battlestar
08-11-2008, 17:35
G'Day All
Before I start, there is this great thread in Royal Navy Ships and Crews by Stan J. on Operation Cerberus
http://www.worldnavalships.com/forums/showthread.php?t=903&highlight=Scharnhorst
While Stan's thread is a broad view, this is an article on the Dash itself, and the moment by moment actions. I throughly recommend Stan J's post, and I hope you enjoy this. This is another of the large articles I've written for the Australian Navy League over the years (An edited version was published in 'THE NAVY' magazine)
Again, I hope you enjoy it!:)
The Channel Dash - Operation Cerberus
By Ian Johnson
At 2245 hrs on 11 February 1942 the Kriegsmarine (German Navy) began Operation Cerberus, with the German battlecruisers Scharnhorst and Gneisenau, with the heavy cruiser Prinz Eugen, sailing from the French harbour of Brest and proceeding up the English Channel to reach the relative safety of German ports. By the time all three ships were in German waters on 12 February, the infamous "Channel Dash" was history, and the British, who had anticipated such a move in the weeks before, were red faced in their inability to find them, slow them down or stop them.
After conducting successful operations in the Atlantic Ocean in early 1941 the Scharnhorst and Gneisenau arrived at Brest in March where they waited for other Kriegsmarine units to break out from Germany and join them in forming a powerful surface-raiding group that could begin attacking the UK bound convoys in conjunction with German U-boats. Instead of a quick arrival in early April, time and delays with the battleship Tirpitz forced the cruiser Prinz Eugen and the battleship Bismarck to sail on her fateful sortie (Operation Rhine) into the Atlantic in mid May.
The Royal Air Force had been busy during this time. After locating Scharnhorst and Gneisenau at Brest on 28 March a major air campaign was conducted to damage both battlecruisers. The Germans spared no effort in developing truly formidable anti-aircraft defences around Brest. The most famous incident was the heroic attack on 6 April 1941 by an RAF Beaufort torpedo-bomber from 22 Squadron, Coastal Command. Knowing full well the risks they were running, the Beaufort crew, piloted by Flying Officer Kenneth Campbell, penetrated the inner harbour at Brest in bad weather at extreme low level. Under massive anti-aircraft fire, and with little chance of avoiding crashing into the hills behind the harbour, they succeeded in torpedoing Gneisenau before being shot down. All four crew were killed. Their efforts put the battlecruiser into dry dock for repairs for several months, and Campbell was awarded a posthumous Victoria Cross in recognition of the crew's gallantry. In a four-month period over 1800 aircraft conducted strikes against the battlecruisers, immobilising them at the base, a fact not known to the British.
The Prinz Eugen, avoiding enemy contact after the destruction of Bismarck, arrived at Brest on 1 June. A major French naval base, Brest offered excellent facilities for the ships. But, close to the British Isles, Brest was exposed to constant air attacks and surveillance. The chances of them being able to mount successfully another raid from there were slim, the threat of the Tirpitz joining the three cruisers was still a possibility. To plan for a possible attempt by the ships to break out for the relative safety of ports in Germany or Norway, Operation Fuller was drawn up on 29 April 1941 by the British to stop such an event from occurring. But until Tirpitz sailed for the Norwegian port of Trondheim in January 1942 the threat remained of Scharnhorst, Gneisenau and Prinz Eugen rendezvous with Tirpitz and raiding the Atlantic convoy routes, which tied up both ships and aircraft waiting for the Kriegsmarine’s next move.
By the end of 1941 the Commander in Chief of the German Armed Forces, Adolf Hitler, was growing concerned of a possible British invasion of Norway, and ordered the three cruisers back to Germany. The head of the Kriegsmarine, Grand Admiral Erich Raeder, was opposed to such a move, hoping to still send Tirpitz to join the ships at Brest. Hitler, after the failure of Operation Rhine, was adamant, either the cruisers returned to Germany or the ships were to be decommissioned and the ship’s crews, and their guns, were to be moved to defend Norway.
Vice-Admiral Ciliax, the Commanding Admiral of Battleships for the Kriegsmarine, put forward a plan called Operation Cerberus to Hitler in Berlin on 12 January 1942 for returning the cruisers to Germany via the English Channel. VADM Ciliax insisted that there should be a minimum of naval operations before the beginning of the operation, so as not to lose the element of surprise. The plan was to leave Brest after dark, again so as to maintain surprise for as long as possible, which meant that passing through the narrowest part of the English Channel, the Dover Straits, would occur in daylight. Operation Cerberus was approved by Hitler, ignoring the warnings of his other admirals that it would end with the cruisers sunk in the channel. Hitler compared the risk of running the British blockade to an operation for cancer: the operation might cost the patient's life, but without it he would certainly die.
