Breakout Page 8

  His submarine was lying only six miles away from the German battleships but his batteries were running dangerously low. Although he knew he must soon go out to sea to surface and recharge them he decided to hang on as long as possible. By 2 p.m. he had sighted nothing so he went out to sea on the ebb-tide.

  When the German battleships sailed out of harbour, Colvin was thirty miles away cruising on the surface to recharge his batteries. He was nearly as far away as the two H-Class submarines. This was the first piece of bad luck for the British.

  As the ships steamed through the starlit night away from Brest, Wilhelm Wolf, officer of the watch aboard Scharnhorst, turned to the navigator, Giessler, and asked, "What course now, sir?" When Giessler replied, "Alter course to starboard. New course three-four-zero," he looked at him in amazement. For this would take them right through the Channel. Giessler grinned in the dim light. "Course correct," he said. "Tomorrow you will be kissing your wife in Germany!"

  Sailing at twenty-seven knots and protected by a screen of destroyers, the battleships made their way towards the English Channel. At 10:20 p.m., Scharnhorst sighted the first mark-boat and signalled to the other two ships to reduce speed and follow her across the danger area.

  All sounds seemed to be suppressed. Only the constant slapping of the bow waves and the distant noise of the boiler-room fans could be heard. The sky over them was like soft black velvet but the brilliant stars indicated a change of weather. There was hardly any wind and the sea was smooth with only a light swell. This could be detected aboard the battleships from the constantly changing height and shape of the luminous bow waves of the destroyers sailing on both sides. A thin haze rose from the sea and made the night still darker. Then the dark shadow of the high coastline of Ushant could be seen with powerful binoculars from the bridge.

  By midnight the ships sailed past Ushant — only seventy-two minutes behind schedule. They were at the point of no return. The break-out had begun. Yet still none of their crews aboard knew where they were bound.

  Just after midnight all the ships' loudspeaker systems called for attention. It was an announcement from Admiral Ciliax saying:

  "Warriors of the Brest Forces! The Führer has summoned us to new tasks in other waters. After great success in the Atlantic, the ships of the Brest Group — despite all the enemy's efforts to put them out of action and free himself from this threat to his sea communications — became ready for combat again with the vigorous help of everyone and with the prompt aid of the dock-yard personnel.

  "Our next task, to the execution of which we were called upon last night, lies ahead of us. It is: "Sail through the Channel eastwards into the German Bight."

  "This task imposes on men, weapons and machines the highest demands. We are all aware of the difficulties of the task.

  "The Führer expects from each of us unwavering duty. It is our duty as warriors and seamen to fulfil these expectations.

  "What tasks await us after sailing into the German Bight need not concern us at the present time.

  "I lead the Squadron conscious that every man at his post will do his duty to the utmost."

  Jubilant cheers rang out. For the Admiral's announcement meant that at last every man in the Squadron knew what he was facing. The audacity of the enterprise excited the sailors. At last they were leaving hateful bomb-torn Brest — even if they did have to pass through the narrow Straits of Dover. This news operated like an electric shock to everyone. In a moment all hands were fully awake and whispered discussions of the broadcast could be heard everywhere. Unusual guests — the ship's doctor and the paymaster — appeared on Scharnhorst's bridge to talk about the situation.

  What would be the outcome of it all? After the excited cheering and whispering came second thoughts. Men gazed stonily at the dark phosphorescent seas frothing by. When daylight came and they neared the Straits their presence was bound to be detected. Would they succeed in passing through them as Hitler had demanded? Or would they go to the bottom?

  The Germans became even more jumpy when just after the announcement they picked up what they thought was an English radar frequency. Were they already detected? Although Gneisenau reported that nothing was on her monitors, Scharnhorst's monitoring was certain it was a British aircraft detection radar. Then Admiral Ciliax realized the bearing was not moving. He thought that the destroyer Richard Beitzen was causing it.

  A Morse message requested her to make a check-up. Twenty minutes afterwards the emissions ceased. An electrical installation mounted on a gun was not switched off and this had caused the so-called radar emission.

