Heligoland

by George Drower

  Germany was understandably eager to deport the Heligolanders. Berlin had good reason to suspect, but did not know for certain, that Britain was contemplating an invasion of the island. Since October 1911, when he was appointed First Sea Lord, Winston Churchill had been contemplating the islands in the Heligoland Bight with a view to establishing a British base on one of them in the event of a war with Germany. This would enable British blockading flotillas to be easily replenished.

  Churchill well knew that the traditional war policy of the Admiralty had developed during the prolonged struggles with France. Immediately upon the outbreak of war, the procedure was to establish a blockade of the enemy’s ports and naval bases by means of flotillas of small (but strong) craft supported by cruisers, with superior battle fleets in reserve. In recent years, although the potential enemy was no longer France but Germany, the fundamental principle of Britain’s naval strategy – that ‘the first line of defence is the enemy’s ports’ – held good. Yet now, instead of operating across the English Channel, with the supporting ships close at hand in safe harbours, the Royal Navy would need to operate in the Heligoland Bight, across some 290 miles of sea and with no bases suitable for their supporting battle fleet nearer than the Thames or the Forth. Evidently the Germans adhered rather to the French concept of the torpedo-boat as a means of attack, whereas Britain’s destroyers were constructed principally for their sea-keeping qualities and firepower. But the great distances over the North Sea immensely reduced the Royal Navy’s effectiveness, and it was reckoned that, in order to carry out its old strategic policy from British home bases, it would require flotillas at least three or four times as numerous as those of Germany.

  Many years later Churchill revealed in his book The World Crisis 1911–1918 that to begin to overcome this situation, with the concurrence of the principal British commanders afloat, he had set out a policy of distant blockade in the Admiralty War Orders of 1912. In 1913 Churchill instructed Admiral Lewis Bayly to examine the potential of such offensive actions, which he did with Sir Arthur Wilson and Lord ‘Jacky’ Fisher. He even went so far as to have plaster models made of the Heligoland Bight, with which an invasion could be planned.

  At a meeting of the War Group in June 1914 Wilson advised that landings should be made on the Frisian Islands and on the German North Sea coast. He also proposed that one of the six army divisions available for such operations should cooperate with the Navy in the capture of Heligoland. A. Nicolson, an assistant secretary to the Committee of Imperial Defence, angrily rejected the suggestion as ‘madness’, because the island was heavily fortified.2 However, Churchill was keen and so too, for a while, was Lord Fisher. Other senior figures at the Admiralty were more sceptical. In July 1913 Ballard, who had become Director of Operations, condemned as unacceptable gambles the schemes submitted by Bayly for the capture of Borkum, Sylt or Heligoland as an advance base. On the eve of war Churchill resurrected these plans and on 31 July he sent them to the Prime Minister, Herbert Asquith.

  War broke out on 4 August 1914. On that day Churchill’s private secretary, Sir Edward Marsh, who was a sailing associate of Erskine Childers, mentioned Childers to Churchill, suggesting that such unique local knowledge ought to be pressed into service. Already a member of the RNVR, Childers was summoned from Dublin by Admiral Sir Herbert Richmond, Assistant Director of Operations, who requested him to revise the remarks he had made on the German North Sea coast in his 1906 paper to the Hydrographic Office. Almost immediately Childers redrafted that earlier paper, this time presenting it as a plan for capturing a base for operations against Heligoland. It was entitled The Seizure of Borkum and Juist.

  This plan doubtless came to the attention of Major Sir Hereward Wake, who was then preparing for Downing Street – albeit from the army’s point of view – a consideration of the amphibious possibilities indicated by Churchill’s plan. On 11 August 1914 Wake completed his assessment, which he called A Report on Proposals to Occupy Certain Places as Temporary Naval Bases for offensive Action against Germany. He envisaged that British forces would suffer very high casualties, particularly in the event of an invasion of Heligoland, and his report was seized by Downing Street personages, who were sceptical of Churchill’s audacious intentions, as the evidence they needed to damn the seemingly risky plans. Because of this criticism, and the distractions of the first four months of the war, Churchill did not revert in earnest to the theme of an advanced base until November 1914. On the 5th of that month a War Group consisting of Admiral of the Fleet Sir Henry Oliver, Lord Fisher and Sir Arthur Wilson met to discuss future operations. Churchill was now less enthusiastic about storming Heligoland, and instead wanted to land troops at Borkum to capture both that island and Emden. The others thought both islands would be impossible to hold if captured because Britain did not have the necessary land forces. Fisher wanted to send the Grand Fleet into the Baltic as part of a plan to convey a Russian army from Petrograd to land in northern Germany and take Berlin. Wilson suggested bombarding Heligoland with old pre-Dreadnought battleships, before troops were put ashore to capture it.