Planning for Cerberus involved assistance from the Luftwaffe. General Adolf Galland made plans for at least 16 fighters to provide air cover at any one time while the cruisers were in the English Channel, while General Martini, in charge of the Luftwaffe radar effort, planned to jam British radar stations during the operation. On hearing these plans Hitler remarked that the air threat was exaggerated, and that British forces could not react fast enough to stop the cruisers from making it to German waters. The Kriegsmarine assigned six destroyers to act as escorts for the cruisers, as well as co-ordinating escort duties by German E-Boats along the channel. Scharnhorst, Gneisenau and Prinz Eugen had extra anti-aircraft guns mounted, the Prinz Eugen alone had 64 20mm guns added for air defence. Also mounted on the three cruisers was an air search radar and they were assigned a Luftwaffe officer to liase with the air cover.
Bomber Command kept up the pressure against the cruisers, and by February 1942 had flown thousands of sorties against Brest, dropping some 3,500 tons of bombs, and had lost 127 aircraft. Meanwhile RAF reconnaissance noted the arrival at Brest in late January of German escort ships, and Royal Navy and RAF commanders were duly warned on 3 February that a breakout might be planned.
In command of defences in the English Channel was Vice-Admiral Sir Bertram Ramsay. His forces to defend the Straits of Dover were a few motor torpedo-boats and gunboats. VADM Ramsay also managed to obtain a further reinforcement of six Swordfish biplane torpedo bombers of 825 Naval Air Squadron, that were moved from Lee-on-Solent to RAF Mansion, to help concentrate attacks in the chokepoint of the Dover Straits.
Despite their night-bombing commitments, 100 Bomber Command aircraft were placed on standby each day as a reaction force. And HMS Manxman and Welshman, plus a number of RAF aircraft, conducted intensive minelaying operations along the possible route up the Channel and beyond. As the threat of a breakout increased the British Admiralty arrange for six elderly destroyers to be stationed at Harwich from the Home Fleet to reinforce him at short notice. These forces were all that could be released to VADM Ramsay, the Home Fleet was stretched in the face of convoy commitments and the possible threat of the Tirpitz operating in Norwegian waters, as well as a large troop convoy was about to sail for the Middle East and the threat that Scharnhorst, Gneisenau and Prinz Eugen could target it instead.
With this knowledge VADM Ramsay knew that the Home Fleet could not assist if the cruisers sailed towards the Straits of Dover. VADM Ramsay and his staff believed that the Germans would use the cover of darkness approach and pass through the straits at daybreak. The plan to deal with a breakout was to conduct a combined attack by his torpedo-boats and Swordfish as the Germans passed Dover, followed shortly after by the six destroyers from Harwich, meanwhile level-bombing attacks were to be made at the same time by Bomber Command, as well as air strikes by Coastal Command torpedo-bombers. A problem that worried VADM Ramsay was if the cruisers took the best route through the Channel, the British radar stations may not detect them much more than an hour away from the Dover Straits. Reconnaissance flights were stepped up as decoded message traffic was confirming that a breakout was imminent.
The Kriegsmarine ordered Operation Cerberus to begin after a favourable tide and weather report on 7 February with poor visibility in the channel with the best night to depart on 11 February. Jamming British coastal radar by the Luftwaffe would not begin until 0900hrs the next day as to not arouse British forces.
As Scharnhorst, Gneisenau and Prinz Eugen, as well as six destroyers, prepared to get underway on the night of 11 February, the operation was nearly halted due to a routine Bomber Command raid on the harbour by sixteen Wellington bombers at 1930hrs. At the beginning of the raid VADM Ciliax, embarked onboard Scharnhorst, cancelled the order to get underway and prepared to conduct Operation Cerberus on another night. After the bomber raid was over at 2100hrs Ciliax countermanded his order and the cruisers set sail at once, and at least 90 minutes behind schedule, clearing the harbour at 2245hrs and at midnight he ordered his task force of cruisers and destroyers to proceed up the Channel, increasing speed to 27 knots.
For the British, the key flaw in their plans was an assumption that the German ships would time their run through the Dover Straits for the hours of darkness for maximum safety. Thus, when a reconnaissance flight on the late afternoon of 11 February showed the ships still in port, with no obvious sign of imminent departure, it was assumed that it was again too late for them to set out and still reach the Straits in darkness. Three RAF Hudson aircraft were sent out to conduct routine radar patrols in the Brest area that night. But bad luck and the fragility of the still very new radar technology meant that the two aircraft which were most likely to have detected the German heavy ships and their escorts slipping out of Brest that night both suffered radar malfunctions. Similarly, good German luck spared them being spotted by the submarine HMS Sealion, patrolling the area.
During the hours of darkness Scharnhorst, Gneisenau and Prinz Eugen and their escorts made up lost time in smooth seas and by dawn the task force was off Cherbourg and it was there that Luftwaffe fighter cover met up with the task force. Also arriving were two squadrons of E-boats and coastal craft and with other Kriegsmarine units VADM Ciliax was in command of 30 ships heading for the Dover Strait under radio silence at 27 knots. By the time reports of what was occurring reached the British, the cruisers and escorts had steamed 300 miles undetected.
