The Battle Dogger Bank - 24 Jan 1915
Unfortunately the order to Hipper from Admiral von Ingenohl, head of the
German navy, was intercepted and decoded by the British Admiralty's
deciphering service Room 40 and Vice-Admiral Beatty with his Rosyth based
battlecruiser force and the Harwich Force of light cruisers and destroyers
under Commodore Tyrwhitt was ordered to rendezvous at Dogger Bank at 7.00 am
on the 24 January. The British units left port only minutes after the
German fleet.
At 7.14 am, just before daybreak, of 24 January the German light cruiser Kolberg on the portside of the German fleet sighted the light cruiser Aurora of the Harwich Force. Aurora challenged the German ship which opened fire scoring two hits, Aurora returned fire also scoring a couple of hits.
Hipper turned his heavy units towards the firing thinking that there were
only light enemy units in the area. Almost immediately on turning Stralsund
saw the smoke form Beatty's battlecruisers to the north-north-west. He
decided to head for home and so turned to the south-west at 7.35 am towards
the German Bight. Hipper at first thought they British ships were
battleships, which he could easily outrun, but by the time he realised that
they were battlecruisers the range had already dropped to 25,000 yards. The
German line was in the order Seydlitz,
Moltke, Derfflinger with the large
armoured cruiser Blucher last. The British pursued in a staggered line a
head formation with Lion leading followed by
Tiger, Princess Royal and then
the slower New Zealand and
Indomitable.
Blücher was the slowest German ship at 23 knots and along with some of the
cola fired torpedo boats slowed the German force down. Whilst the first three
British battlecruisers reached 27 knots, at one point Beatty ordered the
impossible speed of 29 knots to gee on his force, but the two older and slower battlecruisers of the 2nd Battlecruiser Squadron gradually lagged behind,
despite exceeding their trial speeds. The British light forces attempted to
get in a position to attack, but the speeds were too high, and as the smoke
they were generating was interfering with gunnery, Beatty ordered them out of
the way.
At 8.52 am Lion opened fire on Blücher but the range was too great, but by
9.00 am Blücher was within range, 20,000 yards, and Lion commenced firing
followed by Tiger and Princess Royal, the first hits on Blücher being
achieved at 9.09.
The Germans returned fire at 9.11 concentrating on Lion. As the range
closed New Zealand joined the firing and Beatty ordered his ships to engage
the corresponding ship in the enemy line except Indomitable which was not in
range. Unfortunately Tiger included Indomitable in her calculations and so
joined Lion firing on Seydlitz, leaving Moltke alone. To compound her error
Tiger mistook Lions fall of shot for her own making her aim ineffective.
At 9.40 Lion scored a damaging hit on Seydlitz which penetrated the barbette
of the rear turret and set fire to some of the shell propellant. The flames
rose into the turret and through a connecting door, which should have been
shut, to the second turret killing the crews of both turrets, 159 men in
total. Fortunately for Hipper both magazines were flooded before things got
any worse.
Lion was not having it all her own way as by now she had all three leading
German battlecruisers concentrating on her and she was repeatedly hit, the
most serious hit from Derfflinger causing her port water feed to be
contaminated and within half an hour her port engine had to be shut down.
Blücher had taken heavy punishment and her speed had dropped to 17 knots and
was forced to drop out of the German line, Beatty ordered the lagging
Indomitable to intercept.
Lions speed was also dropping and she was about to be overtaken by Tiger and
Princess Royal. As this was happening a periscope was thought to be
sighted from Lion, and Beatty ordered a 90 degree turn to port at 10.58.
This manoeuvre also had the effect of forcing Hipper to cancel an attack he
had just ordered by his torpedo boats. Once clear of the perceived danger
the order to change course to the north-east was given.
