A little before 23:00 Tillesen’s flotilla encountered the small pre-war destroyer Paragon. Taken completely by surprise and hopelessly outnumbered, she was quickly battered into a burning wreck by concentrated gunfire and given her coup de grace by a torpedo. At this point the flames reached her depth charges. The resulting explosion tore the ship in half. Two more British destroyers, Llewellyn and Laferey, closed in to investigate the firing, but in the intense darkness neither saw their opponents. Llewellyn was quickly crippled by a torpedo and then the Germans, still unseen, returned to base. A search for Paragon’s survivors succeeded in rescuing just ten of her 75-strong crew.
Meanwhile, following the torpedoing of Llewellyn, Admiral Bacon was informed that U-boats were apparently active in the area. He recalled the Dover destroyers, which had just put to sea, but no sooner had they dropped anchor than the German destroyers had sunk a drifter near the Downs and shelled both Broadstairs and Ramsgate. These were Zandler’s ships, and by the time the Deal destroyers had been scrambled to drive them off they had gone.
On the night of 20 April the Germans attempted to repeat their success with their 3rd Destroyer Flotilla. As usual, four British destroyers were patrolling the barrage but in addition to destroyer leaders, Swift and Broke, had been sent to cover the area south-west of the Goodwin Sands. Unexpectedly, they came into contact with six German destroyers, on their way to bombard Dover. A fierce melee ensued, involving one of the most remarkable incidents in British naval history. Swift and Broke, commanded respectively by Commmander A.M. Peck and Commander E.R.G. Evans, the latter a survivor of Captain Robert Scott’s tragic expedition to the South Pole, charged straight in among the Germans, guns blazing. Swift sustained some damage but, undeterred, Peck tried to ram an enemy destroyer. His night vision destroyed by gun flashes, he missed but passed clean through the enemy line, simultaneously causing a major explosion aboard one of the German vessels with a direct hit from one of his torpedoes.
Evans rammed Broke into the enemy’s G-42, driving his bows deep into his opponent by running his engines at full power. Germans tried to scramble over Broke’s bows. Following a shout of ‘Repel boarders!’ (not heard aboard a British warship for many a long year) a midshipman raced forward with a party of seamen armed with cutlasses, rifles and bayonets, iron bars and even meat cleavers. Leading Seaman Ingleson distinguished himself with his rifle and bayonet, but another burley seaman took the matter so seriously that, when confronted by a German petty officer scrambling aboard, he transferred his cutlass from right hand to left and landed a tremendous punch between the man’s eyes, sending him tumbling back onto his own ship. Broke’s guns were also firing into G-42 at point-blank range as she drove the German onto her beam ends.
The retreating enemy survivors opened fire on both ships impartially, aggravating a fire that had broken out aboard Broke. With a shriek of tearing metal, Evans reversed her out of his victim and tried to join Swift, which was chasing the enemy, but both British destroyers were now so severely damaged that they lacked the necessary speed. While limping back to Dover, Evans passed the sinking G-42 and then came across G-48, the destroyer torpedoed by Swift early in the action. The German was sinking and on fire but surrender was not on her captain’s mind as she fired a single shell, hitting Broke’s bridge. At this point Broke’s engines stopped and she began to drift down towards her burning opponent. For a while there was a real danger that the enemy’s magazine would explode as the flames spread, destroying both ships in the explosion, but in the nick of time the engine room staff managed to produce sufficient power to move her out of immediate danger and G-48 sank. Help arrived in due course, enabling Broke to be towed into harbour by another destroyer, but Swift managed to get in under her own steam. Some 40 of Broke’s crew had been killed or wounded, while Swift lost a further five. In an era of grim, industrial slaughter, this was just the sort of victory over odds to raise spirits. Understandably, Evans became a national hero overnight.
The incident provided a sharp lesson for the senior German naval officers based at Zeebrugge. A few shells lobbed into a sleeping coastal town were hardly worth the loss of two destroyers. Attacks into the Channel and Downs areas ceased, although a raid on Dunkirk sank a French destroyer. Nevertheless, Admiral Bacon decided that Zeebrugge had become a nest of snakes that had to be cleaned out. On 12 May no less than 41 warships of various types sailed from Dover and Harwich to deliver an 85-minute bombardment. The stars of the show were three monitors with 15-inch guns that were to shell the lock gates from a distance of 13 miles. Their shooting was remarkably good, for although the gates themselves were undamaged, no less than 19 shells landed within 15 yards of them.
