Breakout
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For his gallant single-handed attack Pilot Officer Carson of 217 Squadron received the somewhat inadequate decoration of the DFC (Distinguished Flying Cross). The London Gazette also announced other RAF awards to 42 Squadron. They included the award of the DSO (Distinguished Service Order) to the other man who flew off without waiting for orders, Sq. Ldr. Cliff, and the DFC to Pilot Officer Archer. Pilot Officer Pett was also awarded a DFC.
The London Gazette said, "The King has been graciously pleased to approve the following awards in recognition of gallantry displayed in flying operations against the enemy. On the afternoon of 12 February 1942, a force of Beaufort and Hudson aircraft carried out an attack on enemy naval forces, including the Scharnhorst and Gneisenau, off the Dutch coast. In the face of harassing fire from screening destroyers, the attack was pressed home with the utmost determination at very close range. Although it has not been possible to assess the damage, owing to the extremely poor visibility, it is believed that several hits were obtained. The operation, which demanded a high degree of skill and courage, reflects the greatest credit upon the following officers and airmen who participated.
"Squadron Ldr. Cliff was the leader of the formation, a squadron of Coastal Command Beaufort torpedo bombers, which delivered a formation attack on one of the two larger ships. Hudsons of the RCAF also took part in the attacks. Three Beauforts and two Hudsons were lost.
"At least two hits are believed to have been scored by Squadron Leader Cliffs squadron and the crews of the other Beauforts saw torpedoes running towards the target, as they turned away into the mist and drizzle with flak bursting round them and enemy fighters on their tails. Because of bad weather it was difficult to find the convoy and only good navigation brought them to the right spot. For some, the first indication that they had arrived came from flak bursting near them fired from unseen ships."
There seems little doubt that to cover their own unforgivable inadequacies, Coastal Command rushed to recommend as many medals as they could to the courageous pilots.
The Navy also gave medals to its heroes, as well as the posthumous VC awarded to Lt.-Cdr. Esmonde, all the Sword-fish survivors were decorated. The four sub-lieutenants, Brian Rose, Edgar Lee, Charles Kingsmill and "Mac" Samples, were all given the DSO. The only surviving rating, Gunner Donald Bunce, was awarded the CGM (Conspicuous Gallantry Medal).
The five destroyer captains who took part in the action against the battleships were also given decorations.
Captain Mark Pizey of HMS Campbell was made a C. B. (Commander of the Bath), Captain J. E Wright of HMS Mackay was given a bar to his DSO, and a DSO went to Lt.-Cdr. R. Alexander (Vivacious), Lt.-Cdr. W. A. Juniper (Whitshed) and Lt.-Cdr. Colin Coats (Worcester).
The Germans awarded medals for their side of the battle. Both Captain Hoffmann and Admiral Ciliax were awarded the Knight's Cross. One of Germany's highest awards, it is only given to someone who already has the Iron Cross, 1st and 2nd Class. Ciliax was awarded the Knight's Cross because he had been the commander of Operation Cerberus. His task was to carry out the detailed orders of Naval Group West in Paris and he had done that well. Captain Otto Fein of Gneisenau, who had commanded the squadron for most of the voyage, received nothing.
The sailors had no illusions about Ciliax's conduct during the battle. Someone composed a ribald song about him which was sung to a popular tune on all the ratings' mess-decks. Soon the rude song penetrated to the wardrooms.
The captains of the three ships tried to stop this song being sung. Captain Helmuth Brinkmann of the Prinz Eugen came out with the direct command "This song is not to be sung." But this was one order the well-disciplined German sailors never obeyed.
While the controversy still raged, Churchill for once remained totally out of sympathy with the British public. Although certain RAF officers like Joubert were quietly shunted aside, he refused to make any open criticism of the Navy's conduct of the battle.
This was understandable in wartime because — like The Times editorial — it would only add to the Germans' joy. But he consistently refused to criticize them later in either speeches or his published works.
This was obviously due to the fact that as a former First Lord of the Admiralty in both World Wars he had a special, almost blind, affection for the Royal Navy. Yet, unlike the German Führer, he was a "sea animal," and his naval strategic sense in the long run proved better than Hitler's.
