Sea battle in front of mountains

Sea battle in front of mountains

Part of: First World War ( naval war )

A British destroyer of the Admiralty M class, which also includes the conduct course Korten HMS Pellew and HMS Partridge included

date	December 12, 1917
place	North Sea
output	German victory

Parties to the conflict
German Empire	United Kingdom
Commander
Paul Heinrich Oskar Heinecke Hans Kolbe	JRC Cavendish
Troop strength
1 small cruiser 8 torpedo boats	2 destroyers 4 trawlers
losses
3 wounded	at least 116 dead and 48 prisoners 1 destroyer 4 trawlers 7 merchant ships 1 destroyer damaged

The sea ​​battle off Bergen took place during the First World War on December 12, 1917 in the North Sea off the Norwegian coast about 50 nautical miles west of Bergen . Around noon, four German destroyers attacked a convoy escorted by British forces and sank a British destroyer, four trawlers and six merchant ships; a damaged British destroyer escaped.

background

In the autumn of 1917, the successes of the German submarine offensive against the supply shipping of the Entente had already passed their zenith, and the German Admiralty intended to help the submarines with surprising surface attacks . Convoy trains that commuted from Great Britain to Norway and back again, bringing coal to Norway and iron and wood products to Great Britain, provided a good opportunity . Although these were adequately protected against submarines and had already fended off some submarine attacks, the few light escort vehicles were hardly a threat to larger surface vessels. A first such advance led to the sea ​​battle off the Shetland Islands on October 17, when two German mine cruisers 65 nautical miles east of Lerwick blew up a British convoy and sank two destroyers and nine neutral merchant ships. The British practice of allowing cruiser units to operate as a cover group independently of the escorts could not prevent this attack because the Germans disrupted the radio traffic and thus thwarted calls for help.

In December, the Germans dared a new advance under the command of the first leader of the torpedo boats , Commodore Paul Heinrich, and the small cruiser SMS Emden (II) , the flagship of Commodore Heinrich, ran with the eight modern and powerful torpedo boats of the II. Torpedo boat flotilla, which consisted of the 3rd and 4th torpedo boat half flotilla, in the early morning hours of December 11th. At 4 p.m. on the northeastern tip of the Dogger Bank, the association split up: the Emden remained behind, while the Second Flotilla, divided into semi-flotillas, went in search of British ships in various sea areas. The 3rd half flotilla, under the command of Lieutenant Hans Kolbe, headed for the Norwegian coast, while the 4th, under the command of the flotilla commander Corvette Captain Oskar Heinecke, headed for the English coast.

On the same day, a convoy consisting of six merchant ships, the two British destroyers HMS Pellew (flagship) and HMS Partridge and four trawlers for protection against submarines, had left Lerwick with the destination Bergen.

The battle

Sketch of the attack

At 11:45 a.m. English time on December 12th, the German torpedo boat destroyers G 101 , V 100 , G 103 and G 104 , which belonged to the 3rd Half Flotilla, came across the convoy from a north-westerly direction, which was only about 50 nautical miles from its destination port was removed. The destroyer HMS Partridge sighted the attackers first, but was only able to report this ten minutes later due to a defective Morse code. The three front approaching German destroyers attacked the escorts with artillery fire at around 5,000 m, the fourth ( G 104 ) only ran 25 knots due to engine problems and instead turned to the freighters. The convoy commander , Lieutenant Commander Cavendish, in command of the Pellew , ordered the merchant ships to disperse and then launched an attack against the Germans. As before the Shetland Islands , the Germans disrupted the enemy radio traffic, but apparently the Partridge succeeded in sending an emergency call, which was received by a nearby British combat group, which consisted of the armored cruisers HMS Minotaur , HMS Shannon and four destroyers. The Partridge was put out of action at 12:15 by an artillery hit that damaged the main steam line and made the ship unable to maneuver; the port turbine, a torpedo tube and the aft gun were also damaged. One torpedo launched by the Partridge got stuck in the damaged tube set, a second hit V 100 but did not explode. Shortly thereafter, the Partridge was hit by a torpedo in turn, and the commander ordered the crew to leave the ship before it was sunk by two more torpedo hits. The Pellew also received damage in the engine room and on the torpedo tubes. The German destroyers sank the merchant ships and trawlers, after which they withdrew under cover of bad weather. Only the badly damaged Pellew escaped the attackers in a rain squall and was towed into the Selbornfjord by a Norwegian ship. The alerted British combat group appeared too late on the scene, but was able to recover about 100 survivors.