While the task force headed east at sunrise, a pair of Spitfires from RAF Hawkings patrolling the French coast noted unusual activity by light naval forces. The weather was bad, and getting worse, with snow on the ground, very heavy and low cloud, and poor visibility. From 0800hrs reports arrived about increased Luftwaffe activity over the channel but they were dismissed as standard operations by the RAF, when in fact it was the task force’s air cover. At 0920, the Germans began efforts to jam the British radars along the South Coast. Given this unusual behaviour, a second pair of Spitfires was sent to investigate the coast between Boulogne and Fécamp at 1020. By 1045 the radar station at Hastings had reported to VADM Ramsay that a group of ships was located 27 miles away at Cape Griz Nez and heading east. Although the radar station could not identify individual units is was clear from the signal that there were large ships in the group. With this information Ramsay placed both the RAF and six Swordfish biplane torpedo bombers of 825 Naval Air Squadron at RAF Mansion on alert for a possible air strike.
On returning from Fécamp, the second pair of Spitfires reported spotting a "convoy" of up to 30 vessels, but there was no mention of Scharnhorst, Gneisenau and Prinz Eugen in the report that reached VADM Ramsay at 1105hrs. But it was not until the Spitfires had landed that they reported that one of the convoy was a possible capital ship.
At the same time, two senior RAF officers, Group Captain Beamish, commanding the RAF station at Kenley, and another pilot had taken off in their Spitfires on a combat air patrol over the channel in the hope of 'picking up a stray Hun'. While in pursuit of a couple of German fighters they suddenly found themselves over the unmistakeable shapes of the German battlecruisers at 1042hrs. Running into heavy anti-aircraft fire from the task force and realising what he had seen, Beamish broke off and returned to his base chased by German fighters part of the way, obeying Fighter Command orders stating that radio silence was not to be broken until he had landed at RAF Kenley, which happened at 1109hrs. Shortly after VADM Ramsay was notified of Beamish’s observations, and Operation Fuller finally began.
By 1120hrs the German task force was reducing speed as they proceeded through a minefield, but by 1140hrs the task force had cleared it and the task force was back up to 27 knots.
Lieutenant Commander Eugene Esmonde, commanding the six Swordfish of the Fleet Air Arm at RAF Mansion, was ordered at 1130 to mount an attack as soon as possible, an attack that the crews of the Swordfish were not fully trained for. It was recognised that his slow and vulnerable aircraft would need significant fighter escort to survive.
Three fighter squadrons from RAF Biggin Hill and two from RAF Homchurch, part of Group 11 of RAF Fighter Command, were ordered to accompany him. The Biggin Hill aircraft were to defend against the now very large Luftwaffe fighter escort covering the ships, whilst the Homchurch aircraft were to accompany his torpedo bombers in a low level attack, distracting anti-aircraft fire and strafing the ships to keep gunners heads down. However, the Homchurch fighter controller telephoned Esmonde to warn him that his squadrons simply could not reach the rendezvous by the allotted time. The timing was also exceptionally tight for the nearer Biggin Hill units. But Esmonde feared that even a short delay might take the German ships out of reach. As soon as the first ten Spitfires from 72 Squadron appeared overhead at Manston at 1228, he set off with his Swordfish, with only one-fifth of his planned escort. The RAF Station Commander at Manston said of Esmonde: "He knew what he was going into. But it was his duty. His face was tense and white. It was the face of a man already dead. It shocked me as nothing has ever done since.”
At 1218hrs the Dover gun batteries opened fire on the task force, without hitting anything. Shortly after eight Motor Torpedo Boats from Dover and Ramsgate attempted to attack the task force shortly afterwards, but the heavy screen of E-boats surrounding the battlecruisers forced them to fire their torpedoes at long range without scoring any hits.
German fighter attacks against the Swordfish began only ten miles out from the English coast. The Spitfires engaged, but found it impossible to keep track of both their opponents and the Swordfish, flying at only about 100 mph at very low level. The other two Biggin Hill squadrons arrived to engage German fighters in the general area. One Spitfire was lost, and two Messerschmitts were thought to have been destroyed.
By 1245hrs Esmonde's six Swordfish had pressed on alone, under heavy fighter attack and then, as the battlecruisers came into sight, intense anti-aircraft fire. The cruisers were in line ahead formation, with Prinz Eugen leading the Scharnhorst and Gneisenau and the destroyers and E-Boats deployed on each flank. Esmonde led his squadron straight towards the enemy but the odds were overwhelming. The few escorting Spitfires could not hold off the Germans, with the lower port wing of Esmonde's biplane shot away, he somehow managed to keep flying until he was eventually shot down and killed with his two crewmen just before he got in torpedo range. The two Swordfish with him managed to drop their torpedoes before being shot down; five of their six crew survived. The second section of three Swordfish were also all shot down, with the loss of all nine men aboard. Their efforts were in vain, with no torpedoes hitting their targets. Esmonde was awarded a posthumous Victoria Cross, and the other seventeen men were also decorated.
As the German task force passed Ramsgate and the weather in the Channel worsened, the only other available torpedo-bombers to conduct an air strike against the German task force were 217 squadron’s twin-engined Beauforts belonging to Coastal Command. Part of 217 squadron were in Cornwall, well out of range of the German ships, the remainder of the squadron were seven Beauforts which had not been sent to Cornwall and remained based at Thorney Island, near Portsmouth. Over the course of the afternoon five of 217 Squadron’s Beauforts attacked the task force without success. One was shot down by fighters. Other Beauforts and Hudsons of Coastal Command attempted attacks late in the afternoon on the cruisers, with the loss of four aircraft and no damage to the ships.
