Battle of Dogger Bank

Keep Nearer the Enemy

—signal hoisted in H.M.S. Lion

The Battle of Dogger Bank was a naval battle fought in the North Sea on 24 January, 1915.

Plans

On 23 January 1915 the British Grand Fleet under Admiral Sir John Jellicoe had 18 dreadnoughts ready at Scapa Flow and the eight pre-dreadnoughts of the Third Battle Squadron and five battlecruisers at Rosyth in the Firth of Forth. The battlecruisers had been moved there from Cromarty after the German raid on the north east coast on 16 December 1914 so that they could respond more quickly to future attacks.

Jellicoe thought that his margin over the German High Seas Fleet was too narrow. It had 17 dreadnoughts, 22 pre-dreadnoughts and four battlecruisers. There were other British pre-dreadnoughts in the Channel Fleet, but these were not under his command.

Jellicoe always counted the number of ships that he had actually available, excluding those under repair or refit or newly built ones that we not fully worked up. He assumed that the Germans would not come out unless they were at full strength, which proved not to be the case.

The British battlecruisers, commanded by Vice Admiral Sir David Beatty, had recently carried out a sweep into the Helgoland Bight, but had not encountered the enemy. They returned to base on 20 January 1915.

The Germans planned an operation of their own for 23 January. The battlecruisers of Konteradmiral Franz Hipper's 1st Scouting Group of three battlecruisers and the armoured cruiser S.M.S. Blücher, the four light cruisers of the 2nd Scouting Group and two flotillas totalling of 18 torpedo boats would carry out a reconnaissance towards Dogger Bank.

Admiral Friedrich von Ingenohl, commander of the High Seas Fleet, wrote in an after action report that:

'The intention was to make an extended destroyer advance with cruiser support, in order to clear the course to the Dogger Bank of trawlers employed in enemy service, and, if fortune were favourable, to surprise light forces on patrol.'

He was reluctant to carry out such an operation at a time when the rest of the High Seas Fleet was not in a state of preparedness to support it. However, he agreed because he assumed that the Grand Fleet would be in port coaling, as it had carried out a sweep of the North Sea on 19 January.

The Germans had begun to realise that the British had accurate intelligence on their movements, but did not suspect that it came from reading coded German signals. They believed instead that British trawlers were responsible.

A 1922 German analysis of the Battle of Dogger Bank states that it the war it had then 'only recently transpired' that the Russians had recovered the code books of the German light cruiser S.M.S. Magdeburg in August 1914 and shared them with their allies.

The British intelligence slightly over estimated the strength of Hipper's force at four battlecruisers, six light cruisers and 22 torpedo boats. Jellicoe's assumption that the Germans would come out only when all their ships were available was wrong, since the battlecruiser S.M.S. Von der Tann was in dry dock. This was for a routine overhaul, and the story that she was being repaired after colliding with another warship during the Cuxhaven Raid by British seaplanes is wrong: it came from prisoners taken at Dogger Bank who either lied to mislead the enemy or else repeated false gossip.

Gunnery

In a 1919 Naval Staff précis of naval gunnery during the war, it was claimed that, "From a gunnery point of view the outstanding feature of this battle was that the British battle cruisers commenced to hit their opponents at 19,000 yds."

Lion and Princess Royal started their fire with individual shots while still out of range, in hopes of immediately discovering when the limits of firing range were met. Upon crossing the target, Lion fired salvoes from "A" and "B" . Princess Royal did as well, after ten minutes of single shot fire.

Tiger used her director for the first 90 minutes until the firing circuit was cut off by a breaker thrown by an enemy shell strike, which forced a resort to gunlayer firing after three director missfires. This experience prompted the decision to fit auxiliary firing circuits in all ships.

The ships reports the following expenditures of ammunition and materiel failures.

Lion fired 243 rounds. Her "A" turret was hit. The right gun was never put out of action, but the left gun was not ready for use until two hours later. "B" turret had only a very slight delay due to choked vents. In one case, a gun had to be depressed in order to get it to run out in reasonable time.

Princess Royal fired 271 rounds. Her "A" turret sheared a pin which caused a flash door to become inoperative. A run in and out cylinder's drain opened due to vibration. A training pinion jammed the turret, putting it out of action for 10 minutes. A similar failing in "Q" was put right immediately.

Tiger fired 355 rounds. "Q" turret was hit on the roof. Small problems only elsewhere. New Zealand fired 139 rounds and Indomitable 136 without serious breakdowns or delays.

British Torpedoes

The Royal Navy quantised its use of torpedoes during the action thusly, with target inclinations and speeds noted.

• 11:00am, Miranda fired a torpedo from 5,500 yards with 135R and 20 knot target, securing a hit under the bridge.
• 11:20am, Tiger fired a torpedo from 6,000 yards with 96L and 10 knot target speed, securing a hit under fore funnel.
• 11:20am, Tiger fired a torpedo from 6,000 yards with 96L and 0 knot target speed and 10 knots on director, missing ahead.
• 11:30am, Arethusa fired a high speed torpedo from 1,600 yards at 90L and 5 knots, hitting under fore turret.
• 11:30am, Arethusa fired a high speed torpedo from 1,600 yards at 90L and 5 knots, hitting the engine room.
• at 11:30am, Mentor fired three torpedoes, claiming one hit.

See Also

• Wikipedia

Bibliography

• Admiralty, Gunnery and Torpedo Division (July, 1919). Progress in Naval Gunnery, 1914-1918. C.B. 902. The National Archives. ADM 186/238.
• Bennett, Geoffrey (1974). Naval Battles of the First World War. London: Pan Books Ltd.
• Committee of Imperial Defence. German Navy and Sources of Material. Dogger Bank Action, 1915. Miscellaneous Reports from German Sources. The National Archives. [CAB 45/283][1].
• Committe of Imperial Defence. German Navy and Sources of Material. Dogger Bank Action, 1915. Translation of German Account, by Commander Groos. The National Archives. [CAB 45/284][2].
• Corbett, Sir Julian S. (1921). Naval Operations. Volume II. London: Longmans, Green and Co..
• Goldrick, James (2015). Before Jutland: The Naval War in Northern European Waters, August 1914-February 1915. Annapolis: Naval Institute Press.
• Goldrick, James (1984). The King's Ships Were At Sea: The War in the North Sea August 1914–February 1916. Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press. ISBN 0-87021-334-2.
• Gordon, Andrew (1996). The Rules of the Game: Jutland and British Naval Command. London: John Murray.
• Layman, RD (1985). The Cuxhaven Raid: The World's First Carrier Air Strike. London: Conway Maritime Press.
• Marder, Arthur Jacob (1965). From the Dreadnought to Scapa Flow, The Royal Navy in the Fisher Era, 1904-1919: The War Years : To the Eve of Jutland.. Volume II. London: Oxford University Press.
• Naval Staff, Training and Staff Duties Division (1921). Naval Staff Monographs (Historical). Fleet Issue. Volume III. Monograph 6.—Passage of the British Expeditionary Force, August, 1914. Monograph 7.—The Patrol Flotillas at the Commencement of the War. Monograph 11.—The Battle of Heligoland Bight, August 28th, 1914. Monograph 8.—Naval Operations Connected with the Raid on the North-East Coast, December 16th, 1914. Monograph 12:—The Action of Dogger Bank, January 24th, 1915. O.U. 6181 (late C.B. 1585.). Copy No. 127 at The National Archives. ADM 186/610.