Stavanger 3 – Hit First, Hit Hard!
At 4.32, the battle of Stavanger was more than an hour old. The two battlecruiser squadrons had been firing at each other on-and-off for nearly half an hour, but very little damage had been done. A German cruiser had been crippled, and a few near misses had sent splinters and splashes over various ships, but the long ranges and rapidly changing courses had not made for accurate gunnery.
Admiral Beatty knew he might not have long to fight Hipper’s ships before they ran into the main body of their fleet; but could it be as much as two hours? Or as little as half an hour?
All he could be certain of was that his scouts ahead and to starboard had yet to sight any other enemy ships. Now was the time to close to decisive range with the German Scouting Group. He ordered a four-point turn to port, taking his squadron into the enemy's path. By 4.40, ranges had fallen to under 17,000 yards and he ordered a four-point turn to starboard, in line, bringing the fleet back onto a gently converging course with the enemy. A mile or so astern of the rest, Indefatigable ‘cut the corner’, temporarily stopping her from falling further astern. At 4.41, she too entered range, and opened fire on the rearmost German battlecruiser.
Six German ships were now engaging six British, but there was a significant British advantage in terms of weight of broadside, slightly counteracted by the Germans' ability to fire salvos more quickly.
In the next few minutes, both sides rapidly found the range, as British plots converged, and the instincts of the German range-takers quickly showed their worth. An early hit by Lion exploded on Lutzow's belt under A-turret, but it caused little damage. Queen Mary and Panther achieved several straddles, but their targets, the Derfflinger and Seydlitz were lucky to avoid any hits, while Princess Royal's gunnery was completely thrown off by the change of course, and she didn't come close to hitting Moltke for some time. At the rear of the British line, the Repulse had had no time to work with the fleet, and her Captain though it best to engage the rear of the German line, as she was last in the British line. Some way astern, the Indefatigable was also firing at the rearmost German ship, and so the Von der Tann had to endure the fire of two ships, while the next ship ahead, the Goeben, sailed on unmolested. Worse, this led to confusion as each of the British ships corrected for the other’s salvoes. Indefatigable's experienced crew noticed it first, but it was some time before the problem was noticed by Repulse's spotters, most of whom had joined from other ships and training units just two weeks earlier. Repulse had only ever conducted a single gunnery practice, and in those opening minutes, her fire-control and loading procedures were chaotic, at best.
Meanwhile, the Germans made their presence felt as Lion was hit aft. The deck armour kept splinters out of the engine rooms, but the 4" gun battery was wrecked. Nevertheless, the lessons of the fires at Dogger Bank had been learned, and damage control teams soon had the hoses playing on them, while piles of soaking wet fire-suppression blankets sealed off sources of draught and smoke.
What happened at 4.51 could perhaps have been predicted, and in later years, some claimed to have done so. A minute earlier, Queen Mary's B-turret had been hit by a shell which fortunately failed to explode, although it sent debris flying into the interior. Next, observers on Panther directly astern clearly saw a hit aft, underneath X-turret. Just seconds later, the stern of the Queen Mary erupted in a burst of yellow flame, leaving a column of grey-black smoke.
In Queen Mary’s Q-turret, Petty Officer Arthur Giles sat in command of the right-hand gun. His gun crew had closed up for action almost two hours earlier, and at 3.30 the guns had been loaded. Giles had kept an eye on his men, who’d been inclined to rush the loading sequence as they tensed themselves for the action ahead. He’d told them to steady themselves, just as they’d all trained for, and through the intermittent firing as the ship turned first to port, then made a big turn to starboard, his crew had performed well.
Then they were in action for real, firing in steady salvoes and hearing crackles and booms of the enemy’s shells exploding in reply. Just after 4.40, the rammers of both guns failed, stuck mid-way between the in and out positions. Giles’ over-keen No.3 had opened the breech too quickly, and caught the rammer head a whack as the gun was still running out.
Giles nipped out of his seat and grabbed a pinch-bar from the rack at the edge of the turret. Heaving the solid steel rod under the equally solid steel of the rammer head, he could see it was just slightly out of line. He pushed down and the links flexed, before he grabbed onto a pipe above to steady himself while he jumped on the bar. The whole thing flexed nicely, and a second look showed it to be back in line, so he stopped and pushed the lever to ‘Run out’ the rammer. It smoothly wound itself out into the breech. He ran it in and out a few times, and the machine was working properly again. They’d missed two salvos, but the gun was back in action and they wouldn’t have to resort to the slow and exhausting process of manual loading.
A voice from below called up, ‘Petty Officer Giles, can you see what we’re up against’.
Since the action began, they’d been on director firing and Giles hadn’t had the need or the time to look through his periscope. He had been too busy listening and following the rhythm of the loading or following the pointers to look out at the enemy. Now, however, he bent forward to the eyepiece and saw a line of German ships through the haze. Between them were what looked like a small fleet of destroyers, although he didn’t have time to count them.
