Sinking of HMS Falmouth and HMS Nottingham

On 19 August 1916, less than three months after the Battle of Jutland, both great fleets, the German High Seas Fleet and the British Grand Fleet, were once again at sea in the North Sea. This time they did not fire a single shot at each other. The whole day was spent groping for one another, and the only victims of the operation were two British light cruisers, Nottingham and Falmouth, torpedoed by German submarines. Nottingham sank on the morning of 19 August. Falmouth, hit in the afternoon, stayed afloat until the next day and went down on the evening of 20 August. Times are given according to the British official history (Newbolt, Naval Operations, vol. IV).

Scheer’s plan

Admiral Reinhard Scheer wanted to show as soon as possible that his fleet was still dangerous after Jutland. He returned to the plan of May: at dawn his ships were to bombard Sunderland, a centre of British shipbuilding, and lure part of the British forces out of their bases. Of the battlecruisers only Moltke and Von der Tann were serviceable after the battle, so the scouting group was reinforced with three battleships, including the brand-new Bayern. More than a dozen dreadnoughts were to follow it. Submarines waited in several lines on the approaches to the British bases and along the east coast of England, and eight airships were to sweep the sky over the sea. On the evening of 18 August the fleet left the Jade roads.

Once again the British knew in advance. The codebreakers of Room 40 read in intercepted signals that the Germans were preparing a sortie, and the Grand Fleet left its bases in the afternoon and evening of 18 August, even before the enemy. Admiral John Jellicoe was then ill in southern Scotland, so the fleet was taken out of Scapa Flow by his deputy, Admiral Cecil Burney. Jellicoe caught up with it in the cruiser Royalist, which picked him up at Dundee. Vice-Admiral David Beatty’s battlecruisers sailed from the Firth of Forth, and a force of light cruisers and destroyers under Commodore Reginald Tyrwhitt put out from Harwich.

Morning: Nottingham

The British struck the first blow. At five in the morning the British submarine E23 torpedoed the German battleship Westfalen north of Terschelling. The ship turned back to port, but her damage was not serious, and Scheer sailed on.

In the north it was misty. At about half past five a small shape on the water, taken for a fishing boat, was sighted from the cruiser Dublin, sailing in the screen of Beatty’s force. It was the German submarine U-52 of Kapitänleutnant Hans Walther, which was just moving into position to attack. A little before six Nottingham was shaken by two powerful explosions. Her captain, Captain C.B. Miller, saw no torpedoes and thought the ship had struck a mine. The cruiser was not sinking, but she lost power and lights. At 6.25 a.m. a third torpedo hit her. Miller had already transferred the crew to the boats, helped by two destroyers sent by Beatty. At 7.10 a.m. Nottingham sank. Thirty-eight men were killed.

The loss of Nottingham mattered more than the ship herself. Jellicoe did not know whether the cruiser had been hit by a torpedo or a mine, and he remembered that he had long expected a German trap of submarines and mines in the fleet’s path. At seven he turned the whole Grand Fleet north. He resumed his course towards the enemy only two hours later, when it was confirmed that it had been a submarine attack.

Chasing a phantom

Around noon both fleets were on courses which in the afternoon could have led to a battle in British waters. Then German reconnaissance failed. The commander of the airship L 13 saw Tyrwhitt’s ships far to the south and reported that there were battleships among them. Scheer concluded that he had before him the isolated part of the British fleet he had been looking for, and at about half past twelve turned south-east, away from the Grand Fleet. Reports from the submarine U-53 soon warned him that the main British force was in the north. Since the airships in the south sent no further news and the day was ending, Scheer gave up and in mid-afternoon turned for home. Jellicoe, who was issuing battle orders until the last moment, learned from the Admiralty that the Germans were withdrawing and at about four turned north-west. Tyrwhitt sighted Scheer’s fleet at about six in the evening, but could not attack it before the full moon rose.

Afternoon: Falmouth

The return through waters where German submarines lay in wait proved dangerous for the British. Between four and nine in the evening eleven reports of U-boats in threatening positions reached the flagship. At about 4.45 p.m. the cruiser Falmouth, which was just firing at a German airship, took two torpedoes in her starboard side from less than a kilometre away. They had been fired by U-66 of Kapitänleutnant Thorwald von Bothmer, who had been shadowing the British ships for an hour. British destroyers pelted him with depth charges, and for two more hours he tried to finish off the cruiser, missing each time. The armed trawler Cooksin took off from Falmouth all the men not needed to work the ship.

Falmouth kept on an even keel and all night steamed under her own power at two knots towards the mouth of the Humber. In the morning tugs arrived. The shortest route, however, led straight through the line of German submarines off Flamborough Head. At noon on 20 August, despite an escort of eight destroyers, U-63 of Kapitänleutnant Otto Schultze hit Falmouth with two more torpedoes. The cruiser stayed afloat for about another eight hours and sank a few miles south of the headland. Sources differ on the losses among her crew: British casualty lists name a dozen or more killed and died of wounds, mostly stokers.

Consequences

Nobody won at sea, but the day affected both fleets. Jellicoe was convinced that Scheer had deliberately drawn the Grand Fleet over submarine ambushes and that without a strong destroyer screen every pursuit of the German fleet would cost him cruisers, and perhaps battleships. In September the fleet command and the Admiralty agreed that the Grand Fleet would not venture into the southern part of the North Sea except in exceptional circumstances. Scheer, for his part, returned to port convinced that his submarines had sunk more than they actually had, but also disappointed with the airships, whose reports had proved mostly wrong. The High Seas Fleet never again ventured so far west, and when the U-boats returned to the war on merchant shipping in the autumn, there were none left for such joint operations with the fleet.