HMS TIGER, PRINCESS ROYAL, LION, WARRIOR, DEFENCE AND ONSLOW AT JUTLAND 1916

W L Wyllie (1851-1931). Etching, signed..

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This celebrated etching is one of very few executed by Wyllie depicting the handsome TIGER, the new three funnelled battle cruiser who had joined the Grand Fleet a few months after war was declared in August 1914. She received her baptism of fire at the Battle of Dogger Bank when she was hit on B turret and she is seen here – still under the command of Captain Henry Pelly – in the late afternoon of 31st May 1916 at what was to become known as Windy Corner. Third from the left and leading the battle cruisers is LION (Captain A E M Chatfield CVO RN) flying the flag of Vice Admiral Sir David Beatty KCB MVO DSO; astern of her is PRINCESS ROYAL (Captain Walter Cowan MVO DSO RN) flying the flag of Rear Admiral Osmond de B Brock CB; and in the foreground on the left is TIGER (Captain Henry Pelly MVO RN).

Up ahead of the battle cruisers are two ships of the 1st Cruiser Squadron (Rear Admiral Sir Robert Arbuthnot Bt MVO): DEFENCE ( Captain S V Ellis RN) and WARRIOR (Captain V B Molteno RN); and in the right foreground is the destroyer ONSLOW (Lieutenant Commander John Tovey DSO RN) just starting off to make her gallant attack on the German light cruiser WIESBADEN of the 2nd Scouting Group (Rear Admiral Friedrich Boedicker). Under intense shelling DEFENCE was shortly to blow up, WARRIOR was to be mortally wounded and would sink the following night; and just over an hour after she had charged off to the attack, ONSLOW, very heavily damaged and Not Under Command, was being towed out of action by DEFENDER (Lieutenant Commander L R Palmer RN): but she had got her torpedo attacks away.

A watercolour by Wyllie of this etching has also been discovered (see MP089)