty accepted this order, intending to take a position in the vanguard of the Grand Fleet after the intended rendezvous with Jellicoe, is untenable, but it was in this unclear order of march that the Battlecruiser Fleet followed all the morning of May 31st.

Admiral D. Beatty

No less surprising is the inclusion of the Engedine seaplane transport in Beatty’s detachment. With its ceremonial speed of 21 knots, it does not look very appropriate as part of a formation, all of whose ships are capable of at least 24 knots, and it is assumed that they will operate at exactly this speed. But that's not all. Beatty introduces him to the reconnaissance screen, and the Engedine takes place between the cruisers Inconstant and Falmouth. This is completely inexplicable, because the only thing that air transport should do when noticing enemy ships is to escape as soon as possible under the cover of battle cruisers. There can be no talk of any stop for the launching of seaplanes. However, there is more to come. By 2:15 p.m., when the Germans were spotted, Engedine had moved 4 miles ahead of Falmouth, finding herself before curtain of cruisers. In fact, Beatty turned the seaplane transport into a suicide bomber - it is not difficult to imagine what would have happened if it was not the cruiser Galatea, but this unfortunate ship that had encountered the Germans first. He could neither fight nor escape from modern German light cruisers and destroyers.

Admiral F. von Hipper

So, until 13.30 the British did not notice any enemy, and Beatty was already preparing to turn north to meet Jellicoe. However, in the morning Beatty delayed for half an hour to inspect the suspicious trawlers, and at 14.15 he was still moving east, and was 10 miles north of his intended point. Jellicoe was also not where expected - 15 miles west of the intended location. When Beatty transmitted the order to turn to N-t-O, the cruisers Alexander-Sinclair, Napier and Goodenough were deployed to a patrol line 8 miles SSO from the Lion. At the same time, the patrol line stretched even further. “Inconstant” and “Cordelia” were 7.5 miles away from “Falmouth,” and “Galatea” and “Phaeton” were 7 miles away from themselves, that is, Beatty’s formation was unable to maintain formation. It was at this moment that the Galatea, the leftmost ship of Beatty's curtain, spotted the Danish steamer N.Y. Fjord" and a suspicious ship near it. At 14.10, the cruiser reported this by radio to the commander and approached to identify the suspicious ship. One of the Galatea officers recalled:

“The cruiser was just about to turn when a merchant ship was spotted to the east, blowing steam. Commodore<Александер-Синклер>went there to inspect it. A destroyer was leaving the side of the ship. Judging by the short foremast and high mainmast, it was a Hun. A combat alert was immediately announced. When I climbed the ladder to the forecastle, I was almost deaf from the shot of the bow 152-mm gun, and the shock wave almost threw me overboard. I dove into my tiny cabin faster than I can tell the story. And as soon as I found myself there, the first message about the enemy came from the bridge.”

What about the Germans? The German commander-in-chief also still had no information about the enemy; he calmly continued to move towards the shores of Norway. Hipper's battlecruisers were 60 miles ahead of Scheer's battleships. Neither Beatty nor Hipper suspected that at 1400 their squadrons were separated by only 50 miles. As Beatty turned north to join Jellicoe, he found himself on a parallel course with Hipper, and their screens were now only 22 miles apart. The opponents could move like this for a long time without suspecting anything, but Mr. Chance intervened.

At 14.00 the light cruiser Elbing, also the leftmost ship of the curtain, only this time Hipper, noticed the same steamer. The cruiser's commander, Captain 1st Rank Madlung, ordered the commander of the IV half-flotilla, Corvette-Captain Adolf Ditmar, to take the destroyers B-109 and B-110 and inspect the ship. It was they who stopped the Dane, who began to poison the steam, which was noticed by “Galatea”. The hour has come!

At 2.18 p.m., the Galatea raised the flag signal “I see the enemy”, and shortly afterwards Alexander-Sinclair radioed: “Two cruisers, probably enemy, spotted on OSO bearing.” Madlung sent a similar radiogram to Scheer, although he also overestimated the spotted enemy, calling it an armored cruiser. Around this time, he noticed the enemy and the Engedine, but did not transmit any messages.

It is interesting to note that Jellicoe’s flagship Iron Duke received the Galatea signal at 14.18, but Beatty’s flagship Lion, to which it was actually addressed, only at 14.20. At 14.26, Commodore Alexander-Sinclair turned the cruisers Galatea and Phaeton to NO to attack the German destroyers, and Madlung went to their aid. At 14.28, Galatea opened fire on the German destroyers, who quickly retreated without receiving hits. The Elbing rushed in and responded to the Galatea's fire from a distance of 15,000 yards, but by a strange coincidence, the first German shell that hit the British cruiser did not explode. Thus began the Battle of Jutland, and both commanders-in-chief did not suspect that they had met the main forces of the enemy.

