 sj |
||
|
||
Obit: Battle of Jutland 1916
|
|
|
Subject: Obit: Battle of Jutland 1916 From: Liz the Squeak Date: 01 Jun 09 - 08:36 AM 93 years ago this day (31st May-1st June), was fought the the largest Naval battle of World War I, possibly the largest ever. Thousands of men lost their lives on both sides of this action, I think of 4 in particular. These four men were two brothers, Frederick and John Dunford, cousin Henry Dunford and George Corben, their cousin's father in law, all lost from four ships, HMSs Queen Mary, Invincible, Black Prince and Fortune. All four could have claimed protected employment as they were fishermen and farmers, but all four signed up to fight. Yesterday and today, a candle burned for the thousands and the few. Les Sullivan didn't know it, but he got one verse spot on in his song. 'Where are you going, my Johnny-o?' 'I'm joining a ship in Scapa Flow, That's where I'm going my Nancy, I'm joining the 'Black Prince', Nancy-o.' Joining the 'Black Prince' Nancy-o She's bristling with guns and ready to go, To sail to glory with Jellicoe!' But where is the 'Black Prince'? Gone now! And where is the glory? Gone now! And six thousand sailors? Gone now! They have gone to the bottom at Jutland LTS |
|
Subject: RE: Obit: Battle of Jutland 1916 From: alanabit Date: 01 Jun 09 - 09:22 AM I have just been reading Bernard Cornwell's "Azincourt" and earlier today, I watched an episode of "Band of Brothers", the title of which is a reference to Shakespeare's "Henry V". Both brought home the fact that all battles are horrible tragedies. I sometimes worry that we now have a generation of leaders, who have never known war. It is more important than ever that we do not take our good fortune for granted. Thanks for reminding us Liz. I think it is dangerous to forget these things. |
|
Subject: RE: Obit: Battle of Jutland 1916 From: Keith A of Hertford Date: 01 Jun 09 - 10:12 AM I wish Les would give the song a final verse. It gives an impression of purposeless loss and folly. The German Battleships never again fired their huge shells into the streets and houses of East coast towns. |
|
Subject: RE: Obit: Battle of Jutland 1916 From: breezy Date: 01 Jun 09 - 11:19 AM There are 2 more verses Thougt everyone knew it maybe Les will sing it when jke huests at eric Bogkes concert shit its darj here |
|
Subject: RE: Obit: Battle of Jutland 1916 From: Acorn4 Date: 01 Jun 09 - 11:35 AM I think this was the scene of that famous understatement:- "There's something wrong with our bloody ships". Admiral Lord Jellicoe. And this lessons still hadn't been learned when the Hood was lost in WW2. |
|
Subject: RE: Obit: Battle of Jutland 1916 From: Eric the Viking Date: 01 Jun 09 - 11:52 AM And strange to think that at Scapa where the German fleet was scuttled on 21st June 1919 there are only a few reminders now. Some fancy Tee shirts and flags for sale in various shops, some anchors on different shores, the odd propeller salvaged, and out in the flow, some marker bouys. |
|
Subject: RE: Obit: Battle of Jutland 1916 From: GUEST,TJ in San Diego Date: 01 Jun 09 - 11:55 AM Man is a cunning animal often tempted to wretched excess. War is the ultimate expression of this. Life is a constant struggle to push one's better nature to overcome these baser instincts. I have seen six wars in my lifetime and "participated" in one. I do not wish to see another. Unfortunately, I also know that when too few people are willing to stand up for right, evil wins. When I hear a song like "Reuben James" or "The Ballad of Ira Hayes," for example, I remember all those who died, even unwittingly, so that we could one day live in peace. I keep hoping. You keep singing. |
|
Subject: RE: Obit: Battle of Jutland 1916 From: GUEST,Rich Arrowsmith Date: 01 Jun 09 - 12:05 PM Admiral Jackie Fisher's grand folly. Heavily armed battlecruisers with very little armour. They shouldn't have been put in the line of battle with the battleships. |
|
Subject: RE: Obit: Battle of Jutland 1916 From: Jack Campin Date: 01 Jun 09 - 12:11 PM the largest Naval battle of World War I, possibly the largest ever Largest ever (in every way: number of ships, number of men, casualties, and historical importance) was probably Kublai Khan's failed invasion of Japan in 1281. |
|
Subject: RE: Obit: Battle of Jutland 1916 From: bubblyrat Date: 01 Jun 09 - 12:18 PM Of course,some good came of it-----surgical instruments have long been made from steel raised from the wrecks of German ships scuttled at Scapa Flow ( the metal is not irradiated,apparently )----perhaps there's a song lurking there ?? As to fishermen being treated differently.....Not by the Germans, they weren't !!! Captured fishermen and the crews of merchant ships were treated VERY badly in Germany,being paraded in front of the populations of large cities, their heads shaved,and being manhandled and spat on !! A seaman was a seaman,to the Hun !! ( Logical, of course, but rather unsporting,really). |
|