Next, Ostend was bombarded on 4 June. Only two monitors were involved, landing 20 shells in the dockyard area, damaging several destroyers and sinking some smaller craft. Elements of the Harwich Force became involved with two German destroyers, one of which, S-20, was sunk while the other was chased back into Zeebrugge. Subsequently, a monitor and covering force were allocated to bombard Zeebrugge and Ostend whenever wind and tidal conditions permitted. At one stage the War Cabinet approved a plan for the Army in Flanders to capture the Belgian coast in conjunction with a an amphibious operation that would put no less than 24,000 men ashore, but this remained still-born when priority was given to Field Marshal Haig’s Passchendaele offensive.
A further offensive move was the blocking of a loophole in the British blockade of Germany. German merchant ships were hugging their own coast and that of neutral Holland to collect cargos from the port of Rotterdam. On 17 July destroyers of the Harwich Force put a stop to this trade by sinking two enemy merchant vessels and capturing four more during their coastal passage.
A second foray, known as the Second Battle of Heligoland Bight in Germany but rarely mentioned in British histories, produced less satisfactory results. On 17 November a force consisting of the battle cruisers Tiger, Renown, Repulse, Courageous and Glorious, the cruisers Calypso and Caledon, plus escorting destroyers, entered the Bight. In command was Admiral Sir Charles Napier, whose intention was to disrupt the activities of German minesweepers attempting to clear existing British minefields. Apart from the enemy’s minesweepers and a patrol craft, the Kedingen, which was hastily abandoned by her crew and captured, the Admiral Ludwig von Reuter’s covering force consisted of two battleships, Kaiser and Kaiserin, plus a cruiser and destroyers. During a brief exchange of fire, Kaiserin scored a direct hit on Calypso’s bridge, killing everyone present, and Repulse hit the cruiser Konigsberg, starting a fire. The Germans then retired behind their own minefields, ending the action.
In his memoirs, Admiral Scheer expresses great interest in the two British cruisers, which had only recently entered service. His admired their great speed, which he estimated at 33 knots although 30 knots was the official figure. He believed that one of them was responsible for hitting the Konigsberg, commenting that during its descent the British shell ‘passed through all three funnels of the ship, went through the upper deck into a coal bunker against the inner wall of which it burst, causing a fire. The fragments of this shell were picked up and its calibre determined. This proved to us that the English had built a new class of cruiser armed with a 38 cm gun.’ In fact the main armament of this class of cruiser was 5 × 6-inch guns, while that of the Repulse was 6 × 15-inch (i.e. 38 cm) guns. As his memoirs were written some years after the event and probably compiled from notes written at the time, this probably explains why the Admiral allowed the mistake to stand.
Meanwhile, the German Naval Command had become aware that British convoys between Lerwick and Bergen in neutral Norway were only lightly escorted. These convoys were extremely important as they exported manufactured goods and imported vital iron ore from Sweden and timber pit props from all over Scandinavia. Two light cruisers, the Bremse and the Brummer, were considered ideal for the task of disrupting them. Originally laid down in the Vulcan Yard in Stettin for service as fast minelayers with the Imperial Russ
ian Navy, they were taken into German service on completion in 1916. They could be coal or oil fired and were capable of a maximum speed of 28 knots. Their main armament consisted of 4 × 5.9-inch guns and they possessed the capacity to carry 400 mines as deck cargo.
Shortly before dawn on 17 October they had encountered a convoy of twelve merchantmen escorted by two destroyers and two armed trawlers. One destroyer, Strongbow, attacked at once but was sunk within minutes, as was the second, Mary Rose, when she attacked. The cruisers then set about the merchantmen at will, only three of them and the two trawlers being able to make their escape. As many of the ships were neutrals, the incident naturally provoked protests. Scheer’s memoirs contain the universal German reaction to these. ‘If England wanted to demand the right to enjoy undisturbed supplies, thanks to the compliance of the neutrals, or the pressure brought to bear on them, no one could expect us to look on with folded hands until English sea power had completed its work of destroying our nation by starvation. The counter-measures which this necessitated must recoil upon England as the originator of this form of warfare.’
