Ninety years ago, the Royal Navy was New Zealand’s navy. When in 1909 Kiwi taxpayers funded a battlecruiser for the RN, they were buying a ship that was built for us, as well as for the people of the British Isles. Notwithstanding the growing sense of nationhood, New Zealanders in the years before WW1 recognised that their security lay ultimately with the Navy.
HMS New Zealand is our nation’s most direct link with Jutland. Today, tangible reminder of the ship can be seen in Auckland, Wellington and Christchurch. The New Zealand was the pride of our nation – ‘our’ new warship was lavished with gifts when she visited the Dominion in 1913. During her world tour she was proudly displayed as a symbol of the Royal Navy’s might, British industry, and of New Zealand’s nationhood – our country’s name proudly borne by one of the front line unite of the Navy that would defend the empire.
Why remember a naval battle that took place 90 years ago, on the other side of the world between ships of two nations that are today good friends?
The Battle of Jutland remains the highlight of WWI at sea. Fighting the Great War required four years of naval operations that, among other achievements:
- conveyed New Zealand troops safely to the far side of the world
- enabled enemy Pacific territories to be taken into our control
- Defended our shipping world-wide.
In 1914 there were perhaps a few hundred New Zealanders already serving in the Royal Navy. Others, such as Lt Cdr Sanders VC, joined the Navy after the war began. In 1916 the British also recruited nearly two hundred New Zealand yachtsmen and motor mechanics to help man the RN’s rapidly- growing patrol fleet. Other Kiwis, attracted by the challenge of flight, joined the Royal Naval Air Service. One of the most senior New Zealanders in the Royal Navy at that time was Captain J.E.T. Harper RN; a navigation specialist, he conducted the naval staff analysis of the battle of Jutland that helped fuel the subsequent controversy about the British conduct of the battle.
But young New Zealanders also served in HMS New Zealand; three Kiwis were among the officers when the ship first commissioned[1]. Others who served on board included Lt. Robert Greening, GPO Quartermaster E. Fitzgerald and PO Allan Mclnnes (their medals are now in the collection of the RNZN Museum).
The Commander-in-Chief of the Grand Fleet, Admiral Sir John Jellicoe, had his own New Zealand connections; after advising on post-war naval defence for New Zealand, Australia, India and Canada, he became our Governor General (1920-1924). Additionally he served the NZ government as their adviser for the Geneva disarmament talks in 1927. Jellicoe is remembered today bystreet names in many of our towns, as well as Jellicoe Point on Lake Taupo.
New Zealander (later, Sir) Harold Gillies began his special interest in plastic surgery and restoring patients faces when the first burns casualties from Jutland came into his care at St Bartholomew’s Hospital in London. And every time we go to action stations today, our sailors’ carry a direct reminder of Jutland - anti-flash hoods and gloves became part of our action dress because of that battle.
One of our Sea Cadet units, TS CORNWELL (in Christchurch), is named after the Boy Seaman who won a VC in HMS Chester (one of 4 VCs won at Jutland). Artefacts from the battle can be found today in Te Papa, the Auckland War Memorial Museum (two of HMS New Zealand’s 4-inch guns guard the Cenotaph) and in the Canterbury Museum (which holds the Tiki worn by Captain Green during the battle) as well as in the Navy’s museum, Waitaki Boys’ High School has a remarkable Hall of Memories which includes furniture made from timber from New Zealand, and the Red Ensign she flew at the Battle of Dogger Bank, as well as the ‘bell from the battleship HMS Ajax and a muzzle cover (tompion) from HMS Tiger.
Three ships in the RNZN have carried the Battle honour ‘Jutland’: the cruisers Royalist and Black Prince and our frigate Canterbury. Today, our Navy has an ironic material connection with the battle; Blohm + Voss, designers and builders of five of the impressive battlecruisers of the German 1st Scouting Group, are the designers of today’s ANZAC-class frigates.
For the half century following WW1 the development of New Zealand’s naval forces was primarily influenced by the RN - as was also the case with the RAN and the Royal Canadian Navy. The lessons and controversies of the Battle of Jutland directly influenced how the Royal and Commonwealth navies fought WWII and shaped the ethos of our navies today.
But ultimately, Jutland is a human story: 60,000 British sailors and 45,000 German sailors were at sea on 31 May 1916. In ships the decisions of captains and admirals are paramount; thus histories of the battle inevitably focus on the Commanders-in-Chief and their Admirals, on both sides. They all bore tremendous responsibilities that day and their leadership continues to be a fruitful subject for study.
Yet in the inherent nature of naval warfare most men that day were in confined compartments behind armoured steel, focused on doing their duty for hours on end and dependent on the decision-making of just a few - their captain, navigator and gunnery officer Yet they all knew that death could come with little warning as armour-piercing shells crashed into their ship...the discipline and leadership demanded of all those men ought not be forgotten.
