Night action at Jutland

[swift1914]

Fellow Pals

In the brief but ferocious night action shortly before midnight on 31st May 1916, between the 4th Destroyer Flotilla and the retreating 2nd(?) battle squadron, the destroyers Ambuscade and Garland were jointly credited with a succesful torpedo attack.

According to the account I have read the ship sunk was the Pommern. Is this correct?

If not which ship was it?

Swift

[egbert]

Hi swift,

"Pommern" was sunk at 03:10 "at dawn, when search lights where not necessary anymore" by boats of XII Flotilla; IV Flotilla first time attacked at 23:00 hrs with no results; second time at 0:30 hrs led by Tipperary with no results except that Tipperary was sunk and Spitfire badly damaged retreated to port; third attack by IV Flotilla led by Broke; Broke rammed own Sparrowhawk which also was rammed by Contest; Sparrowhawk sunk, Broke retreated damaged; light cruiser Rostok was torpedoed but managed to stay afloat and limped away; shortly thereafter Fortune burnt and retreated, two more destroyers burnt and had to break off, 01:30 Ardent was sunk; with that the IV Flotilla's fate was sealed...

[swift1914]

Thanks Egbert

In Jellicoe's official account though he has the destroyers Ambuscade and Garland inflicting severe damage with torpedo's on German ships between 23.30 and 00.20 approximately. If it was'nt the Pommern was it the Westfalen(?) which I believe suffered damage to the bridge and superstructure with loss of life.

I was also under the impression that Tipperary and Ardent were lost earlier than 00.30 in this exchange.

Swift

[egbert]

swift,

the only damage IV Flotilla could achieve that night was at occasion of last attack:

""Westphalen" opened fire on "Fortune". The first salvo destroyed the bridge; after 28 sec the destroyer is engulfed in flames. the next 2 destroyers have to steer away, burning, by fire from "Rheinland","Posen", "Oldenburg" and"Helgoland". Their torpedos miss, but a grenade hits the upper searchlight of "Oldenburg". the grenade killed 7 men, wounded 15, amongst them the Commandant, Captain z.S. Hoepfner..."

All my quotes are from Marinearchiv, Der Nordseekrieg, 1931

[swift1914]

It is interesting to compare different versions of the same event.

From Jellicoe's own acount published in 1919 presumably from Admiralty records, and I quote;

" It was during these attacks that severe losses in the fourth flotilla occurred, including that of Tipperary with the gallant leader of the flotilla, Captain Wintour. He had brought his flotilla to a high pitch of perfection, and although suffering severely from the fire of the enemy, a heavy toll of enemy vessels was taken and many gallant actions were performed by the flotilla.

Two torpedoes were seen at least to take effect on enemy vessels as the result of the attacks of the Fourth Flotilla, one being from Spitfire(Lieutenant-Commander Clarence W.E. Trelawny), and the other one from either Ambuscade(Lieutenant-Commander Gordon A. Coles) or Garland(Lieutenant-Commander Reginald S. Goff)"

Jellicoe reported that Spitfire's torpedo had hit a four-funnelled enemy cruiser. So the next question is which was the likely target(Oldenburg?) for the second successful hit fired by Ambuscade/Garland?

Swift

[KONDOA]

Sundown was at 8 o'clock BST on 31st May.

I found theattached extract regarding the night time.