On 12 December a half-flotilla of German destroyers under Commander Heinecke attacked shipping in the swept channel off the Northumbrian coast, sinking one merchant vessel of 5,000 tons and two smaller craft. On the same day a second half-flotilla, consisting of four destroyers under Lieutenant Commander Hans Holbe, steamed due north in heavy weather and encountered a British convoy, consisting of six merchant ships escorted by two destroyers and four armed trawlers, off Bergen. One of the British destroyers, Partridge, fought until her guns were out of action and she had been immobilised. In a final act of defiance before she went down, she launched a torpedo that struck the German V-100 but did not explode. With the exception of the damaged destroyer Pellew, which escaped into a rain squall, the entire convoy and the rest of its escort were sunk.
Nothing was more certain than that the Germans would try to repeat these comparatively minor successes. As they had taken place within the Grand Fleet’s area of responsibility, Beatty was forced to react. In future, a squadron of battleships would accompany each convoy, a provision that became easier with the arrival of an American battleship squadron under Admiral Sims, and the sailing dates of convoys became irregular.
The year 1917 therefore ended without either side achieving a clear-cut major success at sea. Within the Admiralty, too, there had been conflict of a different kind. Vice Admiral Bacon was a difficult man who ignored advice and paid brief attention to instructions. He shared a mutual antipathy with Rear Admiral Roger Keyes, the Director of the Admiralty Plans Division. He might claim, with some justice, that during his three years of command some 88,000 vessels had passed safely through the Channel, while only six had been lost to enemy action, but the fact was that U-boats had made free use of it and the Straits until the recent defensive measures had been imposed. He was supported by his old friend Jellicoe, but the latter had lost favour because of Napier’s lack of success in the Heligoland Bight and the loss of the two Scandinavian convoys. The general opinion, shared by Prime Minister Lloyd George, was that Jellicoe and Bacon were too cautious to be effective. During the last week of December, Jellicoe was sent into retirement, being replaced by Admiral Sir Rosslyn Wemyss, while Rear Admiral Roger Keyes replaced Bacon at Dover.
CHAPTER 13
End Game – The Zeebrugge and Ostend Raids
By the Spring of 1918 the great movement of German troops from the now defunct Eastern Front to Western Europe was complete. Millions of rounds of artillery ammunition, both gas and high explosive, had been stockpiled close to the guns they would feed, targets had been registered and fire-plans constructed. The best soldiers had been formed into Storm Troop battalions that would lead the great offensives that would result in final victory for Germany in what was called the Kaiserschlacht, or Emperor-’s Battle. Failure in this huge undertaking, which must be completed before the American armies took the field in strength, could not be contemplated for one minute.
The first offensive lasted from 21 March until 5 April and struck the British Third and Fifth Armies. The Allied line was pushed back some 40 miles but held, at great cost. The second offensive was directed at the British Second Army in Flanders between 9 and 21 April. Some ground was lost but, once again, the line held. The third offensive struck the French Sixth Army on the Chemin des Dames sector on 27 May and by 4 June had carved out a salient 30 miles wide and 20 miles deep. The fighting was notable for the stubborn defence and counter-attacks made by American divisions, committed to action on the Western Front for the first time. Two further offensives, mounted between 9 and 13 June and 15 and 19 July, attempted to expand the ground gained but had little success. By then, most of the elite Storm Troop battalions had been decimated repeatedly and the remainder of the Army was of lesser quality. Despite the horrific losses that had been incurred, the promised victory had not materialised. Disappointment, disillusion and demoralisation began to spread throughout the German armies.
Scheer was at a loss to know how the Imperial Navy could help. He was aware that the British had heavily reinforced the escorts for convoys carrying reinforcements across the Channel and believed that a strike by the greater part of the High Seas Fleet against the Scandinavian convoys would result in the transfer of British warships to the north, leaving their cross-Channel troop transports vulnerable to destroyer and U-boat attack. At best, the plan was based on optimism, for while it was known that a battleship squadron now protected the Scandinavian convoys, the sailing dates of the convoys were not known.
The fleet put to sea at 06:00 on 23 April. Fog caused some delay but cleared during the day and the night passed without incident. The next morning dawned fine and clear, giving rise to hopes of a successful operation. However, shortly before 08:00 all hell broke loose when Moltke’s starboard inner propeller dropped off. The shaft raced in its bearings and the turbine, spinning out of control, began to scream. Vibration shattered the control wheel. Fragments of flying metal punctured the auxiliary condenser’s discharge pipe, a number of steam exhaust pipes and the deck adjacent to the main switch room. As a result of this the central engine room and switch room were quickly flooded and the wing engine room began to take in water. Sea water penetrated the boilers, power declined and the engines gradually slowed to a stop. No less than 2,000 tons of water were shipped before a diver was put over the side to close the auxiliary condenser’s water inlet and outlet valves.
