The Story of the HMS Invincible

A thick layer of black coal dust coated the lights creating a dark, hazy illuminance in the engine room.  The air was thick.  Lungs choked.  The omnipresence of sound engulfed the men, making the circumstances of it very presence meaningless.  It was a symphony of chaos and disorder.  Blasts from the furnace…the guttural grumblings of the boilers and the engine as it consumed the vast quantities of black rock.  With each shovel, with each sack dumped into the boiler, it sated the beast’s titanic appetite.   Men, blackened by the soot of their toils, muscles ripped, sculpted by years upon years acting as the essential cog in this great machine. To feed.  To quench.  To power the most awesome mechanical weapons of war ever made by man. 

Shoulder to shoulder they toiled in the belly of the beast.  With each salvo of shells belched from the great guns lining the deck, a thunderous reverberation was felt below deck.  Yet, the men had to persevere.  It was their job to coordinate the supply, transportation and deployment of tons of coal up and into the boilers.  The nautical speed of these great vessels depended upon it. Working in shifts from morning to night as the battlecruisers of His Majesty’s navy plowed forward, they were entirely dependent upon the manual labour of the men working deep within the confines of the vessel.  They were known as stokers.  Strong, resilient, determined and powerful men.  Their only role in this machine was to employ a well rehearsed and coordinated ballet of brut power to ensure the Royal Navy maintained its’ position as the most powerful navy in the world. 

100 years ago…off the coast of Denmark the stokers were employed in fueling these great machines as they navigated the waters to exact their duties.  A total of 250 ships from two great navies, the greatest and most technologically advanced weapons of war to ever be constructed by man scoured the North Sea in search of one another.  Like an intricately complicated dance, two great fleets, both hovering on the edge of visual capability sought out their opponent. The first contact was made mid-afternoon between two scouting fleets.  This initial skirmish left the Royal Navy bloodied with two fewer great battlecruisers.  2000 souls were lost to the deep.  Then out of the great blue the main German fleet approached, causing the remaining British scouts to swing around and head north.  Meanwhile to the north the main British fleet, commanded by Admiral Jellicoe, desperately searched for Scheer’s High Seas Fleet.  Contact was finally established between the opponents at 17:33.

Within the massive battlefield the two opposing fleets each stretched for miles across the open seas.  The movements of their respective navies were deliberate, calculated and coordinated.  And all was done at greatest speed a steady supply of coal and coordination could muster.  The first section of Jellicoe’s main fleet in this stage of the conflict included the fleet of battlecruisers commanded by Admiral Hood.  Hood’s ships were the clenched fist of Jellicoe’s mighty force and set out at the forefront to take on and take out the Germans.  He commanded the HMS Invincible which initiated contact by being the first to pepper the German SMS Weisbaden with shellfire.  At 17:56, it sailed through leaving its’ opponent a crippled hulk. 

Proud and satisfied, the HMS Invincible plowed forward looking for the next opponent.  Sailing with HMS Defence and HMS Warrior, these ships decided to play target practice with HMS Invincible’s floating victim.  Unbeknownst to Hood, suddenly appearing at the edge of the horizon was Scheer and his entire fleet.  At this time Jellicoe and the bulk of his forces were situated due east preparing to effectively cross Scheer’s T thereby cutting him off and hopefully ending his ambitions to boot.  Hood was on his own and while his team was inadvertently focused on downing the SMS Weisbaden, Scheer’s battlecruisers Derfflinger and Lutzow opened up and did their worst.  The HMS Defence was pilloried by heavy-calibre gunfire detonating its’ magazines and blowing the vessel and all onboard sky high.  11 minutes later, with the HMS Defence sunk.  Meanwhile, HMS Invincible sailed directly into the cross-hairs of the Derfflinger and Lutzow. 

Below deck the men of the HMS Invincible were doing their duty.  Each man knew their role and their responsibility.  Sacks of coal were passed along, transported from the stores and fed into the boilers.  All knowing the speed and execution were entirely reliant and dependent upon their brut strength and expertise.  Above deck the guns smoked, with the heavy calibre shells being prepared for their next salvo.  Then, from the edge of the horizon, obscured by smoke and mist two volleys of three shots each met their mark.  From the men deep down in the boiler room, to the gunners to Admiral Hood himself manning the bridge…they didn’t have a chance.  The magazines were detonated, and those within the confines of the ship were effectively incinerated and in less than 90 seconds, another of His Majesty’s premier battlecruisers was lost to the sea.  Of the 1032 officers and men manning the vessel, only six men survived.  The HMS Invincible was no more.  

With the dawn of the new day approached prepared as they were and are, Scheer’s fleet executed their pre-prepared orders and escaped the trap set by Jellicoe over the night and morning of the 1st of June. The contest between heavyweights was called to a draw.  Despite this unfortunate fact, the cost to the British in men and material was heavy.  They lost three battlecruisers, three armoured cruisers, one flotilla leader and seven destroyers.  The Germans, on the other hand, only lost one battlecruiser…the Lutzow which despite having been hit 24 times was sunk more out of spite than necessity, one pre-dreadnaught, four light cruisers and five destroyers.  The body count was 6784 to 3039, British to German.  

On the surface, one could count this as a great victory for the undermanned and outnumbered Germans.   However, as the Russians and Chinese proved over and over again in the history of their military endeavours, in the end the victor is the one who controls the battlefield, not the one who is left to count the bodies.  In warfare ,men can be simply replaced with just more men…yet power and control can only be owned by one side…the one who looks down upon the other whom his boot is stepping upon…and the British were able to retain this position following Jutland and throughout the end of the war.   

This piece is dedicated to the 9823 souls who were lost in that great combat…and specifically to the uncle of my grandmother, Bertie Arnell, 1st Class Stoker on the HMS Invincible. 

Lest we forget.