Battle of Dogger Bank (1915)

Infobox Military Conflict
conflict=Battle of Dogger Bank
partof=the First World War


caption=The sinking SMS "Blücher" rolls over onto her side
date=24 January 1915
place=Dogger Bank, North Sea
result=British tactical victory
combatant1=
combatant2=
commander1=David Beatty
commander2=Franz von Hipper
strength1=5 battlecruisers
7 light cruisers
35 destroyersCampbell, 6]
strength2=3 battlecruisers
1 armoured cruiser
4 light cruisers
18 destroyers
casualties1=1 battlecruiser out of action
1 destroyer out of action
15 killed
32 woundedCampbell, 8]
casualties2=1 armoured cruiser sunk
1 battlecruiser heavily
damaged
954 killed
80 wounded
189 captured

The Battle of Dogger Bank was a naval battle fought near the Dogger Bank in the North Sea on 24 January 1915, during the First World War, between squadrons of the British Grand Fleet and the German High Seas Fleet.

Decoded radio intercepts had given the British advance knowledge that a German raiding squadron was heading for Dogger Bank, so they dispatched their own naval forces to intercept it. The British found the Germans at the expected time and place; surprised, the smaller and slower German squadron fled for home. During a stern chase lasting several hours, the British slowly caught up with the Germans and engaged them with long-range gunfire. The British disabled the rear German ship, but the Germans put the British flagship out of action with heavy damage. Due to a signalling mixup, the remaining British ships broke off pursuit of the fleeing enemy force to sink the one disabled German. By the time this had been done, the German squadron had escaped; all the remaining German vessels returned safely to harbour, though some had heavy damage requiring extended repairs.

The British flagship made it back to port but was out of action for several months. Since the British lost no ships and suffered few casualties, while the Germans lost a ship and most of its crew, the action was considered a British victory. Both Britain and Germany soon replaced commanders who were thought to have shown poor judgement, and both navies made some changes to equipment and procedures in response to problems perceived during the battle.

The rival squadrons

Britain

1st Battlecruiser Squadron: "HMS Lion", "HMS Tiger" and "HMS Princess Royal".

2nd Battlecruiser Squadron: "HMS New Zealand" and "HMS Indomitable".

1st Light Cruiser Squadron: four light cruisers.

Harwich Force: three light cruisers and thirty-five destroyers.

Germany

1st Scouting Group: "SMS Seydlitz", "SMS Moltke", "SMS Derfflinger" and "SMS Blücher".

2nd Scouting Group: four light cruisers.

Two flotillas of eighteen torpedo boats combined.

Background

With the German battle fleet effectively bottled up by Admiral Beatty's success at Heligoland Bight, German Admiral Friedrich von Ingenohl, Commander-in-Chief of the German fleet, decided to launch a raid on the British East coast with Admiral Franz von Hipper's battlecruiser squadron, comprising three battlecruisers and one large armoured cruiser, supported by light cruisers and destroyers. Hipper's force shelled the towns of Scarborough, Whitby, and Hartlepool starting at 8 a.m. 16 December 1914, killing 108 civilians and wounding 525. British public and political reaction was outrage that German warships could sail so close to the British coast, shelling coastal towns with apparent impunity; British naval forces had failed to prevent the attacks, and also failed to intercept Hipper's raiding squadron afterwards. (Though the British fleet was at sea hunting Hipper after the raid, the Germans escaped in stormy weather, aided by low visibility and British communication problems.) [Campbell, 5] [Massie, 319-328]

Buoyed by the success of the raid, Admiral Hipper resolved to repeat the exercise by attacking the British fishing fleet on the Dogger Bank, midway between Germany and Britain, the following month. But through intercepted German radio traffic decoded by Room 40 of British Naval Intelligence, the British learned of Hipper's planned sortie on 23 January. Acting Vice Admiral Beatty set sail from Rosyth with five battlecruisers, supported by four light cruisers, to attempt to trap Hipper's force. Joined by additional cruisers and destroyers from Harwich, Beatty headed south, encountering Hipper's screening vessels at the Dogger Bank at 7:05 a.m. on the morning of 24 January. The day was clear and visibility conditions were unusually good.