Scharnhorst was damaged by a sea mine at 1431hrs during an attack by 217 Squadron and had come to a halt. VADM Ciliax moves his flag to the destroyer Z.29 as he believed that Scharnhorst would have to be towed to a Dutch port. By the time the Admiral’s staff was onboard the task force had sailed over the horizon and Z.29 raced to catch up, and shortly after news came through that Scharnhorst damage was slight, and the battlecruiser was again underway. By 1700hrs Z.29 was developing engine problems from the fast pace and the Admiral and his staff transferred to another destroyer.
Meanwhile, the six elderly Royal Navy destroyers from Harwich, usually used for convoy duties, dashed south along the East Coast, coming under several air attacks. A squadron of RAF Whirlwind fighters was sent out to try to ward off the Luftwaffe, but was bounced and lost four aircraft. The effort proved too much for the worn engines of HMS Walpole, and she had to turn for home. The other five made radar contact at 1517, and ran in under heavy fire. The destroyers were repeatedly straddled, and HMS Worcester set on fire. Torpedoes were fired, but once again the range proved too great for accuracy. However, all the destroyers survived and retired to Harwich.
Bomber Command joined the fray at the same time, launching no less than 242 aircraft in three waves. Visibility was by now appalling, down to 1000-2000 yards in heavy rain, and the very low cloud base meant that bombs could not be dropped from sufficient altitude to have a chance of penetrating armour. 39 bombers were able to attack the German ships or their escorts, but 188 could not find them, and 15 were shot down. Fighter Command also sent up a total of 398 fighters: 102 strafed German patrol boats in the area, and claimed 16 enemy aircraft shot down, for the loss of 17 RAF fighters. Despite these massive efforts, Scharnhorst, Gneisenau and Prinz Eugen slipped away into the safety of the night.
While the massed airpower failed to damage the three cruisers, mines laid in the previous week with the assistance of the code breakers caused damage. At 1955hrs Gneisenau was mined off the coast of Holland causing minor damage, then at 2134hrs Scharnhorst was again hit by a mine, in the same area that Gneisenau was mined. The damage to Scharnhorst was moderate, the battlecruiser stopped for more than an hour before getting underway at a reduced speed towards Wilhelmshaven with part of the ship flooded with 1000 tons of seawater. By midnight ships of the task force was either safely in a German port or in German waters. The Kriegsmarine’s daring plan had succeeded.
For the British the failure to sink the three cruisers was regarded as a humiliating failure. The Times leader on 14 February complained:
“Vice-Admiral Ciliax has succeeded where the Duke of Medina Sidonia failed... Nothing more mortifying to the pride of sea power has happened in Home Waters since the 17th Century."
The British failed to consider that the Kriegsmarine would sail the cruisers in the English Channel during daylight, and many believed that the cruisers would not sail in such poor weather conditions. Similar thoughts would be in the German High command’s minds when the Allies landed in Normandy.
But perhaps the fairest judgement came from a senior German officer, General-Admiral Saalwachter:
"Our achievement should not disguise the fact that the dangers were still extremely high. We have without question been blessed by considerable good fortune, even when one considers the full significance of our initiative, use of surprise, good planning, strong fighter cover and strict security. I would also consider that the high risks of such an operation do not alter with hindsight."
For Hitler, this was another vindication that he knew better than his high command. In backing Operation Cerberus he argued that the British would never be able to react fast enough and he was absolutely correct: the ships got through. For Grand Admiral Raeder this was the beginning of the end of his hold over the Kriegsmarine, within a year control of the fleet went to Admiral Karl Dönitz.
Operation Cerberus was a tactical victory for the Kriegsmarine, but with the cruisers far from Allied convoys, coupled with the Commando raid a few weeks later on Saint Nazaire, which destroyed the dry-dock there, helped ensure that large German ships never again operated from the Western French ports to endanger North Atlantic convoys. Ultimately the U-Boats became the frontline units to go after the convoys. It is considered a strategic victory for the Allies, and it freed up ships and aircraft for other duties.
It was also the beginning of the end for the Kriegsmarine’s heavy surface units. After the failure of Operation Rainbow, an attempt by the cruisers Hipper and Lützow to intercept and destroy Arctic Convoy JB-51B in the Barents Sea on 31 December 1942, Hitler demanded that the battlecruiser and battleships of the Kriegsmarine. When Grand Admiral Raeder found out that he couldn’t change Hitler’s mind, he resigned as Commander in Chief of the German Navy, replaced by Admiral Dönitz, who managed to convince Hitler to keep the Scharnhorst and the Tirpitz.
For Scharnhorst she met her end during the battle of North Cape on Boxing Day 1943, sunk by the battleship HMS Duke of York. RAF bombers damaged Gneisenau in March 1942 and an attempt to repair her was abandoned. The Prinz Eugen survived the war and was a war prize for the United States, who sank the ship in the Atomic Tests at Bikini Atoll in 1946.
