When Beatty left Scapa Flow, he, too, had only a vague idea of the nature of the next day’s operation. At 8:00 a.m., he signaled his battle cruisers and light cruisers, “We are to rendezvous with Invincible and New Zealand at . . . 5:00 a.m. [August 28] to support destroyers and submarines. . . . Operation consisting of a sweep . . . Heligoland to westward. . . . Know very little, shall hope to learn more as we go along.” By noon, the Admiralty had given Beatty the position from which Tyrwhitt’s destroyers would begin their sweep and the course they would follow; he was never supplied with the assigned positions of British submarines. Beatty was asked how he proposed to support the operation. He replied that Goodenough’s light cruisers would follow Tyrwhitt’s destroyers ten miles astern and that he and the battle cruisers would remain thirty miles to the northwest.
Soon, these Admiralty errors were compounded. Just after 1:00 p.m. on the twenty-seventh, a message from the Admiralty informing Keyes and Tyrwhitt that the operation had been reinforced by Beatty and Goodenough was sent to Harwich for transmission to the two commodores, who were already at sea. But the wireless signal and the information it contained never reached Keyes or Tyrwhitt, because when the Admiralty message arrived at Harwich, it was mistakenly placed on a desk to await their return. Accordingly, Tyrwhitt and Keyes began the battle wholly unaware that Beatty’s battle cruisers and Goodenough’s light cruisers were on their way. Ironically, the greatest threat posed by this ignorance was to the British battle cruisers and light cruisers. Before sailing, the captains of Tyrwhitt’s destroyers and Keyes’s submarines had been told that Arethusa and Fearless were the only British ships larger than destroyers that would be present in the Bight. If other big ships appeared, Tyrwhitt’s destroyers and Keyes’s submarines were to assume that they were German, and they were to attempt to torpedo them.
Before dawn on August 28, such an encounter almost occurred. Tyrwhitt’s ships, moving south toward Heligoland, sighted the blurred shapes of three four-funneled light cruisers. Tyrwhitt flashed the designated challenge and to his enormous relief received the proper reply; they were a part of Goodenough’s squadron. Then, perplexed, Tyrwhitt asked, “Are you taking part in the operation?” “Yes,” Goodenough replied. “I know your course and will support you. Beatty is behind us.” Thus, Tyrwhitt knew and could inform his destroyer captains that six additional light cruisers, as well as Beatty’s battle cruisers, might make an appearance. But Keyes, on board Lurcher, and the captains of his submarines, beneath the surface, remained ignorant.
Keyes’s information regarding German defensive arrangements in the Bight was accurate. In these early weeks of the war, the German navy believed that the “heavily superior” British fleet would attack and provoke a battle off Heligoland. Meanwhile, says the German naval history, “our task was to keep the Heligoland Bight and the river mouths clear of British submarines and mines . . . [so as not to find] ourselves blocked in.” The Germans considered using defensive minefields for this purpose, “but senior commanders feared that minefields would hamper too much the movement of our own [surface] forces . . . in the battle they felt sure was coming.” In lieu of minefields, the Germans substituted—as Keyes’s submarine captains had told him—elaborate and extensive patrols by destroyers, light cruisers, and U-boats. “We over-worked our destroyers and light cruisers in this effort,” says the German naval history, “especially the personnel, the boilers and the engines of the destroyers. On patrol duty we had no less than four light cruisers and two destroyer flotillas by day and five light cruisers and three destroyers flotillas at night.” Dawn on August 28 found these arrangements functioning routinely.
At 5:00 a.m. that day, Tyrwhitt in Arethusa was steering for the eight o’clock rendezvous twelve miles northwest of Heligoland. Behind him steamed the sixteen destroyers of the 3rd Flotilla and, two miles behind them, Fearless with her fifteen destroyers. Eight miles astern of Fearless were Commodore Goodenough’s six light cruisers. As the sky began to lighten, the sea was calm and the weather clear, although, toward land, a misty haze hung over the water. Visibility was about 6,000 yards—three miles. At daybreak, Keyes’s submarines, E-6, E-7, and E-8—the designated bait—surfaced and advanced toward Heligoland. As they approached the island, visibility dropped to 5,000 yards, which meant that, in order to be spotted, the submarines would have to go in closer.