  Human nature being what it is, as the War Group discussed these extraordinary schemes, two members were inevitably vigorously opposed to the third’s plan. Although this meant the question of a landing on one of the German islands went unresolved, the War Group remained prepared to do so. To facilitate an armed landing on whichever island was eventually chosen, in December 1914 the monitors then under construction were hastily completed.3 The shallow draft of these remarkable vessels enabled them to approach close to the shore and attack definite points on the coast. Typical examples were HMS Mersey and HMS Severn; each 267ft long, they carried 6in and 4.7in guns, but had a draft of only 4ft 9in. Later monitors were equipped with huge 11in and even 15in guns. Stationed off the coast of Belgium, they were pressed into service to harass the advancing German army and prevent the fall of Dunkirk and Calais. All the while Churchill was considering other possibilities for waging this kind of amphibious warfare. One consequence of his frustration at his inability to get approval for a landing on the Frisian Islands was that in 1915, when planning the Dardanelles campaign, he side-stepped consultations with his colleagues – with disastrous consequences. Perhaps the heavy losses the Allied forces suffered at Gallipoli, in terms of men and matériel, were an indication of the likely cost of such a landing on Heligoland.

  From the moment war was declared, British submarines kept a constant watch on German shipping in the Heligoland Bight, venturing far into the protected area and noting the routine of the various units of the Kaiser’s fleet. Justifiable worries about the risk posed by German submarines to British transport ships meant that during 15–17 August 1914, when the greater part of the BEF was shipped across the Channel, the Heligoland Bight was closely blockaded by Royal Navy submarines and destroyers. Their operation was a success, but at the time the British public was impatient for a glorious victory at sea.

  Map 5 In 1914, Winston Churchill, the First Lord of the Admiralty, was initially so keen to storm Heligoland’s cliff-top fortifications and long-range guns, he had special bombardment ships constructed. Disastrously he opted instead to attack the Dardanelles. (The Graphic, 1918)

  As dawn broke on 28 August 1914 British light cruisers of the Harwich Force, under the command of Commodore Sir Reginald Tyrwhitt, were carrying out a sweep several miles west of the coast of Heligoland when they sighted dim shadows in the mist. These proved to be German destroyers, which scuttled back to the shelter of Heligoland at top speed as soon as they sighted the British cruisers. One German destroyer, the Frauenhob, failed to regain Heligoland and was sunk by the 6in guns of Tyrwhitt’s own ship HMS Arethusa. Presumably the menacing guns of the fortress, atop the lofty red cliffs, could not see the British ships through the mist. For twenty-four years Germany had spent lavish amounts of money on constructing sophisticated state-of-the-art defences, and up-to-the-minute observation and communication systems, but it all proved worthless in the
face of Heligoland’s weather!

  After this first contact the German light cruisers ventured forth from the island to look for their opponents. They were joined by the Mainz, which had dashed out from Emden, and the Köln, the torpedo-boat squadron’s flagship, from Wilhelmshaven. The Mainz became separated from the other German vessels, but put up a good fight before she was sunk. Admiral Sir David Beatty’s battle cruiser squadron now appeared over the horizon and entered the fight. Up to this point the German naval units had been all in a muddle, largely because of the weather conditions; their headquarters at Heligoland had been unable to figure out exactly how many British ships were present, let alone identify them by class. As Beatty’s squadron arrived, they tried to recall all their ships but it was now too late for them to run to safety. The German light cruiser Ariadne was sunk by Beatty’s heavy cruisers and soon afterwards the Köln met the same fate. With the exception of one stoker, she sank with her entire crew – which included the newly appointed Admiral of Torpedo-Craft. As the Köln went down Beatty’s heavy cruisers headed towards Britain, leaving Tyrwhitt’s light cruisers to fight a rearguard action. By then the German battlecruisers had been alerted. One of these ‘four-funnellers’, the Stralsund, sighted Tyrwhitt’s Arethusa and opened fire. Unable to match the German battlecruisers, all the British ships turned and fled, escaping with only minutes to spare.