In the course of the same operation, the 4th half flotilla - the boats B 97 , B 109 , B 111 and B 112 - sank the Swedish steamer Nike just eight nautical miles northeast of the eastern English port of Blyth with two torpedoes, presumably from the torpedo boat destroyers B 97 and B 111 . According to German information, the torpedo boat destroyers sank three more steamers before they started their march back at around 6 a.m. The two semi-flotillas met again in the afternoon on the Dogger Bank and reunited with the flagship. Due to the poor weather outlook for the North Sea, the ships rounded Skagen and entered the port of Kiel without further events.

losses

The following merchant ships were sunk next to the destroyer Partridge . The number in brackets indicates the confirmed death toll.

Convoy:

• Bollsta (N), 1,701 GRT
• Bothnia (S), 1723 GRT
• Cordova (GB), 2284 GRT
• Kong Magnus (N), 1101 GRT
• Maracaibo (DK), 526 GRT
• Torleif (S), 832 GRT

Off the Northumberland coast:

• Nike (S), 1834 BRT (16)

Escorts:

• HMS Partridge , 994 GRT (97)
• HMT Commander Fullerton , 227 GRT
• HMT Livingstone , 213 GRT
• HMT Tokyo , 295 GRT
• HMT Lord Alverstone , 264 GRT

When the Nike was sunk , 16 people were killed. HMS Partridge went down with five officers and 92 crew degrees. Four officers and 21 men who went into captivity were rescued by the German destroyers. They also took in 23 civilian seafarers. Three men of the rescued were wounded. There were three dead and several wounded on board the Pellew . There were three wounded on the German ships.

Effects

The attack on the convoy near Bergen marked the end of the German surface offensive in autumn 1917. The British convoys to Scandinavia were then less common and better protected. The previous practice of letting cruisers drive separately from the escorts was abandoned, so that another German attempt at surface water attack on a convoy in spring 1918 failed. After that there were no more major battles and the German fleet made only a few offensive advances until the end of the war.

Web links

• Report on HMS Partridge with links to the other lost ships and a detailed list of losses
• Report of the battle from a British perspective, with links to original documents
• Page about the sinking of Nike
• The Crisis of the Naval War by Admiral John Rusworth Jellicoe

literature

• Scheer, Reinhard: Germany's deep sea fleet in the World War , Berlin 1919, pp. 325–328

Footnotes

1. ↑ Scheer, p. 325
2. ↑ http://www.wrecksite.eu/wreck.aspx?10765#131807
3. ↑ http://www.wrecksite.eu/wreck.aspx?10765#131807
4. ↑ Archived copy ( Memento of the original from March 5, 2016 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. 
5. ↑ Archived copy ( Memento of the original from March 5, 2016 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. 
6. ↑ http://www.gutenberg.org/files/10409/10409-h/10409-h.htm
7. ↑ http://www.wrecksite.eu/wreck.aspx?116677
8. ↑ Scheer, p. 326
9. ↑ Scheer, p. 328
10. ↑ Archived copy ( Memento of the original from March 5, 2016 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. 
11. ↑ Archived copy ( Memento of the original from March 5, 2016 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. 

Coordinates: 59 ° 50 ′ 0 ″  N , 3 ° 50 ′ 0 ″  E