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Updated: June 5, 2025
Admiral Scheer, also, on getting report of the English cruisers, quickened the speed of his main fleet. At 3.30 Beatty and Hipper discovered each other's battle cruiser forces. Hipper turned about and headed on a southerly course to lead the British toward the advancing main fleet.
There were also four cruisers of the "town" class, three light cruisers, and torpedo flotillas. The fight was, however, mainly between the battle-crusiers. As soon as Hipper heard of Beatty's approach he turned south-east.
This view of the matter is confirmed by the opening sentence of Beatty's official report to Jellicoe: "I have the honor to report that at 2.37 p. m. on 31st May, 1916, I was cruising and steering to the northward to join your flag." Another point which has been criticized is the action of Beatty in turning south instead of north when he first found himself in touch with Von Hipper.
The German fleet was slower than the British fleet by several knots, and if the statements by Jellicoe and Beatty of the damage done are even approximately true, Von Hipper and Von Scheer must have been embarrassed by the necessity of caring for a large number of badly crippled ships. The night is short in that high latitude not over five hours at the maximum.
Admiral Hipper then ordered all of his ships to turn northward, in the hope of getting away behind this screen, but the British admiral anticipated this maneuver and changed the course of his ships so that he again had the German ships in view after both fleets had driven through the smoke.
What they wanted to do was to get the British involved in a good running engagement, steering a southeasterly course the while and luring the British ships within striking force of a waiting fleet of superdreadnoughts and perhaps land guns and mines. This explains why Admiral Hipper turned stern as soon as he got into touch with the enemy.
Beatty was endeavoring to lead the German forces into the guns of the Grand Fleet, while ostensibly he was attempting to escape from a superior force, much as Hipper had been doing with relation to Scheer during the first phase.
The British may well have been cautious during the night about venturing far into the fog, which, as they knew, if it concealed the capital ships of Von Hipper and Von Scheer, concealed also their destroyers, and possibly a stretch of water strewn with mines laid out by the retreating enemy.
It was about this time that the Lützow, Von Hipper's flagship and the leader of the German column, dropped out of the formation, having been so badly damaged that she could no longer maintain her position in the formation. Von Hipper, calling a destroyer alongside, boarded her and proceeded, through a storm of shell, to the Moltke, on which he resumed his place at the head of the fleet.
Beatty then turned to starboard, assuming a course nearly parallel to that of Hipper. Almost immediately, three minutes after the first salvo, the Lion, the Tiger, and the Princess Royal were hit by shells. In these opening minutes the fire of the Germans seems to have been fast and astonishingly accurate.
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