JUTLAND RECAPTURED

Radio Record, 27 May 1938, Page 8

JUTLAND RECAPTURED

WORLD’S FINEST SHIPS FOUGHT ON JUTLAND EVE

Told by

WILL

GRAVE

AT & p.m. on May 31, 2YA will broadcast an anniversary programme entitled, "Jutland-May 31, 1916.." This recorded programme is written by Captain Tafrell Darling, D.S.0., F.R.Hist.S., R.N., better known to the public as "Taffrail," the author of many seafaring stories. He himself took part in the Battle of Jutland. The recording will be broadcast later at the main Netional stations.

HERE is a theory, fantastic as it sounds, that ‘some day man with his radio set may pick up the sound vibrations of past ages,

Turning the dial of his set. he muy pick up a message out of the centuries of the past. He might hear the voice of a Roman Governor saying 2000 years ago: "What is truth?" It is fantastic, certainly. Impos sible? So were aeroplanes, so Was electric light, so was wireless itself, to the earlier generations. f WONDERED if he felt something like this, the ex-naval officer who sat beside me one morning last week in the 2YA studios while we heard 2 radio preview of the NBS production of "Jutland." The swish of the sea’s wuves. those messages in Morse, the echo of great guns firing in the greatest naval engagement the world has ever known. meant more to him than to most lis teners. He had been in the Battle of Jutiand. THE whole production means muck to New Zealunders, too. The man who held the responsibility of an Empire in the hollow of his hand on the fateful night of May 381, 1916. wus later to become a_ well-loved figure

in New Zealand. New Zealanders remember the way he fitted into colonial life, his natural and unaffected ways, his strength and {riendly nature. ...

Remembering him like this, listeners will find, as I did, perhaps, a tenser interest in a production that giyes a glimpse of the tremendous issues that had to be fought out in that man’s brain, Hz wus criticised afterward. There was--and there are. still echoes of the affair-a hot controversy over Jutland. There was a wild popular couception at the time that Jellieoe had turned aside from a decisive exetion that would have smashed the German High Seas Fleet to sinithereens. In the light of all the faets, the theory seems absurd. The exnaval officer who listened with me fo the broadeast had no doubt ‘about’ the brillianey of Jellicoe’s handling of that mighty fleet of 154 vessels of war. "THE broadeast is a tine production." he said afterward. "It is exciting and stirring. It gives a good idea of the phases of the action, but it has one fault. It lies in the seript. The brilliance of Jellicoe’s manoeuvring is not made plain enough, so that listéners could understand it." We were inthe (Contd. on v. 42.)

~. Jutland Recaptured

BRILLIANT MANOEUVRE (Continued from page 8). room of thé Director of Broadcasting. The ex-naval man took a quick step over to a tin of cigarettes. "May tT? , He put some cigaretes on the table, side by side. "REATTY’S squadron had engaged the German High Seas Fleet," he said. "That was his job. To go and find the enemy, engage them and report. ° "Jellicoe got word from Beatty and brought up the British Grand Fleet to attack the enemy. He brought them up like this.’ The ex-naval officer’s fingers arranged the cigarettes in an even line, side by side, head on-to the enemy. ‘A 'T a. certain moment he was golig to come on to a position in whieh he calculated he would meet the enemy. Just before he got there he must deploy." The fingers showed the cigarettes deploying. They were moved round sideways so.that they came into a long chain, broadside on to the enemy so that they could fire their broadsides into an enemy advancing head on, "That manoeuvre," said the ex-naval man. "was carried out. It was one of "the most brilliant :manoeuvres ever . made in- naval warfare." The British ships raked the enemy fleet with such deadly fire as they went past that the German fleet was ultimately forced to turn away. Tr other words, it had to run. For Jellicoe had got his fleet into such a position that:the Germans were visible against the western sum and the British ships were half-hidden in the mist. That same deployment put the British fleet in the position of cutting the German fleet off from its home ports. The British fleet now lay, as a result of Jellicoe’s masterly tactics, directly between the Germans and their home. ‘HE German fleet then turned away. The German Commander-in-Chiet, Admiral Reinold Scheer, was a brave and game fighter, but the withering fire from the British fleet as it deploy ed. made him turn about and run oft into the mist. ~ Wisely Jellicoe did not risk al! }he untold dangers of a night i pursuit. He was between the Ger. mans and their bases. He had the great hope of engaging them on their way- home in daylight next morning and -the possibility of ‘annibilating them. HAT, in the course of events, never happened. ‘ Scheer that night irieq to skirt the tail-end of Jellicoe’s fleet and found himself trapped by a line of lighter British. ships. Driven to desperate courses, he smashed straight through these British destroyer flotiilas astern of the British Grand Fleet in the dark, None of these ships reported this at * the moment to Jellicoe, and the main ~~ ---€@ontinned on next page). -_

(Continued from previous page.)

fleet, five miles away. They fought, but gave him no word. T was this failure to report the ae tion, says the ex-naval officer, that let the German High Seas Fleet limp home to their bases from which they did not ever again emerge for battle. "This," said the officer, "is very briefly the story. In the naval schools they work out the action of the battle with model ships on great tables. It takes three days to -work out the de tails. And each year, more information is gained, more facts become known." Against this background then, listeners may picture the scene so vividly presented in the NBS production. The form of the work is narrative, with several voices taking up the story and swiftly speeding ft along. The drama of the battle is brought out by the pace of the voices and by the efe fects... The sound of the sea, the piping of morse, the booming of the guns. There were difficulties, of course. The shattering detonations of great guns, > reproduced too accurately, would have jumped the needle off the récording. But the illusion is there, | It is a production well worth hearing, but it had one curious discrepancy. The voice of Jellicoe seemed to be taken by a different voice at the end from the voice at the beginning.