Shipwreck Secrets Ep6 Jutland

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wadinga
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Shipwreck Secrets Ep6 Jutland

Post by wadinga »

Hi All,

A few thoughts on 2019's "Like a Shot Entertainment" written, produced and directed by Matt Bone showing recently on UK Yesterday channel.
The talking heads allowed to give their expert information in soundbites were Andrew Choong from National Maritime Museum, Greenwich and Nick Hewitt from the RN Museum, Portsmouth, as well as regular war TV pundit Guy Walters (manic eyes sometimes) and Nick Jellicoe (yes his grandson).

Two US marine archaeologists looked at diver footage, but contributed little. Mr Bone’s voice over script’s main contribution seemed to be to try and ramp up controversy by asking whether Beatty or Jellicoe were to blame for battlecruisers blowing up. As well as opining that the result was “initially greeted in Britain as a defeat”.

Controversy in my opinion was Nick Jellicoe calling Scheer’s first turn away a “gutsy move”, whereas I always thought running away was not very gutsy at all. The voice over then suggested Scheer made “two more charges” at the enemy, whereas I thought there was only one more instance of blundering into a T crossing situation before the run for home. Mr Jellicoe naturally highlighted his ancestor’s skill in placing his fleet across the High Seas Fleet’s bows and the many failings of his underlings to keep him in the picture as to events he couldn’t see.

What was very good was Guy Walters showing pages from the National Archives copy of the captured SMS Magdeburg code book, a massive volume giving alphanumeric groups for thousands of German naval words. A giant German-to-code or code-to-German dictionary allowing the Admiralty‘s Room 40 to easily read the German signals. The reason for the initial erroneous interpretation sent to Jellicoe that the High Seas Fleet had not in fact sailed was explained in detail. He also showed the original decodes which should have been sent to Jellicoe to tell him Scheer was heading for the Horns Reef bolthole and which might have allowed interception in the early hours of June 1st.

Unfortunately, the budget didn’t apparently stretch to a transatlantic flight, so Nick Hewitt was sent to stand next to some shelves in the bowels of HMS Caroline in Belfast to talk about British ammunition handling failings, instead of the much more relevant location of USS Texas in Houston as other documentaries have done. There were some reasonable animated graphics to show it better.
The High Seas fleet was applauded with observing safe handling procedures better than the careless Brits, but no mention was made of the advantage of brass cased propellants and the major fires that wiped out Seydlitz’ after turrets’ crews when rules were broken. Or SMS Pommern blowing up after torpedo hit(s).

The voiceover virtually implied Jellicoe was dismissed from Grand Fleet C-in-C and retired immediately, leaving out his intervening promotion to First Sea Lord, the highest RN operational command.

I expect, as Bill has mentioned, the experts are not allowed to correct the writer/producer/director’s content for factual errors or to spoil a “good story”. All in all worth viewing though.

All the best

wadinga
"There seems to be something wrong with our bloody ships today!"
HMSVF
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Re: Shipwreck Secrets Ep6 Jutland

Post by HMSVF »

I expect, as Bill has mentioned, the experts are not allowed to correct the writer/producer/director’s content for factual errors or to spoil a “good story”. All in all worth viewing though
Bout the gist of it. Which is pretty nuts as the "story" doesn't need sexing up IMHO.


Todays documentaries remind me of Star Trek (bear with me!)

The original films were graceful when it came to action, they acted like big ships and had a big (but powerful) score to go with it. The reboots are seem to run at 8 times the speed and pull off maneuvers an X Wing would be proud of. Its like everything now has to be on steroids,speed and LSD!


My favourite Jutland book is probably still the one made up of first hand accounts (By Nigel Steel?). If that doesn't set the scene, explain the horror and spike interest then I'd suggest a Hornblower novel (although given a modern take it would probably involve a rewrite where the ships do 35kts and fire 8 broadsides a minute !)


BW


HMSVF
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wadinga
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Re: Shipwreck Secrets Ep6 Jutland

Post by wadinga »

Hi HMSVF<

New documentaries "feel the need", not for speed , but to say something new or shocking or controversial. eg Jellicoe or Beatty were "to blame" for battlecruisers blowing up. Losses in war are inevitable. 1500 dead in the Aboukir, Hogue and Cressy debacle was 25% of the British losses at Jutland, to absolutely no purpose. whereas for the blood price paid at Jutland (including one Albert Waddingham) the High Seas Fleet was checked, pursued and finally scurried into its bolthole, only to emerge on several very limited occasions thereafter.

The Grand Fleet ruled the seas on the 30th May and on the 1st June and suffered casualties on the 31st, but secured its objective which was the containment of the High Seas Fleet to Wilhelmshavn. Jellicoe demonstrated his superiority on the German Fleet's doorstep, and brought about an alternative response, the unrestricted u-boat campaign. If Jellicoe had a fault it was to fail to realise that the triumph was in valuing Beatty bringing the enemy to him, just as convoys would bring the u-boats (lucky enough to find one) into attack range of escorts.

It is not hard to imagine that the slurs of being insufficiently aggressive at Jutland unduly influenced Jellicoe against the so-called defensive strategy of convoy. Sadly, a moment's logical thinking says the place to kill wasps is around a honeypot.

We must extract the nuggets that we can. Seeing the Mgdeburg codebook and the Room 40 decodes make this a "must watch".

All the best

wadinga
"There seems to be something wrong with our bloody ships today!"
paul.mercer
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Re: Shipwreck Secrets Ep6 Jutland

Post by paul.mercer »

Gentlemen,
I watched the documentary as well and thought it was fairly well presented, if a little biased towards Jellico even though I think he had a bit of a 'rough deal' in the aftermath of the battle.
One thing that does puzzle me is the lack of information about the 5th battle Squadrons role in Jutland, I believe it consisted of the new QE clas ships, Malaya, Valiant, Barham and Warspite (QE herself was in dry dock). I read somewhere that it was the appearance of these ships that (in the authors words) 'Saved Beattys bacon' and although some to a bit of a pounding - particularly Warspite when her rudder jammed, their 15" guns were responsible for doing a lot of damage to the German fleet. In your opinion did they live up to their reputation and Is there any publication that gives a clearer view of their role in the battle?
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wadinga
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Re: Shipwreck Secrets Ep6 Jutland

Post by wadinga »

Hi Paul,

I have always thought there was considerable coverage about Evan-Thomas' squadron at Jutland, often highlighting his bovine-like inability to act without direct orders, but much less about the punchy R class battlewagons in the Grand Fleet squadrons which used their 15" to great effect against both Hipper and Scheer.

In the programme I think Andrew Choong's observation about German crews' better adherence to safe handling rules for munitions needs qualifying somewhat , which I will raise in the "Dreadnought Era" thread. German battlecruisers suffered some pretty bad propellant fires, sometimes killing whole turret/handling room/magazine crews? , often as a result of R-Class 15" hits, but without the major magazine explosions which destroyed their British BC opponents.

Getting hold of a copy of John Campbell's The Fighting at Jutland (1987) would be great starting place to understand Jutland.

All the best

wadinga
"There seems to be something wrong with our bloody ships today!"
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