Exceptional Naval and Polar Awards from the Collection of RC Witte
The “Nomad” at Jutland: ‘Firing her last torpedo, she sank’ (from “Sea-Hounds”, by Lieutenant Lewis R. Freeman, R.N.V.R.).
Jutland
Appointed to the command of another destroyer, the Nomad, in the 2nd Division of the 13th Destroyer Flotilla in March 1916, Whitfield went into action at Jutland alongside his old friend Bingham, for the port division of that force was commanded by the dashing Irishman in Nestor, their team being completed by Nicator, under Lieutenant Jack Mocatta (see Dix Noonan Webb, 13 December 2007, Lot 32): very shortly the home press would be buzzing with tales of their exploits.
‘At 4.15 the port division, led by Commander the Hon. Barry Bingham in the Nestor, swerved out of line at full speed to attack. Other divisions followed, until, steaming at full speeds of nearly 34 knots, as fast as they could be driven, a dozen destroyers were tearing for the area of “No Man’s Sea” between the opposing squadrons.
It was a chance vouchsafed to few destroyer officers, and then only once in a lifetime. They had started on the most exciting race in the world, a race towards the enemy, a race which had as its prizes honour and glory - possibly death. Almost as soon as our destroyers moved out to attack, 15 enemy destroyers, accompanied by a light-cruiser, the Regensburg, emerged from the head of the German battle-cruisers to deliver an attack upon our battle-cruisers.
The British destroyers steered at full speed for a position on the enemy’s bow whence to fire their torpedoes, their course gradually converging on that of the German flotilla. At 4.40 the Nestor, Commander Bingham, followed by the Nicator, Lieutenant Jack Mocatta, and the Nomad, Lieutenant-Commander Paul Whitfield, swung round to north to fire their torpedoes, and also to beat off the enemy’s destroyer attack. These three ships were followed at intervals by the Petard, Lieutenant-Commander E. C. O. Thomson, and the Turbulent, Lieutenant-Commander Dudley Stuart.
Immediately the Nestor, Nicator and Nomad turned in to attack the enemy’s light-cruisers, the German flotilla turned to an appropriately parallel course. Almost at once the destroyer fight started at a range of about 9,000 yards. Both sides fired rapidly as the distance decreased, and to onlookers the opposing flotillas were only seen as lean black shapes pouring smoke from their funnels as, with their guns blazing, they tore at full speed through a welter of shell-splashes. At about 4.45 the Nomad was hit in the engine-room, the explosion killing or wounding many men ... ’
Whitfield would later submit his own official report of the action, but in the interim one of his officers, Sub. Lieutenant David Wainwright, wrote home from captivity with the following description of the Nomad’s fate:
‘Think of the worst peal of thunder that you have ever heard, try to imagine it going on continuously and imagine that at the same time you are standing in the corridor of the Royal Scot with all the windows open, passing at full speed another express going in the opposite direction on the next set of rails. You will then have a faint conception of what it felt like on the bridge of a destroyer in the van of the battle cruisers - the state of tension while waiting for the meeting of the destroyers in shell and torpedo battle was the worst period that I passed through because it gave imagination a chance to work. What happened when the shells struck a ship and that dull red glow appeared? Was everyone immediately asphyxiated, burnt or mangled? I felt very empty inside as though I hadn't had a meal for ages though I didn't feel hungry. My tongue was dry and I smoked a cigarette hard, hoping that with its aid an illusion of sang froid and devil may carishness was accepted by my neighbours at its spurious value. I I busied myself with testing voice pipes and other accessories to my official function, that of fire control.
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