Says Tirpitz (vol. II, p. 284): ‘In the further course of the fight,’ i.e. after the destruction of the _Indefatigable_ and _Queen Mary_, ‘the English were strongly reinforced by five[23] of their newest ships of the Queen Elizabeth class, only completed during the war; these vessels, driven exclusively by oil-fuel, possessed such a high speed that they were able to take part in the cruiser engagement—they attached themselves to the English cruisers and joined in the battle at long range.’ The First Gunnery Officer of the _Derfflinger_ is more explicit: Meanwhile we saw that the enemy were being reinforced. Behind the battle cruiser line approached four big ships. We soon identified these as of the _Queen Elizabeth_ class. There had been much talk in our fleet of these ships. They were ships of the line with the colossal armament of eight 15–inch guns, 28,000 tons displacement and a speed of twenty-five knots. Their speed, therefore, was scarcely inferior to ours (twenty-six knots), but they fired a shell more than twice as heavy as ours. They engaged at portentous range ... (p. 164).[24] As we were altering course to N.N.W. we caught sight of the head of our Third Squadron, the proud ships of the _König_ class. Everyone now breathed more freely. While we had been engaged by the English Fifth Battle Squadron with its 15–inch guns in addition to the Battle Cruiser Squadron we had felt rather uncomfortable. (p. 167). After the gradual disappearance of the four battle cruisers we were still faced with the four powerful ships of the Fifth Battle Squadron, _Malaya_, _Valiant_, _Barham_, and _Warspite_. These ships cannot have developed very high speed in this phase of the battle, for they soon came within range of our Third Squadron, and were engaged by the ships at the head of the line, particularly the flagship, the _König_. In this way the four English battleships at one time and another came under the fire of at least nine German ships, five battle cruisers and from four to five battleships. According to my gunnery log, we were firing after 7.16 p.m. at the second battleship from the right, the one immediately astern of the leader. At these great ranges I fired armour-piercing shell. The second phase passed without any important events as far as we were concerned. In a sense this part of the action, fought against a numerically inferior but more powerfully armed enemy, who kept us under fire at ranges at which we were helpless, was highly depressing, nerve-racking and exasperating. Our only means of defence was to leave the line for a short time when we saw that the enemy had our range. As this manœuvre was imperceptible to the enemy, we extricated ourselves at regular intervals from the hail of fire. (p. 173). We may now turn to the smaller vessels.