Churchill stated after the war: "Viewed in the after-light and in its larger aspects the episode was highly advantageous to us." His view proved to be the correct one. The battleships, effectively bottled up in German ports, meant the threat to the Atlantic which had existed so long as they remained in Brest had disappeared.
One man who agreed with him was Grand-Admiral Raeder, head of the German Navy, who commented, "It was a tactical success but a strategic defeat."
The Channel battle was not a total defeat for Britain. The German battleships, although they achieved victory, soon ended their careers as fighting ships.
A fortnight later Bomber Command revenged themselves by finishing off Gneisenau. Damaged by the mine, she was in dry dock at Kiel when the RAF made her the target of a massive attack. For three nights between 25 and 27 February bombers pounded her. On the first night 61 bombers came over, 49 arrived on the second night and on the third 68 bombers attacked. On this same night, 33 bombers also attacked Scharnhorst in Wilhelmshaven. She escaped unscathed, but British bombs smashed Gneisenau's bows and foredecks. It was the end. Her hulk was eventually towed to Gdynia in Poland, and filled with concrete to become a block-ship fort.
Ciliax was also proved right about the dangers of Norwegian waters. Just before dawn on 23 February Prinz Eugen was approaching Trondheim when a torpedo from HMS Trident, commanded by Cdr. G. M. Sladen, ripped off her stem. She managed to limp into the sheltered anchorage at Aasfiord, but she never went to sea operationally again during the war. In 1948, as part of the United States Navy in the Allied share-out, she was sunk at Bikini Atoll in the atomic bomb tests.
Although Scharnhorst was ready for sea again after six months, her fate was to be the worst. On Boxing Day, 26 December 1943, the twilight of noon was fading to the darkness of an Arctic afternoon when she was cornered off North Cape by Admiral Sir Bruce Fraser and the Home Fleet.
She was first detected by two British cruisers, Norfolk and Belfast, who began to hold her steadily in their radar. Then Admiral Fraser aboard his flagship, Duke of York, picked her up on his own radar at twenty-two nautical miles.
At 4:45 p.m. the Duke of York's first 14-inch salvo fired from six miles away straddled her and made one hit. Scharnhorst continued to steam away eastward, turning briefly at intervals to fire a broadside, then resuming headlong flight. For an hour it looked as if she would escape.
In the chase the Duke of York made three more hits — so did the cruisers. No Royal Naval ship received any serious damage, though the flagship was frequently straddled, and one of her masts was smashed by an 11-inch shell.
In complete darkness, five hundred miles north of the Arctic Circle, through strong winds and heavy seas, the running battle went on for two hours. At 6 p.m. Scharnhorst's main battery went silent. But battered and crippled as she was, with half her crew dead or wounded, she continued to fight like a wounded shark. Her secondary armament was still firing wildly as the British ships closed in to sink her with torpedoes.
At 7 p.m. the squadron commander, Vice-Admiral Bey— the same officer who had commanded the destroyers in the Channel break-out — exchanged a last greeting with the German Admiralty and Hitler which said, "Long live Germany and the Führer!" At 7:28 p.m. Duke of York fired her 77th salvo at her. Fifty-two torpedoes had already been fired but the last three — fired at 7:37 p.m. by HMS Jamaica from just under two miles range — finished her.
At 7:45 p.m. Scharnhorst exploded and sank in a dense cloud of smoke. Only thirty-six survivors — not one of them an officer — were recovered alive from the icy, turbulent sea. The rest o
f her crew of 1,940 men, including Admiral Bey, went down with her.
APPENDIX
The sister ships Scharnhorst and Gneisenau were launched within two months of each other in 1936, Scharnhorst at Wilhelmshaven, Gneisenau at Kiel. Their full load displacement was 32,000 tons. Standard displacement was 26,000 tons, and overall length 741 feet. They reached thirty-two knots on trials, and were heavily armoured with steel twelve inches thick in places. Their two armoured decks were 2.5 and 4.5 inches thick. Both carried nine 11-inch guns, twelve 5.9s, fourteen 4.1s and sixteen 1.45 A.A. guns in twin mountings. They also carried six 21-inch torpedo tubes, which had no war-heads at the time of the Brest break-out.
