Breakout Page 4

  That was it. After the conference Hitler entertained his admirals and generals at dinner in the concrete shelter where he lived. He ate frugally as usual but was more genial than anyone had seen him for a long time. He said, almost jovially, "You will find that this operation will turn out to be our most spectacular naval success of the war."

  He revealed his only doubt — would the Luftwaffe manage it? He realized that Galland with his fighters was the key figure in the operation. Saying good-bye to him he asked quietly, "Do you think they will bring it off?" When Galland assured him he thought they would he dismissed him with a rare smile.

  The decision was made. Far from dismantling the great ships the Germans were to fight them through the English Channel in daylight. An attempt like this had not been made by an enemy of England for over three centuries — since the Spanish Armada of 1588.

  II

  INVITATIONS TO A MASKED BALL

  When Hitler made his decision on 12 January in Wolfs Lair there remained only a month to go before the operation, which was now code-named Cerberus.

  The time most suitable for the break-out had already been worked out. Ideally it would be a night with low cloud cover, no moon, and worsening visibility and weather conditions. From the beginning of February darkness prevailed from 7:30 p.m. until 7:30 a.m. G.M.T. The new moon was on 15 February. The most favourable tides and currents were between 7 and 15 February. Therefore the operation must be carried out during this period. But the date depended upon the weather.

  An exact forecast was extremely difficult as German meteorologists had only the scantiest weather data. Their sole information came from long-range reconnaissance planes over the Atlantic. So three U-boats were diverted from the Atlantic to Iceland — the area that determines the weather — for meteorological observation. Their reports enabled the Germans to make an accurate weather forecast, the meteorologists predicted favourable weather for 11 February, so it was decided the ships would sail from Brest that night.

  Zero hour was fixed for 7:30 p.m. on 11 February. But a more critical zero hour was due at noon next day. This would be the time when the battleships would begin steaming through the Dover Straits.

  The time schedule for the operation was: put to sea from Brest in the evening, pass the narrows of Dover-Calais by noon of the following day; navigate along the Dutch coast in the afternoon; enter the North Sea in the evening. A twenty-eight-knot cruising speed was planned.

  The Germans now overwhelmingly agreed that a daylight passage was the only answer. Every officer in the secret appreciated that to force the Dover Straits in daylight was a practical if perilous plan. A night dash past Dover when the ships almost certainly had been detected in daylight seemed frighteningly difficult. For then the British defences would be alert and waiting for them. During a night voyage along the French coast there was just a possibility they might take the British by surprise.

  But the first and greatest danger lay in the heavily mined narrow waters. The main burden of trying to ensure a mine-free lane fell to Commodore Friedrich Rüge, in command of all the mine-sweeping flotillas along the Channel coast.

  Group West ordered him to throw every available minesweeper into clearing a channel for the battleships. A meeting at Group West attended by Giessler and the three captains showed the provisional route running through the series of numbered squares into which the Channel was divided. This route avoided mines laid by the RAF and Royal Navy leaving, if possible, only German mine fields to be dealt with.

  Ruge's headquarters was in the Bois de Boulogne — a hundred yards away from Group West in Paris. Only his Chief of Staff, Captain Hagen, and his first operations officer, Cdr. Hugo Heydel, knew what was happening. Obviously Heydel could not continue to work in the general operations room in case the secret leaked out. But how could he leave it without starting gossip? Ruge devised a little plot. He told Heydel to complain that the clamour in the busy operations room made it impossible for him to concentrate. Then Ruge took up his complaint and arranged for him to exchange with an officer who had a private room. No one suspected anything and Heydel could get on with his planning in secret.

  But Ruge faced a much greater problem of secrecy. This was that he could not hold an overall briefing conference with his captains nor order his mine-sweeping flotillas to sweep an obvious course. Instead he divided the route up into a jigsaw and directed his mine-sweepers to sweep individual sections. These individual pieces of the mine-sweeping jigsaw were plotted day by day by Heydel on a secret chart in his private room.

