#80 The Battle of Cleaver Bank, June 7th, 1916
Dogger Bank had through the timidity of von Ingenhol failed to isolate and destroy a portion of the British fleet. He was sacked and replaced by Admiral von Pohl, who was then replaced in January 1916 by the more aggressive Scheer. Scheer wanted to try again to isolate and destroy a portion of the British fleet and attempted to do so in early April, his raid on Lowestoft had not made contact with the British fleet and resulted in mine damage to the Battlecruisers SMS Moltke and SMS Von der Tann. He wished to try again when repairs were completed in late May; however, weather conditions forced the battle to be delayed to make use of aerial recon. Finally, in the early hours of June 7th the German fleet of 16 Dreadnought Battleships, 5 Battlecruisers, 6 Predreadnought Battleships, 11 cruisers and 61 destroyers left Wilhelmshaven. The goal was to raid the town of Sunderland to draw the British out. To aid in this 20 U-Boats were waiting at sea to ambush British forces and several minefields had been laid.
British cryptographers had intercepted German radio traffic and patrols noticed the increased submarine activity. The Admiralty was aware that the Germans were likely to attempt something in the North Sea. Admiral Jellicoe in command of the Grand Fleet was worried that the Germans were attempting to enter the Baltic or break out into the Atlantic and ordered his fleet to wait off Denmark to ambush the Germans. The Grand Fleet of 24 Dreadnought Battleships, 3 Battlecruisers, 8 Armored Cruisers, 12 Light Cruisers and 50 Destroyers left port shortly before the Germans did. The Battlecruiser fleet of 4 Fast Battleships, 6 Battlecruisers, 14 Light cruisers, 27 destroyers and a seaplane carrier left port slightly after the Germans did.
Both fleets made it thought the German minefields and submarine patrols without incident during the morning. Shortly after noon a U-Boat made an unsuccessful attack on HMS Orion and forced the Grand Fleet to start antisubmarine measures. Around 1:00 word from air patrols reached Jellicoe and Beatty, the commander of the Battlecruisers, that the Germans were going to raid Britain again. They were caught out of position to intercept them short of the coast and raced Southwest to cut them off from home.
The German battlecruisers reached Sunderland in the early afternoon and spent forty-five minutes shelling the town before turning around and steaming southeast for home.
About an hour after turning for home the British and German forces spotted each other. Admiral von Hipper in charge of the German Battlecruisers ordered his ships to head south to where the Battleships were hiding. Admiral Beatty then made a series of mistakes, he ordered his battlecruisers to move at maximum speed, leaving his fast battleships behind, failed to reorganize his formation from cruising to fighting quick enough, and waited to open fire rather than use the longer range of his guns. Both squadrons thus opened fire at the same time, sailing in parallel lines to the south, with the British to the East of the Germans. The British had 6 capital ships, 4 with 13.5” guns, two with 12” while the Germans had 5, 3 with 11” and 2 with 12” guns, though the German ships were much better armored.
The first hit of the engagement was scored by the Germans, with an 11” hit on HMS Lion. That was soon followed by a British hit on SMS Von der Tann, but despite the numbers favoring the British the Germans scored more hits. 15 minutes into the exchange HMS Queen Mary was penetrated in her forward turret by an 11” shell the Battlecruiser SMS Seydlitz. With turret safety measures ordered disabled by Beatty to increase firing rate to prevent another German escape as at Dogger Bank, this hit set off the ready ammunition, the explosion from which travelled down into the magazine, dooming the ship. The odds were now even.
Forty-five minutes into the exchange the Queen Elizabeth class Fast Battleships had entered range and opened fire. The 15” shellfire changed the calculus in Hipper’s mind, however he was getting close to the Battleships and only had to hold a little longer. The loss of HMS Indomitable to an 11” salvo from SMS Moltke changed the calculus once more in the German favor. The 15” shells from the Battleships were gradually growing more accurate as the range closed, but guns on the British battlecruisers were being silenced.
An hour into the “Run to the Southeast” the situation changed in two ways in short order, Scheer’s battleships arrived, and HMS Lion blew up. Ten minutes after the Scheer sighted the Battlecruiser action the German battleships opened fire. About halfway through this period HMS Lion was hit by a combined 12” salvo from SMS Lützow and SMS Derfflinger. The shells penetrated her forward magazines and caused a detonation. Either Beatty had not noticed the German battleships, or simply not had time to signal before the ship was lost, either way the Battlecruisers were left leadership at a critical juncture and charged towards the German Battleships for several minutes before Admiral de Beauvior-Brock aboard HMS Princess Royal turned them around.
British command devolved onto Admiral Evans-Thomas with the fast Battleships. In order to save the remaining Battlecruisers, he ordered his four battleships to charge the Germans to buy time to break contact. For 15 minutes the remaining British battlecruisers were heavily pounded, though remarkably none was lost. Then the battleships were able to interpose themselves and the British began the “Run to the Northeast”.