Battle

Sighting the smoke from a large approaching force, Hipper headed southeast by 7:35 to escape, but Beatty's ships were faster than the German squadron, which was held back by the slower armoured cruiser SMS "Blücher" and by Hipper's coal-fired torpedo boats. By 8:00, Hipper's battlecruisers were sighted from Beatty's flagship HMS "Lion". The older battlecruisers of the British 2nd Battlecruiser Squadron lagged somewhat behind the 1st Battlecruiser Squadron. Chasing the Germans from a position astern and to starboard of Hipper's force, the British ships gradually caught up, some reaching speeds of 27 knots, and closed to gun range. Beatty chose to approach from this direction because the prevailing wind then blew the British ships' smoke clear, allowing them a good view of the enemy, while Hipper's gunners were partially blinded by funnel and gun smoke blowing in the direction of their targets. "Lion" opened fire at 8:52, at an extreme range of 20,000 yards. Other British ships opened as they came within range, while the Germans were unable to reply until 09:11 due to the shorter range of their guns.Campbell, 7] No warships had ever before engaged at such long ranges or at such high speeds, and gunnery challenges for both sides were therefore unprecedented. Nevertheless, after a few salvos the British had straddled "Blücher". [Massie, 388-389] The British fire was concentrated on two of the German ships, Hipper's flagship battlecruiser SMS "Seydlitz" at the head of the line and the old "Blücher" at the rear. With five British ships to the German four, Beatty intended that his two rear ships, HMS "New Zealand" and HMS "Indomitable", should engage "Blücher", while his leading three engaged their opposite numbers. But Captain H.B. Pelly of the newly commissioned battlecruiser HMS "Tiger" assumed that two ships should concentrate on the leading German ship and engaged the "Seydlitz", leaving SMS "Moltke" unmolested to fire at "Lion". Worse, "Tiger"’s fire was ineffective as she mistook "Lion"’s shell splashes for her own (when her shots were actually falling 3,000 yards beyond "Seydlitz"). [Massie, 392]

At 09:43 "Seydlitz" was hit by a 13.5-inch shell from "Lion", which penetrated her after turret barbette and caused an ammunition fire in the working chamber. This fire spread rapidily through one compartment after another, igniting ready propellant charges all the way to the magazines, and knocked out both rear turrets with the loss of 165 men. [Massie, 393-394] [Campbell, 373-374] Only the prompt action of the executive officer in flooding the magazines saved the "Seydlitz" from a massive magazine explosion that would have destroyed the ship. Supposedly the sailor Wilhelm Heidkamp saved the ship, when he desperately opened the glowing valves although he burnt his hands and his lungs. He never recovered from his severe injuries and died a few years later. The "Kriegsmarine" named a destroyer after him. Later in the battle (at 10:41) "Lion" narrowly escaped a similar disaster when a German shell hit the forward turret and ignited a smaller ammunition fire which, fortunately for the British, was extinguished before it caused catastrophe. [Massie, 397]

At 10:30, "Blücher" was hit by a shell from "HMS Princess Royal" which caused an ammunition fire and boiler room damage, reducing her speed to 17 knots. As a result, "Blücher" fell further and further behind the rest of the German force. "Indomitable" was ordered to intercept her. The British ships were still relatively unscathed until at 10:18 SMS "Derfflinger" hit "Lion" with several 12-inch shells, damaging her engines and causing flooding so that "Lion" began to lag behind. Half an hour later, taking on water and listing to port, "Lion" had to stop her port engine and reduce speed to 15 knots, and was soon out of action, having already been hit 14 times. [Massie, 396-397] Meanwhile Hipper, running low on ammunition, made the difficult decision to leave the disabled "Blücher" to her fate, in order to save his remaining damaged ships. [Massie, 403]

Nevertheless, the annihilation of the German squadron appeared likely to the pursuing British, until at 10:54 Beatty, believing he saw a submarine’s periscope on "Lion"’s starboard bow, ordered a sharp turn of 90 degrees to port to avoid a submarine trap. (It is possible that the "periscope" was actually a surfacing, run-out torpedo which had been launched 15 minutes earlier by the German destroyer "V5"). At 11:02, realizing that so sharp a turn would open the range too much, Beatty ordered ‘Course NE’ to limit the turn to 45 degrees, and then added ‘Engage the enemy’s rear’, in an attempt to clarify his intention that his other ships, which had now left "Lion" far behind, should pursue Hipper's main force. With "Lion"'s electric generators out of commission, Beatty could only signal using flag hoists, and both these signals were flown at the same time.Massie, 398-401]

But the combination of the signal of ‘Course NE’ (which happened to be the direction of the "Blücher") with the signal to engage the rear was misunderstood by Beatty’s second-in-command, Rear-Admiral Archibald Moore on "New Zealand", as an order for all the battlecruisers to finish off the cripple. Therefore the remaining British battlecruisers broke off the pursuit of the fleeing German squadron and rounded on "Blücher". Most of the British light cruisers and destroyers also attacked "Blücher". Beatty tried to correct this obvious misunderstanding by using Nelson's order 'Engage the enemy more closely', but this order was not in the signal book, so he chose 'Keep nearer to the enemy' as the closest equivalent. But by the time this signal was hoisted, Moore's ships were too far away to read Beatty's flags, and the correction was not received.

