Bombardment of Lowestoft and Great Yarmouth

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The sea battle at Lowestoft on April 25, 1916 (based on a painting by marine painter Hans Bohrdt )

The bombardment of Lowestoft and Great Yarmouth was on the 24th and 25th. April 1916 carried out combined air and sea operation of the Imperial Navy against the English east coast . The company was in the political context of the Irish Easter Rising , which began on April 24th , and parts of the British Grand Fleet were to be provided in order to turn the British-German balance of power at sea, which was unfavorable for the Reich, to the advantage of the Imperial Navy through a German victory .

Sea War in the North Sea 1914–1918

Strategic background

Map of the North Sea

Since taking up service in January 1916 as head of the deep sea fleet , Admiral Reinhard Scheer pursued an offensive strategy on the North Sea war scene with the intention of forcing parts of the Royal Navy's Grand Fleet into action and at least weakening British superiority through a German victory.

The specific reason for the attack on the east coast of England was the Irish Easter Rising. The Irish rebels had demanded support for the uprising from the German side by means of extensive air and / or sea attacks on England or Ireland itself. The key figure in German-Irish relations was Roger Casement , who was transported a few days before the planned uprising with the German submarine SM U 19 from Heligoland to the Irish southwest coast near Tralees , but shortly after the landing on April 21st Captured by the British in 1916.

Due to the strategic situation, an advance by German surface forces into Ireland was impossible. However, on April 9, 1916, the auxiliary ship Libau under Karl Spindler was sent from Warnemünde under the legend of the real Norwegian steamer Aud to the Irish southwest coast to land a load of weapons for the rebels. The company failed when the Libau was stopped on April 21, 1916, three days before the planned uprising, off the Irish south coast of the British sloop HMS Bluebell and then sank itself on April 22. A meeting planned between Libau and U 19 in front of Tralee did not take place for reasons unknown until today (2016).

Like the Libau company itself, the British side was generally aware of the radio reconnaissance from Room 40 that Scheer was planning a specific advance by naval forces to the east coast of England. Flanders submarines (see also Marine Corps Flanders ) and naval airships were also involved in the German advance . The task of the submarines was to mine the ports from the Tyne to the Thames .

The air raids on 24./25. April 1916

The naval airships L 16 , L 17 , L 20 , L 21 , L 23 , L 13 and L 11 , which had ascended from the airship ports of Hage , Tondern and Nordholz , were involved in the air raids on eastern England . L 14 had to return to Nordholz at the height of Wangerooge due to an engine failure . L 7 , L 8 and L 9 were used for reconnaissance for the fleet advance . The commander was the leader of the airships (F. d. L.), Corvette Captain Peter Strasser , who had ascended with L 21 in Nordholz. The airships flew over the line between Mersey and The Wash from 11.10 p.m. on Easter Monday , April 24, 1916, the day the Irish uprising began .

However, due to strong south-westerly winds, London could not be attacked as planned . Fog, rain and cloud cover also generally hindered attacks on ground targets, so that only Norwich , Lincoln and Cambridge and an artillery battery near Winterton were bombed, with both high explosive and incendiary bombs being used. In Cambridge several houses were badly damaged in Lincoln Station Great Northern station, and a factory.

The bombardment of Lowestoft and Great Yarmouth on April 25, 1916

Friedrich Boedicker

The German fleet advance was commanded by Rear Admiral Friedrich Boedicker and comprised two reconnaissance groups, consisting of the 1st reconnaissance group with the large cruisers ( battle cruisers ) SMS Seydlitz ( flagship ), SMS Lützow , SMS Derfflinger , SMS Moltke and SMS Von der Tann as well as the II. Reconnaissance group under Commodore Ludwig von Reuter with the small cruisers SMS Pillau ( flotilla leader ), SMS Frankfurt , SMS Wiesbaden and SMS Regensburg . In addition, two torpedo boat flotillas were deployed with the small cruisers SMS Rostock and SMS Elbing . The submarines SM UB 18 and SM UB 29 were also used .

German large cruiser (battle cruiser) SMS LÜTZOW

At noon on April 24, 1916, the units left Wilhelmshaven . Already at the height of the island of Norderney , the Seydlitz was hit by a British sea ​​mine at 15:48 and severely damaged; eleven crew members were killed. At 7:25 p.m. Boedicker was forced to transfer to the torpedo boat V 28 and hoisted his flag at around 8:30 p.m. on the Lützow, which had just been put into service in March . The “Seydlitz” returned to Wilhelmshaven with 1400 t of leakage water in the hull accompanied by two torpedo boats and an airship.