English battleship Iron Duke

Beatty's reaction to Galatea's message was typical of the admiral. He immediately decided that there were other German ships behind the “2 cruisers, probably enemy”, and ordered the Lion’s commander, Chatfield, to immediately turn to SSO. Beatty did not wait for the other ships to receive this order and carry it out, he always tried to save even seconds. Such behavior befits a hussar cornet, but not an admiral. The 1st squadron of battlecruisers followed the flagship, the 2nd squadron also turned almost without delay. But the Barham was too far away for Evan-Thomas to notice Beatty's signal. He generally looked only to the north, waiting for Jellicoe's battleships to appear. The commander of the Barham, Captain 1st Rank Craig, tried to convince the admiral to follow the battlecruisers, but he seemed afraid to even sneeze without an order. “My admiral knows everything better than me. If he wants me to move somewhere else, he will give the necessary order,” - not only Evan-Thomas, but almost all the admirals of the Grand Fleet reasoned this way.

Let us recall that at 14.28, the Tiger, which was at the rear of the column of battlecruisers, was appointed responsible for transmitting Beatty’s orders to the Barham; as a result of a series of turns, the Lion found itself closer to the Barham than the Tiger, but the signalman Beatty did not notice this. However, Lieutenant Seymour had already shown what he was worth: on December 16, 1914, during the German raid on Scarborough, it was he who formulated the signal in such a way that the light cruisers of Commodore Goodenough stopped pursuing the Germans and retreated to join the main forces. Contact with the enemy was lost, and Hipper's battlecruisers slipped out of the trap. In the battle on Dogger Bank, he again picked up the signal flags so well that Rear Admiral Moore stopped pursuing the German squadron and began finishing off the doomed Blucher. However, for some reason Moore was punished, not Seymour. In the early 1920s, Beatty was forced to admit: “He lost three battles to me,” but during the war the admiral made no claims against the incompetent flag lieutenant.

However, Evan-Thomas also distinguished himself. Before turning to a new general course, he considered himself obliged to perform another zigzag and ended up generally 10 miles from the Lion. At 1432, Beatty increased speed to 22 knots, and the battleships began to quickly fall behind. Beatty's desire to catch up with the enemy as quickly as possible, Seymour's stupidity and the even greater stupidity of Evan-Thomas overlapped each other. As a result, the battlecruisers lost the support of 4 powerful battleships, which could change the course of the battle from the very beginning, as the distance between them increased to 10 miles.

How was it? Beatty's first signal to turn was made by flags at 2.25 p.m., and was repeated by searchlight on the Barham at 2.30 p.m., the logbook stating that it was received at 2.34 p.m. The Admiral's headquarters on the bridge of the Barham came to an interesting conclusion: the signal did not concern the 5th Battleship Squadron and was addressed only to battlecruisers, and was transmitted to Evan-Thomas for information purposes. In 1927, Evan-Thomas tried to explain his behavior in this battle:

“The only explanation I can give for not receiving any orders is that the Vice Admiral wanted to set the 5th Battleship Squadron on a different course. He probably wanted to squeeze the enemy light cruisers between us. Otherwise, if he wanted us to turn, he could have transmitted the order with a searchlight instantly. But this happened only after Lion asked Tiger by radio whether it had given the order to turn towards Barham. Only then did the vice admiral understand what was happening.”

The explanation is amazing. 6 battlecruisers and 4 battleships, not counting the escort ships, are exactly the forces that need to be deployed to destroy 2 light cruisers, and at the same time undertake cunning maneuvers. Does this remind you of anything? That's right, the actions of Russian commanders in the shameful battle of Gogland in 1914, when 4 Russian cruisers long and persistently set two fires on an insignificant mine fire. As a result, the 5th battleship squadron turned south only at 14.40, and, as its officers believed, without permission, and increased speed to 22 knots.

Jellicoe dispassionately states:

“Seeing a large enemy force and knowing that the strongest group of his ships was 5 miles behind, it would be wise to immediately concentrate our forces, especially since the 5th battleship squadron was 3-4 knots slower than the battlecruisers. The distance was too great to make out the flag signal, and the battlecruisers were smoking too much for their maneuvers to be seen. Therefore, the signal had to be transmitted by searchlight or radio, or both. At 14.39 (according to the Galatea log) or at 14.35 (according to the Iron Duke and Lion logs), Galatea reported that it was seeing a large amount of smoke on the ONO bearing. This was a direct reason to concentrate forces, moreover, there was still time for such a concentration, since Beatty in his report indicates that the enemy could not break through to Horns Reef without engaging in battle.”

