{"id":950,"date":"2013-07-04T18:08:49","date_gmt":"2013-07-04T22:08:49","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/njipms.org\/?page_id=950"},"modified":"2013-07-04T18:10:39","modified_gmt":"2013-07-04T22:10:39","slug":"with-the-battlecruisers-by-filson-young","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"http:\/\/njipms.org\/?page_id=950","title":{"rendered":"With the Battle Cruisers, by Filson Young"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"withRe-published 2002 by Birlin Limited
\nReview by Martin J Quinn
\nThis article originally appeared on Modelwarshps.com<\/em><\/p>\n

Alexander Bell Filson Young, the son of a Church of Ireland clergyman, was a leading British journalist in the years before World War I, who traveled in the same circles as Winston Churchill and Fred Jane (founder of Jane\u2019s Fighting Ships). His political connections led him to meet Admiral Jacky Fisher and then Admiral David Beatty. It was these connections that were to land him a commission as a Lieutenant with the \u201cRoyal Naval Volunteer Reserve\u201d and a spot on David Beatty\u2019s staff from November 1914 to April 1915, while Beatty was commanding the Battle Cruiser force.<\/p>\n

Young makes it sound like Beatty wanted him with the battlecruisers \u2013 in fact Lady Beatty encouraged him to worm his way onto the staff \u2013 but the James Goldrick writes in the introduction just the opposite was true. Regardless, Young got himself appointed to Beatty\u2019s staff and landed on HMS Lion, Beatty\u2019s flagship, in November 1914. He ended up with an assignment in the radio room, analyzing radio reports.<\/p>\n

The first few chapters deal with Young\u2019s impressions of the Royal Navy, especially in the way the commands at sea dealt with the Admirality, and how he came to be posted on Lion, which was based with the 1st and 2nd battlecruiser Squadrons at Rosyth.<\/p>\n

Young\u2019s book details many facets of life \u201cwith the battlecruisers\u201d. One chapter tells how the 1st and 2nd Battlecruiser Squadrons, along with the Harwich force, narrowly missed catching the German Battlecruisers that participated in the bombardment of the town of Hartlepool on December 16, 1914. Another tells of Christmas onboard the HMS Lion, and how Beatty and his staff went to each and every mess \u2013 officers and crew alike \u2013 to see the decorations and encourage the crew.<\/p>\n

One of the most interesting parts of the book is a section in one chapter, entitled \u201cClosing \"seydlitz\"<\/a>the Land\u201d. It describes what it was like on the great ship as she returned to port in the dark of night. How the ship felt, what sounds he heard, what is was like to be standing on the bridge in the dark of night, with the rush of the wind and the stars in the sky. This part of the book was so well written that I almost found myself on the bridge of the Lion with Young, tugging at my cap and pulling my jacket close to ward off the chill of a winters night on the North Sea.<\/p>\n

In January 1915, the British intercepted and decoded a German signal that their battlecruisers were coming out of their lair to raid the English coast again. This time, the British meant to stop them. From Rosyth sailed the 1st and 2nd Battlecruiser Squadrons under Beatty. Also joining in the search was the \u201cHarwich force\u201d. Early in the morning of January 24, 1915 British and German light forces stumbled into each other by the North Sea shoal known as \u201cDogger Bank\u201d.<\/p>\n

The German force \u2013 consisting of the battlecruisers Seydlitz, Moltke, Derfflinger, the armored cruiser Bl\u00fccher and accompanying light forces \u2013 was under the overall command of Vice-Admiral Hipper. Once Hipper realized that British heavy units were on scene, he turned and hightailed it back towards the Jade Estuary. Unfortunately for Hipper, those heavy units were not the slower battleships, but the faster battlecruisers, and a chase quickly developed.<\/p>\n

Young \u2013 with no battle station \u2013 made his way up to the Lion\u2019s forward tripod mast into her spotting top and had a ringside seat for the action.<\/p>\n

\"bclion\"<\/a>Beatty\u2019s faster battlecruisers \u2013 Lion, Princess Royal and the brand new Tiger \u2013 were able to close with the German squadron and engage in a long range gunnery duel. Bl\u00fccher was hit repeatedly and began to slow. Beatty ordered that his ships engage the corresponding German ship, but due to a mistake on the Tiger , the Moltke was left unmolested (a similar mistake would haunt the British at Jutland) to concentrated her fire on Lion. Seydlitz and Derfflinger also concentrated on Lion, and soon the \u201cSplendid Cat\u201d lost power and fell out of line. An attempt to signal his remaining forces to close with the German battlecruisers was misread so that Admiral Moore \u2013 commanding the 2nd BC squadron in New Zealand and now officer in charge with Lion and Beatty out of the action \u2013 turned the entire British force to pound the battered and doomed Bl\u00fccher into submission. Due to this error, the rest of the German force \u2013 including the damaged Seydlitz \u2013 was able to escape.<\/p>\n

With Lion out of the fight, Beatty switched his flag to a destroyer and then transferred to Princess Royal. Meanwhile, Indomitable took Lion under tow and brought her back to port\u2026which the editor points out was quite a feat of seamanship.<\/p>\n

Young tells this whole tale from his own vantage point as well as using dispatches from Beatty during the course of battle. He descended from the foremast with bloody ears \u2013 from the concussion of the Lion’s main guns \u2013 covered in cordite smoke, but none the worse for the wear.<\/p>\n

He also details how the British \u2013 while scoring a victory \u2013 let a spectacular victory slip away. Moore \u2013 who mistaken concentrated on Bl\u00fccher and let the rest of the German\u2019s escape \u2013 was transferred out of the battlecruiser squadron. Captain Pelly of the Tiger was \"battlecruisers\"<\/a>criticized for confusing Lions shell splashes for those of Tiger and therefore not scoring many hits. Finally, Young shows how the Admiralty took Beatty\u2019s original report and changed it to alter the public perception of the battle.<\/p>\n

The last part of the book is probably the weakest. In it, Young talks about the Navy and it\u2019s short comings in the war and ways to improve it. Written in the early 1920\u2019s, those thoughts were pertinent then, but I was hard pressed to keep my interest in this section.<\/p>\n

Overall, the book was a very interesting read and a uncensored look into the war at sea in the early stages at World War one. I highly recommend it to anyone interested in the war at sea during the First World War, especially from the British side.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Re-published 2002 by Birlin Limited Review by Martin J Quinn This article originally appeared on Modelwarshps.com Alexander Bell Filson Young, the son of a Church of Ireland clergyman, was a leading British journalist in the years before World War I, … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"parent":569,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-950","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/P3mIjh-fk","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/njipms.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/950","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/njipms.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/njipms.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/njipms.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/njipms.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=950"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/njipms.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/950\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":957,"href":"http:\/\/njipms.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/950\/revisions\/957"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/njipms.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/569"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/njipms.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=950"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}