  Ruge's other problem was finding suitable excuses for issuing his orders, in case his crews began to wonder why all this intensive mine clearing had started. Many pretexts had to be devised to enable him to make a complete sweep of the proposed route. False reports were concocted about British mine-fields as an excuse for sweeping German mines. These reports were given to the mine-sweeping officers and men as genuine operational information.

  The orders given by Commodore Ruge to his flotillas were crystal-clear. He laid down that the Channel was only to be swept at night and time limits for each stage were to be punctually adhered to. But to the officers carrying them out in ignorance of the over-all picture the whole operation seemed bewildering and purposeless.

  Although Ruge could not rouse his crews to enthusiasm for the task which they were doing, they carried it out with the utmost efficiency. During January, under cover of darkness, German mine-sweepers groped their way along the heavily mined route. Continual bad weather made their task more difficult.

  On 25 January the destroyer Bruno Heinemann, sailing to Brest to form part of the escort for the battleships on their break-out, struck a mine off Ruytingen and sank. This was the first indication ftiat a new British mine-field had been laid on the intended course of the German battleships. Despite worsening weather the mine-sweepers exploded over thirty magnetic mines in this area. In the first days of February they worked in the Straits of Dover only a few miles off the English coast. All the route was continually swept until the last moment. Ruge was at last able to report to Group West that the many tasks imposed upon the small number of mine-sweepers available were carried out punctually and with the loss of only two boats.

  At the same time, destroyers and torpedo-boats needed to screen the battleships began sailing westward down the Channel. Their movements were made an excuse for some of the mine-sweeping operations required.

  The next big question was how to mark the swept channel. Not only were buoys only possible for a short inshore part of the course but there were also dangers in placing more buoys outside Brest. In the first place they might be spotted by British reconnaissance. Also the tendency in those mid-war days was to remove buoys — and to anchor new ones might puzzle French port officials and cause suspicion.

  To avoid this, Ruge arranged for some of his small mine-sweeping craft to anchor as "mark-boats" along the most important points of the route, while the operation was in progress. When the captains of the mine-sweeping craft came to open their secret orders they were mystified. For each contained instructions to sail to a certain position in the Channel at a time laid down, and anchor there to act as a "living buoy." They had to endure the hazards of air attack with no idea of the vital importance attaching to their role. But no explanation was possible.

  Meanwhile, based on Ruge's information, Admiral Saal-wächter's staff officers in Paris prepared the navigation charts. They were delivered to the ships in Brest by "safe hand" officer messengers with the rank of naval captain. Yet in spite of the most careful planning, several of the mark-boats were off position on the day. But no operation, however well planned, can be perfect.

  Next to mines, the greatest danger to the ships was the unseen eyes of radar stations strung along the English Channel coast. The Germans already knew from the reports of Captain Brinkmann of the Prinz Eugen that the British were ahead in radar. But they were still not certain how far ahead.

  Even before the outbreak of th
e war they were curious about British radar. Then in the spring of 1939 350-foot aerial masts were erected from the Isle of Wight to the Orkneys, German Intelligence marked them down as radio transmitters. But General Wolfgang Martini, the Head of the Luftwaffe Signals Service, was not satisfied that they were.

  He was suspicious of the fact that these latticed aerials were on different wavelengths from the crude German Freya and Wurzburg radars, which German firms were developing. Was this possibly more advanced radar than his own country had? At a meeting with German Air Force chiefs, Göring and Milch, Martini came forward with a startling suggestion. He suggested a Zeppelin reconnaissance. When Göring asked, "Why not use an aeroplane?" Martini explained that only an airship could remain stationary in the air to record a series of signals. Göring ordered one of Germany's two remaining Zeppelins to be converted into an airborne radar spy.

