SIR,-1 am sorry to have to correct the corrector, but
I do not think Sir Robert Boothby can have seen all the new information on Jutland that has come to light since publication of the Official Narrative.
The Admiralty did not tell Jellicoe that Scheer was making for the Horn Reef. They could have done and should have done and did not. What they did tell him (in the signal quoted by Sir Robert) was Scheer's course and speed; but as Jellicoe was uncertain of (and indeed had been misinformed about) Scheer's position, the information was of little use. What in- telligence Jellicoe had pointed to Scheer making for the Ems or Heligoland; and for this reason he stood on with the Grand Fleet to the south.
Yet this signal was not the only one to he de- ciPhered by the Admiralty drat night. It has been revealed p e rat ons, Vol. III, 2nd Ed., Oct.,
1939) that between 11.15 p.m. on May 31 and 12.5
a.m. on June 1 the Admiralty received a total of seven German signals, all of which indicated and two of which clearly stated that Scheer was making for the Horn Reef, Not one of these signals was passed on to Jellicoe. Nor did the Admiralty pass him the most vital signal of all, the one deciphered at 10.10 p.m. in which Scheer asked urgently for airship recon- naissance off the Horn Reef the following morning.
Jellicoe heard of these omissions some .four years before his death, and in his memorandum of 1932 commented on them as follows : These errors were absolutely fatal, as the, in- formation if passed to me would have clearly shown me that Scheer was making for the Horn Reef. The information which was so conclu- sive would have led me to alter course during the night Mr the Horn Reef instead of waiting till daylight. . . . —Yours faithfully, LUDOVIC KENNEDY Hampton Cowl Palace
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