Before I start, there is this great thread in Royal Navy Ships and Crews by Stan J. on Operation Cerberus
http://www.worldnavalships.com/forums/showthread.php?t=903&highlight=Scharnhorst
While Stan's thread is a broad view, this is an article on the Dash itself, and the moment by moment actions. I throughly recommend Stan J's post, and I hope you enjoy this. This is another of the large articles I've written for the Australian Navy League over the years (An edited version was published in 'THE NAVY' magazine)
Again, I hope you enjoy it!:)
The Channel Dash - Operation Cerberus
By Ian Johnson
At 2245 hrs on 11 February 1942 the Kriegsmarine (German Navy) began Operation Cerberus, with the German battlecruisers Scharnhorst and Gneisenau, with the heavy cruiser Prinz Eugen, sailing from the French harbour of Brest and proceeding up the English Channel to reach the relative safety of German ports. By the time all three ships were in German waters on 12 February, the infamous "Channel Dash" was history, and the British, who had anticipated such a move in the weeks before, were red faced in their inability to find them, slow them down or stop them.
After conducting successful operations in the Atlantic Ocean in early 1941 the Scharnhorst and Gneisenau arrived at Brest in March where they waited for other Kriegsmarine units to break out from Germany and join them in forming a powerful surface-raiding group that could begin attacking the UK bound convoys in conjunction with German U-boats. Instead of a quick arrival in early April, time and delays with the battleship Tirpitz forced the cruiser Prinz Eugen and the battleship Bismarck to sail on her fateful sortie (Operation Rhine) into the Atlantic in mid May.
The Royal Air Force had been busy during this time. After locating Scharnhorst and Gneisenau at Brest on 28 March a major air campaign was conducted to damage both battlecruisers. The Germans spared no effort in developing truly formidable anti-aircraft defences around Brest. The most famous incident was the heroic attack on 6 April 1941 by an RAF Beaufort torpedo-bomber from 22 Squadron, Coastal Command. Knowing full well the risks they were running, the Beaufort crew, piloted by Flying Officer Kenneth Campbell, penetrated the inner harbour at Brest in bad weather at extreme low level. Under massive anti-aircraft fire, and with little chance of avoiding crashing into the hills behind the harbour, they succeeded in torpedoing Gneisenau before being shot down. All four crew were killed. Their efforts put the battlecruiser into dry dock for repairs for several months, and Campbell was awarded a posthumous Victoria Cross in recognition of the crew's gallantry. In a four-month period over 1800 aircraft conducted strikes against the battlecruisers, immobilising them at the base, a fact not known to the British.
The Prinz Eugen, avoiding enemy contact after the destruction of Bismarck, arrived at Brest on 1 June. A major French naval base, Brest offered excellent facilities for the ships. But, close to the British Isles, Brest was exposed to constant air attacks and surveillance. The chances of them being able to mount successfully another raid from there were slim, the threat of the Tirpitz joining the three cruisers was still a possibility. To plan for a possible attempt by the ships to break out for the relative safety of ports in Germany or Norway, Operation Fuller was drawn up on 29 April 1941 by the British to stop such an event from occurring. But until Tirpitz sailed for the Norwegian port of Trondheim in January 1942 the threat remained of Scharnhorst, Gneisenau and Prinz Eugen rendezvous with Tirpitz and raiding the Atlantic convoy routes, which tied up both ships and aircraft waiting for the Kriegsmarine’s next move.
By the end of 1941 the Commander in Chief of the German Armed Forces, Adolf Hitler, was growing concerned of a possible British invasion of Norway, and ordered the three cruisers back to Germany. The head of the Kriegsmarine, Grand Admiral Erich Raeder, was opposed to such a move, hoping to still send Tirpitz to join the ships at Brest. Hitler, after the failure of Operation Rhine, was adamant, either the cruisers returned to Germany or the ships were to be decommissioned and the ship’s crews, and their guns, were to be moved to defend Norway.
Vice-Admiral Ciliax, the Commanding Admiral of Battleships for the Kriegsmarine, put forward a plan called Operation Cerberus to Hitler in Berlin on 12 January 1942 for returning the cruisers to Germany via the English Channel. VADM Ciliax insisted that there should be a minimum of naval operations before the beginning of the operation, so as not to lose the element of surprise. The plan was to leave Brest after dark, again so as to maintain surprise for as long as possible, which meant that passing through the narrowest part of the English Channel, the Dover Straits, would occur in daylight. Operation Cerberus was approved by Hitler, ignoring the warnings of his other admirals that it would end with the cruisers sunk in the channel. Hitler compared the risk of running the British blockade to an operation for cancer: the operation might cost the patient's life, but without it he would certainly die.