For a half hour the British raced northeast, four battleships engaging sixteen, with the addition of Hipper’s five Battlecruisers and the 6 Predreadnoughts left behind. Evans-Thomas’s ships were heavily pounded, particularly HMS Valiant in the rear of the formation, but gave as good as they got and inflicted heavy damage to the German Battlecruisers. Twenty-five minutes into the engagement a fire started by a 12” round from SMS Kronprinz reached a 6” magazine on HMS Barham, the local crew were just too slow to react and the magazine brewed up, setting off the other 6” magazines in a sympathetic detonation, and soon reaching the 15” magazines.
This loss should have doomed the British formation, however five minutes later three more Battlecruisers arrived on the scene. The vanguard of the Grand Fleet had arrived. Scheer concluded that if more battlecruisers were present then the battleships of the Grand Fleet his Zeppelin support indicated they were in company with could not be far behind. In accordance with his instructions from the Kaiser not to risk his fleet in a full-scale battle with the Grand Fleet he turned his fleet east-southeast to return to port. The British reinforcements declined to immediately pursue the Germans, given the sheer damage the Battlecruiser Fleet had taken the three fresh Battlecruisers and their old armored cruiser counterparts would be heavily outmatched against enemy battleships. This fire most probably delivered the final blows that led to the loss of SMS Von der Tann to progressive flooding during the night.
Jellicoe’s battleships entered sight of their German counterparts after about an hour, and gunnery range a half hour after that. There was about an hour of daylight left and the British pounded the Germans from extreme range. The battleships of the Grand Fleet proved more accurate than their Battlecruiser counterparts and scored multiple hits on the fleeing Germans. Covered by the Battleships the fresh battlecruisers under Admiral Pakenham engaged their German counterparts alongside the older armored cruisers and added on to the damage they suffered.
To break contact Scheer ordered his torpedo boats into action to distract the British. They quickly became engaged in a confused melee between the battleship formations that nonetheless covered the German withdrawal. In one of the final exchanges of fire a long range 15” shot from HMS Revenge crippled SMS Schlesien, knocking one of her screws. In a vain attempt to protect her doomed division mate SMS Schleswig-Holstein was torpedoed by British destroyers and lost, while SMS Schlesien was finished by gunfire from HMS Ajax in the last major gunnery action of the night.
Destroyers, cruisers, and torpedo boats continued to clash through the night, with the British losing the armored cruiser HMS Shannon to a friendly torpedo in the confusion, however the German heavies had managed to escape. German losses had been, once SMS Von der Tann finished sinking, a battlecruiser, two predreadnought battleships, four light cruisers and eight torpedo boats, with four battlecruisers and four dreadnought battleships damaged to the point of not being combat worthy. SMS Lützow was still under repair into 1917.
While the Germans managed to return home almost without incident, the same fate did not befall the British. HMS Colossus was torpedoed by a U-Boat and forced to limp home for repairs. The attack on HMS Colossus would doom HMS Valiant, as to avoid attack by U-Boats she was ordered to steam at flank speed, which exacerbated the severe damage she had taken and forced her to take on additional water. The flooding finally grew too much and she was abandoned in the early hours of the morning on the 8th. HMS Inflexible, while she survived both the battle and the run home would never see war service again. The final British loss of the day was the light cruiser HMS Caroline, which struck a German mine within sight of land.
In all the British had lost three battlecruisers, two fast battleships, an armored cruiser, two light cruisers and eight destroyers, and had three battlecruisers, two fast battleships and two other battleships severely damaged, with one battlecruiser never to recommission following a dockyard mishap. In all counting the Inflexible the British lost 195,500 tons of shipping, compared to 75,000 tons for the Germans. Casualties were less lopsided with 8,000 British dead to 3300 German.
The battle would not achieve the goals Scheer had set out, to weaken the British Fleet so that the High Seas fleet could face it on equal terms. By the time the High Seas Fleet would again leave port the British would have commissioned four new Battlecruisers and two new battleships, all with 15” guns, though the battleships were slow and the battlecruisers poorly armored and with only six and four guns. The High Seas fleet would in that time add three new 15” battleships and a 12” battlecruiser, but this would not alter the balance of power enough, as it was still ten battlecruisers to five and thirty two dreadnought battleships to nineteen. Furthermore, by that point the United States had entered the war, meaning the British could be reinforced by an additional fourteen American dreadnought battleships. The battle was despite being strategically indecisive, tactically the greatest defeat the Royal Navy had suffered since arguably the 17th Century and would suffer until the Second World War.
The name Cleaver Bank, rather than a more accurate Dogger Bank, came from a mistake by German wireless. An edited summary of the battle was given as part of a press announcement, however with a well-known battle of Dogger Bank having already occurred the year prior the broadcaster noted the mention of cleaver bank in the summary and changed things for the English broadcasts. These broadcasts were the first news of the battle to reach the Entente nations, as well as the Americas, and the name spread far and wide before the official British announcement about the battle occurred.
-Excerpt from 101 Great Naval Battles, American Youth Press, New York 2010
Okay here is the update that was supposed to be last weeks, actually happened because someone else volunteered to video that first communion. This is actually going to replace this week's as I don't think I will be able to make things up. I'll admit it's not the best *Jutland out there, and definitely not the most plausible, but I have a place I want to take this TL and setting up WWII early, and no time, need or inclination to game things out or go into great detail. Should get into part II by the end of August if not earlier