Prinz Eugen, a heavy cruiser of the "Hipper" class, was launched in the summer of 1938. She had a displacement of 10,000 tons with eight 8-inch guns, twelve 4.1 A.A. guns and twelve 37-mm A.A. guns. Her armour was 5 inches thick in places, and she carried twelve 21-in. torpedo tubes. Her top speed was also thirty-two knots.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
The following is a selected list of the books I consulted in the preparation of this book:
Busch, Fritz Otto: The Drama of the Scharnhorst. London: Robert Hale, 1956.
---The Story of the Prinz Eugen. London: Robert Hale, 1950.
Cameron, Ian: Wings of the Morning. London: Hodder and Stoughton, 1962.
Churchill, Winston: The Hinge of Fate. London: Cassell, 1950.
Dempster, Derek, and Wood, Derek: The Narrow Margin. London: Hutchinson, 1961.
Jones, Maurice: History of the Coastal Artillery in the British Army. London: R. A. Institute, 1959.
Lohman, Walther, and Hildebrand, Hans: Der Deutsche Kriegsmarine. Bad Nauheim: Podzun, 1956.
Martienssen, Anthony: Hitler and his Admirals. New York: Dutton, 1949.
Raeder, Eric: The Struggle for the Sea. London: Kimber, 1957.
Richards, Dénis, and Saunders, H.: RAF in the War, vol. 2 London: Butler and Tanner, 1961.
Robertson, terence: Channel Dash. London: Evans, 1958.
Roskill, Stephen: The War at Sea, 1939-45: vols. 1 and 2. London: H.M.S.O., 1954-56.
Rowe, Albert: One Story of Radar. Cambridge: University Press, 1948.
Rüge, Friedrich: Sea Warfare, 1939-45: A German Viewpoint. London: Cassell, 1957.
Scott, Peter: The Battle of the Narrow Seas. London: Country Life, 1946.
Trevor-Roper, Hugh (ed.): Hitler's War Directives. London: Sidgewick and Jackson, 1964.
Vulliez, Albert, and Mordal, Jacques: Battleship Scharnhorst. London: Hutchinson, 1958.
Warlimont, Walter: Inside Hitler's H.Q. 1939-45. London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1964.
Other printed sources include:
Admirality: Führer Conferences on Naval Affairs. Brassey's Naval Annual, 1948.
Admiralty: Report on the Escape of Scharnhorst, Gneisenau and Prinz Eugen from Brest to Germany (The Bucknill Report). Command 6775, 1946.
Jackson, David: In Bello in Pace Fidelis. Blackwood's Magazine, May 1959.
Saundby, Air Marshall Sir Robert: Royal Air Force Review, September 1951-August 1952.
Warne, Wing-Commander J. D.: The Escape of the Scharnhorst, Gneisenau and Prinz Eugen. Journal of the Royal United Service Institution, May 1952.
Примечания
1
The sinking of the Repulse and Prince of Wales by Japanese aircraft.
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2
Ruge
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3
Ciliax
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4
A few months after the break-out, in the summer of 1942, a deputy was appointed — but too late to give Pound the relief he needed. His health was already failing. He kept the job until his last illness, dying in harness, aged 66, on Trafalgar Day, 21 October 1943—eighteen months after the break-out. On 27 October a cruiser sailed from Portsmouth and scattered his ashes at sea.
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5
It was not until May 1942 that the third battery, the 15-inch guns called after Wanstone Farm, which were capable of reaching the French coast, were ready. And it was not until August 1942 that there was a combined action with the 9.2s and 15-inch guns firing together.
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6
This is from British sources. The relevant Luftwaffe records have been destroyed.
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7
As a result of this disaster aboard the Worcester the Royal Navy finally decided to cancel the order "Prepare to abandon ship" as it could so easily be misinterpreted in the din of modern battle.
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8
In other words, the Germans might risk it but the Royal Navy would not.
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9
The Manxman was in fact not employed
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10
Three hundred bombers were stood down without the Admiralty being informed.
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11
In fact she left at 2 p.m. and was thirty miles away on the night of 11 February.
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12
He had given the alarm over the radio at 10:20 a.m., half an hour earlier, and no one in 11 Group took any notice.
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13
The report does not mention the mix-up of WT and RT orders.
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14
Again without any radio orders
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