Pauls opening salvo “Who won the battle of Jutland?” a sea battle taking place in 1916 in WW1.

The battle was between The Grand Fleet of the British based at Scapa and The High Sea Fleet of Germany from the Jade Estuary off the coast of Germany.

Initially it was a trap for the Grand Fleet but communications were intercepted by the British by Room 40 (a forerunner for Bletchley and GCHQ).

It was 15 inch guns of the British v the 12 inch guns of the Germans. This would give an advantage to the British of at least 15 mins but oddly it was not taken. HMS Indefatigable (loss of 1,016 lives), HMS Queen Mary (loss of 1266 lives) and HMS Black Prince (loss of 857 lives) were dramatically sunk.

In all 14 British ships were sank (loss of 6094 lives) and 11 German ships (loss of 2551 lives). The High Seas fleet returned to base and did not come out again for the duration of the war, so who do you think won? Both claim victory!

The High Seas Fleet surrendered 12^th November 2018. Initially the major powers could not agree how the ships would be redistributed. The ships, using a skeleton German crew moved to Scapa Flow, anchoring around the island of Gava. On 21^st September 1919 the code word “Paragraph 11 Confirm” was sent out across the fleet and 57 of the 74 vessels were scuttled.

Since, most of the ships were recovered up to 1939. Some of the steel sold back to Germany! There is also a use for irradiated steel.

The audience then fired some salvos of their own, but Paul was not sunk in his response.