The only German armored ship that succumbed to the blow of a single torpedo was the _Pommern_, an old vessel, built before the fruits of these experiments were embodied in the German fleet. The labor of von Tirpitz was well justified by the results, as may be seen by the instantaneous fashion in which the three British battle cruisers went to the bottom, compared with the ability of the German battle cruisers to stand terrific pounding and yet stay afloat and keep going. According to the testimony of a German officer,[1] the _Luetzow_ was literally shot to pieces in the battle and even then it took three torpedoes to settle her. Actually she was sunk by opening her seacocks to prevent her possible capture. The remarkable ability of the battle cruiser _Goeben_, in Turkish waters, to survive shell, mines, and torpedo, bears the same testimony, as does the _Mainz_, which, in the action of the Heligoland Bight had to be sunk by one of her own officers, as in the case of the _Luetzow_. It is possible that Jellicoe assumed an inferiority of the British armor piercing shell because of this power of the German ships to stay afloat. But photographs published after the armistice showed that British shells penetrated the 11-inch turret armor of the _Seydlitz_ and the 13-inch of the _Derfflinger_ with frightful effect. The difference was in the fact that they did not succeed in sinking those ships, which, after all is the chief object of a shell, and this must be attributed to better under-water construction. [Footnote 1: Quoted in _Naval and Military Record_, Dec. 24, 1919, p. 822.] The only criticism it seems possible to suggest on Scheer's tactics is the unwariness of his pursuit, which might so easily have led to the total destruction of the German fleet. Strangely enough, although a Zeppelin hovered over the British fleet at dawn of the day after the battle, no aircraft of any kind scouted ahead of the Germans the day before. In pursuing Beatty, Scheer had to take a chance, well aware that if the Grand Fleet were within reach, Beatty's wireless would bring it upon him. But Scheer was evidently perfectly willing to risk the encounter. Such criticism as arose in Germany--from Captain Persius, for example--centered on "Tirpitz's faulty constructional methods"; which, in the light of the facts of the battle would seem to be the very last thing to hit upon.