Letterstime - Ein Geleitzug: Homeward Bound? Part XXXIX
July 8, 1915
---- Helgoland, course 080, speed 15 knots
Helgoland had become a well-lighted target due partly
to her searchlights, but mostly due to 15-inch shells from Warspite and
Commander Boy aboard Queen Elizabeth.
With Marlborough directly abeam, Admiral Gaunt’s own ship now blocked
the line of sight of the other two British column leaders, and Colossus and
Vanguard had Rheinland as their target.
It seemed as though she would be granted a few minutes to deal with the
damage. Unfortunately for Helgoland, the
British gunners within Marlborough’s four remaining turrets remained
steadfastly in action despite the fact that their ship was literally being torn
to pieces around them.
Whannng-whanng!
Marlborough’s midships turret scored with both shots, hurling 1,400
pound shells deep into Helgoland’s midsection.
One struck directly upon the middle 150mm barrel, which had itself just
sent a shell into the British dreadnought’s casemates. Indeed, the shells had passed within meters
of each other in flight. The British
shell detonated within the casemate, completely destroying the three guns there
and all their crews. Great flames gushed
out Helgoland’s already riven flank.
High above, the shock whipped both superstructures about, with several
88mm gunners in the forward one thrown off entirely.
The other British shell struck higher, deeply
furrowing the casemate roof just above the forward gun and detonating against
the armored uptakes at the base of the forward stack. The resulting explosion perforated the armor,
blasting white-hot gas and shrapnel across the top of the engineering
compartment. The damage from this one
was mostly internal.
“Sir, rpm dropping on port shaft. Compensating with rudder.”
“Ahead flank, starboard and center shafts.”
The “cling-clink” setting of the ordered speed at the
engine order telegraph was matched within seconds.
“Sir, engineering has acknowledged.” The speaker hunched over the voice
tubes. “Sir, heavy casualties, steam,
reported in forward engineroom. Damage
teams have been dispatched.”
“Very well,” could they remain in Line? Thank Gott the admiral had them at just 15
knots! Could the engineer …. The kaptain did not get to finish his
question as the shock wave from the passage of another Marlborough shell
through the air just ahead buffeted the bridge, knocking him and several others
unconscious to the deck. (NOTE 1)
---- S.31, course 190, speed 16.5 knots
For a few minutes, Borys had thought they had
escaped. He had seen the Britisher begin
to pull out of formation and come after him, but the slashing rain had quickly
cut them from view. Instantly, he had
altered to almost due south.
Anxiously, they had all stared down their wake much
as a deer might gaze apprehensively down its back trail.
“Oh, Scheiß!”
Borys muttered, as a dim form showed and disappeared again to the
north-northwest. Other curses emerged
from other throats aboard the battered craft.
“Silence!” Borys hissed, the sibilance hoarse in his
throat. “Helm, come left – gently! –
course … 150.”
Borys and the others watched Undaunted casting around
for them as they fled like a snail to the south-southeast. The big Brit cruiser was far easier to see
than a torpedoboat with its stern carefully kept pointing towards her. At least, that was what Borys was
hoping. Where the enemy flotilla was he
could not be sure, but he guessed that the Britisher commander would keep them
all together lest they get hopelessly scattered in the weather. If he could think of a way to make them
disperse, he’d do it. Hell, the Brits
might do more damage to each other via friendly fire than he could ever hope to
achieve!
“Sir!”
The cruiser began to turn, putting its bow towards
them.
“I see it,” Borys answered. Ah, they had kept turning, aiming back
towards where their fleet must lie. The
British must have grown tired of the game, he thought, sagging back against the
smashed bulkhead in relief.
“Scheiß,” he muttered again, as splinters jabbed into
his back.
Actually, Undaunted’s CO had just been told of
DeRobeck’s wireless to Napier. His
admiral had just been ordered to attack the enemy Line. Dreadnoughts!
Nothing like that had been there when he’d hared off after a torpedoboat
singleton. Exclaiming words under his
breath that would have garnered sympathetic nods from the German commander he’d
just been stalking, the RN captain swung about and piled on knots to get back
to the battle.
After five minutes spent trying to come up with a
reason not to, and failing, Borys turned to follow.