Beatty's mistake in failing to concentrate his forces had more serious consequences than Hipper's mistakes. The light cruisers Bödiker immediately rushed to the aid of the Elbing, but Hipper did not. The fact is that “Galatea” first mistook the German destroyers for her own and asked for identification marks with a searchlight, at the same time transmitting her own. This sloppiness will come back to haunt the British. For some reason, in the Grand Fleet it was generally accepted that any ship encountered was one of our own, and only after proof to the contrary was it classified as an enemy ship; habits of peaceful existence, as we see, have not disappeared even after two years of war. In the next world war, they preferred to shoot at their own people by mistake, so as not to miss the enemy. Madlung appreciated the importance of the information received and immediately transmitted the English identification “PL” to the commander with a searchlight. But the Elbing message on the Lützow was deciphered incorrectly, and it turned out that 24–26 enemy battleships were spotted. Of course, Hipper hastily turned to SSW, assuming that he had run into Jellicoe's main forces, but he quickly realized his mistake and turned to WNW at 14.52 to help Boedicker's squadron. At 1500 he had already identified the enemy as 4 light cruisers and increased speed to 23 knots, hoping to intercept them. A strange decision: it was necessary to immediately increase the speed to at least 26 knots. But we will see more than once that the speeds of the German battle cruisers in this battle will be much far from the values ​​​​shown (shown?) in tests.

There is another explanation, but it is so crazy that I refuse to believe in it. However, it exists. The British navy was switching to daylight saving time, and Beatty's ships had clocks set to GMT - Greenwich Mean Time. But on the Evan-Thomas squadron they showed BST - British summer time, which was an hour ahead of Greenwich. The time for “tea at seven bells” was approaching, and tea, as you know, is a sacred thing in England, so Evan-Thomas’ ships began drinking tea, and there was no time to follow Beatty’s signals.

At 14.40 Alexander-Sinclair, who was chasing the Elbing, radioed: “Large smoke noticed on ONO.” After 10 minutes, he sent a new message: “Smoke of 7 ships, except cruisers and destroyers. They turned north." After this, Beatty realized that the enemy was to the north and east of his ships and a battle was inevitable, since the Germans were cut off from Horns Reef. But the desire to start the battle as quickly as possible forced Beatty to rush at full speed towards the sound of shots, not paying attention to Evan-Thomas’s increasingly lagging battleships. However, the speed of Beatty's cruisers was also not very impressive.

At 14.47, he ordered the seaplane Engedine to lift one of his “stacks” into the air. By the way, this was the most dangerous moment for the ship. After Beatty turned to the north, the seaplane transport found itself in the rearguard, and precisely from the direction from which the enemy’s appearance was most likely. The danger of the Engedain's position was realized only by Rear Admiral Napier, who at 14.31 ordered him to approach the battlecruisers. Lieutenant Commander Robinson's crew broke all records as they prepared the clumsy airplane for takeoff. However, only after 21 minutes, Flight Lieutenant Rutland managed to lift his car into the air, because this required removing the car from the hangar, spreading its wings, lowering it into the water, starting the engine... Low clouds forced Rutland to fly at an altitude of only 1000 feet, and after 10 minutes he noticed the enemy.

“I had to fly within 1.5 miles to find out who it was. They opened fire on me with anti-aircraft and other guns. We felt shocks from shrapnel explosions. The shells exploded at a distance of 200 feet from us. When Trevin<наблюдатель>I found out the number and disposition of the enemy and sent a report, I increased the distance to 3 miles. The weather improved a little, and we were able to see both the enemy and our fleet at the same time. I will never forget this sight! Our battlecruisers and Queen Elizabeth-class battleships, along with our escorting light cruisers and destroyers, raced forward to cut off the enemy. At 15.45 the gas line to the left carburetor burst, my engine began to lose speed, and I was forced to descend. Having splashed down, I used a rubber tube to fix the damage and reported that I could take off again. However, I received an order to approach the side of the ship and was lifted onto the Engedine by crane.

Thus ended the first attempt to use a heavier-than-air aircraft. One can only regret that all the efforts of Rutland and Trevin were in vain. Their radio message was received on the Engedain, but the seaplane transport was unable to transmit it to the Lion. At this moment, the insufficient combat readiness of the ships of Admiral Beatty’s formation became apparent for the first time, for which the admiral was personally to blame. There were no new attempts to use aircraft during the battle. The excitement was not too strong, but the fragile structure of poles and canvas could not withstand even that. This probably explains why Admiral Jellicoe was not concerned that the seaplane Campania did not leave Scapa Flow, since it did not receive the signal to leave. (By the way, here is another example of the disgusting signal service in the Royal Navy!) The ship could have caught up with the battleships, and then its 10 seaplanes would have done a good job conducting reconnaissance. Although things could have turned out the same way as with Engedin. However, Jellicoe should still be blamed for this decision; the admiral simply had to use All the chances are down to the tiniest. This manner of action would come back to haunt him later.

