Voices from the Battle of Jutland

“It was a fine afternoon on 31st May 1916, and there was nothing much going on, so the hands were given a make and mend. That means that apart from those employed in keeping the ship steaming we could have a dust down, have a lie up. And that afternoon in the sun, it was nice and warm, I had a nice little sleep on the quarter deck. Now the normal procedure was, we didn’t know anything was around, no excitement at all. But half past three, tea was piped for the hands, that means that most of us went around and shouted out, “Hands to tea.” I woke up and sloped off towards the gun room where I hoped to get a cup of tea, and almost immediately, I’d hardly got up when the bugles went, “Meet at action.” That meant instead of having tea, I had to run off as fast as I could to my action station, which was the starboard side, and I was second in control of the starboard six-inch guns, which was our secondary armament ready for beating off destroyers and things like that. Fire was opened almost immediately on the portside. In fact, Lion, our flagship opened fire at 3:45 on a visible target, which was the German battlecruisers. They opened fire on us and almost immediately they got the correct range.”

“I was, I was frightened, yes, I make no bones about it. The worst part was before we opened fire, all these guns going off, the shells were landing all around. I don't think any of the shells were actually aimed at us, but they were either side of us landing in the water with a large crash and explosion (inaudible) and I really didn't know what was going on. Once the guns were arching back it seemed to be alright, you know, there was quite a considerable difference when not knowing, not being able to see what was going on or who was hitting you."

“There's nothing to be scared about because if you get torpedo hit, it's there. You know very well you're down below there. The risk you might get torpedoed, you might get struck. But you're serving, you're serving in the Navy to do that to them, so don't blame him if you get it instead of them. No, you don't think about things like that, you know you've got a job to do and when you're in the engine room, you've got so much, you've got to see, you know very well if you don't keep those engines at the correct revs they want, so they keep you, you don't get your place in the line of, you always had a, you were told that your squadron had to steam so and so and so and so, and that meant that the engine room had to keep their revs up, their steam up and get, get the revs proper.”

“And during the action, what time would it be about six o clock time I should think, there was a terrific explosion, and it simply lifted that ship like, like a ball and bounced, bounced her up and down just like a rubber ball would be in the water. By the way, my action station, there was first aid, and we were down in one of the flat and the ship, you felt the ship gradually going further over and over and over. I Think she fetched up about 10 degrees. Anyhow, we had a surgeon Lieutenant Commander there who was in charge of the first aid station. And, of course, everybody's (chuckle) faces turned pale. We wondered how far the ship was going over, was it going over all together, and we were going to be kept, you know, we were gonna be drowned in this little compartment. Anyhow he said, “There'd be no VC's one on this station, you'll all remain where you are.” And I think that calmed everybody down. Everybody got a very white face because it wasn't a very pleasant position to be in knowing that the ship was a properly turning turtle because we didn't know what had hit her, whether it was a gunfire or what it was.”

“We were there a long time; I was in there about 47 hours for a start with no food! Never give us any food. That was, in those days, they didn’t worry about anything like that. See, I picked up a bit of bread in the stoker’s mess going through. Every one of the bulkhead doors while the battle was on should have been guarded by a stoker and the doors were shut with the clips on. But there wasn't a stoker there, they got fed up with just sitting there, I suppose and there were nobody in charge. And I didn't see many of them. When I did go up there about 6:00 in the evening, I went through the stoker’s mess and I grabbed a piece of bread off the one of the tables and ate it, I hadn’t had no food.”

“The ship's crews had been at action stations for some time and my station in HMS Warspite was in B turret. Now, in these turrets that hold these guns, you're simply in a steel box. The box completely surrounds you with thick armour plating all round. One feels that while you were in these turrets and you are naturally cut off from anything going on outside except the fact that you are in telephone communication with the bridge and the control towers. It's a feeling of what should one would think as being really fastened in a big box. The atmosphere is good, the crew and numbering, some are about 16. And those had their individual jobs which they attend to and work as one.”

“Time we opened fire was about, just after five when we got more or less nearer. And then when we got into it, we got surrounded by water, you know, where the shells had fell. And later on in the evening, we were still firing away there, and we got badly hit, terrible thud and all the starboard battery, the 6-inch starboard battery was put out of action. And we had to shore up the, the deck and everything. I didn’t know anything about it, I was up at the top. I knew we’d been hit by the shadow. And we got peppered like, you know. Oh, one shell burst amongst our flour. All the flour, put the mix up there with flour mixing with the saltwater coming in. We had a real big dough. (laughing). Oh, what a mess to clear off it was, there were shells everywhere.”

“So, we fired our torpedoes and there was a terrific explosion, and the German ship blew up like that. We said, “We got them.” The moment somebody said that either one shell or so had hit our bridge and a terrific bang, a fire started at the portside of the boat, well that was extinguished. And hear a lot of shouting on the foredeck, so l went and go up there and the sub-Lieutenant was there, he said, “Where are you going, Wainford?” I said, “On the foredeck, to help.”

“Keep down below out of it, find something else to do.” I wondered why he said that. I found out later that there was a 4-inch gun had been the direct hit, they were all killed and injured, commanding officer was killed, first Lieutenant was killed, one officer was killed, out of the three officers, the coxswain I’m aware was killed and there were several more wounded. You know, a bit of a shambles, really.”

“And I suppose we've been in action about an hour and a half or so when a shell or something hit the magazines. There was terrific explosion. The guns went up in the air just like matchsticks, 12-inch guns they were. And she began to settle down and without half a minute she was gone. But, well I was 180 foot up and I was thrown well clear of the ship, otherwise I would’ve been sucked under. When I came up, there was another fella there name Green, Jimmy Green, I think it was. And we swam over, we got a piece of wood, he was on one end, I was on the other end. And a couple of minutes afterwards some shells come over. Jim was minus his head, he went. So, I was left on my lonesome. And I was there, what, I couldn't say exact time, it must have been between 2:00 and 3:00 in the morning, pitch dark, given up all hopes practically, I let go once, yes, I let go once, but I struggled back again quick. And all of a sudden, I could hear something coming towards me a noise and I happened to gaze up, and there was a German destroyer, two sailors got down, picked me up, dragged me aboard the boat.”

“When we come back, come out of that scrap, we had been terribly bashed about. There was 38 killed on the upper deck amongst three gunners and there were so many ammunition party was killed. I mean, we managed to get a lot of the wounded down below, including Jack Cornwell laying on the mess stalls down below, you see. Now then, when we got about 100 miles from Grimsby, Captain Lawson says, “I'm going to stop the ship.” He said, “Well, I have to take a chance, we can't take these men in, they’re too bad.” And he stopped the ship, and we buried all the, buried the worst ones over the side, see. Had them in canvas and (inaudible) over the side. I forget how many we buried, I couldn’t say, I know it was a terrible thing.”