Subject: RE: Obit: Battle of Jutland 1916 From: bubblyrat Date: 01 Jun 09 - 12:24 PM Incidentally, there was,I believe,at least one occasion where the Captain of a Merchant Navy ship, a ferry,I think,was court martialled by the Germans in WW1 and executed,for DARING to try & ram a surfaced U-boat !! Fritz didn't mess about with niceties, you know ! |
|
Subject: RE: Obit: Battle of Jutland 1916 From: Eric the Viking Date: 01 Jun 09 - 12:30 PM I've seen pictures of the German fleet in Scapa, but when I look out over it, it is so hard to imagine what it must have looked like. Orcadians at the time must have been quite worried as to whether war was going to break out again. On the day the fleet was scuttled, a school was taking a boat trip out to see some of the Ships. Surgical instruments yes, and razor blades I'm led to believe. |
|
Subject: RE: Obit: Battle of Jutland 1916 From: Little Hawk Date: 01 Jun 09 - 12:37 PM It's true that Hipper's German battlecruisers went on quicks runs to shell some east coast towns in the UK...but not because there was any military value really in doing that. They did it in order to lure forth a British battlecruiser squadron. It was hoped that they could lure a relatively small part of the larger British fleet within range of the entire German fleet. The German battleships were waiting farther to the East to pounce on any isolated British force. The idea was that Beatty's battlecruisers would pursue the smaller German battlecruiser force within range of the entire German battleship line which would then overwhelm Beatty's ships and destroy them. If this could be done, then the Germans might get closer to achieving parity in naval strength with the UK. If that could be done, then the Germans might be able to break the blockade or possibly even defeat the Royal Navy decisively in some future battle. This was what the Germans were attempting at Jutland. It failed because Jellicoe was following up closely behind Beatty with the main British fleet...so instead of the Germans trapping the British and outnumbering them, the reverse happened. It could have resulted in the utter destruction of the German fleet, but they managed, with considerable difficulty, to make their escape during the night. The Germans had very tough ships, including Hipper's superb battlecruisers, but they simply didn't have enough of them to take on the entire British fleet. As for the British, their battlecruisers were extremely thin-skinned and vulnerable, but their battleships proved to be tough customers. The Queen Elizabeth class in particular (including the famous Warspite) were probably the finest fighting ships of their day, mounting 15" guns, and they were still around to give excellent service in WWII. |
|
Subject: RE: Obit: Battle of Jutland 1916 From: Gedpipes Date: 01 Jun 09 - 12:48 PM Paddy Keenan and Arty McGlynn plays a lovely version of Jutland. I never know the origins of it - do now -thanks |
|
Subject: RE: Obit: Battle of Jutland 1916 From: Les from Hull Date: 01 Jun 09 - 01:05 PM Another problem for the British was the tendency of their over-sensitive armour piercing shells to burst on hitting armour, instead of passing through the armour and bursting behind it. The German battlecruiser attacks on English East Coast towns were some of the first occasions in the modern era of intentionally targeting civilian targets. Along with unrestricted submarine warfare, as well as Zeppelin and Gotha raids on civilian targets, this is why the British Press labeled them 'baby killers'. Add in the introduction of poison gas, and the atrocities in Belgium against suspected 'franc tireurs', their methods of waging war were often considered uncivilised. They also offered to execute the crews of any Q-Ships (warships disguised as merchant ships) that they captured. |
|
Subject: RE: Obit: Battle of Jutland 1916 From: Little Hawk Date: 01 Jun 09 - 01:32 PM It was a disturbing precedent, Les, no doubt about it, and it came to full fruition in WWII when mass area bombing of civilian centres became standard strategy for most air forces and the USA and Great Britain took it to the final measure in that respect...probably because they had the means to. As for the submarines, though, unrestricted submarine warfare is pretty well the only way to go if you want to fight an effective naval campaign with submarines and win it. Early in the war the German submarines often surfaced and chivalrously asked unarmed merchant ships to surrender and remove their personnel in the lifeboats before being sunk. This, however, proved quite hazardous to the submarines, specially after the Allies began sending out disguised Q-ships which looked like unarmed vessels, but would drop their shields to reveal their hidden guns and blow the U-boat out of the water. Accordingly, the German subs took to attacking merchant ships submerged and without warning. I can't say I really blame them. I can also understand why they would threaten to execute the crews of Q-ships under those circumstances...since the Q-ships were, in effect, changing the rules of engagement in a way that would have outraged the German submariners. Whenever a new weapons system enters into human conflicts there is usually some initial confusion over what is "acceptable" and what isn't in terms of how it should be used. And outrage is an emotion generally felt keenly on both sides of any war, usually for quite understandable reasons. |
