At 05:30, mindful of the orders not to place the fleet in jeopardy and fearing he had encountered the advance guard of the British Grand Fleet, he reversed course towards Germany. Had he continued, he would shortly have engaged the four British battlecruisers and six battleships with his much larger force, which included 22 battleships. This was the opportunity that German strategy had been seeking, to even the odds in the war. The ten British capital ships would have been outnumbered and outgunned, with significant losses likely. Their loss would have equalised the power of the two navies. Churchill later defended the situation, arguing that the British ships were faster and could simply have turned about and run. Others, such as Jellicoe, felt there was a risk that an admiral such as Beatty would have insisted upon engaging the enemy once contact was established. Admiral Tirpitz commented "Ingenohl had the fate of Germany in his hand". At 06:50, "Shark" and the destroyers again sighted an enemy ship, the cruiser , defended by destroyers. Captain Jones reported his sightings at 07:25, the signal being received by Warrender and also by "New Zealand" in Beatty's squadron but the information was not passed on to Beatty. At 07:40 Jones, attempting to close on "Roon" to fire torpedoes, discovered that she was accompanied by two other cruisers and was obliged to withdraw at full speed. The German ships gave chase but could not keep up and shortly returned to their fleet. Warrender changed course towards the position given by "Shark", expecting Beatty to do the same. At 07:36, he attempted to confirm that Beatty had changed course but did not get a reply. At 07:55, he managed to make contact, and Beatty belatedly sent his nearest ship—"New Zealand"—to intercept, followed by the three light cruisers, spaced apart, to maximise their chance of spotting the enemy, followed by the remaining battlecruisers. At 08:42, both Warrender and Beatty intercepted a message from "Patrol" at Scarborough advising that she was under attack by two battlecruisers. The chase of "Roon", which might have led to an encounter with the main German fleet, was abandoned and the British squadron turned north to attempt to intercept Hipper. At 09:30 on 16 December, Hipper's ships recombined and headed for home at maximum speed. His destroyers were now some ahead, still moving slowly through bad weather.