NEXT Tuesday (May 31) at 11am there will be a short service with wreath laying to commemorate 100 years since the Battle of Jutland at the War Memorial in Launceston.

This was the only major Naval battle of the First World War and took place on May 31 to June 1 1916, lasting 36 hours.

A total of 250 ships and 100,000 men were engaged in the battle and more than 8,500 were killed in action, — 6,000 British and 2,500 German.b After the British success at Dogger Bank in holding back the German attack in January 1915, the German Navy chose not to confront the numerically superior British Royal Navy, preferring to rely on its lethal U-boat fleet.

However, in May 1916 Vice Admiral Reinhard Scheer believed it was the right time to attack the British coastline as the majority of the British fleet was anchored at Scapa Flow. Bad weather determined that the fleet was ordered north to the Skagerrak, a waterway between Norway and Denmark off the Jutland Peninsula.

The newly created intelligence unit in Britain had cracked the German communications code and warned the British Grand Fleet’s commander, Admiral John Jellicoe of this movement. On the night of May 30 1916 a British fleet of 28 battleships, nine battle cruisers and 80 destroyers set out from Scapa Flow to the Jutland Peninsula.

A naval force commanded by Vice Admiral David Beatty spotted the German fleet and confronted them. Ships and men were lost, and in the early hours of June 1 1916 Admiral Jellicoe arrived with his command and manoeuvred the British fleet to surround the German fleet. Casualties were high on both sides. Initially the Germans claimed this as a victory, but then it became obvious that the British had inflicted such damage that the German fleet was left with only 11 seaworthy ships, whilst the British had 23.

So the Battle of Jutland had left British Navy superiority on the North Sea intact, and the Germans never again challenged the British Navy in the North Sea.