Themes

Article highlights

• HMS Warspite at the Battle of Jutland

• The 'super dreadnought'

• Position in the Grand Fleet

• Scheer's scheme

• Memories from the Battle

• Signal failure

• Fatal blows

• The Fifth Battle Squadron enter the action

• The Grand Fleet come to the rescue

• HMS Warspite's withdrawal and battle damage

Scheer's scheme

During the war Admiral Reinhard Scheer, in command of Germany’s High Seas Fleet, sought to lure parts of the British fleet out in order to pick them off and reduce its size.

Scheer recognised that the British Fleet was superior in numbers, speed and armaments. He tasked Commander of the High Seas Fleet Scouting Forces, Vice Admiral Franz Hipper, and his fleet of five battlecruisers with luring Beatty’s Battlecruiser Fleet out of Harbour at Rosyth.

HMS Iron Duke and 3rd Division of Battle Fleet deploying, Jutland 1916. (RNM)

The squadron had conducted systematic raids to the northeast coast of Britain in the hope that they could entice Beatty out towards a deadly trap thus evening up the numbers between the High Seas and Grand Fleet.

The plan assumed Beatty would pass through an area where a large force of U Boats were concentrated and then Admiral Hipper’s Force would draw the survivors of this action towards Scheer with the main High Seas Fleet.

Scheer’s scheme did not go according to plan. British Naval Intelligence concluded from the increased German signal traffic, that the High Seas Fleet was probably at sea, or about to go to sea.

German Battlecruisers at the Battle of Jutland. (RNM)

The two Admirals agreed to meet 90 miles west of Skagerrak off the coast of Jutland. On 30 May the Admiralty sent warning signals to Admiral Jellicoe and Rear Admiral Beatty. The Grand Fleet left Scapa Flow in the late evening of 30 May along.

The 2nd Battle Squadron, based at Cromarty, and the Battlecruiser Squadron from Rosyth followed at midnight.