Chapter 128: A Missed Opportunity

By the end of the battle, the main deck of the Helgoland was already submerged. Although the captain and the more than one thousand officers and crew had not yet given up hope, Hipper authorized the captain before nine o'clock to issue the order to abandon ship if necessary to preserve the lives of the crew. By the following morning, the battleship, having absorbed twenty-eight large-caliber armor-piercing shells, was lost to the sea forever.

The situation of the Ostfriesland was slightly better, but she was completely combat-ineffective, with her speed reduced to under twelve knots. When the Thüringen ceased fire, she had a nine-degree list to starboard, and nearly one-third of her starboard compartments were flooded. Although she managed to return to Wilhelmshaven just before sinking and avoided total loss by running aground, she was not fully repaired until the end of 1916, and did not rejoin the High Seas Fleet until early 1917, missing several major naval engagements that occurred in the interim. The Oldenburg was in the most dire straits; at 7:48 AM, just as the battle concluded, the captain issued the order to abandon ship and allowed the men to escape in lifeboats. At 7:54 AM, the captain himself opened the sea valves, intending to go down with his ship. Ultimately, under Hipper’s orders, officers on the Oldenburg forcibly dragged the captain into a lifeboat, preventing him from sacrificing his life.

Interestingly, the Fourth Battle Squadron at the rear was in relatively good condition. This was mainly because, during the decisive battle, the Grand Fleet seemingly overlooked these four older ships, which were about twenty years old, and did not focus its fire on them.

This clearly illustrated that the state of the High Seas Fleet was far from optimistic. After the Grand Fleet turned and retreated, excluding Räder’s five battlecruisers, the High Seas Fleet had only seven capital ships capable of continued combat. Among these, only the Grosser Kurfürst, the Kaiser, and the Kaiserin possessed relatively intact firepower.

Should they continue to fight? Hipper wanted to break off the engagement, as the High Seas Fleet had suffered heavy losses. Furthermore, there were still several British ships on the battlefield that had failed to escape. If those could be finished off, the High Seas Fleet would be a victor in every sense, and the price paid would have been worth it.

Feng Chengqian, however, did not think so. In his view, if they abandoned the pursuit, they would likely never have such a golden opportunity again. Most importantly, the High Seas Fleet still held a trump card: Räder’s reconnaissance squadron. The five battlecruisers were in relatively good condition and were fully capable of undertaking the pursuit.

After eight o'clock, Feng Chengqian took a speedboat to the König and persuaded Hipper. Five minutes later, Hipper issued the pursuit order to Räder and instructed the Kaiser and two other less-damaged battleships to follow behind, in case the Grand Fleet attempted a counter-attack.

Of course, the fighting was not over. While Räder sortied, Hipper dispatched light cruisers and other smaller vessels to mop up the British ships that could not escape and to rescue the men who had fallen overboard from both sides. Most crucially, however, was the repair of the damaged German ships. Regardless, it was much easier to repair a warship than to build one. As long as those damaged ships could return to port, they could be repaired. Moreover, during the repairs, they could be retrofitted to improve their combat power, making them even more formidable once returned to service. At the time, Feng Chengqian had originally intended to return to the Kaiser to participate in the night pursuit.

Unfortunately, Hipper could not manage everything alone, and as Chief of Staff of the High Seas Fleet, Feng Chengqian was duty-bound to remain and assist the Fleet Commander in the aftermath. Several days later, both Hipper and Feng Chengqian regretted this.

When Räder led the battlecruisers to pursue the Grand Fleet, Feng Chengqian had sent him a telegram, urging him to be extra cautious. He noted that since the Grand Fleet could not maintain high speed, it was highly likely they would not return directly to Scapa Flow but would instead maneuver to evade during the night, only turning toward Scapa Flow after they were certain they had shaken off the pursuing German ships. Therefore, Räder should push toward Scapa Flow as much as possible to get ahead of the British ships, rather than wasting time at night or being misled by appearances.

It could be said that Feng Chengqian understood clearly that Beatty would not return in a straight line. One must not forget that Beatty certainly knew Räder’s force was still combat-effective; therefore, the High Seas Fleet would surely pursue the Grand Fleet at night, and would certainly use Räder to spearhead the effort. Feng Chengqian’s arrangement was also appropriate because, in the North Sea, the only place capable of accommodating the Grand Fleet was Scapa Flow. If the Grand Fleet did not go to Scapa Flow, they had only two options: risk crossing the English Channel or sail around the British Isles, both with Portsmouth as the destination. The reason was simple: only Portsmouth had the sufficient infrastructure to house the entire Grand Fleet.

