When people consider the First World War, they generally think about the major land battles like the Somme and Passchendaele. The image of the ‘Tommy’ in the trench pervades our collective memory yet it should be remembered that not all off the action occurred on the Western Front, writes Neil Crossfield…
This was a world war, with men from Southwark fighting in combat operations all around the globe. However, far less attention is given to an event which arguably had far greater impact than many of these land offensives, that being the Battle of Jutland which raged from 31 May until 1 June 1916. While campaigns on land could drag on for months, this naval conflict was over in 36 hours but was just as brutal as anything experienced in the trenches. At least 33 sailors who had known connections to Southwark were killed at Jutland but this figure may of course be higher.
Though Southwark is many miles from the sea, it has a long nautical tradition, perhaps due to its close association to the Thames and the docks. Over the years, countless young men joined the Royal Navy. Some joined for a sense of adventure while others no doubt enlisted as a means of escape from the poverty they endured in civilian life. While discipline could be tough, a career in the senior service would have had great appeal for many young men
In the years preceding the First World War, the Royal Navy and the German Imperial Navy had been engaged in an arms race, each building progressively bigger and better armed warships. Germany’s increased industrial and economic position challenged the British Empire. Naval power would be a prerequisite for any country wishing to dominate and protect marine trade at sea. Both sides believed that at some stage, a critical clash would be needed between the two powerful navies in which the battle for supremacy would finally be decided. That day came on 31 May 1916, when the German High Seas Fleet and the British Grand Fleet came face to face in the North Sea off Denmark’s Jutland Peninsula. This action would involve around 100,000 men and around 250 ships.
Ten of the Southwark men killed were Stokers. Shovelling tons of coal each day in arduous conditions deep within the boiler room, the stoker was integral to the operation of the ship. When the ships guns were fired, the vibration would fill the air with coal dust, making the conditions even more difficult. Far from being just a manual labourer, the role was highly skilled. During action stations, watertight doors would be shut, leaving the stokers closed up in the boiler room, deep within the bowels of the ship. Not only did this mean they had no idea what was going on in the battle above, it also meant that if the ship was hit by enemy fire, they had little chance of escape. When the HMS Queen Mary sunk with the loss of 1266 sailors, almost half of those killed were stokers. 11 of these were Chief Stokers, 99 were Leading Stokers, 38 were Petty Officer Stokers and 398 were ordinary stokers. Of the 18 survivors, just 7 of these were from the stoker’s department.
Matthew Phillip Johnson from Walworth was a stoker on the battlecruiser HMS Queen Mary. Born in 1890 he lived with his family at County Terrace, New Kent Road. Johnson was baptised in St John the Evangelist in 1891 and later attended Harper Street school. On the 1911 census he is shown as a cyclist working for a newsagent, joining the Royal Navy in 1912. He married Emily Sarah Cragg at St Mary Magdalen, Bermondsey in 1913. The couple had twin boys born on 12 April 1914, unfortunately one of these, Walter John, died shortly after being baptised on 29 April and sadly, his brother, Matthew Phillip also died in July of that year. The young mother, after losing twin boys in such short succession, would have had to deal with the grief alone, as her husband was on active service on the recently launched Queen Mary. He saw action during the Battle of Heligoland Bight in August 1914 before being killed in action at Jutland. As a widow she received a pension of just 10 shillings a week.
HMS Indefatigable was a battlecruiser commissioned in 1911. It should be remembered that these warships were state of the art at the time they were in service and used the latest technologies available to the navy. However, the concept of the battle cruiser had serious design flaws which sadly became all too apparent during the Battle of Jutland. These were fast ships with powerful guns whose job it was to hunt down less well armed ships and destroy them. In the interests of speed, these ships were lightly armoured, the idea being that they could escape from more powerful ships if need be. At around 16:02 on the first afternoon, a salvo of shells from the Von der Tann crashed into the Indefatigable shortly followed by another. Eyewitnesses on HMS Malaya then reported seeing a massive explosion as the aft shell magazine blew up killing 1017 of the 1019 men on board. The two other battle cruisers of this type also blew up in similar circumstances: HMS Queen Mary with the loss of 1226 sailors and HMS Invincible losing a further 1026 men. This prompted the now infamous quote from Admiral Beatty, “There’s something wrong with our bloody ships today!”
