Tiger fought at the Battle of Jutland 31st May 1916 as part of Admiral Beatty’s Battle Cruiser Fleet The torpedo missed.Ĭrew members of British Battle Cruiser HMS Tiger. Hipper finding the fire from Beatty’s battlecruisers and Evan-Thomas’s battleships too hot to endure had turned away to the east and then back towards the advancing German battleships.Īt this point the destroyer Ophelia launched a torpedo attack on Hipper’s ships. Jellicoe urgently needed to know where the German ships were so that he could begin the deployment of his battleships from squadron columns into a single line heading across the German front, the manoeuvre of ‘Crossing the T’, which would unleash the broadside fire of his battleship force on the leading German ships. As Beatty crossed in front of Jellicoe sailing west to east he lost sight of Hipper’s ships. Hipper had been forced to turn east and Beatty was pursuing him, having at 5.56pm seen the leading battleships of the Grand Fleet. Jellicoe’s battleships were fourteen miles to the north-west Beatty was six miles to the south-west engaged with Hipper’s battle cruisers and the leading battleships of the German High Seas Fleet supported by the 5 th Battle Squadron. Shark sank in the middle of the developing battlefield. Commander Loftus Jones was awarded a posthumous Victoria Cross. Jones died in the boat and the surviving six crew were later rescued by a Danish steamer. The crew abandoned ship as the Shark sank. Shark’s captain Commander Loftus Jones was awarded a posthumous Victoria Cross It was during this action that the 16 year old ‘First Class Boy’ Jack Cornwell won his posthumous Victoria Cross by sticking to his gun on HMS Chester and continuing to fire even when mortally wounded, the rest of the gun crew being dead.īritish Destroyer HMS Shark fighting to the last before sinking in the Battle of Jutland on 31st May 1916. Boedicker thereby managed to escape into the gloom, but not before the battle cruisers’ 12 inch guns had severely damaged Wiesbaden and hit Pillau and Frankfurt. Seeing the British battle cruisers Boedicker changed course to starboard on the opposing course to Hood and discharged torpedoes causing Hood to veer away. Hearing the firing at 5.37pm Admiral Hood swung his three battle cruisers to the north-west on a course converging with Chester and the German light cruisers. The fourth gun continued firing as Chester made off to the north-east. Within five minutes three of Chester’s four guns were disabled with the crews dead or wounded. Jack Cornwell continuing to operate his gun on HMS Chester at the Battle of Jutland on 31st May 1916 after the death or disabling of the other gun crew winning a posthumous Victoria CrossĬhester had run into the light cruisers Frankfurt, Pillau, Elbing and Wiesbaden of Admiral Boedicker’s Second Scouting Group positioned on the disengaged starboard side of Hipper’s battle cruisers.
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