A squadron of the German Imperial Navy under the eye of a Zeppelin off the North Sea island and port of Helgoland.
Deutscher Geschwader vor HelgolandGerman squadron off HeligolandLogo, bottom left: M Dieterle, Kielbottom right: PH 125Handwritten: 1915Reverse:Verlag: M Dieterle, Kiel.
"Hipper and his battle cruisers sailed from the Jade at 1 A.M. on the 31st [May, 1916], and Scheer and the main portion of the High Sea Fleet sailed from the Jade and the Elbe shortly afterward. The British were already at sea. Room 40 had been able to warn the Admiralty that the Germans were preparing to put to sea, and at 5:40 on the afternoon of 30 May, the Admiralty ordered Jellicoe, who along with Beatty had already been alerted, to concentrate in the Long Forties. By 10:30 the Grand Fleet had sailed from Scapa Flow and the Moray Firth, and Beatty sailed from the Firth of Forth at 11:00."
At the end of May, 1916, the German and British moved into the North Sea with similar plans and deployments: a squadron of half a dozen ships to lure the enemy into the guns of a large battle fleet. Admiral Reinhard Scheer commanded the German High Sea Fleet, and Rear Admiral Franz Hipper his smaller battle squadron. Their British counterparts were Admiral John Jellicoe commanding the Grand Fleet, with David Beatty at the helm of his squadron. Room 40 was home to the British Admiralty cryptographers armed with copies of German code books, one that had been found on the body of a German officer by the Russians. The Jade and Elbe Rivers lead from the ports of Hamburg and Bremerhaven to the North Sea.
A Naval History of World War I by Paul G. Halpern, page 315, copyright © 1994 by the United States Naval Institute, publisher: UCL Press, publication date: 1994
1916-05-30, 1916, May, Jellicoe, Beatty, Skaggerak, High Sea Fleet, Grand Fleet