  Prinz Eugen

  One night in May 1939 the 776-feet long Zeppelin LZ 127 left Frankfurt and headed over the North Sea with aerials rigged underneath her gondola. She flew towards the Bawdsey Research Station at Orfordness, Suffolk, where tall masts could be seen. Aboard her was General Martini. While the Zeppelin cruised along the Suffolk coast technicians in her gondola manned special radio detectors. All they picked up was a loud crackling.

  At Bawdsey, the radar operations staff gazed in astonishment at the largest "blip" they had ever seen travelling slowly across the radar screen. They guessed correctly that it was a German airship carrying out radar investigation. As she flew along the east coast the Zeppelin picked up only more crackling in her receivers. General Martini landed in Frankfurt still as ignorant of the development of British radar.

  A month before the outbreak of war — or 2 August 1939—the Zeppelin made a second trip. Her instructions were to keep fifteen miles off the east coast of Britain and note the wavelengths, strength and position of all high-frequency signals. Martini was not aboard this time but sent his senior officer, Lt.-Col. Gosewisch. Once again no transmissions were detected — and British radar did not pick up the airship.

  But she was seen. Coastguards in Aberdeenshire reported her and two RAF fighters took off from Dyee and identified the airship. But she was well outside territorial limits as Martini had ordered.

  She cruised near the British naval base at Scapa Flow, catching glimpses of British warships through the clouds before setting course back to Germany, again without detecting any high-frequency signals.

  A month later, when war broke out, such Zeppelin cruises off the coast of Britain were impossible. In spite of the two abortive Zeppelin flights, General Martini was convinced that Britain was ahead in radar. He persevered in trying to find out more about their sets.

  The fall of France in 1940 gave him his opportunity. Special teams of Luftwaffe and Navy signal experts were sent to the Channel coast to find out whether instruments similar to their radar had been established on the English south coast. Until then the Germans had no definite proof that the British were ahead. When these radar intelligence receivers recorded a number of English radar sets on meter and decimeter wavelengths, reconnaissance planes helped to pinpoint their locations for an exact map of all existing radar. From these precise observations, the Germans were able to deduce a good deal about the development of the British radar devices. Martini decided to jam them.

  During the next year jamming stations were established in Ostend, Boulogne, Dieppe and Cherbourg. They were equipped with very efficient directional beam antennae, synchronized with the search impulses of the British equipment. They could achieve effective jamming from Cherbourg to the Isle of Wight. Several aeroplanes also had jamming equipment.

  When told of Operation Cerberus, General Martini personally directed his "interference" operations. At dawn each day during January English radar stations had a few minutes of jamming, deliberately made to appear like atmospherics. Every day the length of the jamming increased slightly. By February British radar operators were wearily accustomed to this interference. They reported it as "caused by atmospheric conditions."

  This brilliant, painstaking radar plan was to play a decisive part in delaying the British defences.

  The day after the New Year conference a staff car appeared on the quai Lannion. Ships' officers recognized the visitor it contained as the famous Battle of Britain fighter ace Col. Adolf Galland.

  Galland was a popular figure with the Navy, which was unusual because the Luftwaffe — and especially its chief Hermann Göring — was not. Not only did the Navy feel that the Luftwaffe was the younger, more favoured child but it resented the fact that Göring had used his influence with Hitler to resist any attempt to give the Navy its own Fleet Air Arm, as the Royal Navy had.

  Although Scharnhorst carried three reconnaissance aircraft in her hangar, they would be useless in this operation, which needed a vast Luftwaffe force. Col. Galland came aboard Scharnhorst to discuss this air cover with Admiral Ciliax and his Chief of Staff Reinicke. With them he worked out an elaborate air defence plan of fighter forces under his command.

  Galland's headquarters were to be at Le Touquet, geographically in the centre of the operation. He set up one command post at Caen for the early part of the break-out, and another at Schiphol in Holland for the last leg.

  The problem was to have the greatest possible number of aeroplanes at all times because, as Hitler had predicted, the success of the break-out depended on how soon the British could mobilize the full force of the RAF against the surprise appearance of the German ships.

