Taken from “Warships and Sea Battles of World War I” (Bernard
Fitzsimons, Ed. London: BPC Publishing Ltd. 1973. ISBN 0-517-130912).

Edward Wittenberg
ewitten507@aol.com

Closing at 28 knots

Settling down to a steady pursuit and increasing speed, Beatty sent the
fast ‘M’ class destroyers ahead to report on the exact strength of his
opponent. By 0845 hours, despite the shelling which the destroyers
encountered as they closed to within 9.000 yards of the Blucher, the
composition of the German force was clear. It was also clear by then
that Beatty’s ships had the edge as regards speed and were gradually
closing up to the German battle-cruisers. The British ships reached 25
knots. increased to 26 and then met Beatty’s demand for 27 knots,
although the Indomitable slowly began to be outpaced. Beatty afterwards
stated that at one point his ships had reached the almost incredible
speed of 28.5 knots, and indeed even the ‘M’ class destroyers found it
hard work later to move ahead of the battle-cruisers.

As a result of these high speeds the Lion drew to within 20,000
yards of the Blucher shortly after 0900 hours and then commenced
firing at a range hitherto had been considered impossible; (the
experimental maximum in 1914 had been 16,000 yards). Shortly afterwards
the Tiger and Princess Royal were also able to open fire on the Blucher,
which began to suffer from this concentrated fire. Soon the German
battle-cruisers, echeloned to enable all four of them to return the fire
from their starboard side, were answering vigorously although greatly
inconvenienced by the smoke from the English destroyers to the
north-east.

Naturally enough the rearmost German and the foremost English
vessels attracted the most attention and suffered as a consequence. The
Lion, Tiger and Princess Royal, swinging slightly to starboard, brought
their after turrets into action and began to damage the Blucher
seriously with regular salvoes. At the third salvo the German vessel was
hit on the water-line and had her speed reduced; and at the fourth,
explosions shattered the after superstructure and two turrets, killing or
injuring over 200 sailors. The Lion, being the nearest English ship and
the one surrounded by least smoke, also took punishment. At 0928 hours
she received a hit on her water-line, which penetrated the bunkers.
Hammocks, mess-stools and anything else available were quickly used to
make good the damage and the Lion steamed ahead unhindered, but
Beatty was getting worried about the Germans’ concentration on his
ship. At 0935 hours therefore, seeing that the New Zealand had come
within range of the Blucher and was engaging her, Beatty gave the
order to fire at opposite numbers.

Consequently, while the New Zealand continued to pound away at
the Blucher, the Lion shifted her fire to Hipper’s flagship Seydlitz and
the third English vessel, Princess Royal, turned upon the third German
battle-cruiser, the Derfflinger. However, the commander of the Tiger,
Captain Pelly, who had begun to direct his ship’s fire upon the Seydlitz
a few minutes earlier, continued to shoot at this target in the belief
that Indomitable was by then engaging Blucher. Thinking that the rear
three ships of the opposing battle-lines were respectively firing at each
other, Pelly felt that his task was to assist the Lion in crippling the
German flagship. Though sound enough in theory this idea failed in
practice because the Indomitable was still not within reach of the
Blucher. This meant that with the existing dispositions the second
German battle-cruiser, Moltke, was able to lob salvo after salvo
undisturbed at Lion.

Beatty had therefore failed to divert any of the German fire from
himself and all three battle-cruisers continued to shoot at his flagship.
At first this did not appear to be so serious a matter since it was the
English ships who were handing out the punishment. The Lion’s salvoes
had found Seydlitz almost at once, from a range of some 17,500 yards,
and a 13.5-inch shell penetrated the working chamber of the rearmost
turret. The flames roared downwards threatening the turret magazine
and then along towards the magazine of the adjacent turret. The
ammunition in transit exploded and killed 159 men, put both after
turrets out of action and sent flames shooting up high above the ship.
Only the action of the executive officer, who promptly flooded both
magazines, avoided the explosion of the stored ammunition and the
probable destruction of the battle-cruiser. Moreover, far at the rear of
the German line, Blucher was also taking a battering and slowly
dropping further back.