  As they raced through the night, steaming to the north-east still undetected by the British, most of their special navigational aids failed them. The only one of real value was the tidal-stream and current atlas, freshly compiled by the Wilhelmshaven Marine Observatory.

  They were using radar-finding for the first time. Radar navigation in 1942 was in its infancy and German systems were markedly less efficient than the British. Yet the more advanced British radar did not score any success either on that vital night.

  Range-finding equipment, situated along the French coast to locate the battleships' direction and measure their distance away, was supposed to signal information to the Navy and Luftwaffe staffs about the progress of the break-out.

  The range-finding transmitters on the ships were not switched on. That was too dangerous, as they could be monitored by the British. However, the receivers could pick up the shore beacon signals to check their position. But the bearings either came too late — or the information was wrong. Some of them did not transmit. Human error was not the monopoly of the British that day.

  Gradually the navigators realized the system had failed. This was partly the result of too much secrecy. Security had ruled out any question of advance exercises by the radar operators, who were mostly untrained and some of whom were French. And no one had been able to tell them that they must exercise the greatest vigilance on that night.

  This meant a nightmare for the Squadron navigator Giessler. Without the radio bearings, he had to navigate by dead reckoning while sailing at twenty-seven knots through the channel swept by Commodore Ruge's forces. It was only a mile wide and had been swept to a depth of twelve fathoms. By the calculations of the Wilhelmshaven tide tables, he reckoned this would just about give adequate margin to escaped moored mines.

  As they steamed through the narrow swept channel, still the overriding anxiety was — had the British detected them? No radio signals were intercepted from them. All remained quiet as they sailed steadily towards dawn and Dover.

  Occasionally dimmed red or green lights were seen and flash signals with darkened blinker tubes could be read, as some mine-sweepers, which had cleared the way, returned to ports on the ragged northern coast of France. Then the shore lights of the Casquets hove in sight and Giessler was able to check their position. The strong tidal current was helping them to make as much progress eastward as possible during darkness, and they were catching up with their schedule.

  Although Group West kept sending out coded radio messages for guidance following the hold-up leaving Brest they were based on a two-hours' delay. The ships had already made up over an hour, but radio messages picked up made Ciliax realize that the command posts on land were still reckoning the ships to be behind schedule. At dawn swarms of fighters were due and they must not miss the battleships. So he decided to send a message to give the Luftwaffe an exact "fix."

  He ordered a destroyer to sail towards shore and transmit radio signals giving the Battle Squadron's correct position. The location of the destroyer when it sent its coded radio message would baffle British direction-finding apparatus. It was not picked up. The British radio still remained quiet.

  One of the German radio monitors listening in on British wavelengths reported shortwave telephone conversations between patrol boats in Portland Bay and the Isle of Wight— nothing to worry about.

  At 4 a.m. a disturbing signal came from on
e of the mine-sweeping flotilla, reporting a new mine barrier twenty miles south-west of Boulogne exactly across their course. There was no chance of dodging it as the areas on both sides of the swept channel were known to be filled with new and old mine-fields which had not been surveyed in recent months.

  Commodore Ruge was sitting in an armchair in his Paris headquarters reading a Dorothy Sayers crime novel in English, which he had picked up in a local bookshop, when this information was signalled to him. He ordered that even if it risked his boats, the mine-sweeper commander must sweep a gap through the mine barrier in time for the battleships' arrival there just before dawn. It was the only order Ruge gave during the night.

  Apart from the new mine scare nothing out of the ordinary happened from departure until sunrise — all went according to plan. As the night drew towards dawn German radio-intelligence monitors still reported no unusual radio communications from the British. This meant they had slipped through most of the Channel unobserved by the enemy. On board the morale of the crews was high.

  At 6:13 a.m. the ships began transmitting course signals by the infra-red lamp which the British could not pick up. At 7:00 a.m. they passed Cherbourg. Daybreak was about forty minutes away.

  At 7:11, as they were passing German-occupied Guernsey, they began picking up radio position signals which again proved completely useless: they were as wrong as those from the French coast.

  At 7:16 in the darkness before dawn the loudspeakers shouted: "Klarschiffzustand!" — "Clear for action." "Alle Mann auf Gefechtsstationen!" — "All hands to battle stations."

