Admiral Beatty was beyond doubt the best known fighting Admiral, perhaps the best known military leader, of the First World War. His conduct at Heligoland Bight and Dogger Bank, and later at Jutland, caught the public imagination, while his role as Commander-in-Chief of the Grand Fleet in taking into custody the German High Sea Fleet in November 1918 associated him with perhaps the most tangible symbol of the collapse of Germany’s military might. He is probably remembered by most for his comment at Jutland that ‘there seems to be something wrong with our bloody ships today’ after two of his battlecruisers were sunk in quick succession.