|
Subject: RE: Obit: Battle of Jutland 1916 From: Eric the Viking Date: 01 Jun 09 - 02:17 PM Royal Oak
By the time of WW2 Royal Oak was 23 years old, past her best and not modernised. |
|
Subject: RE: Obit: Battle of Jutland 1916 From: Les from Hull Date: 01 Jun 09 - 02:23 PM Under the Declaration of London 1909 Prize Rules, warships should make adequate provision for the crews of merchant ships before they sank them. So Germany was breaking International Law. Of course these rules suited the UK, a country with the largest merchant marine and greatest navy in the world. Germany also made effective use of disguised merchant ships in a 'guerre de course' against UK merchant ships, although the UK never threatened to hang their crews. War is bad enough. I despise people who make it even worse. |
|
Subject: RE: Obit: Battle of Jutland 1916 From: GUEST,Rich Arrowsmith Date: 01 Jun 09 - 06:35 PM Wasn't it Churchill who was First Sea Lord at the time who broke the Cruiser rules by getting merchant ships and Q ships to attack german subs? The major flaw with the Jutland fleet was found to be shell and cordite handling. Doors between the different handling rooms/magazines and the turrets were left open. This added to their already weak armour led to them being refered to floating coffins. If Hood had been rebuilt as Repulse was she'd have probably survived her encounter with the Bismark. It was a fairly lucky shot that finished Hood off but if she'd had better deck armour she'd have survived. Hard to believe only three men survived from nearly two thousand. Very humbling. |
|
Subject: RE: Obit: Battle of Jutland 1916 From: Little Hawk Date: 01 Jun 09 - 11:21 PM Les, it would be ludicrous to expect submarines to abide by a law that states that "warships should make adequate provision for the crews of merchant ships before they sank them". It's simply not feasible to do that and fight a submarine war in any effective manner. It was clearly a law written without submarines in mind. It was written for surface ships. The person who wrote it probably didn't think submarines would count for much in war. For the Germans NOT to eventually break such a law would have been inconceivable, given the realities of submarine warfare that they faced. The USA in WWII sank so many Japanese merchant ships with their own version of unrestricted submarine warfare that they began to run out of targets by early 1945, and you know what they did then? They took to sinking the smallest fishing boats, sampans, anything Japanese they could find on the water, and machine gunning the civilian survivors of those boats in the water...and they were quite proud of themselves for so doing. This considerably exceeds the brutality of most German sub crews in either WWI or WWII, and it is also against international law. No one was tried for doing it. The Japanese did similarly brutal things too, I might add, and they WERE tried for doing them. That part is well known, because they lost. The American atrocities are not so well known. As you say, war is bad enough. It is unfortunate that there are plenty of ruthless (and frightened) people on both sides of most wars who are willing to make it a lot worse. |
|
Subject: RE: Obit: Battle of Jutland 1916 From: Little Hawk Date: 01 Jun 09 - 11:36 PM Here's another interesting bit of information, this time about the WWII German Luftwaffe (Air Force)... Reichsmarshall Goering became concerned about the fact that a lot of British pilots were bailing out and flying again in the battles over Britian, while a German pilot who bailed out would get captured. Trained pilots were far more valuable than airplanes. He pondered floating the idea in front of the German fighter squadrons of machine-gunning British pilots who were parachuting, but he was worried about how his squadron leaders might respond to such a notion, so he simply mentioned it casually as a theoretical measure and asked what their reaction would be to that. They were uniformly disgusted with the suggestion of firing at people in parachutes and left Goering in no doubt that they were totally opposed to doing it...and he didn't bring it up again. German fighter pilots, fortunately, had a far better sense of personal honor and chivalry in war than some of the corrupt scoundrels who were holding the top spots in the Nazi hierarchy. This too should be remembered. |
|