  The stars began to fade and the faint grey of dawn appeared. In what the Germans call "musket light" — the first glow of dawn — four German night-fighters were heard coming from a westerly direction astern of the ships. After firing off their recognition signals they took over protecting duties.

  Watchful in the dawn twilight, Colonel Ibel, Luftwaffe liaison leader, was on the Admiral's bridge with Ciliax. Colonel Hentschel, controller of the fighters, was in the crow's nest. Colonel Elle was in the Air Communication Centre in constant touch with Ibel and Hentschel.

  The shapes of the ships became clearer as the first of Galland's fighter planes roared overhead to begin their vigilant defence, which would not end until nightfall. Then the crews standing at battle-stations could distinguish the dark-painted German night-fighters with yellow belly rings circling overhead beneath the clouds.

  A hazy sun rose and the sky began to show a high, thin cover of clouds travelling fast to the north-east. The Germans noted with satisfaction that this was the first indication of an approaching storm.

  The question, "Hat der Tommy Kenntnis von unserer Absicht?" — "Does Tommy know what we're up to?" — was on everyone's lips. They had been steaming unmolested up the English Channel for nearly eleven hours. Surely "Tommy" knew they were there? Every man stood to his post tense and expectant waiting for the British dawn attack.

  IV

  THREE RAF PATROLS

  The Germans had sailed so far undetected because the RAF night patrols had all missed them.

  Coastal Command, which had the task of watching the Channel for the German ships, kept a dusk-to-dawn watch using relays of Hudsons fitted with rudimentary radar called ASV Mark II. The Channel patrol Hudsons had forward-looking antennae capable of detecting the presence of large ships up to thirty miles away. By the end of 1941, 94 per cent of all night sightings came from this radar. But it was still not more than 50 per cent efficient.

  Lockheed Hudson

  Equipped with this radar, three overlapping dusk-to-dawn air patrols flew every night between Brest and the Straits of Dover. The most vital of these was the westerly one, called "Stopper," which covered the coastline from Brest to Ushant. The second, known as "Line SE," patrolled from Ushant to the north-east comer of Brittany. The third, "Habo," extended from Le Havre to Boulogne.

  Their interlinked patrols over the Channel formed one continuous search pattern, which meant in theory that if one plane failed to detect the German ships there was a very good chance another patrol would spot them. To make these patrols effective, intensive crew training was needed and this had not reached as high a standard as it should have.

  At 6:27 p.m. on 11 February, a Hudson commanded by Flt.-Lt. C. L. Wilson of 224 Squadron took off from the darkened RAF station at St. Eval, Cornwall, as patrol "Stopper." It was such a black night that Wilson could hardly see his wing-tips. On such a night, visual reconnaissance was impossible, and he had to rely entirely on radar for his patrol over Brest and the tip of the Breton peninsular.

  At 7:17 p.m., while flying at 1,000 feet near Ushant, a German JU-88 flew near, almost colliding with Wilson's Hudson. As he dodged away from the German night-fighter, his crew hastily switched off the radar. But when they turned it on again it was dead. The crew, Sergeants George Thomas, G. Cornfield and R. Cooke, tried to make it work but they could not. At 7:40 p.m., as his radar was still out of action, Wilson decided to return to base.

  When he landed at St. Eval, technicians tried for forty minutes to repair the radar breakdown. They looked for some obscure fault, but it was eventually found to be a blown fuse. As the ground crews did not find it quickly, Wilson was ordered to take over another Hudson to resume his patrol. This aircraft refused to start. Another fifty minutes passed before they found the cause of this trouble — a damp plug. By the time it was discovered, a third Hudson commanded by Sq.-Ldr. G. Bartlett had taken off to resume "Stopper" patrol.

  While they were wrestling with a blown fuse and a damp plug at St. Eval, Brest remained unwatched for three hours. Wilson went off patrol at 7:40 p.m. It was 10:38 p.m. before Bartlett arrived over Brest. The German ships had sailed over an hour before.