A signal was despatched to Scheer reporting the battle cruiser’s severe damage, her current speed of four knots and her position as being 40 sea miles west-south-west of Stavanger. The nearest ship, the light cruiser Strassburg, was despatched to her assistance immediately, followed by the battleship Oldenburg with instructions to tow the cripple. By 11:45 it was decided that she would return to base via the Bight.
There was no sign whatever of the Allied convoy but at 14:00 Scheer received a signal from Naval Staff containing details of the Scandinavian convoys’ arrival and departure date. To the Admiral’s chagrin, he learned that a convoy from England had reached Norway safely the previous day. All of these details could have been obtained without difficulty through the consular service in Norway and the fact that they had not simply confirms the compartmental thinking common in German military and naval circles. In the circumstances no alternative remained but to return to base.
At 20:30 Oldenburg’s towing cable snapped, resulting in an hour’s delay before it could be made secure again. Hard work throughout the night had rewarded Moltke with some power, enabling her to proceed at 15 knots. At 07:50, while still some 40 nautical miles north of Heligoland, the returning ships were spotted by Lieutenant Allen, commanding the submarine E42. He launched a spread of four torpedoes, one of which headed straight for Moltke. The battle cruiser took evasive action but was hit amidships on her port side. Despite this she was able to enter the Jade under her own power. The minesweeper M-27, however, was not so lucky and sank after striking a
German mine. With dry German humour, Scheer commented: ‘Unfortunately the expedition did not meet with the success hoped for.’
Hardly had his ships come to anchor than he received a disquieting piece of news. The British had mounted a heavy amphibious raid on Zeebrugge. They had inflicted casualties and damage and, for the moment, the canal leading to the Bruges base was closed by sunken blockships. A similar raid on Ostend had been repulsed.
This was the work of Roger Keyes, now promoted to Vice Admiral. He was determined to eliminate the German U-boat bases and thereby force the enemy’s submarines to operate from Germany itself and make the long passage round the north of Scotland to reach their operational area. This would also mean that the time the U-boats spent on patrol was reduced because of the additional consumption of fuel needed.
Keyes’ plan for the attack on Zeebrugge was simple and broken down into five phases. In the first, the coast defence batteries would be bombarded by 15-inch monitors for several consecutive nights until the Germans began to believe that this had become a matter of routine. The second would involve the concealment of the approaching raiders by a dense smoke screen. The third required the guns on the harbour mole be neutralised by landing parties that would stream over its outer parapet into the heart of the defences from a suitably prepared assault ship. The fourth was designed to prevent enemy reinforcements entering the mole by blowing up the steel viaduct connecting it with the shore. Finally, blockships would enter the harbour and scuttle themselves inside the Bruges canal, their crews being taken off by coastal motor boats.
Straightforward though this might seem, a great deal of detailed preparation was required. A smokescreen of the necessary density, to be laid by coastal motor boats and motor launches, was produced by Wing Commander F.A. Brock, a member of the famous fireworks manufacturing family that had already producing suitable ammunition for dealing with Zeppelin airships. The old cruiser Vindictive was chosen as the assault ship. It was decided that her port side would be brought against the outer side of the mole. A false upper deck was constructed from which the troops would cross the wall by means of 18 hinged gangways or brows, the vessel itself being secured to the parapet by grappling irons fore and aft. An 11-inch howitzer was mounted on the quarterdeck, plus one 7.5-inch on the foredeck and another on the false upper deck. Support for the infantry assault would be provided by three heavy and 16 light machine guns, some of the latter being mounted in an enlarged foremast fighting top, plus mortars and two flamethrowers. Wherever possible, additional protection was provided by draped splinter mats. There was a suspicion that the seaward approach to the mole was protected by a shallow minefield, so back-up for Vindictive was provided by two requisitioned Mersey ferries, Daffodil and Iris, which possessed double hulls and sufficiently powerful engines to cope with the strong tides of their home port. If necessary, they would land troops by my means of ladders. In the event of Vindictive reaching the mole safely, Daffodil had the task of pushing her hard against it with her bows for as long as necessary. The landing party would consist of the recently formed 4th Battalion Royal Marines, 200 seamen who had received infantry training and a further 50 seamen trained in demolition techniques.
North Sea Battleground: The War at Sea 1914-1918 Page 12