We will remember them.
Jutland: Outline of the Battle
There is a huge literature on this battle, and on the internet Google offers up over half a million links. This article aims to set the scene for the feature on HMS New Zealand that follows.
The North Sea was the battleground that could win or lose the war at sea for Britain. The British strategic dilemma was to entice the German High Seas Fleet out from behind their minefields with enough warning so the Grand Fleet could come south and engage. But in order to preserve their strength for the expected fleet engagement, the British could not afford to risk their battleships to attrition from U-Boats or minefields.
The German strategy was to achieve some attrition of the British battle squadrons by U-boats and mines: then their goal was to intercept a portion of the Grand Fleet and Win the subsequent engagement, thus reducing the British superiority in numbers.
But underlying German naval operations was their policy to preserve the High Seas Fleet as a deliberate bargaining tool in the expected post-war peace negotiations. And in addition, the Kaiser took a very personal pride in his fleet; he was unwilling for his Admirals to take any risks.
However the public on both sides had common popular expectations of an early climactic battle, On the British side politicians and the public did not realize that their naval blockade of Germany would be slow to take effect, On the German side the public did not know that the Admirals commanding the High Seas Fleet were under orders to avoid an all-out battle, In both countries, the apparent stalemate in the North Sea was unexpected.
From August1914 the Royal Navy conducted operations into the southern North Sea to attract a German response; conversely the German naval staff authorised a number of raids and coastal bombardments of Britain’s East coast in an effort to trap a portion of the Grand Fleet (see map above).
The British gained (thanks to the Russian Navy) access to the German Navy’s wireless code: from November 1914 they had the priceless advantage of reading German signal traffic.
It was a German plan to attack British merchant ships in the Skagerrak that led to the Battle of Jutland. The battle took place from 1400 May 31st until approx 0200 1st of June and the battle took place in three distinct phases:
- The battle cruiser action 1520- 1800
- The battlefleets’ engagement 1800-2100
- The night actions 2100-0200, 1 June
In the North Sea, after war broke out in August 1914, the first six months were busy, as the British Grand Fleet responded to German sorties. But it was also frustrating: in that time only two brief actions were fought, at Heligoland Bight and Dagger Bank. New Zealand took part in both actions, but neither had led to the main battlefleet getting to grips with the German ‘High Seas Fleet’.
In May 1916 New Zealand was flagship of Rear-Admiral William Pakenham, commanding the 2nd Battlecruiser Squadron: New Zealand and sister ship HMS Indefatigable. Normally HMAS Australia was the Squadron flagship, but in May 1916 she was in dockyard hands after New Zealand and Australia had collided in fog some weeks earlier. When Vice-Admiral Beatty’s Battle Cruiser Fleet weighed anchor in the late afternoon of 30 May to get underway from the Firth of Forth, many in the fleet expected just another routine patrol. In fact, British signals intelligence had forewarned of the German sortie.
Next day, at 1423 during a calm afternoon in the eastern North Sea off the coast of Denmark the Battle Cruiser Fleet went to action stations. Midshipman G.M. Eady in New Zealand later recalled. ‘The snottie-of-the-watch dashed in to inform us that HMS Galatea [a light cruiser] had sighted enemy ships and that we should be going to Action Stations in ten minutes time. Not knowing what this might lead to we made the most of that ten minutes stowing away as much food as possible!’
New Zealand’s action preparations included shipping a special steering wheel made of native timbers and inscribed with “Ake eke ake. Kia Kaha”. While on the bridge Captain John Green RN placed a ponamu tiki around his neck. He was supposed to also wear a piu piu (presented to the ship along with the tiki during the visit to NZ in 1913) but Midshipman Eady recalled the Captain was rather stout, ‘so he just kept it close to hand ready to put it on should things become too hot.’ (New Zealand also had the face of a Maori warrior painted on the foretop.)
Because the German naval ensign was rather similar to the British White Ensign, the Grand Fleet policy was that all British ships in action would hoist the Union Flag at the masthead: in New Zealand they also hoisted the NZ flag on the main mast.
When Beatty’s force sighted the German battlecruisers of Admiral Hipper’s 1st Scouting Group, Beatty ordered the 2nd BCS into line behind his four big battlecruisers. This placed New Zealand immediately astern of HMS Tiger, with Indefatigable astern. The force worked up to 25 knots. Midshipman Eady was in the Transmitting Station, where gun range was computed:
‘Ranges now began to come through from the range finders in the turrets and the fore top. The action so far as I and my assistant Snotty were concerned had begun. It was our job to mark ranges down on a large moving roIl of paper spread out on the table in front of us…by plotting the ranges we were able to determine at what rate the enemy was opening or closing on us’.