First contact between British and German surface ships came at 7:00 a.m., when Arethusa sighted the German destroyer G-194 three miles ahead on her port bow. The German ship immediately turned and ran south for Heligoland, and Tyrwhitt detached four British destroyers to pursue. G-194 radioed, “Attacked by enemy cruisers,” to Rear Admiral Leberecht Maass, commander of High Seas Fleet destroyers, whose flagship was the light cruiser Köln. Maass, in turn, signaled Rear Admiral Franz Hipper, who, besides commanding the High Seas Fleet battle cruisers, was responsible for the defense of the Bight. This morning, the patrolling destroyers had been assigned three German light cruisers, Stettin, Frauenlob, and Ariadne, as support. Stettin, 3,494 tons and capable of 25 knots, was anchored at half steam in the lee of Heligoland; Frauenlob was nearby. Ariadne remained in Jade Bay. These ships, each carrying ten 4.1-inch guns, were strong enough to overpower destroyers, but none would stand a chance against the 6-inch guns of Goodenough’s modern Southamptons. Another German light cruiser, Mainz, lay at a mooring in the river Ems, and Köln, Strassburg, Rostock, and Kolberg were in Wilhelmshaven. Danzig and Münchou lay at Brunsbüttelkoog at the western end of the Kiel Canal. In Wilhemshaven, too, lay Hipper’s battle cruisers, Seydlitz, Moltke, and Von der Tann, although Seydlitz was partially disabled with condensor troubles. But because of the tide, neither the battle cruisers nor the battleships of the High Seas Fleet could steam out into the Bight until noon. Low water in the Jade on August 28 was at 9:33 a.m., when the depth over the bar would be only twenty-five feet, too shallow for German dreadnoughts.
Hipper, receiving news of the first contact, never imagined that his battle cruisers would be needed. Assuming that his destroyers were being attacked only by British destroyers, he ordered the German light cruisers already on station, Stettin and Frauenlob, to “hunt [British] destroyers,” and instructed his light cruisers still in harbor to raise steam. One by one, as they were ready, eight German light cruisers put to sea: Mainz from the Ems River, Strassburg, Köln, Ariadne, Stralsund, and Kolberg at intervals from the Jade; Danzig and München were to move down the Elbe estuary from Brunsbüttelkoog. Long before any of these German light cruisers arrived, however, the German patrol destroyers, hearing reports of British submarines on the surface, were steaming north at 21 knots. Suddenly, the sound of gunfire—the four British destroyers were chasing and firing at the German destroyer G-194—told them that a surface action was under way. Unprepared for this, they started to turn to the south, but before their turns were complete, they saw through the mist the high bow waves of many British destroyers steaming directly toward them. When the British opened fire, the German destroyer V-1, lagging behind, was hit. As the British destroyers were coming within range of the 8-inch guns of the Heligoland shore defense batteries, the German destroyer G-9 signaled urgently for covering fire. But the shore artillerymen, hampered by the thick mist, were unable to identify the ships by nationality and held their fire. A German destroyer-minesweeper, D-8, was struck by a British shell, which hit the bridge, killing her captain. T-33, another destroyer-minesweeper, also was hit. For these small German ships, salvation could come only if the German light cruisers quickly intervened.
Tyrwhitt, meanwhile, had lost sight of his four detached destroyers. Then, hearing the sound of gunfire to the east and worrying that these ships might be under attack by a superior German force, he temporarily abandoned the planned westward sweep and, at 7:26 a.m., swung his whole flotilla east, toward Heligoland, to rescue his missing ships. Before long, he sighted ten German destroyers and settled down to a full-speed chase with Fearless and her flotilla following. The mist was thickening,
and although Tyrwhitt could see the enemy destroyers on both his port and starboard bows, he was unable to gain on them. For half an hour this running battle continued, heading straight toward Heligoland, until suddenly, out of the mist, the island’s 200-foot-high red cliffs loomed up over the bows of his ships. He turned away.