As a result, Beatty had to rely on Alexander-Sinclair's reports. The 1st squadron of light cruisers tried to draw the enemy to the northwest. The decision is more than strange. At first, Alexander-Sinclair had 2 cruisers against a German cruiser and 2 destroyers, then he had 4 cruisers against 3 Germans, and yet he retreated. Why? The British battlecruisers turned east at 1500 and then northeast. At 15.13 the speed was increased to 23 knots, and Beatty hoped to cut off the enemy from his bases. Evan-Thomas, cutting corners, managed to somehow close the distance to the battlecruisers, now the 5th battleship squadron was 6 miles on Beatty's left shell. “Beatty now has a great opportunity to focus his energies. The enemy was heading straight for our Battle Fleet, so losing 2-3 miles did not matter. However, this opportunity was not taken advantage of,” Jellicoe says dryly. The “BJ 1” signal went up on the Lion’s mast, which meant “Full combat readiness.” The other ships rehearsed it, and topmast flags went up on the masts of the Princess Royal, Queen Mary, Tiger, New Zealand, and Indefetigable. The crews hastily checked the operation of all instruments and mechanisms, gun turrets slowly began to turn, and shells began to crawl from the cellars along the elevators. On the bridge of the New Zealand, Captain 1st Rank Green put on "pew-pew", a ritual Maori skirt that brought good luck in battle. It is interesting to note that New Zealand was actually not damaged in any of the battles, one accidental hit at the Battle of Jutland, neither wounded nor killed. Here you really start to believe in omens.

English battleship "Tiger"

The same thing happened on board German ships. Loud bells called the sailors to their combat posts. Hipper followed Boedicker to the northwest, maintaining a speed of 25 knots. Lützow, Derflinger, Seydlitz, Moltke and Von der Tann raced forward, trying to cut off the British light cruisers.

Around this time, another British commander, the commander of the 3rd light cruiser squadron, Rear Admiral Napier, made a mistake. We have already seen that Beatty's reconnaissance screen extended to the north, and after the Galatea began a firefight with the Germans, Napier led all his cruisers "to the sound of gunfire", as a result of which the reconnaissance screen simply crumbled. Napier flagrantly violated the Grand Fleet's "Battle Instructions", which stated: "Once contact has been established with the enemy, the most important task is to maintain it... However, you should save your strength and not concentrate more ships in one place than necessary." As a result, the British battlecruisers completely unexpectedly encountered Hipper's ships, and the lighting conditions were such that the Germans were the first to see the enemy. And this despite the fact that Beatty had 12 light cruisers versus Hipper’s 5!

Of course, one can immediately recall the famous “everyone fancies himself a strategist, seeing the battle from the outside.” We blame one for indecisiveness, the other for excessive initiative, and all this, of course, from the position of the famous after-knowledge. Fair objections. However, everything immediately disappears if we take into account an important nuance: gentlemen, admirals are professionals or at least considered as such. That's why they are professionals, to correctly assess the situation and make the only right decisions - this is their main, or rather, only responsibility. And if a professional makes childish mistakes, this means one thing: he is either a fool or a charlatan, and then he urgently needs to change his profession, because the mistakes of generals and admirals too much are costly to others.

By the way, even after the detachments of Alexander-Sinclair and Napier united, 8 British cruisers continued to retreat in front of 3 German ones. Did the British commanders seriously expect that Boediker would pursue a force almost three times his size? By the way, Beatty, having received Napier’s report about his intention to unite with Alexander-Sinclair, did not object; moreover, in his report after the battle he called the actions of these draft dodgers “magnificent and of great importance.” There is, however, one suggestion that is offensive to the Royal Navy, but it is impossible to suggest anything else. The Germans fired several salvos at the British cruisers from a distance of about 14,000 yards and even scored one hit (although the shell did not explode), but this firing convinced the British commanders that the German guns were much longer ranged than the British, and therefore the British cruisers were simply helpless in front of the German ones, this despite the fact that the British had a higher speed and could well have shortened the distance to what they needed. But whatever the reasons, the 1st and 3rd squadrons of light cruisers no longer took part in the battle. Alexander-Sinclair and Napier made their presence felt but maintained a policy of non-intervention.

At 15.20 the Germans saw the smoke of two large ships, and at 15.22 from the Seydlitz at a distance of 16,000 yards they clearly identified the characteristic tripod masts of the ships of the 2nd squadron of battlecruisers. Accordingly, New Zealand was the first to notice the Germans, and only then Beatty himself. This happened at 15.32, shortly after the Lion turned east. A little later, the Princess Royal “saw the enemy, 5 battlecruisers accompanied by destroyers, clearly visible despite the great distance. At first, enemy masts, chimneys and superstructures were seen from the combat tops, but at that time only thick clouds of smoke were visible from the towers.” Fortunately, the enemy ships were 14 miles away, which exceeded the range of the guns. Although the German admiral found himself in the same position, since his screen was much thinner, the brightly lit western horizon allowed him to spot the British battlecruisers 12 minutes earlier.