The German battlecruisers painted a pale gray blended against the overcast Sky to the east — the British overestimated the range and the Germans opened fire first. At 1545 the two lines of battlecruisers were moving fast about 9 miles apart ‘then began an ear-splitting stupefying din’ a German gunnery officer recalled. A British officer watched Beatty’s ships open fire in response: ‘They opened fire — it was the most glorious sight and I was tremendously thrilled.’
This was a main armament duel. In New Zealand the Marines assigned to the 4 secondary guns simply squatted on deck and played cards. In the stokeholds - New Zealand had 31 coal-fired boilers —there was little time to think: coal had to be shovelled in, coal skips refilled in the bunkers and hauled to the boiler face, trimmers had to reach into the furnaces and spread the blazing coals for efficient combustion. In the hot, dusty boiler rooms, their ships gunfire was registered only as a series of remote shocks.
New Zealand took SMS Moltke, second from rear of the German line, under fire. Looking ahead, they saw Tiger suffer 9 hits, two turrets were knocked out of action and the engine rooms filled with fumes. They also had to keep an eye on the flagship. HMS Lion was hit on Q turret: cordite charges flared and Beatty’s ship came within an ace of a magazine explosion.
New Zealand’s navigator described what it was like on the bridge:
‘The noise of our own salvoes and the shrieking of the enemy’s shells falling over or short and throwing up great sheets of spray, left one with little time to think of anything except the work in hand I personally was fully occupied in keeping station on the next ahead together with plotting our position on the chart, for we were being led by the flagship along a snake-like course.’
Lt. A. Boyle, the New Zealander from Christchurch who was turret officer of X turret, wrote later:
”When the enemy fires at you, you can see the dull red flash of their guns, then a cluster of dots getting bigger and bigger as they tear towards you…the only thing you can do is sit still and hope they wont hit you. Get somebody to throw heavy stones at you while you sit in a chair and see how you feel.’
Moments later the rearmost German ship, Von Der Tann proved her accuracy. A salvo of 11-inch shells landed on Indefatigable’s foc’sle, with at least one shell penetrating the turret and igniting the magazine. One watcher described how he:
‘Thought for an instant [she] had fired all her guns at once, as there was a much bigger flame, but the flame grew and grew until it was about 300 feet high, and the whole ship was hidden in a dense cloud of yellow brown smoke when it finally dispersed there was no sign of the ship.’
Only two survived from Indefatigable’s company of 1019.
New Zealand quickly shifted her fire to Von Der Tann. Coming up in support of the Battle Cruiser Force was the 5th Battle Squadron, four of the new, fast and heavily-armed Queen Elizabeth-class battleships. As they came within range and opened fire on the rear of the German line, New Zealand shifted fire back to Moltke. In the first hour of the fight, the six British ships had endured 44 direct hits; in return Beatty’s battlecruisers had scored only 11 hits, but the 5th Battle Squadron quickly gained more hits with their big 15” guns.
‘About this time,’ New Zealand’s narrative states, ‘X turret was hit by an 11” shell, which exploded against the glacis [the turret’s frontal armour] port side forward, filling the turret with thick yellow fumes, Considerable blast was felt in the centre sighting position and working chamber, but luckily no one was hurt. A piece of 9” armour was blown into the danger space but this did not impede the training of the turret.’ A large splinter from this hit pierced the armoured deck and smashed into the Engineers Workshop, smashing a grindstone, but without injuring the several personnel stationed there. After the battle other splinter damage was noted to boats, the ensign staff and to the silk Union Jack on the foremast.
But the Germans better shooting gained another spectacular victory; at 1626 salvos from two ships landed on HMS Queen Mary, 3rd inline:
‘Her centre turret blew up and this detonated every other explosive in the ship...the two explosions blended into one in less than no time...an enormous height of dull red flame was followed by a great mass of black smoke amongst which was wreckage blown in all directions.’
Tiger, then New Zealand, avoided the rapidly sinking wreck — some on board recalled the ‘blizzard of paper work venting out of her quarter deck hatch’. Others could hear the ‘sharp hiss of her gun barrels meeting the cold North Sea.’ There were just 14 survivors from a company of 1250.
The gunnery duel continued as both battle cruiser fleets raced southeast. Soon after 1630 a British cruiser reported the main German battlefleet in sight, within minutes the German fleet was also sighted from the British battlecruisers. Rear-Admiral Pakenham in New Zealand later wrote; ‘It had been constantly assumed that the German battlecruisers would never be found far from adequate support and thus no surprise was felt when their battlefleet was sighted.’ Moments later Beatty ordered a 16 point (180 degree) turn in succession by his four surviving battlecruisers — as the great ships followed around to steer to the NW, the lead squadron of the German battle fleet opened fire. New Zealand’s navigator commented that the German battleships ‘were an imposing sight ship after ship melting away into the haze, all showing white, it by the sun.’