The Royal Navy on the Home Front, 1914-1918 Q18285
HMS Conquest

In regard to the German Anmarsches in the had Harwich stationed Harwich Force under Commodore Tyrwhitt Reginald , consisting of the three light cruisers HMS Conquest ( flotilla ), HMS Penelope and HMS Cleopatra and 18 destroyers transferred to the German staging area. Tyrwhitt's goal was to pull the German ships off the coast as much as possible and to prevent bombardment of the ports.

On April 25, 1916 at 3:11 a.m., the German units opened fire on Lowestoft , which was responded to by some artillery positions . Due to the extremely poor visibility, caused by the haze and smoke from their own chimneys and kills, the bombardment was far less effective than hoped. Fire ceased at 5:20 am and fire was taken at Great Yarmouth at 5:24 am. Here the visibility was even worse than in Lowestoft, so that Lützow stopped firing the main artillery after one volley so as not to waste ammunition unnecessarily.

So Boedicker turned south again, where in the meantime Tyrwhitt's Harwich Force had come into view, which was soon in combat with the German small cruisers. At 0549 the battlecruisers intervened, at 0550 HMS Conquest , Tyrwhitt's flagship, was probably badly hit by SMS Von der Tann , but could still maintain a speed of 20 nm and catch up with the other British units retreat to the south. At about 6 a.m. Boedicker broke off the action and ran east, at 6:20 a.m. Scheer gave his squadrons the order to take the waiting position at Terschelling Bank.

Tyrwhitt, meanwhile, had made makeshift repairs on his flagship and followed Boedicker east to keep in touch. HMS Penelope was apparently hit by a torpedo from UB 29 , but only slightly damaged. Between some German and British submarines there were surface and underwater attacks, with the British boat E 22 being sunk by UB 18 . At 10:20 am Scheer gave the order for all forces to march back, Tyrwhitt's Harwich Force returned to Harwich at around 4 pm.

During the operation against the two port cities, the high seas fleet under Admiral Scheer with the I., II. And III. Liner squadron and the IV reconnaissance group took a position a good 100 km north of the Hoofden and a good 90 km west of Den Helder to intercept forces of the Grand Fleet from Scapa Flow or the British battle cruisers from the Firth of Forth . Although this was on the march on April 25, there was no contact . At about 1.30 p.m. the British battle cruisers were a good 100 km northwest of Terschelling, but then turned back.

Results

Street corner in Lowestoft after the bombardment (Freemantle Road)

While 200 houses were destroyed and three civilians died in Lowestoft, the damage in Great Yarmouth was apparently minor; No personal losses are known. As far as is known, the company had no influence over the course of the Easter Rising.

The British submarine E 22 was sunk by SM UB 18 under Otto Steinbrinck . The German submarine SM UB 13 under Oberleutnant zur See Metz did not return from the mission and is considered lost.

The sinking of the German naval airship L 19 on February 2, 1916 in the North Sea

Purely by chance brought the torpedo boat G 41 the alleged trawler King Stephen of Grimsby , whose captain on February 2, 1916 north of Ameland the downed on the North Sea Navy airship L 19 rescue from distress had refused, had what the effect the occupation with went under the wreck . The process was viewed by the German side as a war crime and caused a sensation in Germany . As it turned out, however, the angry steamer was actually the King Stephen , which had been put into service by the Royal Navy as a submarine trap immediately after the affair . There was therefore a regular British naval crew on board who were unrelated to the February 2 incident. G 41 sank the King Stephen on site; the prisoners were transported to a prisoner-of-war camp in Giessen , where their identity, which was initially questioned by the Germans, could be clarified.

The repair of the badly damaged Seydlitz took several weeks. The battle cruiser was not operational again until May 29, 1916. Since Scheer did not want to do without them on his foray into the northern North Sea with the deep sea fleet, which was supposed to end in the Battle of the Skagerrak , he delayed the operation for a few days. The failure of the Seydlitz and the loss of the submarine were not reported to the press by the chief of the admiralty's staff, instead it was announced that all ships had returned undamaged, which was also confirmed by the Oldenburger Nachrichten für Stadt und Land in the issue of 27. April 1916.

As a consequence of the public demand for better protection of the southeast coast, the Royal Navy relocated seven older ships of the line of the King Edward VII class together with the battleship HMS Dreadnought to the southeast.

On the German side, both the cooperation of the surface forces with the submarines and with the airships had proven extremely problematic due to weather conditions and communication disruptions.

In his 1936 Franz Schneider Verlag published YA "Alarrrrm! German cruiser! "The bombardment of the English port cities of the Marine writer was Fritz Otto Busch , in a sense propaganda glorified.

See also

literature

Web links