Hipper immediately informed Scheer of the contact, and he ordered his battleships to increase speed to 16 knots, because Mauve's battleships could not squeeze more out of their outdated vehicles. Hipper recalled Boedicker as he was in danger and turned his battlecruisers to SSO. He decided to lure his enemy directly to Scheer's battleships. Hipper mistakenly decided that there were 6 battlecruisers and 5 Queen Elizabeth-class battleships in front of him. Until the very end, the Germans sincerely believed that all 5 Queen Elizabeth-class battleships took part in the battle, and on this basis Scheer long claimed that he sank one of them.

Beatty also radioed the contact and increased speed to 25 knots to close with the enemy. At this moment, Lion's signalmen were up to their necks, transmitting a whole heap of necessary and unnecessary messages - by flags, by radio and by searchlight. For example, for some reason the admiral decided to find out the exact coordinates of the Galatea, which was not visible from the Lion at that moment. Evan-Thomas was ordered by searchlight to follow the ONO course at a speed of 25 knots. Beatty completely forgot that Evan-Thomas's ships could not give more than 24 knots. Moreover, this course did not allow the battleships of the 5th squadron to get close to the battlecruisers, which had the most fatal consequences, although Beatty was already clear that the battle would have to be fought on the SO course. Of course, Evan-Thomas is to blame, but maybe not so is he to blame for what happened later?

At 15.45 Beatty, having received detailed reports from Galatea and Falmouth, which were in contact with the enemy, turned to OSO, and a little later to SSO. Hipper deliberately did not open fire, since at short range the enemy’s superiority in the caliber of the guns would not have been felt so strongly, but the German admiral could not understand why the British were not firing, because the maximum firing range of the Lion’s 343-mm guns was 23,000 yards . He was unaware that Beatty's orders required firing at a range of 16,000 yards "to take advantage of our heavier shells, minimize the deficiencies of our armor protection, and get within range of our 305 mm guns," so Beatty waited until the range will not be reduced. As a result, at 15.49 the Germans opened fire first from a distance of 15,000 yards, but they lost the advantage of the first salvo by misjudging the distance. According to the senior artilleryman of the Derflinger von Hase, he managed to cover the target with only the sixth salvo. When the Germans opened fire, Beatty was simply forced to do the same. One of the Princess Royal officers recalled:

“Their volleys gradually came closer. We saw the red-black flash of our shell hitting the Lutzow. At 15.51 we saw a hit in the middle part of the Lion, and a couple of minutes later we were hit by 2 305 mm shells, which temporarily disabled the rangefinder post. At 15.56 the enemy was approximately 10° astern of our beam, moving south. Both squadrons fired so quickly and decisively that it was clear that something was going to happen in the next few minutes.”

The second hit on the Lion warned Beatty that fighting at 11,000 yards was undesirable, as the enemy might use medium artillery, which the British ships did not have, so he turned 2 points to starboard. At the same time, Hipper also decided that the distance was too short and turned to SO.

British battle cruiser "Lion"

An officer aboard the battlecruiser New Zealand, which was at the tail of Beatty's column, recalled: “We could hardly believe that the battle had actually begun. It all sounded too much like a drill. We and the Germans turned on almost parallel courses and waited for the distance to close before opening fire. Everyone behaved calmly and carried out their duties almost mechanically.” However, very quickly the British realized the hard way that the bloody reality of battle was still different from shooting practice. As soon as the Germans felt the distance, they began to achieve hits. The enemy was in a more favorable situation, since the sun illuminated the British ships, and the wind carried the smoke away without interfering with the German gunners. Immediately after the Germans opened fire, the Lion and Tiger received three hits each, but the German ships remained unharmed for another 5 minutes, only then a shell from the Queen Mary disabled one of the Seydlitz turrets. The entire crew of the tower was killed. The most interesting thing is that the lessons of the fight at Dogger Bank were of no use to the British. Confusion began again with the distribution of targets. 6 Beatty battlecruisers could not deal with 5 German ones. "Derflinger" remained unfired for almost 10 minutes before "Queen Mary" transferred fire to her and immediately scored a hit. However, this did not matter as much as historians try to imagine, because during this time the Derflinger did not achieve any hits. The Tiger also mixed up its targets, as in the battle on Dogger Bank, and fired at the Moltke instead of the Seydlitz. More precisely, as in that battle, the artillerymen of Captain 1st Rank Pelly shot at milk. Then they mistook the bursts of Lion’s shells for their own, and now they began to aim at the Regensburg, which was looming somewhere behind Hipper’s battle cruisers. Both Beatty and Jellicoe considered Pelly unfit for the position, but somehow he commanded the best of the British battlecruisers. But in general, this episode became yet another proof of Beatty’s disregard for combat training. Senior artilleryman of the Derflinger von Hase recalls:

“Due to some mistake, they left us alone. I smiled gloomily and opened fire on the enemy quite calmly, as if in artillery exercises, gradually improving my accuracy.”