  At 2 a.m., Bartlett saw an orange light astern which he thought was probably a German night-fighter and dived away from it towards the sea. By this time the German battleships were over 100 miles eastwards along the English Channel.

  Twenty-one minutes after "Stopper" took off — at 6:48 p.m. — another Hudson commanded by Flt.-Lt. G. S. Bennett took off on "Line SE" patrol. He arrived over his patrol area between Brest and Le Havre at 7:40 p.m., the same moment as Wilson in "Stopper" decided to return.

  Bennett also found his radar equipment had broken down. He remained on patrol for ninety minutes while the crew tried to repair the radar, but it was so dark there was no effective reconnaissance over this period. At 9:13 p.m., Bennett decided it could not be repaired so he broke radio silence to report and the aircraft was ordered to return. When he landed the fault turned out to be an obscure one, which three weeks later was still under investigation.

  Bennett's plane was not replaced. This was a vital mistake. It was a quarter of an hour after midnight when the battleships steamed past Ushant into the "Line SE" patrol area. They continued to steam through "Line SE" patrol area for most of the night, and if a relief aircraft has been sent it might have flown right over them. If it had not been for this double failure of radar, one of the Hudsons would almost certainly have spotted the battleships.

  The third patrol, Habo, which covered the Le Havre— Boulogne area until dawn, was a responsibility of 223 Squadron based on Thorney Island. Sergeant Smith and Sergeant Watt, who went on patrol between 12:32 a.m. and 5:54 a.m. only reported "White light seen off Barfleur." From 3:55 a.m. to 7:15 a.m., the second "Habo" plane with Flying Officer Alexander and Sergeant Austen was on patrol.

  The mist was very heavy over this part of the Channel, and the Station Controller feared it might turn into fog and they would be unable to land. So he ordered Alexander to make only two circuits and return. This brought the patrol to an end an hour earlier than usual.

  Once again a gap was left in the British air-guard. Had the patrol been maintained until dawn its radar might have picked up the German battleships steaming off Le Havre. As it was, when the battleships reached the "Habo" line, the aircraft had left an hour before. When Alexander returned, he reported, "Duty performed. Noth
ing sighted."

  The British defence line, which included a submarine and three air patrols stretching from Brest along the Channel to Boulogne, had been pierced repeatedly by the Germans. This was not due to their own skill. It happened because of an awesome mixture of bad weather, bad luck, and inefficiency on the part of RAF Coastal Command.

  The German ships, as they steamed towards the Straits of Dover, were approaching weapons which might prove formidable or even decisive — the big coastal guns.

  When the British Expeditionary Force departed amid civilian cheers for France, no one envisaged the day would come when heavy guns would fire across the English Channel. Then came 1940—and Dunkirk.

  After the fall of France, the Germans lost no time in bringing heavy guns into the Pas de Calais. These German guns were not taken from the Maginot Line as was rumoured. They were 8-inch and 11-inch mobile railway guns. Old-fashioned and not very accurate, they did little damage — but they dominated the narrow straits. They had three main objectives — to defend the French coast, fire on British shipping and harass the coast of Kent with shell-fire. Their secondary function was to prepare for the invasion of Britain.

  Churchill had strong views about meeting the challenge of these German heavy guns. While the last details of Operation Sealion — the invasion of Britain — were being studied by Nazi generals, Churchill ordered heavy guns to be mounted on the Dover cliffs as soon as possible.

  On 10 June 1940, a week after Dunkirk, at a meeting between Fourth Sea Lord Vice-Admiral Sir Bruce Fraser and Vickers-Armstrong executives, it was decided to proceed immediately to mount two 14-inch guns at Dover. They were naval guns destined for the new-type battleships, the King George V class. As they fired 1,590-lb. shells and had a range of 48–50,000 yards, they could easily control the Calais-Boulogne.area.

  Two days later, a thousand 14-inch shells were delivered to the Navy. At the same time, the Director of Operations, Captain J. Leach, who later went down commanding the Prince of Wales, chose a site for the first gun. It was a mile inland from St. Margaret's Bay at Cliffe. Two 50-ton and one 45-ton railway cranes, the largest in Britain, were used to mount the gun.