At 7:58 a.m., Frauenlob and Stettin arrived to cover their own retreating destroyers. The presence of these two ships reversed the tactical situation: now Tyrwhitt’s destroyers had to deal not simply with German destroyers, but with German light cruisers. Following doctrine, the British destroyers immediately broke off pursuit and fell back on their own light cruisers, Arethusa and Fearless. A light cruiser battle, the first of the day, began and, almost immediately, so many British shells were hitting the sea near Stettin that it looked as if the ship “were in boiling water.” Having achieved her purpose in covering the flight of the German destroyers, Stettin turned back toward Heligoland. Her captain wished to bring his boilers to full steam before returning to the fight.
Meanwhile, Arethusa was left alone with Frauenlob. Nominally superior to the German ship, Arethusa now displayed the effects of her too-recent commissioning. Two of her 4-inch guns were jammed and useless and a third was eliminated by a German shell; only her forward 6-inch gun was behaving reliably. Her wireless and searchlights were inoperable and water was filling her engine room. Frauenlob’s gunnery was excellent; Tyrwhitt later reported fifteen direct hits on the port side alone. Surprisingly, Arethusa lost only eleven men killed and sixteen wounded, although one of the dead was Tyrwhitt’s young signal officer, who had been standing on the bridge next to the commodore. Arethusa fought back and, with the single gun she had in action, managed to hit Frauenlob ten times. One of these shells struck the bridge, killing or wounding thirty-seven men including the captain and forcing Frauenlob to sheer off and head for the protection of the Heligoland batteries. For a while, her survival was uncertain, but she reached Heligoland and then went on to Wilhemshaven. The first phase of the battle was over. Arethusa had been seriously damaged, Frauenlob was out of action, and a German destroyer and two destroyer-minesweepers had been badly hurt.
It was 8:12 a.m. With the Germans withdrawing and Heligoland close at hand, Tyrwhitt signaled his force to re-form and recommence the planned sweep to the west. Almost immediately another skirmish developed. Tyrwhitt’s turn brought his flotillas across the path of another group of six German destroyers of the outer patrol, now returning to Heligoland. In the mist, five of these destroyers escaped around the flanks of Tyrwhitt’s force, but their leader, V-187, was not so lucky. At 6,000 yards, Tyrwhitt’s ships opened fire on this German ship fleeing south. The German destroyer was moving at high speed and seemed likely to get away when, to the astonishment of the British pursuers, she made a high-speed turn and headed straight back toward them. The cause of this unexpected event was that Goodenough, coming down from the northwest, had detached and sent ahead two of his light cruisers, Nottingham and Lowestoft. V-187, fleeing the British destroyers, suddenly and to her horror saw these two British Town-class cruisers ahead in her path. To escape, the German commander risked everything and doubled back. Initially, his unorthodox tactic succeeded: he sped unharmed past the first line of pursuing British destroyers. Then he ran into the second line. Immediately, V-187 was surrounded by eight British destroyers, who circled their crippled opponent, firing point blank at 600 yards. Her flag still flying, V-187 stopped firing. The British destroyers also ceased fire; they stopped their engines and began lowering boats to rescue survivors. Some of the Germans misinterpreted this action. Because their own flag still was flying, they believed that the boats in the water must be carrying boarding parties coming to seize their ship. To make clear that the battle was not over, a German officer aimed and fired a gun at the British destroyer Goshawk 200 yards away, hitting her in the wardroom. The British ships reopened fire. At the same time, scuttling charges exploded in the German destroyer’s hull; at 9:10 a.m., V-187 sank, her colors still flying.