Subject: RE: Obit: Battle of Jutland 1916 From: Teribus Date: 02 Jun 09 - 01:08 AM The comment "There's something wrong with our bloody ships today", was made by Admiral Sir Davis Beatty at the Battle of Jutland not by Jellicoe. Beatty's Battle-Cruisers were never meant to operate in isolation they always sailed with at least one squadron of battleships. While the Battle-Cruisers could discourage operations by enemy cruisers by catching them and destroying them, the British intention and Beatty's orders were always the same, if contact is made with the main body of the Highs Seas Fleet turn to draw them towards the guns of the British Home Seas Fleet. Beatty actually did very well at Jutland, as did Jellicoe (The only man who could have lost Britain the First World War in one afternoon) - The result meant that the German High Seas Fleet never again put to sea and the blockade of Germany could be maintained. Naval gunnery also differed in the Fleets, Germany favoured a slightly smaller calibre gun with a higher rate of fire and a plunging trajectory, the British favoured a larger calibre of gun, slightly slower rate of fire and a flatter trajectory. The German theory worked well against British Battle-Cruisers. As stated above to increase the rate of fire in the British ships magazine safety was compromised with disastrous results. |
|
Subject: RE: Obit: Battle of Jutland 1916 From: Little Hawk Date: 02 Jun 09 - 02:34 AM Dead right all the way. Beatty and Jellicoe certainly did do very well at Jutland, no doubt about that. Scheer and Hipper also did very well. Both sides showed tremendous courage and efficiency under great pressure, and the mightier fleet won the day...not decisively in the sense of destroying its opponent, but strategically in the sense of bottling it up helplessly in harbour for the remainder of the conflict. Mission accomplished by Admiral Jellicoe, in other words, though he had no doubt hoped for more. It must have been a bitter pill for the Germans to swallow, but "them's the breaks", to quote an old American phrase. |
|
Subject: RE: Obit: Battle of Jutland 1916 From: Keith A of Hertford Date: 02 Jun 09 - 03:22 AM Sadly, the public did not appreciate the achievement at the time. Returning ships were booed. My grandfather (witness to the scuttling at Scapa) was given a white feather on his wedding day, June 2nd 1916. |
|
Subject: RE: Obit: Battle of Jutland 1916 From: Les from Hull Date: 02 Jun 09 - 08:02 AM Actually battlecruisers were intended as replacements for armoured cruisers, and proved their effectiveness at the Battle of Falklands Islands where Invincible and Inflexible sank the German armoured cruisers Scharnhorst and Gniesenau in 1914. The British battlecruisers in the Mediterranean were involved in the hunt for the German battlecruiser Goeben but faulty intelligence and poor decisions allowed the Goeben to escape to Turkey. As German forces outside home waters were accounted for, the battlecruisers and armoured cruisers returned to the Home Fleet. The German High Seas did emerge twice again, in August 1916 and April 1918. When designed, the battle ranges that these ships were expected to fight at would have meant that the deck armour was only at risk from hits at an oblique angle, and so less likely to penetrate. The dramatic loss of three British battle cruisers at Jutland (the Les Sullivan song mentions two of them - possible because Indefatigable is hard to scan) was caused by the propellant in the magazines exploding, rather than burning fiercely. |
|
Subject: RE: Obit: Battle of Jutland 1916 From: Keith A of Hertford Date: 02 Jun 09 - 08:33 AM Would not burning fiercely and exploding be about the same in the confined space of a magazine? I have read that the cordite propellant used by RN was more likely to ignite than the German version. The flash is believed to have jumped from charge to charge down into the magazines. |
|
Subject: RE: Obit: Battle of Jutland 1916 From: Keith A of Hertford Date: 02 Jun 09 - 08:37 AM Related thread. thread.cfm?threadid=5862 |
|
Subject: RE: Obit: Battle of Jutland 1916 From: MartinRyan Date: 02 Jun 09 - 08:42 AM While this is all (genuinely) interesting, the initial musical connection has long faded away. Time to move to BS? Regards |
|
Subject: RE: Obit: Battle of Jutland 1916 From: Les from Hull Date: 02 Jun 09 - 02:32 PM Keith - burning fiercely = loss of turret; explosion = loss of ship. It didn't only happen in action, ships were lost by accidental explosion, such as HMS Vanguard, the French Liberte, USS Maine. RN cordite was not only more like to ignite because of the method of storage (silk bags only) but more likely to explode rather than burn. A propellant (powder in US parlance) is mixture of nitrocellulose and nitroglycerin with a stabiliser and plasticiser. The difference between an explosion and burning is pretty academic, a matter of micro seconds. And I'm certainly no physicist. |
|
Subject: RE: Obit: Battle of Jutland 1916 From: Little Hawk Date: 02 Jun 09 - 05:52 PM The Japanese lost one of their best battleships in 1943 to an unexplained ammunition magazine explosion. The Mutsu blew up suddenly while resting peacefully at anchorage when the aft magazines exploded. This could have been due to a number of trivial causes such as a handling error in the magazines or an unstable explosive charge. One theory that went around at the time was that an embittered and suicidal sailor deliberately caused the explosion with intentions of destroying both himself and the ship's officers and crew. If so, he succeeded on a pretty spectacular level. In any event, the Japanese lost one of their 4 best battleships that day (out of a total of a dozen in service during the confict). |