Despite the overwhelming odds, "Blücher" fought stubbornly to the end. "Blücher" managed to put the British destroyer "Meteor" out of action and scored two hits on the British battlecruisers with her 8.2-inch guns, but was pounded into a burning wreck by approximately 50 British shells. Finally, struck by two torpedoes from the light cruiser "Arethusa", "Blücher" capsized and sank at 12:13 with the loss of 792 men. British efforts to rescue survivors in the water were interrupted by the arrival of the German zeppelin "L-5", and by a German seaplane which attacked with small bombs. No damage was done, but the British ships, which were sitting targets while stopped in the water for rescue, put on speed and withdrew to avoid further aerial attack. [Massie, 407]

By this time Hipper had escaped; his ships were now too far away for the British to catch again. Beatty had lost control of the battle, and he perceived that the opportunity of an overwhelming victory had been lost; the Admiralty would soon reach the same conclusion. However, in light of what happened later at Jutland, where the British battlecruisers were shown to be highly vulnerable to ammunition fires and magazine explosions following hits on gun turrets, it is possible that if Moore's three fast battlecruisers had pursued Hipper's remaining three (leaving the slower "Indomitable" behind as Beatty intended), the British might actually have been at a disadvantage and might have got the worst of it. The "Blücher" demonstrated the ability of the German ships to absorb great punishment; all of Hipper's remaining ships were larger, faster, more modern, more heavily armed, and far better armoured than "Blücher". Setting aside the one-sided action in which the already-disabled "Blücher" was sunk, the Germans out-scored the British by over three to one, registering a total of 22 heavy-caliber hits (16 on "Lion" and 6 on "Tiger"), against the British total of just 7 hits. This decisive dominance of German gunnery could have cost the British dearly if they had pursued Hipper, three ships to three.

Aftermath

The "Lion" had to be towed back to port by "Indomitable" at 10 knots, a long and dangerous voyage in which both battlecruisers were exposed to potential submarine attacks. Therefore, an enormous screen of over fifty ships was assigned to guard "Lion" and "Indomitable" as they crept home. Both reached port safely. The disabled "Meteor" was also towed home. "Lion" was so badly damaged that she was out of action for four months. All the surviving German ships reached port, though "Seydlitz" was heavily damaged and had to go into drydock for repairs. [Massie, 404, 410-413]

Although the Germans initially believed that "Tiger" had been sunk (because of a large fire that had been seen on her decks) it was soon clear to them that the battle was a serious reverse. Kaiser Wilhelm issued an order that all further risks to surface vessels were to be avoided. Admiral von Ingenohl, commander of the High Seas Fleet, was replaced by Admiral Hugo von Pohl. The Germans took the lessons of the battle to heart, particularly the damage to the "Seydlitz", which revealed flaws in the protection of her magazines and dangerous ammunition-handling procedures. Some of these issues were corrected in Germany’s battleships and battlecruisers in time for the Battle of Jutland the following summer. [Campbell, 374] Although the Germans realized that the appearance of the British squadron at dawn was too remarkable to be mere coincidence, they concluded that an enemy agent near their base in the Jade Bay was responsible, and did not suspect that their wireless codes had been compromised. [Massie, 423-424]

Although the battle was not greatly consequential in itself, it boosted British morale.But while the Germans learned their lessons, the British did not. The unfortunate Rear-Admiral Moore was quietly replaced, but Beatty’s flag lieutenant (responsible for hoisting Beatty's two commands on one flag hoist, thereby allowing them to be read as one) remained. Signalling on board the "Lion" would again be poor in the first hours of Jutland, with serious consequences for the British. Nor did the battlecruisers learn their lesson about fire distribution, as similar targeting errors were made at Jutland. [Massie, 413-415]

Notes

References

*cite book |last=Bennett |first=Geoffrey |authorlink=Geoffrey Bennett |title=Naval Battles of the First World War |year=1968 |location=London
*cite book |last=Campbell |first=John |title=Jutland: An Analysis of the Fighting |year=1998 |publisher=Lyons Press |isbn=1-55821-759-2
*cite book |last=Corbett |first=Sir Julian S. |authorlink=Julian Corbett |title=Naval Operations, Volume II |series=Official History of the War |location=London |year=1922
*cite book |last=Gordon |first=Andrew |authorlink=Andrew Gordon (naval historian) |title=The Rules of the Game - Jutland and British Naval Command |isbn=0-7195-5542-6
*cite book |last=Marder |first=Arthur J. |authorlink=Arthur Marder |title=Volume II |series=From the Dreadnought to Scapa Flow |publisher=Oxford University Press |year=1965
*cite book |last=Massie |first=Robert K. |authorlink=Robert Massie |title= |year=2003 |publisher=Random House |isbn=0-345-40878-0

External links

* [http://www.worldwar1.co.uk/dogger-bank.html Battle of Dogger Bank]