  Immediately dubbed the ‘Battle of Heligoland Bight’, the action was the first surface naval battle of the First World War. In Britain news of the sinking of three German light cruisers and a torpedo-boat sparked off much public elation. The Times hailed it as a ‘great victory’; the London Gazette published an apparently full report of the action; and the famous military writer Lionel Cecil Jane celebrated it with a special Oxford Pamphlet. Commodore Tyrwhitt became something of a minor national hero and was soon venerated in the book The Harwich Naval Forces, written by the pioneering small boat yachtsman Edward Knight.

  This British victory was both a psychological and a material blow to the German Navy, although it came as no surprise to those in authority, who were convinced their forces could not hold their own against the British. Reluctant to risk another surface action, they decided to reduce the British fleet by submarine and mine action.4 The next major clash occurred six months later at the Dogger Bank, some 200 miles west of Heligoland. On 24 January 1915, having received intelligence that a German fleet under Admiral Hipper was approaching the Dogger Bank, Admiral Beatty prepared to intercept it. Hipper’s intention was probably to pretend to flee in order to lure the British fleet on to the minefields he had laid off Heligoland. The first contact was made by Tyrwhitt’s squadron, to whom Beatty again gave his support. In the ensuing fight Beatty’s flagship, the Lion, was repeatedly hit, possibly by the huge battleship Helgoland, and he had to transfer his flag to another cruiser. As soon as Hipper saw Beatty’s fleet he made for Heligoland and the battle developed into a chase. The German ships, a few of them severely battered, fled through their minefield. Thankful to gain shelter at the island, the German warships – as in 1864 – anchored there to lick their wounds. Subsequently the Admiralty published a telegraph report of the fight purportedly from Beatty but in fact amended to meet Admiralty views. Beatty was made to say that it was he who ‘broke off the engagement owing to the presence of “submarines”’. As a result, he came in for a large amount of hostile press criticism for apparently allowing the Germans to escape.

  Fed up with inaccurate newspaper stories derived from such distorted official reports, on 21 June 1916 Beatty sent a furious letter to Balfour, the First Lord of the Admiralty (Churchill had resigned from that post after the Dardanelles fiasco). In those days senior public servants sometimes had enough character to speak out against ministers. In that letter, written aboard the Lion, Beatty revealed that his victory in the August 1914 Battle of Heligoland Bight had nearly been a catastrophe. Owing to faulty staff work at the Admiralty, he thundered, one portion of the force employed was unaware of the presence of the other – a fact that was never permitted to appear in print. As a result, the initial support for Commodore Tyrwhitt’s squadron was

  drawn away in pursuit of our own destroyers and so prevented me from rendering the urgent support urgently required by Tyrwhitt. This made it necessary for me to use the battlecruisers to support him in a position close to Heligoland, where they ran a very considerable risk of mine and submarine damage. The end justified the means, but if I had lost a battlecruiser I should have been hanged, drawn and quartered. Yet it was necessary to run the risk to save two of our light cruisers and a large force of destroyers which otherwise would most certainly have been lost.

  Beatty was by no means exaggerating the danger to British warships in some parts of the North Sea. On 22 September 1914, just a month after the Battle of the Bight, three elderly British cruisers, Aboukir, Cressy and Hogue, had been swiftly sunk by a lone submarine, the U-9, just off the Dutch coast.

  Air forces were soon to be employed to support naval operations in the Bight. Erskine Childers, who was respected within Naval Intelligence circles as something of an enthusiast for unconventional forms of warfare in the Heligoland Bight area, unexpectedly found himself embroiled in this new, and totally untried, form of fighting. It was, after all, only five years earlier, in 1909, that Louis Blériot had made the first powered cross-Channel flight. Since then the Royal Navy, one of the earliest fighting forces to recognise the military potential of aircraft, had founded the Royal Naval Air Service (RNAS), a fledgling dare-devil unit. Like any RNVR officer, when war broke out Childers would have expected to be called up to serve in ships or perhaps submarines. Yet although he knew nothing about aircraft – indeed, he had never even flown – he was immediately assigned to the RNAS. Within a week of updating his paper on the German coast and the Frisian Islands for Admiral Richmond, on 18 August 1914 Childers was sent to Chatham as a commissioned RNAS officer to join HMS Engadine, the navy’s latest seaplane carrier.