From the first minutes of the battle, the British battlecruisers began to suffer severely from enemy fire. Lieutenant W.S. Chalmers, who was on the bridge of the Lion, recalls:

“By 16.00 we were really engaged with the enemy. His shooting was phenomenally accurate. Enemy shells, falling into the sea around us, raised columns of water higher than our pipes. These fountains showered us with water. At times, through the roar of battle, we heard the ominous buzz of fragments and saw the sparkle of polished steel as they flew over the bridge. I looked back and saw one of our boats turn into a cloud of wood chips. We hoped that the enemy was receiving equally heavy blows. However, five gray silhouettes regularly spat out tongues of fire from the guns. Nothing bad obviously happened to them. We could not say anything about the damage they caused, since we did not see our own shells falling in the white fog. At this time, a bloodied Marine sergeant came running to the bridge. He had lost his cap, his clothes were burnt, and he generally seemed a little crazy. I asked him what happened. In an exhausted voice, he replied, “Sir, Q Tower has exploded. The entire crew died, and we flooded the cellars.” I looked back. The armored roof of the Q turret bent over like the lid of a tin can. Clouds of thick yellow smoke rose from the gaping hole, and the barrels of the guns rose helplessly upward.”

The canonical story for this episode goes like this. A shell from the Lützow penetrated the roof of the middle turret of Beatty's flagship and exploded inside. As on the Seydlitz, in the battle at the Dogger Bank, charges flared up in the working compartment under the turret, and the fire rushed through the elevator into the cellar. The ship could have died, but this did not happen. Tower commander Marine Major F.J. Harvey, who was mortally wounded, managed to give the order to bolt down the cellar doors and flood it. When the fire descended into the reloading compartment, the sailors in the cellar managed to slam the doors, and later they were found just like that - holding on to the door ratchets. Of the 100 people in the Q tower crew, only two survived. Official British history states that only Major Harvey's self-control and exceptional courage saved the ship. “In the long, bloody and glorious history of the Royal Marines there is no other name or exploit that can be ranked higher than these,” said Winston Churchill. Harvey became the first of those to earn the Victoria Cross on this day.

However, apparently, the situation was somewhat different. The shell hit only disabled the turret, and nothing more. Two or three minutes after the explosion, senior artillery keeper Alexander Grant came to the cellar of Tower Q. Just at this time, one of the survivors in the working compartment went down the elevator pipe into the transfer compartment of the tower and reported to Grant about the incident, who immediately ordered the cellar doors to be battened down, and then flood it. Only at 16.28, when Grant approached the hatch leading from the reloading compartment to the main deck, a column of flame burst out of the hatch, in which several people of the fire party burned, that is, a considerable period of time separated the hit and the most dangerous fire. As soon as the smoke cleared, the remnants of the fire party under the command of Grant went down to the reloading compartment and discovered that almost the entire crew of the shell magazine had been killed, as well as people in the reloading compartment and in the switchboard room. The paint in the compartments was blackened and charred, but the equipment still worked.

Later, it was assumed that the fire from the tower entered the workroom through the electrical cables, since only they were completely burned out, but this is still just an assumption. One way or another, a fire broke out in the work department and went down the elevator; a total of 8 gunpowder caps caught fire. “Lion” was helped partly by the fact that hot gases escaped through the torn roof of the tower, and Grant’s foresight helped partly. The flames rose higher than the masts, and the bulkheads of the cellar bent inward, although it was filled with water. If not for this, the Lion would undoubtedly have suffered the same fate as the Indefetigable and the Queen Mary. It’s easy to imagine what could have happened if 15 or 20 caps had burst into flames...

It is interesting to note that in Jellicoe's memorandum of June 16, 1916, which describes the damage to the battlecruisers, not a word is said about the action of Major Harvey. It only notes that he sent a messenger to the bridge, after which the Lion commander ordered the cellar to be flooded, and at the communications center they asked whether this was really the commander’s order. The fact is that during the battle on Dogger Bank on the same “Lion” the cellar of Tower A was mistakenly flooded, and now some precautions have been taken against such mistakes. But one way or another, it was Major Harvey who received the Victoria Cross. Grant was not offended either. A couple of months after the battle, he was promoted to lieutenant in the Navy, putting a man who had served in the Navy for 20 years on par with the brats who graduated from the Naval War College yesterday. He was even awarded, although for some reason, the French with their Military Medal.

Let us note that, although the cellar was flooded in a timely manner, the Lion officers still made a grave mistake that cost the lives of many sailors. After the cellar was flooded, it was necessary to immediately remove people from all rooms of the tower and remove caps from the elevator, but no one did this.