|
Subject: RE: Obit: Battle of Jutland 1916 From: McGrath of Harlow Date: 02 Jun 09 - 06:00 PM It's simply not feasible to do that and fight a submarine war in any effective manner. That's a bit like defending the use of torture and suchlike on the grounds that it is an essential part of "a war on terror". The logic of outlawing certain activities, and classifying them as war crimes does indeed involve putting limits on certain ways of waging war. That is the whole point. |
|
Subject: RE: Obit: Battle of Jutland 1916 From: akenaton Date: 02 Jun 09 - 06:37 PM Getting back to the battle of Jutland, the Captain of the Royal Oak was Crawford Maclachlan from the small village where I live. His grandson who still lives in the village has been an acquaintance of mine since boyhood. The great ensigns from the ship used to hang in the village hall.....one was about 20ft square....he also retains a solid silver model of the Royal Oak, which was presented to the Captain after the battle |
|
Subject: RE: Obit: Battle of Jutland 1916 From: Charley Noble Date: 02 Jun 09 - 10:37 PM |
|
Subject: RE: Obit: Battle of Jutland 1916 From: Little Hawk Date: 03 Jun 09 - 02:44 AM It's not that I'm defending it, McGrath. I think war is a very bad idea all around. What I am saying is that it is inevitable that when submarines are used in war, they WILL attack without warning, just as a sniper does. And it doesn't matter diddly-squat whether someone made up a naval rule of some kind in 1908 or not...(a rule that was clearly written without giving any real thought at all to the future use of submarines.) This has been borne out by the fact that ALL nations which have used submarines in and since WWI have engaged in attacking without warning with their subs as a standard procedure. Not just the Germans. ALL of them. The British included. The Allies did the same thing. Why? Because it's the only sensible way to use a submarine in wartime, that's why. A submarine must (generally speaking) stalk its prey unseen and strike without warning in order to be effective. It's also the only sensible way for a sniper to behave, and for much the same reasons. Surprise is pretty much essential if you wish to hit the target most of the time. I think it's just downright silly to excoriate the Germans for doing exactly what everybody else does when they wage submarine warfare. |
|
Subject: RE: Obit: Battle of Jutland 1916 From: HuwG Date: 03 Jun 09 - 06:07 AM If I recall correctly, the laws regarding blockade, search and seizure in force at the start of World War I were written at the start of the nineteenth century, before the steamship and submarine were invented. The Germans could claim to have given warning of attacks on merchant ships by posting advertisements in the American press. To an extent, many of the losses were the responsibility of the British Admiralty, who failed to institute properly escorted convoys, preferring instead to send cruisers rushing around large areas of ocean where the submarines weren't. For a submarine to sink a merchant ship belonging to an enemy or in a war zone where it has no right to be, without warning (except a clearly marked hospital ship) is generally no longer regarded as a war crime. To machine-gun survivors in the water (as was alleged against German and American submariners) definitely is. |
|
Subject: RE: Obit: Battle of Jutland 1916 From: Little Hawk Date: 03 Jun 09 - 12:51 PM That's right, HuwG. ***** The way it is with human beings, you see...they make up the "rules" as they go along. That's why the rules change as time goes by. When conditions change, the rules change, but "the law" is sometimes way out of date and is slow to catch up with a change in conditions. And we all know that. That's why people sometimes say that "the law is an ass". What laws are, they are temporary imperfect solutions to complex situations, and they are thought up by imperfect human beings who very often have some kind of self-interested political agenda hiding behind what they are doing. Laws are, to a great extent, arbitrary, and they reflect social customs of their day. To quote an obviously obsolete law as a way of generating hate propaganda against an enemy in wartime is nothing more than a cynical attempt on the part of some political propagandists to generate strong emotions in their own populace so they will go out enthusiastically to fight and kill people in the "enemy" populace. It's a good way of boosting recruitment. All nations engage in this kind of self-serving blather when a war is happening, and they sieze upon any excuse to generate a bit more outrage....but you never hear a word about their own dirty laundry, except from the other side, of course. In fact, you will quite likely be arrested if you spill the beans during a war about what your side is doing when it comes to war crimes. They will find a way to shut you up. "It's bad for public morale, you see..." |
| Share Thread: |