  As a naval observer his duties would be to assist with seaplane navigation and dropping bombs. Engadine had not been designed for her new carrier role, operating three Short 135 seaplanes. Initially a Channel ferry, like her sister ships Empress and Riviera, she had no proper flight-deck and could only launch and recover her aircraft by precariously craning them to and from the sea. At about the time of the Battle of Heligoland Bight, Childers was informed that Engadine’s forthcoming secret mission would be to attack the Zeppelin hangars just south of Cuxhaven. In addition to his task of instructing the seaplane pilots in the art of navigation, he had been selected to go along for the ride on account of his unique local knowledge of the North Sea islands. Zeppelins were a serious threat which somehow had to be tackled. With their magnificent cruising range and ability to fly at altitudes beyond the accurate range of British guns, they were the ‘eyes’ of the German fleet; later they would also become a menace to civilians – the first Zeppelin appeared over the British coast on 20 December 1914.

  Having spent the summer months on the North Sea close to the mouth of the Tyne spotting for mines Engadine sailed to Harwich to join Tyrwhitt’s Harwich Force. On 11 October a force was readied to attack Heligoland itself with the seaplanes, but the following day it was deemed ‘too risky’, and called off. However, a fortnight later the seaplane group, escorted by the Harwich Force, put to sea and headed for Heligoland. Childers’s task had been to prepare charts for the pilots. The intention was to close to within 12 miles of the island, then launch the aircraft, which would fly 50 miles to the target at Cuxhaven. However, various mechanical mishaps with the seaplanes led to the cancellation of the raid in the early hours and soon Engadine was back in port. Undeterred, the Admiralty decided to rerun the scheme, but with rather more thoughtful planning and a greater sense of purpose.5

  Churchill, having read intelligence reports that German battleships were gathering in the Weser and Elbe estuaries, wrote to Jellicoe, the Commander-in-Chief of the Grand Fleet, advising that ‘the
aerial attack on the Cuxhaven shed, which we had previously thought desirable in itself, might easily bring on a considerable action in which your battle-cruisers and the Grand Fleet might take part without undue risk’. Churchill’s idea was to lure the Germans into what might turn out to be a decisive naval battle. Childers, having for some time wondered how seaplanes might be navigated more accurately in the Heligoland Bight, hastily prepared air charts showing every sea-mark he could recollect. The operation was planned to start on 25 December 1914, and for the first time in history aircraft, surface ships and submarines were deployed together in a combined operation. Having been transferred from the Engadine to a sister ship, the Riviera, he was selected at the last minute to be the observer in the leading seaplane, and early that Christmas morning Childers was rowed in a dinghy through a heavy swell from the Riviera to seaplane no. 136, his designated flying machine. As before, the planes were readied for action something like a dozen miles from Heligoland.

  What became known as the ‘Cuxhaven Raid’ started well. Seven seaplanes took off and headed towards Heligoland. The weather was clear and Childers could see what he described as Heligoland’s ‘grim cliffs’. As the aircraft approached the mouth of the Elbe estuary he ought to have been able to make out the Scharhorn and Knechtsands, where the Dulcibella nearly came to grief in The Riddle of the Sands, but the seaplanes were now encountering thick weather and were compelled to fly low. This was no fictitious adventure but the real thing – and very dangerous. At lower altitude the aircraft were exposed to heavy fire at short range from ships and shore batteries. A few machines were hit, but most remained airborne. As his seaplane circled Cappel, near Cuxhaven, Childers prepared to hand-release the Hales bombs on to the Zeppelin hangars they were aiming for, but a misfire caused by extreme moisture in the seaplane’s 200hp motor forced them to seek open water. As they struggled towards the Riviera they spotted fourteen large German warships anchored in the Schilling Roads, in the Jade estuary just off Wilhelmshaven, which acknowledged their presence with anti-aircraft fire. Bursting shrapnel shells severed some wing wires and damaged a chassis strut.