Battle of Jutland 3 - The morning of May 31st

The BGF leaves Scapa Flow 1916

We have seen how Scheer single-mindedly pursued his plans to bring about the definitive fleet action. The British side was no less anxious for the confrontation, which they believed would convincingly deal with German pretensions. Beatty's continuous chafing for actions to provoke the Germans was echoed in other quarters, and tested Jellicoe's prudence to the limits. The boredom and frustration of officers and men cooped up in Scapa Flow or Rosyth for weeks at a time added to the tension, and numerous ploys were evaluated. In fact, Jellicoe had planned a sweeping action of his cruiser squadrons in the Kattegat and Skagerrak waters off Denmark for 2nd June to tempt Scheer out. Before that however, they learned from various sources, including Room 40, of unusual activities indicating German preparations. At noon on 30th May the Admiralty informed Jellicoe and Beatty of the likely emergence in force of the Germans. At 5pm the Admiralty ordered the fleet to raise steam. By dusk, the BGF in Scapa Flow was beginning to move. At 10.30pm Beatty's six battle cruisers and the four Queen Elizabeth class Super Dreadnoughts of Admiral Evans-Thomas slipped under the  great Forth railway bridge towards the North Sea.
So - ironically - before Scheer's fleet had even weighed anchor, the BGF was at sea. Jellicoe's orders to Beatty were to head for Horn's Reef** off Jutland, to reach there by 2pm on 31st, by which time Jellicoe's Dreadnoughts would be around 60 miles to the north, and within easy reach.  

The battle zone, in the eastern North Sea
off the coast of Jutland

The scene was thus set for the greatest confrontation in naval history. In reality it was like a complicated ritual dance, in which neither side knew what the other was doing or planning. Controversy and debate still follow on as we arrive at the centenary.
Both great fleets operated with two components - a strong, but relatively small advance force, followed by the main fleets with their greatest capital ships.


The BGF sections were:

North. Jellicoe from Scapa Flow 

             24 Dreadnought battleships in 3 battle squadrons

               1 Battle cruiser squadron (3^rd, led by Hood)

               2 Cruiser squadrons (1^st Arbuthnot, 2^nd Heath)

               1 Light cruiser squadron (4^th, Le Mesurier)

               3 Destroyer flotillas (4^th, 11^th, 12^th)

South. Beatty from Rosyth        

              2 Battle cruiser squadrons (6 ships)

              1 Battleship squadron (5^th, Evan-Thomas) of 4 QE class Super dreadnoughts

              3 Light cruiser squadrons (1^st, 2^nd, 3^rd)

              4 Destroyer flotillas (1^st, 9^th, 10^th, 13^th)

The GHSF, also in two sections, comprised:

Scheer                                                

              15 Dreadnought and 6 preDreadnought battleships

              3 Cruiser divisions

              7 Destroyer flotillas

Hipper’s 1st Scouting force       

              5 Battle cruisers

              Light cruiser and destroyer flotillas.

In overall numbers the BGF fielded 150 versus 99 of the Germans. The Dreadnought count was 37 British versus 21 German. All the forces were in play, but nobody yet had caught sight of the opponent, although they were sailing on direct collision course.

Light Cruiser HMS Galatea. Her captain
Commodore Edwyn Alexander-Smyth ordered the
first shots of the Battle of Jutland

As the southerly of the two British groups, Beatty had sent his scouting cruisers further to the south to look for the enemy. Beatty himself was zig-zagging for several hours, both to avoid submarines and to search for the enemy. By late morning nothing had been sighted. The distance of Beatty's scouting force from the main fleet of Jellicoe was becoming an issue and at 2.10pm Beatty, late for the rendezvous, sent orders for his scouts to head north eastwards - closer to the designated area.

Signalling was still an imprecise science in 1916. Beatty had had problems with haphazard and incompetent signalling at Dogger Bank in 1915, but done little about it. His flagship HMS Lion had the same signalling officer in charge as then. At the north east extreme of Beatty's force the light cruiser HMS Galatea did not receive the signal immediately, and as she continued to the southeast spotted smoke on the horizon to the east. Within minutes Galatea was sure she had sighted two German battle cruisers, and at 2.20pm signalled "Enemy in sight" to the rest of the squadron. At 2.28pm it fell to the Galatea to fire the first shots of the Battle of Jutland as she approached Hipper's cruisers at a speed of 28 knots. 

Meanwhile Jellicoe, to the north, had no information to suggest to him the the GHSF was out in the North Sea. To make matters worse, at 12.48pm he received completely erroneous information from the Admiralty to reassure him that Scheer was still anchored in the Jade (from Robert Massie: Castles of Steel). This howler was the responsibility of the aforementioned Operations Division in the Admiralty, who had not troubled to check information coming in from Room 40. Captain Thomas Jackson of Admiralty OD had previously stated that the Room 40 staff were "a party of very clever fellows who could decipher coded signals" but they should never be allowed to interpret them. So, Jellicoe continued on his set course to the east, unaware of what was unfolding to the south. Had he known, he could have changed course and increased speed to the British advantage. When, less than two hours later, Jellicoe heard that Beattie was in direct contact with the GHSF, his fragile confidence in information from the Admiralty was broken.

** Horn's Reef off Esbjerg, Western Denmark, is today a giant wind farm. In 1916 the sandbanks there guarded a gateway to a safe, mine free passage for the German ships to travel north from or south to their home ports