Battle of Jutland

​The Battle of Jutland was fought on the day and night of May 31, 1916 and was the largest Naval Battle of the First World War. At the outbreak of war the British Fleet effectively imposed a blockade on Germany restricting access to raw materials from around the world. There were a number of German challenges to the Royal Navy and to the blockading action during the war but the most significant of those was at Jutland off of the coast of Denmark. It was the single occasion in the war when British and German Battleships came up against each other and came about when both the Germans and British tried to lure a small detachment of the enemy fleet into the jaws of its main force.

The British lost more ships than the Germans in the battle, but overall the battle is usually seen as a British victory as the German Fleet did not enter into action again during the war.

25 British and German ships were lost with a huge loss of life – over 9000 men were killed and another 1000 injured – huge numbers mostly because ships were packed with ammunition. When the battle cruiser HMS Indefatigable was hit in her ammunition magazine over 1000 sailors were killed in the explosion.

As well as the Indefatigable the British ships lost included the battle cruisers Queen Mary and Invincible.

While the largest proportion of local men that served in WW1 enlisted with the Army there were 75 that were in the Royal Navy or the Royal Marines at some point in the war and there were 3 men serving on ships that were lost during the Battle of Jutland.

Reginald Tanner aged 20 was a leading telegraphist on HMS Tipperary; Joseph Leonard aged 20 was a Private in the Royal Marines onboard HMS Indefatigable and Albert Jones aged 21 was a Private in the Royal Marine Artillery onboard HMS Queen Mary.

All are remembered on the Corsham War Memorial and with their colleagues and shipmates they are named on the Naval Memorials in Plymouth (Leonard) and Portsmouth (Tanner and Jones).