---- Konig Albert, course 080, speed 15 knots
Kapitan zur See Robert Clemens von Aurich was also
less than excited. He could remember
having wanted a battle - the skirmish five days ago had hardly qualified. As he’d watched this one advance inexorably
towards him, however, he had felt his eagerness ebb. This was not the glorious sun-is-shining,
bands-a-playing duel of ordered fleets on the high seas, but an ugly and ad hoc
melee involving blindfolded men swinging axes in a small wet room.
The dreadnoughts astern in the Line were shooting at
something, and not with just their main guns, but with absolutely everything
that would bear to port and they were getting hammered in return. He had tried to stay within the bridge but
could not, no matter how many shells were flying. The visibility was rotten no matter what,
but the irregular streams of water across the line of sight from within made it
even worse. Out on the bridgewing, the
wind pushed and pulled at his wiry form as the rain pelted off his oilskins,
coursed down his neck soaking his uniform, and ran off the brim of his
cover. He was miserable, even more so
because he knew his XO was somewhere shedding water like some great and
glistening battle beaver. He could see
better out here, but not by much, and he finally gave up on his binoculars,
lowering them and trying just to gather an overall image.
The slight form of Stuttgart paced them, no more than
a thousand yards abeam. Her even smaller
charges bobbed in her wake like so many metal ducklings. Muzzle flashes sparkled occasionally and
ominously off his port afterquarter.
They were from Warspite and Queen Elizabeth, but he didn’t know
that. What he could see were brief and
vague glimpses of dim forms, the flickering light coming from what? Starshells?
There! His
eyes went left. Flames gouting out of
Marlborough revealed her presence.
Gott! So close!
“Target!
Bearing 320!” The other forms
were forgotten.
Motion drew Aurich’s eyes to Ostfriesland, a few
hundred yards astern. Her forward port
wing turret had just swung its long barrels to port. An eruption of fire from somewhere directly
astern shocked him. What ship was
that? Helgoland? Ach, Gott!
Unwisely, he was staring down that bearing just as Rudburg’s flagship
fired its first salvo. The sound masked
for him the barks of his own 88 mm gunners reacting to the sudden appearance of
the burning enemy dreadnought to port; 150 mm shells followed within seconds.
He was still blinking when Konig Albert’s main guns
fired, and so it came as no surprise to him that he could not see any
splashes. No one else did either, not
even Warspite’s lookouts though the brief and scattered spouts were just 200
yards astern and 300 yards to port.
---- Warspite, course 090, speed 17.5 knots
(increasing)
What DeRobeck’s lookouts did spot were Konig Albert’s
muzzle flashes. Marlborough’s ominously
glowing bulk had concealed both Ostfriesland’s and Helgoland’s guns, but Aurich’s
muzzle flashes were visible for a full pair of seconds. While not long enough for targeting, the guns
swung onto the approximate bearing to await the next salvo. Meanwhile, two 88 mm shells from Ostfriesland
glanced off Warspite’s aft turret and a 150 mm shell detonated harmlessly on
the waterline thirty feet further aft.
The armor there was thinner there than the main belt, but easily thick
enough to defeat the hundred pound shell.
Moments later, another 150 mm shell hit almost the same place, just
fifteen feet forward and six feet higher, and with no more effect.
“Sir, Queen Elizabeth has acknowledged.”
“Very well.”
No mention of Marlborough. Keyes
had been quick, though. Still, was
Admiral Gaunt even still alive to acknowledge?
“Oh, God!” The
speaker was somewhere on the bridge, but no one took note.
Two shells from Posen had just smashed into
Marlborough’s forward superstructure.
Whoever may have survived the charnel house her bridge had become and
whoever may have remained in her armoured con had just been instantly rendered
moot. The explosion of the first shell
destroyed the armoured bridge abaft the second turret, throwing pieces of its
top into the air, trailing sparks along its path. The second pounded through the upper belt
just ahead of the forward stack. At
almost the same instant, a shell from Helgoland’s stern turret struck just
below and ahead of the great forward strut supporting the armoured top. The cumulative effect had been to gut the
entire forward superstructure.
The great dreadnought began to slow and fall off to
port, threatening to foul the middle column.