Planning for Cerberus involved assistance from the Luftwaffe. General Adolf Galland made plans for at least 16 fighters to provide air cover at any one time while the cruisers were in the English Channel, while General Martini, in charge of the Luftwaffe radar effort, planned to jam British radar stations during the operation. On hearing these plans Hitler remarked that the air threat was exaggerated, and that British forces could not react fast enough to stop the cruisers from making it to German waters. The Kriegsmarine assigned six destroyers to act as escorts for the cruisers, as well as co-ordinating escort duties by German E-Boats along the channel. Scharnhorst, Gneisenau and Prinz Eugen had extra anti-aircraft guns mounted, the Prinz Eugen alone had 64 20mm guns added for air defence. Also mounted on the three cruisers was an air search radar and they were assigned a Luftwaffe officer to liase with the air cover.
Bomber Command kept up the pressure against the cruisers, and by February 1942 had flown thousands of sorties against Brest, dropping some 3,500 tons of bombs, and had lost 127 aircraft. Meanwhile RAF reconnaissance noted the arrival at Brest in late January of German escort ships, and Royal Navy and RAF commanders were duly warned on 3 February that a breakout might be planned.
In command of defences in the English Channel was Vice-Admiral Sir Bertram Ramsay. His forces to defend the Straits of Dover were a few motor torpedo-boats and gunboats. VADM Ramsay also managed to obtain a further reinforcement of six Swordfish biplane torpedo bombers of 825 Naval Air Squadron, that were moved from Lee-on-Solent to RAF Mansion, to help concentrate attacks in the chokepoint of the Dover Straits.
Despite their night-bombing commitments, 100 Bomber Command aircraft were placed on standby each day as a reaction force. And HMS Manxman and Welshman, plus a number of RAF aircraft, conducted intensive minelaying operations along the possible route up the Channel and beyond. As the threat of a breakout increased the British Admiralty arrange for six elderly destroyers to be stationed at Harwich from the Home Fleet to reinforce him at short notice. These forces were all that could be released to VADM Ramsay, the Home Fleet was stretched in the face of convoy commitments and the possible threat of the Tirpitz operating in Norwegian waters, as well as a large troop convoy was about to sail for the Middle East and the threat that Scharnhorst, Gneisenau and Prinz Eugen could target it instead.
With this knowledge VADM Ramsay knew that the Home Fleet could not assist if the cruisers sailed towards the Straits of Dover. VADM Ramsay and his staff believed that the Germans would use the cover of darkness approach and pass through the straits at daybreak. The plan to deal with a breakout was to conduct a combined attack by his torpedo-boats and Swordfish as the Germans passed Dover, followed shortly after by the six destroyers from Harwich, meanwhile level-bombing attacks were to be made at the same time by Bomber Command, as well as air strikes by Coastal Command torpedo-bombers. A problem that worried VADM Ramsay was if the cruisers took the best route through the Channel, the British radar stations may not detect them much more than an hour away from the Dover Straits. Reconnaissance flights were stepped up as decoded message traffic was confirming that a breakout was imminent.
The Kriegsmarine ordered Operation Cerberus to begin after a favourable tide and weather report on 7 February with poor visibility in the channel with the best night to depart on 11 February. Jamming British coastal radar by the Luftwaffe would not begin until 0900hrs the next day as to not arouse British forces.
As Scharnhorst, Gneisenau and Prinz Eugen, as well as six destroyers, prepared to get underway on the night of 11 February, the operation was nearly halted due to a routine Bomber Command raid on the harbour by sixteen Wellington bombers at 1930hrs. At the beginning of the raid VADM Ciliax, embarked onboard Scharnhorst, cancelled the order to get underway and prepared to conduct Operation Cerberus on another night. After the bomber raid was over at 2100hrs Ciliax countermanded his order and the cruisers set sail at once, and at least 90 minutes behind schedule, clearing the harbour at 2245hrs and at midnight he ordered his task force of cruisers and destroyers to proceed up the Channel, increasing speed to 27 knots.
For the British, the key flaw in their plans was an assumption that the German ships would time their run through the Dover Straits for the hours of darkness for maximum safety. Thus, when a reconnaissance flight on the late afternoon of 11 February showed the ships still in port, with no obvious sign of imminent departure, it was assumed that it was again too late for them to set out and still reach the Straits in darkness. Three RAF Hudson aircraft were sent out to conduct routine radar patrols in the Brest area that night. But bad luck and the fragility of the still very new radar technology meant that the two aircraft which were most likely to have detected the German heavy ships and their escorts slipping out of Brest that night both suffered radar malfunctions. Similarly, good German luck spared them being spotted by the submarine HMS Sealion, patrolling the area.
During the hours of darkness Scharnhorst, Gneisenau and Prinz Eugen and their escorts made up lost time in smooth seas and by dawn the task force was off Cherbourg and it was there that Luftwaffe fighter cover met up with the task force. Also arriving were two squadrons of E-boats and coastal craft and with other Kriegsmarine units VADM Ciliax was in command of 30 ships heading for the Dover Strait under radio silence at 27 knots. By the time reports of what was occurring reached the British, the cruisers and escorts had steamed 300 miles undetected.