And 4 minutes later the first disaster occurred with the Beatty connection. The Von der Tann had been firing at the Indefetigable for 15 minutes, and at 16.03 the German ship saw several strong explosions on it, first in the middle part and then in the stern. The British battlecruiser disappeared in a huge cloud of black smoke. From the New Zealand, sailing directly in front of the unfortunate ship, they saw how two or three shells simultaneously hit the area of ​​the stern tower, thick smoke poured out, but no flames appeared. And then it became clear that Indefetigable could no longer follow in the wake of New Zealand. The ship noticeably sat down astern and began to fall on the left side; apparently, the aft magazines exploded and tore out a piece of the bottom. Almost immediately, two more shells hit the Indefetigable - into the forecastle and directly into the bow turret. The shells pierced the armor and exploded inside the hull, since at first nothing was noticeable either, but literally half a minute later a giant column of flame rose into the sky. To achieve this, Von der Tann spent 52 280 mm shells and 38 150 mm shells.

From New Zealand we saw how “Indefetigable was hit by 2 shells from Von der Tann.” One hit the forecastle, the second hit the bow tower. Both exploded on impact. Then another 30 seconds passed, and the ship exploded. The first explosion occurred in the bow. First, a sheet of flame flew up, followed by a cloud of thick dark smoke, completely hiding the ship from view. All sorts of debris flew into the air. A completely intact 50-foot steam boat flew up almost 200 feet with its bottom up.”

Since no one on the Indefetigable was able to close the doors to the cellar of Tower A, the entire crew died along with the ship, only 2 people were saved, who were later picked up by the German destroyer S-16. They were observers on the fore-mars. The sailors spent a long time in cold water and almost froze. Together with them, the commander of the Indefetigable, Captain 1st Rank Soyerby, ended up in the water, whose arm and leg were torn off, but in the end he died from blood loss and hypothermia.

Now Beatty's squadron was equal in number to the enemy. Beatty decided to use his superior speed to increase the distance and give his ships some breathing room. Apparently, the admiral did not read the reference books, which give the German battle cruisers unconditional superiority in speed. However, the British had another reason for turning away - they noticed traces of several torpedoes. The fact is that in the period from 16.04 to 16.08, Moltke fired 4 torpedoes at the Queen Mary. At 16.11 the trail of one of the torpedoes it seems was seen astern of the Lion, the second passed under the keel of the Princess Royal, and the third, according to the officers of the destroyer Landrail, passed between the Tiger and New Zealand. Oddly enough, the battlecruisers decided that the torpedoes came from the hull side. In addition, Landrail "sighted" the periscope, and the light cruiser Nottingham, ahead of the battlecruisers, also reported seeing the periscope. Therefore, Beatty decided that he was crossing the line of German submarines, of which there were no traces. The German official history reports:

“It is difficult to determine whether the torpedoes fired by the Moltke or only a false alarm confused the enemy. If we take into account the launch time of the torpedoes and the travel time, it turns out that the distance is too great and the Moltke torpedoes simply would not have time to reach the target. In addition, a pair of torpedoes, having cut through the enemy formation, had to describe a semicircle to create the impression that they were fired from the hull."

And now it's Evan-Thomas' turn. During the last 20 minutes, while the battlecruisers fought, he desperately tried to catch up with them. Finally, at about 16.20, Evan-Thomas managed to close the distance between himself and the enemy to 19,000 yards, and the 5th Battleship Squadron opened fire. According to Scheer, “the position of the battlecruisers immediately became critical. The new enemy fired with extraordinary speed and accuracy, especially since he did not encounter any resistance, since our battle cruisers were busy fighting with Beatty’s ships.” The German official history allowed itself a colorful comparison: “Like a many-headed hydra, the British fleet fielded four more powerful opponents to take the place of the Indefetigable.” "Von der Tann" immediately received an underwater hole and took about 600 tons of water. At Seydlitz, one tower was disabled. Let us quote Scheer again: “The firing of the British battlecruisers did not cause much damage to our battlecruisers, but the ships of the Queen Elizabeth type made just an excellent impression.”

At 16.10 the Lion's main radio station was destroyed, from that moment on all messages from Beatty Jellicoe were transmitted with a long delay, since they first had to be transmitted by searchlight to the Princess Royal. A couple of minutes later, when the distance between the battlecruisers increased to 18,000 yards, Beatty turned 4 points towards the enemy. The 5th battleship squadron was also gradually catching up with the enemy. However, Beatty was unable to maintain a numerical advantage of 9 versus 5. When both formations went to SSO, the British received a new blow.

Let us again quote the senior artilleryman of the Derflinger von Hase:

"Queen Mary" fired slower than us, but fired salvos with her whole broadside. I could see the shells flying and was forced to admit that the enemy was shooting beautifully. As a rule, all 8 shells fell together, but they almost always undershot or overshot. Only 2 times did the Derflinger come under deadly hail, and each time it was hit by 1 shell. The Queen Mary had a bad time. In addition to the Derflinger, he was fired upon by the Seydlitz. Around 4:26 p.m. it was his turn. First, a bright red flame flashed in the bow. Then an explosion occurred there, and almost immediately an even stronger explosion occurred in the middle part of the ship. Black debris flew into the air, and immediately afterwards the entire ship was destroyed by a terrible explosion. A gigantic cloud of smoke rose, the masts folded inward, and everything disappeared in smoke. Finally, in place of the ship there was nothing left except a thick cloud of black smoke.”

