The Grand Fleet, 1914-1916 : $b its creation, development and workJellicoe, John Rushworth
History
The Grand Fleet, 1914-1916 : $b its creation, development and work
Jellicoe, John Rushworth
Great Britain. Royal Navy; Jutland, Battle of, 1916; World War, 1914-1918 -- Naval operations
The junction took place at 4 P.M., the Battle Cruiser Fleet, which
had been ordered to a position a little farther south, arriving there
at this time. No enemy vessels having been sighted, the whole Fleet
was turned to the northward shortly before dusk, when in the vicinity
of the Little Fisher Bank, to the westward of Northern Denmark.
During the night the 3rd Battle Squadron and 3rd Cruiser Squadron
were detached to return to Rosyth, and the 2nd and 4th Flotillas to
Scapa; the Vice-Admiral, Battle Cruiser Fleet, was directed to cruise
independently on the 19th; and the Dreadnought Battle Fleet, with the
1st, 2nd and 7th Cruiser Squadrons, proceeded to the eastward of the
Shetlands; target practice was carried out during daylight of the
19th and the night of the 19th–20th, and the Battle Fleet returned to
its bases at Scapa and Cromarty during the night of the 20th–21st and
fuelled. During the cruise the _Achilles_, of the 2nd Cruiser Squadron,
reported sighting a submarine at 2.40 P.M. on the 18th.
On the 19th the _Albemarle_ and _Russell_, of the 6th Battle Squadron,
which had rejoined the 3rd Battle Squadron from the Channel ports, were
detached from Rosyth to Scapa for practices.
The Grand Fleet again proceeded to sea on the night of the 21st for
another sweep towards the Danish coast, and at 8 A.M. on the 22nd
the forces from Scapa and Cromarty, comprising the 1st, 2nd and 4th
Battle Squadrons, _Russell_ and _Albemarle_, 1st, 2nd and 7th Cruiser
Squadrons, and the 2nd and 4th Flotillas, were in position Lat. 58.4
N., Long. 0.27 E.
At 4.30 P.M. the 3rd Battle Squadron and 3rd Cruiser Squadron joined
the Commander-in-Chief, and the Battle Cruiser Fleet took station ahead
of the cruiser screen. At dusk no enemy ships had been sighted and the
Fleet turned to the northward again, the _Iron Duke’s_ position being
Lat. 57.11 N., Long. 4.53 E.
The 3rd Battle Squadron, 3rd Cruiser Squadron and the Battle Cruiser
Fleet were detached to return to Rosyth during the night, and the
remainder of the Fleet arrived at the Scapa and Cromarty bases on the
23rd.
During these two southerly sweeps the Fleet sighted a large number of
neutral steamers and trawlers which were closely examined, but nothing
suspicious was found, although the interception of German wireless
messages, when the Fleet was in the vicinity of the trawlers, raised
suspicions that they were acting as look-out vessels; this suspicion
was strengthened by carrier pigeons being sighted from various ships.
One Norwegian steamer which was found to be carrying magnetic ore to
Rotterdam was sent to the Firth of Forth.
Movements of interest of individual ships during April included the
arrival of the _Lion_ at Rosyth on the 7th after completion of all
repairs, the arrival of the new Battleship _Warspite_, of the “Queen
Elizabeth” class, at Scapa on the 13th, and the commissioning on the
26th of four more mercantile vessels to join the 10th Cruiser Squadron.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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