Clearly, Beatty would not go to Portsmouth. The reason was also simple: Portsmouth was too far away. Those British ships heavily damaged in the battle could certainly not make a long voyage and had to reach the nearest naval base. In other words, Scapa Flow was the only logical choice for the Grand Fleet.

Regrettably, Räder did not heed Feng Chengqian’s advice, and Beatty set a trap, leading Räder to believe the Grand Fleet was heading for Portsmouth. Around nine o'clock, Beatty ordered the Grand Fleet to sail southwest. At the time, two light cruisers dispatched by Räder had caught up to the Grand Fleet and discovered that they had changed course to the southwest. Based on this, Räder concluded that Beatty was heading for the English Channel to lead the Grand Fleet back to Portsmouth.

Unfortunately, before eleven o'clock, those two light cruisers were driven off by British ships and were never able to locate the Grand Fleet again. By this time, Räder still had not changed his decision and continued to sail southwest. At 12:30 AM, the Grand Fleet turned northwest. About half an hour later, Beatty and Räder nearly brushed past each other. At their closest point, they were less than twenty kilometers apart!

Alas, the darkness provided the best cover for the Grand Fleet, and the damaged British ships had extinguished their fires. When the two fleets crossed paths, a German light cruiser even approached the Grand Fleet and was subjected to British fire. Unfortunately, the light cruiser failed to identify that the ships firing were capital ships, reporting instead that it had been engaged by British light cruisers.

This report further misled Räder, convincing him that the Grand Fleet was still heading southwest. Of course, this error was not the fault of the German captain. According to post-war information, the British ships had identified that the approaching vessel was a light cruiser, so they used only the secondary batteries of their battleships when firing, not their main guns. The secondary batteries of British battleships were, in fact, the main guns of light cruisers. That was precisely why the captain of the German light cruiser concluded, based on the muzzle flashes, that he was being fired upon by British light cruisers.

At 2:00 AM, Räder inevitably missed Beatty. It could be said that Räder missed the final opportunity to annihilate, or at least cripple, the Grand Fleet. Had he listened to Feng Chengqian, he could have blocked the Grand Fleet as it returned to Scapa Flow around 5:00 AM. In that case, if Räder could have held out for an hour and a half until dawn, the Kaiser and the two other battleships would have arrived, and Beatty could not have forced his way through an interception line composed of three battleships and five battlecruisers, regardless of how he tried.

By the next morning, having received no word from Räder, Feng Chengqian knew that Beatty had escaped. By this time, the High Seas Fleet was already on its way back to Wilhelmshaven. Before dawn, after determining which of the more heavily damaged ships were worth saving, Hipper sent telegrams to Tirpitz and the Kaiser reporting the results of the engagement, emphasizing that in the decisive fleet battle, they had defeated the invincible Grand Fleet and forced it to retreat from the battlefield. To highlight the great significance of this naval battle, Feng Chengqian also had Hipper add a sentence to the telegram to the Kaiser: "From this moment on, the North Sea is the inner sea of the Imperial Navy's High Seas Fleet; the British Royal Navy will never again dominate the North Sea alone."

For anyone in the German Empire, this news of victory was heartening. That morning, the Kaiser remarked during breakfast that he would personally decorate Hipper, Feng Chengqian, Räder, and other key commanders of the High Seas Fleet, reward all the meritorious soldiers of the fleet, and designate May 6th, the day of the "Battle of the Norwegian Sea," as Imperial Navy Day. In his joy, the Kaiser even proposed granting Hipper the title of Duke, Räder the title of Count, and Feng Chengqian the title of Prince. However, due to opposition from other members of the royal family, the Kaiser ultimately only granted Hipper the title of Count and Räder the title of Viscount. Feng Chengqian did not receive the title of Prince, but he was granted a fief in East Prussia and officially entered the ranks of the Junker nobility.

Two days later, the High Seas Fleet returned to Wilhelmshaven. Because he had to discuss military operations with Falkenhayn, Ludendorff, and others, the Kaiser did not come in person, but sent the Crown Prince to welcome the triumphant High Seas Fleet.

In fact, the condition of the High Seas Fleet at that time was not a pretty sight. Of the twelve battleships that returned that day, not a single one was intact, and it could even be said that not one looked like a majestic warship. The state of the twelve ships was almost too horrific to behold. Fortunately, this served to show the Crown Prince and the public just how brutal the battle had been in defeating the once-invincible Grand Fleet, and at what a heavy price such a glorious victory had been won. As for the other eight ships, they would not return to Wilhelmshaven until May 11th.

On that day, across the North Sea, Scapa Flow also welcomed a broken and battered fleet. The difference was that the British Royal Navy had not received a victory, but its most devastating defeat in two hundred years, and the most precarious situation it had faced since the age of Nelson.