Hidden within her, desperate men fought fires in boiler rooms,
casemates, and several other compartments.
Meanwhile, those in the after steering compartment stared in horror at
the motionless bridge repeaters even as they felt their ship slow and turn to
port. They shouted requests for
instructions into the voice tubes to the bridge, a bridge that no longer
existed. After a minute of denial, the
officer ordered his men to take local control of the steering engines to put
the ship back on the last ordered course.
The worst had happened. They were steaming blind right in the middle
of battle. Where was the secondary
con? The officer ordered a petty officer
up to take a look, with three men to act as messengers. For the moment, the only thing he could hope
was that, if he rammed anything, it would be German.
---- Colossus, course 090, speed 18 knots
Whack!
Whang! Rheinland’s secondary and
tertiary gunners had quickly found the range.
“Hit!” So had
Colossus.
Two of her 12-inch shells crashed into Rheinland. The first landed on the deck of the broad
stern and cut a deepening trough across the deck that ended where its explosion
gouged out a respectable crater.
The other shell found Herr Alfred Dierot.
---- Rheinland, course 080, speed 15 knots
WHANNG!
LT Dierot had just fired at Malborough, but without
any apparent effect. The shell had
landed 200 yards off Warspite’s bow, though her lookouts missed that splash
just as they had missed the ones astern to port moments before. Captain Gates had it reported to him aboard
Queen Elizabeth but, of course, could do nothing with it.
As he had done with all other gun discharges, Dierot
held his eyes closed for a couple seconds.
They were still shut when the Colossus shell struck his turret. His first thought was that his head had been
knocked off his shoulders. He opened his
eyes and all remained dark even when he looked around and down where there had
been light before. Was his head still on
but his eyes missing? No, he thought, as
the flash from Rheinland’s stern turret cast momentary shadows.
It was so quiet.
It also stank, and with a burning reek that threatened to char his nasal
passages.
“What?” A hand
clasped his right shoulder.
He turned in surprise to see one of his lead petty
officers working his mouth at him. Why
wasn’t the man simply communicating out loud?
Instead, he was waving his free hand and pointing down into the lower
part of the turret.
Wait, he thought.
They’d been hit! Yes, it was
coming back.
“Say again!”
Dierot shouted, or hoped he did.
He could hardly hear himself.
Actually, he had been quite loud, but Dierot’s hearing was presently
limited to bone conduction. No one
within was any better off, but he did not know that either.
The man responded by touching his officer again –
normally quite verboten! - and pointing down.
Dierot looked down into the blackness where the other
indicated and realized it was not totally black after all. A red glow flickered on one side of the lower
section. It seemed to be getting
brighter. Yes, it was definitely getting
brighter! He blinked at it for a couple
seconds before his mind finally began to catch up.
“Raus! Raus!” Dierot yelled. “Fire!
Fire! Abandoning ....”
Most of them got out, but several had burns. The others had died when the shell had
punched out a long tangent of armor along the aft edge of the barbette and
exploded, scouring much of the inside with red hot metal shards.
He and his men hardly had time to conduct a crude
head count before they were swept up by a senior officer and sent off to fight
another fire. This one was from a hit by
Vanguard that had gone through the upper belt and detonated as it hit the plate
at the end of tunneling through a coal bunker.
They had just gotten the fire under control when Agincourt’s second
salvo sent a second shell through the armor within six feet of the same
place. This one hit along a bunker
divider causing the shell to go off within the bunker itself. The explosion blew out the weakened inner
bunker plate taking down most of Dierot’s DC team as it scattered coal shrapnel
up and down the passageway. Fortunately,
it did not start any new significant fires allowing Dierot’s men to regroup and
send off the injured.
---- Ostfriesland, course 080, speed 15 knots
“Gott in Himmel!”
Rudburg’s gunners had missed with their first
half-salvo, but not the second. One 305
mm shell smashed right through the hull at the base of the forward starboard
wing turret and detonated in the top of the barbette. All the charges within joined the explosion
and even the improved flash guards to the magazine never stood a chance. Colossus disappeared in a Great Tower of
flame that lit the scene far more brightly than all of the storm’s lightning
flashes together.