While the task force headed east at sunrise, a pair of Spitfires from RAF Hawkings patrolling the French coast noted unusual activity by light naval forces. The weather was bad, and getting worse, with snow on the ground, very heavy and low cloud, and poor visibility. From 0800hrs reports arrived about increased Luftwaffe activity over the channel but they were dismissed as standard operations by the RAF, when in fact it was the task force’s air cover. At 0920, the Germans began efforts to jam the British radars along the South Coast. Given this unusual behaviour, a second pair of Spitfires was sent to investigate the coast between Boulogne and Fécamp at 1020. By 1045 the radar station at Hastings had reported to VADM Ramsay that a group of ships was located 27 miles away at Cape Griz Nez and heading east. Although the radar station could not identify individual units is was clear from the signal that there were large ships in the group. With this information Ramsay placed both the RAF and six Swordfish biplane torpedo bombers of 825 Naval Air Squadron at RAF Mansion on alert for a possible air strike.
On returning from Fécamp, the second pair of Spitfires reported spotting a "convoy" of up to 30 vessels, but there was no mention of Scharnhorst, Gneisenau and Prinz Eugen in the report that reached VADM Ramsay at 1105hrs. But it was not until the Spitfires had landed that they reported that one of the convoy was a possible capital ship.
At the same time, two senior RAF officers, Group Captain Beamish, commanding the RAF station at Kenley, and another pilot had taken off in their Spitfires on a combat air patrol over the channel in the hope of 'picking up a stray Hun'. While in pursuit of a couple of German fighters they suddenly found themselves over the unmistakeable shapes of the German battlecruisers at 1042hrs. Running into heavy anti-aircraft fire from the task force and realising what he had seen, Beamish broke off and returned to his base chased by German fighters part of the way, obeying Fighter Command orders stating that radio silence was not to be broken until he had landed at RAF Kenley, which happened at 1109hrs. Shortly after VADM Ramsay was notified of Beamish’s observations, and Operation Fuller finally began.
By 1120hrs the German task force was reducing speed as they proceeded through a minefield, but by 1140hrs the task force had cleared it and the task force was back up to 27 knots.
Lieutenant Commander Eugene Esmonde, commanding the six Swordfish of the Fleet Air Arm at RAF Mansion, was ordered at 1130 to mount an attack as soon as possible, an attack that the crews of the Swordfish were not fully trained for. It was recognised that his slow and vulnerable aircraft would need significant fighter escort to survive.
Three fighter squadrons from RAF Biggin Hill and two from RAF Homchurch, part of Group 11 of RAF Fighter Command, were ordered to accompany him. The Biggin Hill aircraft were to defend against the now very large Luftwaffe fighter escort covering the ships, whilst the Homchurch aircraft were to accompany his torpedo bombers in a low level attack, distracting anti-aircraft fire and strafing the ships to keep gunners heads down. However, the Homchurch fighter controller telephoned Esmonde to warn him that his squadrons simply could not reach the rendezvous by the allotted time. The timing was also exceptionally tight for the nearer Biggin Hill units. But Esmonde feared that even a short delay might take the German ships out of reach. As soon as the first ten Spitfires from 72 Squadron appeared overhead at Manston at 1228, he set off with his Swordfish, with only one-fifth of his planned escort. The RAF Station Commander at Manston said of Esmonde: "He knew what he was going into. But it was his duty. His face was tense and white. It was the face of a man already dead. It shocked me as nothing has ever done since.”
At 1218hrs the Dover gun batteries opened fire on the task force, without hitting anything. Shortly after eight Motor Torpedo Boats from Dover and Ramsgate attempted to attack the task force shortly afterwards, but the heavy screen of E-boats surrounding the battlecruisers forced them to fire their torpedoes at long range without scoring any hits.
German fighter attacks against the Swordfish began only ten miles out from the English coast. The Spitfires engaged, but found it impossible to keep track of both their opponents and the Swordfish, flying at only about 100 mph at very low level. The other two Biggin Hill squadrons arrived to engage German fighters in the general area. One Spitfire was lost, and two Messerschmitts were thought to have been destroyed.
By 1245hrs Esmonde's six Swordfish had pressed on alone, under heavy fighter attack and then, as the battlecruisers came into sight, intense anti-aircraft fire. The cruisers were in line ahead formation, with Prinz Eugen leading the Scharnhorst and Gneisenau and the destroyers and E-Boats deployed on each flank. Esmonde led his squadron straight towards the enemy but the odds were overwhelming. The few escorting Spitfires could not hold off the Germans, with the lower port wing of Esmonde's biplane shot away, he somehow managed to keep flying until he was eventually shot down and killed with his two crewmen just before he got in torpedo range. The two Swordfish with him managed to drop their torpedoes before being shot down; five of their six crew survived. The second section of three Swordfish were also all shot down, with the loss of all nine men aboard. Their efforts were in vain, with no torpedoes hitting their targets. Esmonde was awarded a posthumous Victoria Cross, and the other seventeen men were also decorated.
As the German task force passed Ramsgate and the weather in the Channel worsened, the only other available torpedo-bombers to conduct an air strike against the German task force were 217 squadron’s twin-engined Beauforts belonging to Coastal Command. Part of 217 squadron were in Cornwall, well out of range of the German ships, the remainder of the squadron were seven Beauforts which had not been sent to Cornwall and remained based at Thorney Island, near Portsmouth. Over the course of the afternoon five of 217 Squadron’s Beauforts attacked the task force without success. One was shot down by fighters. Other Beauforts and Hudsons of Coastal Command attempted attacks late in the afternoon on the cruisers, with the loss of four aircraft and no damage to the ships.