Boats from the five British destroyers were in the water and British seamen had just started pulling German sailors out of the sea when fountains of water from plunging German shells appeared around them. Through the mist, the light-gray hull and three funnels of a German light cruiser appeared. It was Stettin, her boilers now at full power, returning to action. When she opened fire, four of the British destroyers managed to get their boats back alongside, pick up the boat crews, and hurry away. The empty boats were left adrift. One destroyer, Defender, had put in the water two boats that, during the rescue operation, had wandered some distance. When Stettin opened fire, Defender’s captain made a quick decision to save his ship by leaving his boats behind. One British officer and nine seamen along with twenty-eight German prisoners were in the boats. The British sailors, abandoned in the middle of the Bight, believed themselves lost when an apparent miracle occurred. The surface battle had been observed through his periscope by the captain of the British submarine E-4. When Stettin arrived, he fired a torpedo at her, but the cruiser avoided it and attempted to ram. E-4 escaped by diving. Twenty minutes later, when the captain put his periscope back up, there were no ships in sight, but the boats were still there, filled with Germans, some of them wounded, whom the British boat crews were helping as well as they could by tearing up their own clothes to make bandages. Suddenly, to the amazement of everyone in the boats, a submarine rose beside them from out of the sea. E-4 took on board all the British sailors and three Germans—the commodore, a petty officer, and a seaman—“as a sample.” The captain had no room on his small craft for the rest of the Germans, but before submerging, he gave those left behind water, biscuits, a compass, and the course to Heligoland, fourteen miles away.
There followed on the British side a sequence of events that can only be seen as farce. The cause lay in the Admiralty’s failure to inform all British forces involved in the operation that other friendly forces were present. At 8:10 a.m., Goodenough had intercepted Arethusa’s signal that she was in action, and had detached two of his six light cruisers, Lowestoft and Nottingham, to go to Tyrwhitt’s assistance. At 8:30 a.m., Goodenough and his four remaining light cruisers were steaming toward a position twenty miles southwest of Heligoland; from this position they meant to support Tyrwhitt’s westward sweep. Keyes, supervising his submarines from Lurcher, however, had no reason to know or suspect that any four-funneled British light cruisers were in the vicinity. When, therefore, at 8:15 a.m., he made out two four-funneled cruisers (Lowestoft and Nottingham) steaming on the same course as himself, he signaled Invincible that he was in touch with two enemy cruisers. They had not attacked him, Keyes said, and with only his two destroyers, he was too weak to attack them; accordingly, for the moment he would shadow them. Goodenough intercepted Keyes’s signal and, wholly unaware that the ships Keyes was reporting were his own two detached vessels, decided to take his four remaining light cruisers to Keyes’s assistance.
By 8:53 a.m., Goodenough on Southampton had Lurcher in sight. This meeting compounded the confusion. Keyes, still uninformed that any British cruisers were in area, and now seeing four new light cruisers, assumed he was in the presence of four additional German cruisers. Believing himself overwhelmingly outgunned, he steered his two small destroyers toward Invincible and New Zealand, signaling that he was being chased by four hostile cruisers and that he was leading them toward the battle cruisers. This ludicrous but perilous situation was made even worse when Tyrwhitt, hearing Keyes’s message, tried to help his friend by also signaling to Goodenough: “Please chase westward. . . . Commodore (S) [Keyes] is being chased by four light cruisers.” Inadvertently, of course, Tyrwhitt was asking Goodenough for help against Goodenough himself. The episode ended harmlessly when Keyes finally saw and recognized the silhouette of Southampton and signaled, “Cruisers are our cruisers [of] whose presence in this area I was not informed.”
This mystery cleared up, Goodenough turned west to follow Tyrwhitt’s sweep. This
led to further danger, because it brought his light cruisers over the line of British submarines of whose presence he was unaware. Nor could Keyes, who now knew that the four cruisers were British, communicate with his submarines beneath the surface. Alarmed, Keyes signaled to Goodenough: “I was not informed you were coming into this area; you run great risk from our submarines. . . . Your unexpected appearance has upset all our plans. There are submarines off Ems.” Goodenough’s reply was tart: “I came under detailed orders. I am astonished that you were not told. I have signaled to Lion that we should withdraw. Nottingham and Lowestoft are somewhere in the vicinity.” In fact, an incident of a British submarine and a British cruiser attacking each other had already occurred. A little before 9:30 a.m., the Southampton had sighted a periscope at 500 yards. It belonged to E-6, which fired two torpedoes at the light cruiser; both missed. Southampton, steaming at high speed, swerved to ram, and the submarine escaped only by crash-diving. Goodenough signaled to Nottingham and Lowestoft to rejoin, but the two separated ships failed to get his signal and wandered off out of action for the rest of the day.
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