Attack on the Norwegian convoy

At dawn on 17 October 1917, about 70 nautical miles east of Lerwick in Shetland, two German light cruisers, Brummer and Bremse, fell upon a convoy sailing from Norway to Britain. In less than two hours they sank both British destroyers escorting it and nine of the twelve merchant ships, and then returned to Germany unscathed. The British fleet learned of the raid only in the afternoon.

The Scandinavian convoy

From the spring of 1917 ships sailing between Britain and Norway crossed the North Sea in convoys (PL), from Lerwick to the area of Bergen and back. They carried above all British coal, which Norway needed so badly that in return it agreed to charter a large part of its merchant fleet to the British. Most of the ships in the convoys sailed under the flags of the neutral Scandinavian states. Convoys sailed daily in both directions, and were usually protected by only two of the eight destroyers detached from the Grand Fleet and a few armed trawlers. Against submarines the system worked well. Nobody, however, had prepared the escort for an attack by surface ships.

The convoy that left Norwegian waters on the afternoon of 16 October numbered twelve ships: five Norwegian, three Swedish, one Danish, two British and one Belgian. It was led by the destroyer Mary Rose (Lieutenant-Commander Charles Fox), and after dark a second destroyer, Strongbow (Lieutenant-Commander Edward Brooke), joined it. They were accompanied by two armed trawlers, Elise and P. Fannon. The destroyer captains could not communicate during the night, and Mary Rose sailed several miles ahead of the convoy.

The raid

The commander of the German High Seas Fleet, Admiral Reinhard Scheer, wanted to harass this route with surface ships. He hoped to intimidate neutral shipowners and force the British to draw ships away from the fight against submarines. According to some historians the raid was also meant to divert the Royal Navy’s attention from the Baltic, where a few days earlier the Germans had launched Operation Albion. Brummer and Bremse were chosen for the task, new fast cruisers built as minelayers. They could make more than 30 knots and each had four 150 mm guns. They were repainted dark grey so that from a distance they would resemble British cruisers.

A few minutes after six in the morning lookouts on Strongbow sighted two unknown ships on a converging course. The destroyer challenged them three times with the recognition signal. When the reply proved false, Brooke sounded the alarm, but before the crew could man the guns the Germans opened fire from a range of about 3,000 yards. The first salvoes severed the main steam pipe. The ship stopped, many men in the engine room were killed by steam, and the deck was strewn with bodies. Brooke, wounded in the leg, ordered the secret documents destroyed and the ship scuttled. At about half past seven the survivors abandoned Strongbow.

Fox on Mary Rose heard firing astern and turned back, thinking that a submarine had attacked the convoy. When he saw the cruisers, he made for them at full speed and opened fire at about 6.20 a.m. For a moment it seemed that he would draw the Germans away from the convoy, but at close range his destroyer was quickly shattered. At about seven Fox ordered the ship abandoned. He himself died along with almost the entire crew. According to British casualty lists 87 men from Mary Rose and 46 from Strongbow were killed. A handful of survivors from Mary Rose reached the coast of Norway by boat.

Then the Germans turned to the merchant ships. According to the British official history they shelled them without warning, giving the crews no time to lower the boats. Nine Scandinavian ships were sunk. Only the two British ships, the Belgian one and the trawler P. Fannon escaped. According to the British historian Steve Dunn, 36 seamen from the neutral ships were killed. The trawler Elise, which had managed to keep clear of the fire, returned after the Germans left and picked up survivors, among them the badly wounded Brooke. A British court of inquiry later concluded that the Germans had deliberately fired on a raft and a motor boat carrying survivors from Strongbow. The Germans denied this.

The fleet searched in the wrong place

The Admiralty knew that something was afoot. The codebreakers of Room 40 picked up that Brummer was putting to sea, but the staff concluded that it was going minelaying. On the orders of the commander of the Grand Fleet, Admiral David Beatty, according to Newbolt more than eighty ships, including 27 light cruisers and 54 destroyers, were patrolling the North Sea. They were patrolling further south, however, and nobody warned the commanders of the convoy escort. Neither destroyer managed to send a wireless report. The news reached the fleet only after 3.30 p.m., when Elise met the destroyers Marmion and Obedient. Beatty at once placed cruisers across the Germans’ route home, but they already had several hours’ lead. On the morning of 18 October they were off the coast of Denmark.

The raid caused a storm in Britain. The press blamed the Admiralty, and Beatty accused it of failing to pass intelligence to him in time. It also turned out that the instructions for the escort had made no provision at all for an attack by surface ships. Beatty issued new orders: in such a case the destroyers were to report the enemy, scatter the convoy and harass the attacker, but not engage superior forces. Convoys began to be sent less often, but with a stronger escort. The raid did not, however, bring the Germans what they had hoped for. The Scandinavian shipowners were not frightened. As early as 19 October another convoy left Norway, and the next one from Lerwick sailed only a day late.