Scharnhorst was damaged by a sea mine at 1431hrs during an attack by 217 Squadron and had come to a halt. VADM Ciliax moves his flag to the destroyer Z.29 as he believed that Scharnhorst would have to be towed to a Dutch port. By the time the Admiral’s staff was onboard the task force had sailed over the horizon and Z.29 raced to catch up, and shortly after news came through that Scharnhorst damage was slight, and the battlecruiser was again underway. By 1700hrs Z.29 was developing engine problems from the fast pace and the Admiral and his staff transferred to another destroyer.
Meanwhile, the six elderly Royal Navy destroyers from Harwich, usually used for convoy duties, dashed south along the East Coast, coming under several air attacks. A squadron of RAF Whirlwind fighters was sent out to try to ward off the Luftwaffe, but was bounced and lost four aircraft. The effort proved too much for the worn engines of HMS Walpole, and she had to turn for home. The other five made radar contact at 1517, and ran in under heavy fire. The destroyers were repeatedly straddled, and HMS Worcester set on fire. Torpedoes were fired, but once again the range proved too great for accuracy. However, all the destroyers survived and retired to Harwich.
Bomber Command joined the fray at the same time, launching no less than 242 aircraft in three waves. Visibility was by now appalling, down to 1000-2000 yards in heavy rain, and the very low cloud base meant that bombs could not be dropped from sufficient altitude to have a chance of penetrating armour. 39 bombers were able to attack the German ships or their escorts, but 188 could not find them, and 15 were shot down. Fighter Command also sent up a total of 398 fighters: 102 strafed German patrol boats in the area, and claimed 16 enemy aircraft shot down, for the loss of 17 RAF fighters. Despite these massive efforts, Scharnhorst, Gneisenau and Prinz Eugen slipped away into the safety of the night.
While the massed airpower failed to damage the three cruisers, mines laid in the previous week with the assistance of the code breakers caused damage. At 1955hrs Gneisenau was mined off the coast of Holland causing minor damage, then at 2134hrs Scharnhorst was again hit by a mine, in the same area that Gneisenau was mined. The damage to Scharnhorst was moderate, the battlecruiser stopped for more than an hour before getting underway at a reduced speed towards Wilhelmshaven with part of the ship flooded with 1000 tons of seawater. By midnight ships of the task force was either safely in a German port or in German waters. The Kriegsmarine’s daring plan had succeeded.
For the British the failure to sink the three cruisers was regarded as a humiliating failure. The Times leader on 14 February complained:
“Vice-Admiral Ciliax has succeeded where the Duke of Medina Sidonia failed... Nothing more mortifying to the pride of sea power has happened in Home Waters since the 17th Century."
The British failed to consider that the Kriegsmarine would sail the cruisers in the English Channel during daylight, and many believed that the cruisers would not sail in such poor weather conditions. Similar thoughts would be in the German High command’s minds when the Allies landed in Normandy.
But perhaps the fairest judgement came from a senior German officer, General-Admiral Saalwachter:
"Our achievement should not disguise the fact that the dangers were still extremely high. We have without question been blessed by considerable good fortune, even when one considers the full significance of our initiative, use of surprise, good planning, strong fighter cover and strict security. I would also consider that the high risks of such an operation do not alter with hindsight."
For Hitler, this was another vindication that he knew better than his high command. In backing Operation Cerberus he argued that the British would never be able to react fast enough and he was absolutely correct: the ships got through. For Grand Admiral Raeder this was the beginning of the end of his hold over the Kriegsmarine, within a year control of the fleet went to Admiral Karl Dönitz.
Operation Cerberus was a tactical victory for the Kriegsmarine, but with the cruisers far from Allied convoys, coupled with the Commando raid a few weeks later on Saint Nazaire, which destroyed the dry-dock there, helped ensure that large German ships never again operated from the Western French ports to endanger North Atlantic convoys. Ultimately the U-Boats became the frontline units to go after the convoys. It is considered a strategic victory for the Allies, and it freed up ships and aircraft for other duties.
It was also the beginning of the end for the Kriegsmarine’s heavy surface units. After the failure of Operation Rainbow, an attempt by the cruisers Hipper and Lützow to intercept and destroy Arctic Convoy JB-51B in the Barents Sea on 31 December 1942, Hitler demanded that the battlecruiser and battleships of the Kriegsmarine. When Grand Admiral Raeder found out that he couldn’t change Hitler’s mind, he resigned as Commander in Chief of the German Navy, replaced by Admiral Dönitz, who managed to convince Hitler to keep the Scharnhorst and the Tirpitz.
For Scharnhorst she met her end during the battle of North Cape on Boxing Day 1943, sunk by the battleship HMS Duke of York. RAF bombers damaged Gneisenau in March 1942 and an attempt to repair her was abandoned. The Prinz Eugen survived the war and was a war prize for the United States, who sank the ship in the Atomic Tests at Bikini Atoll in 1946.