McCartney - Jutland 1916: the archaeology of a naval battlefield

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This electronic edition published in 2016 by Bloomsbury Publishing Plc

First published 2016

Innes McCartney, 2016

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In memory of the servicemen and civilians
of all nations and services who perished
at sea during the First World War

PREFACE

When I was a child my father bought me a book entitled Great Sea Battles. Within it was Jutland, a battle full of uncertainties and controversies, which sparked a lifelong interest. Back in 2000, when I was first able to dive the wrecks that were then known, this interest took on another dimension and led me to study modern shipwreck archaeology as an academic discipline and ultimately to this book.

It has always felt like an immense privilege to be able to examine the shipwrecks and unravel the mysteries they contain. Over the past 17 years so much has been achieved that now all but two of the ships sunk in the Jutland battlefield have been found and are described here.

Very little of this would have been possible without Gert Normann Andersen. He has had a lifelong fascination with the shipwrecks off the coast of his native Denmark. Gerts company, JD-Contractor A/S, is the largest underwater contractor in Denmark and has been well situated to gather shipwreck data in the waters off the Danish coast.

In marine archaeology, local knowledge is everything and since 2001 Gert and I have shared information. This culminated in 2015 when he graciously invited me to work as his number two on a groundbreaking survey of the Jutland battlefield, the results of which have finally made this book possible.

The chronology of how the wrecks were found and identified begins with the Royal Navy locating the wreck of HMS Invincible in 1919. HMS Black Prince, Queen Mary and the larger wrecks were located by Danish divers, not least Gert in the 1980s. SMS Wiesbaden was probably first located by the German Navy in 1983.

With information from Gert, I was lucky to be among the first dive party to visit HMS Indefatigable and Defence in 2001. HMS Nomad was also located that year. Between 2000 and 2001 I took part in four diving expeditions aboard Deep Blue Divings Loyal Watcher and slowly began to learn what was there.

By 2003 enough was known to make a two-hour television documentary with Ideal World Productions and Channel Four. With assistance from Gert,

I organised and led the underwater filming expedition that was central to the film. The expedition aboard MV Gorm was equipped with a remotely operated underwater vehicle (ROV) and side scanning sonar. This was one of the first times geophysics was employed on the Jutland wrecks. Although primitive, the results of the side scans clearly showed that geophysics was the only way to develop an accurate site map of the larger wrecks if used in the calmest of conditions. They are simply too big to be accurately described by only diving or ROV.