BATTLE OF JUTLAND
SIR.—Mr. Kennedy is correct in stating that my step- father, Sir Osmond Brock, supported Lord Jellicoe's actions at Jutland. And I have no reason to believe that he held any different opinion about Jutland from that of his subsequent Commander-in-Chief, Lord Beatty, whose Chief of Staff he became and whose mind he knew very well.
The point that Sir Robert Boothby appears to over- look in his criticisms of Lord Jellicoc is the fact that to have employed his, Sir Robert Boothby's, tactics would have involved taking an immeasurable risk with the Grand Fleet. Lord Jellicoc's predecessors had certainly taken great calculated risks: Nelson took one, for example, when he closed the enemy fleet at Trafalgar, but he did not take an immeasurable risk. One of the reasons why Sir Robert Boothby's sugges- tions, as I understand him, would have involved taking such immeasurable risks was because ithe effect of the weapons used at Jutland—in particular the effect against battleships of an attack by destroyers armed with torpedoes—was almost untried in action. An instance of taking this kind of risk in the Second World War resulted in the immediate destruction of the Prince of Wales and Repulse by torpedo- carrying aircraft.—Yours faithfully,
PHILIP FRANCKLIN
Gonalston Hall, Nottingham
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