Battle of Dogger Bank ( 1915 ) The Battle of Dogger Bank was a naval battle fought near the Dogger Bank in the North Sea on 24 January 1915 , during the First World War , between squadrons of the British Grand Fleet and the German High Seas Fleet . Decoded radio intercepts had given the British advance knowledge that a German raiding squadron was heading for Dogger Bank , so they dispatched their own naval forces to intercept it . The British found the Germans at the expected time and place ; surprised , the smaller and slower German squadron fled for home . During a stern chase lasting several hours , the British slowly caught up with the Germans and engaged them with long - range gunfire . The British disabled , the rear German ship , but the Germans put the British flagship out of action with heavy damage . Due to a signalling mixup , the remaining British ships broke off pursuit of the fleeing enemy force to sink " Blücher " . By the time this had been done , the German squadron had escaped ; all the remaining German vessels returned safely to harbour , though some had heavy damage requiring extended repairs . " Lion " made it back to port but was out of action for several months . Since the British lost no ships and suffered few casualties , while the Germans lost a ship and most of its crew , the action was considered a British victory . Both Britain and Germany soon replaced commanders who were thought to have shown poor judgement , and both navies made some changes to equipment and procedures in response to problems identified during the battle . The rival squadrons . Britain . 1st Battlecruiser Squadron : , and . 2nd Battlecruiser Squadron : and . 1st Light Cruiser Squadron : , , , and . Harwich Force : three light cruisers ( , , ) and 35 destroyers . Germany . 1st Scouting Group : , , and . 2nd Scouting Group : , , , and . Two flotillas of 18 torpedo boats combined . Background . With the German battle fleet effectively bottled up by Admiral David Beatty ′ s success at Heligoland Bight , Admiral Friedrich von Ingenohl — Commander - in - Chief of the German fleet — decided to launch a raid on Scarborough , Hartlepool and Whitby on the British east coast with Admiral Franz Hipper ′ s battlecruiser squadron — comprising three battlecruisers and one large armoured cruiser — supported by light cruiser s and destroyer s . Hipper opened fire at 08 : 00 on 16 December 1914 , eventually killing 108 civilians and wounding 525 . Public and political opinion was outraged that German warships could sail so close to the British coast , shelling coastal towns with apparent impunity ; British naval forces had failed to prevent the attacks , and also failed to intercept Hipper ' s raiding squadron afterwards . Though the British fleet was at sea hunting Hipper after the raid , the Germans escaped in stormy weather , aided by low visibility and British communication problems . Buoyed by the success of the raid , Admiral Hipper resolved to repeat the exercise by attacking the British fishing fleet on the Dogger Bank — midway between Germany and Britain — the following month . Hipper suspected that the British fishing fleet was providing intelligence on German fleet movements . But through intercepted German radio traffic decoded by Room 40 of British Naval Intelligence , the British learned of Hipper ′ s planned sortie on 23 January 1915 . Acting Vice Admiral Beatty set sail from Rosyth with five battlecruisers — supported by four light cruisers — to attempt to trap Hipper ′ s force . Joined by additional cruisers and destroyers from Harwich , Beatty headed south , encountering Hipper ′ s screening vessels at the Dogger Bank at 07 : 05 on 24 January . The day was clear and visibility was unusually good . Battle . Sighting the smoke from a large approaching force , Hipper headed southeast by 07 : 35 to escape , but Beatty ' s ships were faster than the German squadron , which was held back by the slower armoured cruiser and by Hipper ' s coal - fired torpedo boats . By 08 : 00 , Hipper ' s battlecruisers were sighted from Beatty ' s flagship , . The older battlecruisers of the British 2nd Battlecruiser Squadron lagged somewhat behind the 1st Battlecruiser Squadron . Chasing the Germans from a position astern and to starboard of Hipper ' s force , the British ships gradually caught up — some reaching speeds of — and closed to gun range . Beatty chose to approach from this direction because the prevailing wind then blew the British ships ' smoke clear , allowing them a good view of the enemy , while Hipper ′ s gunners were partially blinded by funnel and gun smoke blowing in the direction of their targets . " Lion " opened fire at 08 : 52 at a range of . Other British ships opened as they came within range , while the Germans were unable to reply until 09 : 11 because of the shorter range of their guns . No warships had ever before engaged at such long ranges or at such high speeds , and gunnery challenges for both sides were therefore unprecedented . Nevertheless , after a few salvo s the British shells had straddled " Blücher " . The British fire was concentrated on two of the German ships , Hipper ' s flagship battlecruiser at the head of the line and " Blücher " at the rear . With five British ships to the German four , Beatty intended that his two rear ships , and , should engage " Blücher " , while his leading three engaged their opposite numbers . But Captain H . B . Pelly of the newly commissioned battlecruiser assumed that two ships should concentrate on the leading German ship and engaged " Seydlitz " , leaving unmolested to fire at " Lion " . Worse , " Tiger " s fire was ineffective , as she mistook " Lion " s shell splashes for her own ( when her shots were actually falling beyond " Seydlitz " ) . At 09 : 43 , " Seydlitz " was hit by a shell from " Lion " , which penetrated her after turret barbette and caused an ammunition fire in the working chamber . This fire spread rapidly through one compartment after another , igniting ready propellant charges all the way to the magazine s , and knocked out both rear turret s with the loss of 165 men . Only the prompt action of the executive officer in flooding the magazines , saved " Seydlitz " from a massive magazine explosion that would have destroyed the ship . The British ships were relatively unscathed until 10 : 18 , when hit " Lion " with several shells , damaging her engines and causing flooding so that " Lion " began to lag behind . At 10 : 41 , " Lion " narrowly escaped a disaster similar to what had happened on " Seydlitz " , when a German shell hit the forward turret and ignited a small ammunition fire which , fortunately for the British , was extinguished before it caused catastrophe . A few minutes later , taking on water and listing to port , " Lion " had to stop her port engine and reduce speed to , and was soon out of action , having been hit 14 times . Meanwhile , at 10 : 30 , " Blücher " was hit by a shell from , which caused an ammunition fire and boiler room damage . As a result , " Blücher " had to reduce speed to , and fell further and further behind the rest of the German force . Beatty ordered " Indomitable " — his slowest ship — to intercept " Blücher " . Now Hipper , running low on ammunition , made the difficult decision to leave the disabled " Blücher " to her fate and steam for home , in order to save his remaining damaged ships . Nevertheless , the annihilation of the German squadron still appeared likely to the pursuing British until 10 : 54 , when Beatty — believing he saw a submarine ' s periscope on " Lion " ′ s starboard bow — ordered a sharp , 90° turn to port to avoid a submarine trap . ( It is possible that the " periscope " was actually a surfacing , run - out torpedo which had been launched 15 minutes earlier by the German destroyer " V5 " ) . At 11 : 02 , realising that so sharp a turn would open the range too much , Beatty ordered " Course NE " to limit the turn to 45° , and then added " Engage the enemy ′ s rear " , in an attempt to clarify his intention that his other ships , which had now left " Lion " far behind , should pursue Hipper ′ s main force . With " Lion " ′ s electric generators now out of commission , Beatty could only signal using flag hoists , and both these signals were flown at the same time . But the combination of the signal of " Course NE " — which happened to be the direction of " Blücher " — and the signal to engage the rear was misunderstood by Beatty ’ s second - in - command — Rear - Admiral Gordon Moore on " New Zealand " — as an order for all the battlecruisers to finish off the cripple . Therefore , the remaining British battlecruisers broke off the pursuit of the fleeing German squadron and rounded on " Blücher " . Most of the British light cruisers and destroyers also attacked " Blücher " . Beatty tried to correct this obvious misunderstanding by using Horatio Nelson ′ s famous order from Trafalgar " Engage the enemy more closely " , but this order was not in the signal book , so he chose " Keep nearer to the enemy " as the closest equivalent . But by the time this signal was hoisted , Moore ′ s ships were too far away to read Beatty ′ s flags , and the correction was not received . Despite the overwhelming odds , " Blücher " fought stubbornly to the end . " Blücher " managed to put the British destroyer out of action and scored two hits on the British battlecruisers with her guns , but was pounded into a burning wreck by approximately 50 British shells . Finally , struck by two torpedoes from the light cruiser , " Blücher " capsized and sank at 13 : 13 with the loss of 792 men . British efforts to rescue survivors in the water were interrupted by the arrival of the German zeppelin " L - 5 " ( aka " LZ - 28 " ) , and by a German seaplane which attacked with small bombs . No damage was done , but the British ships — which were sitting targets while stopped in the water for rescue — put on speed and withdrew to avoid further aerial attack . < / table > By this time , Hipper had escaped ; his ships were now too far away for the British to catch them again . Beatty had lost control of the battle , and he perceived that the opportunity of an overwhelming victory had been lost ; the Admiralty — incorrectly believing that " Derfflinger " had been badly damaged — would soon reach the same conclusion . However , in light of what happened later at Jutland , where the British battlecruisers were shown to be highly vulnerable to ammunition fires and magazine explosions following hits on gun turrets , it is possible that if Moore ' s three fast battlecruisers had pursued Hipper ′ s remaining three ( leaving the slower " Indomitable " behind as Beatty intended ) , the British might actually have been at a disadvantage and might have got the worst of it . " Blücher " demonstrated the ability of the German ships to absorb great punishment ; all of Hipper ′ s remaining ships were larger , faster , more modern , more heavily armed , and far better armoured than " Blücher " and only " Seydlitz " had suffered any serious damage . Apart from the sinking of " Blücher " , the Germans out - hit the British by over three to one , with 22 heavy - calibre hits — 16 on " Lion " and six on " Tiger " — against the British total of just seven hits . Aftermath . " Lion " had to be towed back to port by " Indomitable " at , a long and dangerous voyage in which both battlecruisers were exposed to potential submarine attacks . Therefore , an enormous screen of over fifty ships was assigned to guard " Lion " and " Indomitable " as they crept home . Both reached port safely . The disabled " Meteor " was also towed home . " Lion " was out of action for four months , Lord Fisher having decreed that her damage be repaired on the Tyne without going into dry dock , making for an extremely difficult and time - consuming job . All the surviving German ships reached port , though " Seydlitz " was heavily damaged and had to go into drydock for repairs . Although the Germans initially believed that " Tiger " had been sunk because of a large fire that had been seen on her decks , it was soon clear that the battle was a serious reverse . A furious Kaiser Wilhelm II issued an order that all further risks to surface vessels were to be avoided . Admiral Friedrich von Ingenohl — commander of the High Seas Fleet — was replaced by Admiral Hugo von Pohl . The Germans took the lessons of the battle to heart , particularly the damage to " Seydlitz " , which revealed flaws in the protection of her magazines and dangerous ammunition - handling procedures . Some of these issues were corrected in Germany ' s battleships and battlecruisers in time for the Battle of Jutland the following summer . Although the Germans realized that the appearance of the British squadron at dawn was too remarkable to be mere coincidence , they concluded that an enemy agent near their base in the Jade Bay was responsible , and did not suspect that their wireless codes had been compromised . Although the battle was not greatly consequential in itself , it boosted British morale . But while the Germans learned their lessons , the British did not . The unfortunate Rear - Admiral Moore was quietly replaced , but Beatty ' s flag lieutenant — responsible for hoisting Beatty ' s two commands on one flag hoist , thereby allowing them to be read as one — remained . Signalling on board " Lion " would again be poor in the first hours of Jutland , with serious consequences for the British . Nor did the battlecruisers learn their lesson about fire distribution , as similar targeting errors were made at Jutland .