‘There’s a few big German ships and a couple’a destroyers’, he shouted back, understating the number of ships he saw so as not to alarm his men, ‘looks like we’re shooting at the Derfflinger maybe, giv’in ‘em back what they did to Scarborough.’
There was a cheer from below, but it was cut short by the thunder of the guns.
A few seconds later, the next shell was being rammed home when he saw a white flash and a sparkle of debris from the ship in his sights. ‘We’ve hit her lads!’, he shouted, ‘Keep it steady’.
Giles felt the turret turn a little, presumably as the Gunnery Officer in the foretop trained his sights on a new target, then there was a thump from within the ship. The whole turret vibrated and was then still for a moment. Then the lights went out.
‘Torches there!’, he yelled through the ongoing rumble.
There was another lurch and he grabbed hold of a roped strap above his head. He was glad he did as the turret lurched upwards, or so he thought, and he heard the yell of a man falling down on the other side, under the guns. The dim emergency lights came on, and suddenly there was quiet. The dust that had been shaken up started to settle, and he glanced at the gauges on the right bulkhead.
‘No hydraulic pressure on right gun’, he shouted to Lieutenant Wells, the Turret Officer. He looked through his scope again, then added, ‘Range obscured. There’s something blocking the sight.’
‘What’s happened Gilesy?’, asked his gun's No.2.
Giles wasn’t sure, and asked Lieutenant Wells, ‘What do you think, Sir’
‘God knows, Giles’, came the reply, ‘we’re finished in here though’.
Giles turned back and for the first time saw that the breech of the left gun was poking up towards the roof of the turret, depressed to minimum. Through the sudden quiet, there was a distant roaring, rumbling sort of a noise from below.
‘Can you see if the four-inch are still firing?’, asked Lt. Wells.
Giles poked his head out of his sighting slot at the top of the turret and looked to his left, towards the after 4” battery. He was horrified at what he saw and practically fell back into the turret with shock.
‘The mainmast’s down Sir, over the port side. Dunno about the four-inch battery, but there’s a lott’a smoke.’
‘Well … Giles, I think we ought to get them out. Maybe we can help with damage…’
The Lieutenant’s voice trailed off, as they both noticed simultaneously that the ship now had a fair list to port. The motion had changed too, she wasn’t riding the sea, she was wallowing.
‘Get them out Arthur!’, called out the Lieutenant as they both felt the list increasing.
‘Clear the turret’, shouted Giles, and yelled down to the working chamber.
He asked A/B Fredricks, who was coming up from the chamber below, ‘Is the order passed to the magazine?’
‘No use there’, replied Fredricks glumly, ‘water’s coming up the hoist. They must have bought it.’
‘Come on’, said Giles, pulling Fredricks towards the cabinet at the back of the turret, ‘Out you go Lad.’
Giles knew he was the last man who would be leaving the turret as he followed Fredricks and Lt. Wells out of the top hatch. ‘All clear Sir’, he confirmed when the Lieutenant poked his head back into the turret. They climbed down the ladder at the side and had to jump the last few feet to the sharply sloping deck. It was soaking wet, and the No.4 of the left gun missed his footing and slid down, hitting the water which Giles was surprised to see was already coming over the scuppers. It was just too shallow to slow his fall though, and the man crashed into the rail. He slumped down, either stunned or perhaps even dead, before the ship lurched again and a wave carried his body over the rail.
There were a couple of dozen men either at the rail or clinging to the side of the barbette. Giles saw the guns of the 4” battery were all askew, and the deck beyond sloping down into the sea.
‘Well lads, who’s for a swim?’, he asked with a mock cheeriness to the assembled crowd.
‘F… off’, was the loudest of the replies, ‘she’s still afloat.’
She was still afloat, but some sixth sense told Giles to follow the spirit of his shipmate’s suggestion. Lowering himself down on a loose line, he entered the water slowly, or as slowly as the urgency driven by his sense of fear permitted. There was plenty of floating debris aft, and he swam for it. A few moments later, he didn’t know what caused him to go under, probably a wave, but at that moment there was a thunderous bang in the water all around him, and even under the sea he saw the brilliant flash of an explosion from behind him. Objects began to splash into the water above his head, and he struggled to stay under, instinctive knowing that the debris-filled air would be more deadly than the sea. Then he felt his lungs start to burn, and he struggled even more vigorously to reach the surface. He burst above the sea, propelling himself almost half out of the water before crashing back and finding himself in a grey, acidic-tasting mist. He floated, trying to clear his eyes, and then shouted around.
There was no reply, and he looked around for something to hang onto. Quite what happened next, he was never able to recall, but he awoke lying on a canvas stretcher, with someone bending over him and speaking in English.