  Owing to the great demands jn Russia the Luftwaffe was short of aircraft. But three fighter groups were available with 250 fighters and 30 night-fighters. To cover the battle squadron, all the 280 fighters stationed along the Channel coast would be brought into action. Night-fighters would give protection before dawn and as soon as dawn broke 16 day fighters would be constantly overhead. Each flight would last thirty-five minutes. Ten minutes before they left another wave would arrive. This meant that for twenty minutes of every hour there would be 32 fighters overhead.

  Planes were to remain over the ships as long as their fuel reserves permitted, then fly to the next airfield where they would quickly be refuelled and supplied with new ammunition ready to fly off again. The first planes were to meet the ships somewhere in the Seine Bay before dawn and accompany them to the North Sea.

  At 2 p.m. the control centre was to move from Le Touquet to Schiphol, and the air-bases in the area of the mouths of the Rhine and Scheldt had to be ready. By evening the planes were to join bases in the Wilhelmshaven area.

  Galland arranged to put Luftwaffe officers in each of the three big ships to help German fighters to deal with the RAF during the break-out. On the Scharnhorst was their commander Col. Max Ibel who was in charge of the Fighter Control Board. There were also to be fighter controllers on Gneisenau and Prinz Eugen.

  After the Hitler conference, Luftwaffe Col. Ibel received orders to co-ordinate and take charge of the air umbrella. On 20 January he arrived with Lt.-Col. Hentschel and Lt.-Col. Elle with a staff to be posted among the ships, Captain Rutsch was attached to Gneisenau and Lt. Rothenberg to Prinz Eugen. To avoid RAF bombing interfering with their preparations, they lived outside Brest in the ironically named château "Beau Repos."

  The Luftwaffe installed additional radio equipment in the ships to direct the fighter pilots. The radio contact between the flagship Scharnhorst and the command centres along the German-occupied coast was achieved by very-high-frequency— VHF — radio telephone or by means of long-wave coded messages. Radio telephone communications were established between the fighter command centres and the airfields. Particularly important and difficult to install was a line from the crow's nest to the Scharnhorst's bridge, to give the earliest possible warnings of RAF attacks.

  Their next problem was to ensure the faultless adjustment of the ships' equipment, so that it would accurately guide the fighters from the ship, pick up the exchanges of conversation of the low-level cover — above
all in the morning and evening twilight — and receive the beamed air warnings from the Luftwaffe command post.

  The Luftwaffe officers were aboard when the ships went out to the "Dalbenplatz" — Dolphin Place — in the Bay of Brest for calibration of direction finders. The Dalbenplatz was more than a mooring at which a ship swings with the tides. It was an elaborate iron grill permanently made fast in deepish water. Ships could be "strapped" motionless fore and aft to the Dalbenplatz while the necessary delicate adjustments were made with the ship afloat but completely rigid. Prinz Eugen, Gneisenau and Scharnhorst were calibrated on 22, 23 and 28 January respectively. Afterwards, the three Luftwaffe colonels had a conference with Admiral Ciliax to finalize details of arrangements for protecting the ships from constant air attack.

  Calland faced the same problem of keeping the secret as Commodore Ruge and the battleship senior officers, since the plan had to be concealed from the German aircrews as well. He had to invent fanciful excuses for the trial runs while this extensive communication apparatus was tried and co-ordinated. Nearer the time, the Luftwaffe pilots were told that a convoy with a very important cargo was to pass the Channel from east to west and they were to protect it.

  The excuse given to the ships' crews for the Luftwaffe preparations was that plans were being made for joint exercises with the Luftwaffe south of Brest. The story was that the ships were to leave Brest after sunset on 11 February, carry out exercises between La Pallice and St. Nazaire during the 12th, and return to Brest on the following night. To allay suspicions, the usual small percentage of men were sent on leave.