Beatty tried to signal Nelson's famous "Engage the enemy more closely" but
this was not in the signal book so "Attack the rear of the enemy" was
substituted. Unfortunately Lions wireless antenna were destroyed , her
signal lamps had no power and all but two of her signalling halyards had
been shot away and a basic signalling error by Beatty's flag-lieutenant
Lieutenant-Commander Seymour meant that the signal was combined with the
course change to the north-east and so read "Attack the rear of the enemy,
bearing NE" - which was Blücher.
Beatty had to watch helplessly as his newly appointed second in command,
Rear-Admiral Moore in New Zealand, led the British force against the already
doomed Blücher and let the rest of the German force escape.
Beatty transferred to the destroyer HMS Attack in order to move to Princess
Royal but by the time he achieved this the battle was over.
The British ships finished off SMS Blücher, in the end she was hit by
torpedoes from Arethusa and destroyers, HMS Meteor being damaged by Blücher
in the process. As Arethusa was rescuing survivors a British stoker called
'Nobby' Clark was helping to haul German sailors up over the side he was
surprised to be greeted by a German with 'Hello Nobby! Fancy meeting you
here!' - it turned out that the German sailor had been his next door
neighbour in Hull before the start of world War 1. Whilst survivors were
being picked up the a seaplane and Zeppelin L5 bombed the operation, forcing
the abandonment of rescue efforts.
Apart from a large number on Blücher, only six hits were made on the
other German heavy units, three on Seydlitz and three on Derfflinger
from 1152 heavy shells fired (Indomitable 134, New Zealand 147, Lion
243, Princess Royal 273, Tiger 355). Derfflinger was ready for sea
again on 17 February and Seydlitz on 1 April. Total German casualties
were 954 killed, 80 wounded and 189 captured.
The British were publicly pleased
with their undoubted victory at Dogger Bank although in private both Beatty and the First Sea Lord Fisher were not happy that Moore had let
the rest of the German squadron escape. Although exonerated (he could
hardly be reprimanded for following orders), he was moved to the Canary
Islands. Captain Pelly of HMS Tiger was also criticised for the firing
at the wrong target, the low quality of his ships gunnery and for not
pursing the Germans once Lion had dropped out of the line. He was not
removed as Tiger was a new ship which was not fully worked up and Beatty
felt Pelly would not make the same mistakes again. The action increased Beatty's reputation but in private some considered he made a mistake in
placing the inexperience Tiger ahead of Princess Royal in the battle
line and for overreacting to the phantom submarine periscope.
Hipper was criticised for taking the slower Blücher as part of their
force but even once Blücher had been sunk his force was limited to the
same low speed by the limited speed of many of his coal powered torpedo
boats, making this criticism against Hipper a little unfair. There was
strong criticism of von Ingenhol for not supporting Hipper by using the
battlefleet as a covering force for the operation. The German Kaiser
was furious with the defeat and ordered fewer risks to be taken in the
future. Admiral von Ingenhol was replaced with Admiral Pohl as head of
the navy.
The damage to Seydlitz ensured that the Germans reduced the amount of
shell propellant stored in the gun turrets to reduce the risk of
explosion, a lesson the British were not to learn until the
Battle of
Jutland. The British were impressed with the quality of German shooting
but not with the quality of their shell, little did they realise that
the British shells were even worse, and this problem was not realised until
the Battle of Jutland in 1916. Also HMS Lion found it hard to return
fire late in the battle because of the volume of fire she was under from
Moltke and Seydlitz, and so the British battlecruisers came to place
too much emphasis on high rates of fire, resulting in problems with
accuracy and safety that showed up at the Battle on Jutland in 1916.
The lessons that the British could have learnt, about lack of initiative
in subordinate commanders and signalling errors were not learnt.
Beatty stood by his flag lieutenant Seymour despite the fact that a
previous error by him had let a German squadron evade
Beatty after a
raid on the Yorkshire coast, and mistakes at Jutland
were to cause
problems. Whilst loyalty to a subordinate is desirable, surely Beatty
took this too far for such an important position in the flagship of such
an important force.
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