A New Zealand officer recalls:

The Tiger was sailing at 24 knots just 500 yards astern of the Queen Mary. He turned sharply to the left and disappeared in a thick cloud of smoke. We turned right and passed just 150 yards from the Queen Mary. The smoke cleared a little, and it became clear that the aft part, starting from the third pipe, was still afloat, and the propellers were rotating. But the bow has already disappeared under water. People climbed onto the roof of the aft tower and jumped out of the hatches. As we passed by, the stern part overturned and exploded. Huge masses of steel flew into the air, and debris began to fall into the sea around us. Before we had even passed by, the Queen Mary was completely gone.”

Non-commissioned officer E. Francis managed to escape from the X tower. He became one of the lucky few.

“And then there was a big explosion. Everything on the ship suddenly became quiet, like in a church. The floor of the turret buckled and the guns were out of action. I stuck my head out the hatch in the tower cover. The stern 102-mm battery was mutilated beyond recognition, and the ship had a strong list to the left side. I reported all this to Lieutenant Evert, and he ordered: “Leave the tower.” I climbed out onto the roof, and the lieutenant climbed out after me. Suddenly he stopped and crawled back because he thought that someone was left inside. I cannot think about him and those wonderful people who served with me in the tower without pity. I can only write about their excellent behavior, but I am absolutely sure that the rest of the crew, from the captain to the last cabin boy, fulfilled their duty to the end... Two people from the crew of our tower, forgetting about their own safety, helped me get out to the starboard side, where a small crowd had gathered. People were not eager to jump into the water, but something told me to get out as quickly as possible. I had managed to swim about 50 yards when I felt a strong blow. The air was filled with flying debris. I heard the rush of water, strongly reminiscent of the sound of the surf. It was the water seething in the compartments of the sinking ship. I didn’t have time to really understand anything when the funnel sucked me in. I felt like I was drowning. But I still tried to dive out. When something hit me, I grabbed the object. It turned out to be a suspended bunk, which brought me to the surface more dead than alive... When I came to my senses, I felt very bad and swallowed oil. I managed to wipe it off my face and look around. Since I didn’t see anyone else, I decided that only one of the entire crew of our beautiful ship had survived. How long I stayed in the water until our destroyers rushed in, I don’t know. But “Petard” noticed me, and they threw me a line, which I immediately grabbed. They dragged me onto the deck."

But in general, the picture of the death of the Queen Mary looks somewhat contradictory. The flash of the first explosion appeared behind the foremast, that is, where there were no magazines in principle, but around the first pipe there were ventilation hatches in the bow boiler room, from which flames erupted. There was nothing to explode in the boiler room, but directly in front of it were the cellars of the bow 102-mm battery. Apparently, the German shell did not hit the turret barbette, but the 102 mm battery and somehow caused its cellar to explode. The force of the explosion went back into the boiler room and the flames were thrown out through the fans. After this, the gunpowder in the bow magazine of the main caliber ignited, which caused the second explosion, which eyewitnesses talk about. By the way, this was exactly repeated during the death of the Hood, when an explosion in the 102-mm magazine first hit the engine room, and only then the main caliber magazines detonated.

Beatty's words in response to the loss of the second of his battlecruisers have gone down in the annals of the Royal Navy. The Admiral calmly told Chatfield, “Looks like something is wrong with our damn ships today.” And he calmly ordered a change of course to further reduce the distance to the enemy. All his officers and sailors were full of the same cold determination. As the same New Zealand officer noted: “The morale of our men was magnificent. Although they clearly saw the death of the Queen Mary, the thought of defeat did not occur to anyone.” And at 16.28 the British were pleased to see the German cruisers turning away. They could no longer withstand the fire of the heavy British guns. Hipper himself was forced to admit that only the poor quality of English shells saved the Germans from disaster. Although the 5th Battleship Squadron did not allow Hipper to destroy Beatty's cruisers, it should be noted that it did not achieve as many hits as it might seem.

Hipper had another reason to turn. At 1555, Beatty, in complete disregard of the Grand Fleet's Battle Instructions, raised a signal to his destroyers: "A favorable opportunity to attack has appeared." Let us note that once again Beatty’s signalman, Lieutenant Seymour, showed his complete professional incompetence. The leader of the 13th destroyer flotilla, the light cruiser Champion, received the indicated signal exactly in one hour! And it remains unclear on what grounds Captain 1st Rank Farey sent his destroyers to attack.