Soon the battlecruisers drew out of range of the German battleships; Beatty’s task now was to draw them north towards the Grand Fleet’s massed battle squadrons, New Zealand’s gunnery officer, high in the foretop, watched as the 5th Battle Squadron ‘turned up on our starboard quarter, where they now took the brunt of the action, coming under very heavy fire from the German battlecruisers and the Battle Fleet.’
The focus of the battle turned to the clash of the battle fleets. Visibility was worsening as Beatty’s Battle Cruiser Fleet raced to take its place in the van of the British battle squadrons, clashing with the enemy battlecruisers again. It was then that the 3rd Battle Cruiser Squadron under Rear-Admiral Horace Hood in HMS Invincible came in to action against German light cruisers But Hood’s flagship was briefly illuminated through the mist and smoke, enough for the German battlecruisers to find her range. Accurately hit Invincible, too, blew up and sank — only 6 surviving of the 1032 on board. ‘The poor old Invincible went up with a roar; I didn’t see her, thank goodness’ Lt. A. Boyle recalled.
Meanwhile, Admiral Jellicoe, CinC of the Grand Fleet, deployed his battleships perfectly to ‘cross the T’ of the German fleet. Yet, in the patchy visibility and fading light, the British battle fleet had only fleeting glimpses of the enemy. Jellicoe’s deployment had been masterful, the German fleet turned away (twice) from the British battle line. This was the crux of the battle: for ninety minutes the German fleet manoeuvred frantically to get clear of the British. As night fell, Admiral Scheer, CinC of the High Seas Fleet, realised he could not afford to resume battle in the morning, instead he headed for Horns Reef and the entrance to their protective minefields. At this point Jellicoe had unquestionably won the strategic advantage, but the assumption was that he would turn it into a clear victory.
The battle was not over:
‘About 1910 the Grand Fleet appeared and relieved us a bit’, Lt. A. Boyle wrote. “We went on still having small actions with the Hun Battle Cruisers, and it was during these actions that I really did see some damage done. The action went on into the night, staring into the darkness expecting every minute to be attacked by their destroyers…’
It was a dark moonless night throughout that night there were dramatic clashes as the High Seas Fleet passed astern of the Grand Fleet, fighting through the British destroyer flotillas.
New Zealand and the surviving British battlecruisers steaming south and west of the main battlefleet were not involved in the night actions. But astonishingly Jellicoe was let down by his battleship captains: those who saw the German battlefleet so close astern failed to tell the Flagship. Thus the battle ended anti-climactically for the British: by dawn of 1 June, the Germans were clear to the east and the British battlefleet too far south to intercept them. The British were ready to fight again, but the German fleet had headed for harbour.
In day light the Grand Fleet sailed north, looking for stragglers and survivors. The sense of disappointment throughout the British fleet was palpable. From New Zealand
'the only signs of the enemy were hundreds of their drowned blue-jackets in their life saving waistcoats, floating near the great smears of oil and wreckage that marked the grave of some ship. At 1800 on June 1st we dispersed from action stations.., and returned to our base.'
The British had won a strategic victory but at a heavy cost. More British ships were sunk than German, although (as a small consolation) many more German ships had to spend longer time in dockyard hands under repair than for the British. New Zealand’s gunnery was notable in two aspects: she fired more heavy shells during the battle than any other British capital ship, 420 rounds of 12’ (305mm) shell. But she was credited with just 3 hits - the Mk X 12’ guns were known to be not so accurate as other naval guns - however, she achieved an overall faster rate of fire than the other battle cruisers.
After the battle, Vice-Admiral Beatty visited New Zealand, complimenting them for their part in the action:
'our escape with so little damage has been little short of miraculous. I hear you believe it is due to that tiki, which your Captain wears around his neck. Next time if you wish to be so lucky you had better see he puts the whole uniform on.'
And Lt. A. Boyle commented: ‘our sailors say the Maori’s face we have painted on our central top saved the ship If we painted it out now, I believe they would all mutiny.’
When news of the battle and New Zealand’s part, reached Wellington, Prime Minister Bill Massey sent a telegram to the ship:
‘New Zealand has just received the news of the prominent part taken by HMS New Zealand in the great naval battle off the Jutland coast. The whole Dominion is thrilled with pride at the conspicuous bravery and gallantry displayed by her officers and men. We rejoice that New Zealand was in the battle and played a magnificent part...Convey to all on board our salutations and best wishes.
Kia Ora.’
The Balance Sheet of Battle Ships Sunk: British German Battleships 1 Pre-Dreadnought Battlecruisers 3 1 Armoured Cruisers 3 Light Cruisers 4 Destroyers 8 5 Deaths 4769 2385 Ships Damaged Battleships 4 12 [2 Pre-Dreadnought] Battlecruisers 3 4 Light Cruisers 3 5 Destroyers 10 5 [1] See Navy Times 108 p. 42.