Four of those killed were only 17 years old. While officially the army had a minimum age limit of 18, the Royal Navy had long had much younger boys serving on their ships. Herbert Humphreys had been born in Walworth in March 1899 and had been baptised in St Peters church. His father Theodore is shown on the 1911 census as having his own business selling second-hand packing cases and his mother Elizabeth was a collar turner. His parents had been married for 27 years and his mother had given birth to 12 children but only six had survived. He had joined the navy in February 1915, completing his initial training on HMS Powerful before joining HMS Tipperary. This was a brand-new ship, built for the Chilean navy but requisitioned when war had broken out. No doubt, serving on such a modern technologically advanced warship would have been an exciting experience for young Herbert, especially as it became the flagship for the 4th Flotilla led by Captain Charles Wintour.
At around 23:30, ships had been sighted but Wintour did not know if they were friend or foe. As the groups of ships drew closer to each other, Wintour ordered a recognition signal to be raised, believing that they may be British warships. As soon as he had done this, his ships were illuminated by powerful searchlights. Inadvertently, Wintour had stumbled across the main German battle fleet including light cruisers and two battleships, who immediately started to pour fire into the Tipperary at close range. Other ships reported seeing the Tipperary’s bridge being hit and the whole ship looking like it was on fire. It did not sink immediately and some men were able to abandon ship at around 02:00 hours. Unfortunately, Herbert was not one of these, but one of 150 crewmates who died from a complement of 197. He is commemorated on the Portsmouth Naval Memorial.
Another young man born in Walworth in 1898 was Thomas William Smith. He had joined the navy on the 5 June 1914 and trained as a boy signaller. While he had signed on for 12 years, his actual service time is shown on his Register of Service history as starting on 29th July 1916, the date of his 18th birthday. He was posted to HMS Queen Mary on the 15 May 1915. Much of the communication between ships at Jutland would have been made by visual signals: flag, semaphore or searchlight. By necessity, signallers like Smith would have to be standing on the more lightly armoured upper decks to be seen by signallers on other ships, but this also meant they were exposed to enemy fire.
Three of the casualties were serving with either the Royal Marine Light Infantry or the Royal Marine Artillery. William Alfred Collins was serving on HMS Calliope when it launched a torpedo attack on the German fleet. As per naval tradition, Royal Marines often operated one of the gun turrets on larger vessels and it is likely that Collins was doing this when the ship was shelled by three German Dreadnoughts, suffering severe damage. A shell had hit just as they had loaded a lyddite shell into the breech of the gun causing it to explode. Somehow, the ship managed to escape and returned to base. In an oral history later recorded by the Imperial War Museum, a seaman who had served on the HMS Calliope recalled that when the turret exploded, ‘our Sergeant of Marines was gunlayer and all that remained of him was a hand, a piece of leg and his brains were splattered on the gun shield’. It is highly likely that Collins had been standing next to him when the shell hit.
Within a couple of days, news of the battle began to filter back to Britain. Witnesses in naval depots around Britain observed badly damaged ships returning to port and military hospitals had to deal with hundreds of casualties, many badly burned. Though there was no social media in 1916, bad news could travel fast. Another ship, HMS Hampshire, had been present at the Battle of Jutland but had only limited involvement in the action. Several sailors from Southwark served on this ship so one can imagine that their families would have felt a sense of relief when they learned that the Hampshire had survived. However, their happiness would have been shattered just a few days later when the Hampshire was sunk by a mine off the Orkney Isles on 5 June. The ship was taking Lord Kitchener on a special diplomatic mission to Russia when it went down with the loss of 737 lives. Seven of these came from Southwark.
Though Jutland seems like distant history, perhaps it is not as distant as we think. As the fleets prepared for battle, one young officer prepared to go into action for the first time. His naval career had not started well, coming bottom of his class at the Royal Naval training school Dartmouth, yet he joined HMS Collingwood and served with distinction as a turret commander during the battle. At the time he went by the name Prince Albert but later he became King George VI and father of our current Queen.
When the battle ended, the Germans had lost 11 ships with 2551 sailors killed and another 507 injured. British losses were greater with 14 ships sunk, 6,094 killed, 674 injured and 177 men becoming prisoners of war. While tactically the Germans had the upper hand on the day, historians now regard Jutland as being a strategic victory for the Royal Navy. Though the loss of so many sailors was an awful blow, the loss of 14 ships was quite easily absorbed by the massive Royal Navy. The Grand Fleet was ready for action again within a few hours, but the German fleet put into port and would not come out to fight again during the rest of the war. This allowed the Royal Navy to retain control of the North Sea and its vital shipping routes. The naval blockade put massive economic pressure on Germany, and this was just as important to the Allied victory in the First World War as any military campaigns conducted on land. Though naval engagements were relatively few during the Great War, the prospect of a grisly and sudden death was very real for the sailors who faced each other at the Battle of Jutland.