Clash of Swift and Broke

On the night of 20 to 21 April 1917 German torpedo boats from Flanders once again entered the Strait of Dover. They shelled Calais and Dover, but on the way back they ran into two large British destroyers, Swift and Broke. In a fight lasting a few minutes, just after midnight on 21 April, the British sank two German ships, one of them by ramming. For the first time since the night raids began in the autumn of 1916, the Germans lost ships in the strait. In Polish the clash is sometimes called the Battle of the Strait of Calais, and in Britain the Second Battle of the Dover Strait.

The German plan

At the end of March the 3rd Torpedo Boat Flotilla, made up of the 5th and 6th Half-Flotillas, arrived in Flanders from Germany. Its commander, Commander Kahle, signed the orders for a new raid on 19 April. According to the British official history of the war at sea, for the first time he directed the operation not from sea but from the headquarters of the German Marine Corps in Bruges, where intercepted British signals were collected and decoded. Commander Gautier with six ships (V 71, V 73, V 81, S 53, G 85 and G 42) was to attack British patrols in the north-western part of the strait and shell Dover, while Commander Konrad Albrecht with five other ships was to operate in the south-eastern part and shell Calais. The British official history writes that this time the Germans sent no one to the Downs anchorage. More recent studies, based also on German sources, mention, however, a third, small group of torpedo boats intended precisely for an attack on shipping in the Downs.

The Admiralty had no indication of an impending raid, so the commander of the Dover forces, Vice-Admiral Reginald Bacon, did not change his usual dispositions. Since the raid of 17–18 March, however, ships had been patrolling the barrage in groups rather than singly. At 7.45 p.m. two flotilla leaders, that is, large destroyers that led flotillas, left Dover: Swift under Commander Ambrose Peck and Broke under Commander Edward Evans. They were to patrol together the western part of the barrage, from the South Goodwin lightship towards France. On the eastern sector, closer to Calais, the leader Nugent was cruising with three destroyers, and a reserve of six destroyers was waiting in Dover harbour.

The shelling of Calais and Dover

Both German groups left the Flanders ports between 6.15 and 7 p.m. At about 11.10 p.m. Albrecht’s ships shelled Calais and its surroundings for a few minutes. Swift and Broke saw the flashes and headed east, but when they understood from an intercepted signal that Nugent was not in action, they returned to their sector. At about 11.30 p.m. Gautier’s group fired on the trawler Sabreur, which managed to escape into the darkness, and then fired towards Dover for a few minutes. The coastal batteries replied. According to the British official history the German fire was completely haphazard, and many shells flew blindly deep into the county of Kent. Bacon sent the reserve to sea only after the shelling had ended, and shortly after midnight, convinced that the Germans had already withdrawn, ordered it back to harbour.

Gautier, however, was ahead of time. Instead of returning straight to Flanders, he turned back towards the barrage to look for the British patrols that his orders named as the main target. Some of the German commanders apparently thought the danger had passed. The commander of G 42, Kapitänleutnant Bernd von Arnim, allowed the gun and torpedo-tube crews to leave their stations.

The ramming

At about 12.45 a.m. on 21 April Swift was steaming west, about three miles east of the South Goodwin lightship, with Broke keeping station astern of her. Lookouts reported destroyers on the port bow, and at the same moment the British ships came under fire. The Germans were on an opposite course, port side to port side. Peck opened fire and turned to ram the nearest ship. The flash of the 152 mm gun on the forecastle, however, blinded everyone on the bridge; Swift missed, passed through the German line or astern of it, and managed to fire a torpedo that most probably hit G 85. She then set off in pursuit of the fleeing Germans until a shot-through bow and water in the hull forced her to slow down.

Evans also fired a torpedo at G 85, and then turned towards the next ship in the line. Broke, at high speed, according to various accounts 27–30 knots, drove into G 42 just abaft the after funnel. The rammed ships were locked together for several minutes. Some German sailors forced their way onto Broke’s forecastle and there was hand-to-hand fighting, while German ships passing by fired at the immobilised British ship at close range. Particularly distinguished was Midshipman Donald Gyles, who despite a wound to the eye gathered men from the shattered gun crews, kept the forecastle guns in action and drove off the boarders. When Broke freed herself, G 42 was sinking by the stern, and nearby the immobilised G 85 was burning. From her bow some of the crew were shouting “Kamerad”, but the gun on her stern was still firing at Broke. According to Bacon, Broke finished her off with a torpedo. At about 1.15 a.m. the reserve destroyers reached the helplessly drifting Broke and took her in tow.

Losses and significance

Broke had 21 killed, many of them stokers, and 36 wounded; Swift one killed and four wounded. Both ships spent several weeks in the dockyard. The Germans lost G 42, on which 36 men died, and G 85, which lost 35 men. The other ships returned to Flanders. The British pulled more than a hundred German survivors from the water, who were taken prisoner. In his first report Bacon admitted that the course of the fight could not be fully reconstructed, and Evans at first claimed a third ship sunk. Only analysis after the battle showed that Broke had torpedoed the same G 85 twice, because after the ramming the ships had swung round almost 180 degrees.

Peck and Evans were promoted to captain and awarded the Distinguished Service Order. Evans, already known as Robert Falcon Scott’s second-in-command on the Antarctic expedition of 1910–1913, became a press hero as “Evans of the Broke”. Bacon, on the other hand, ran into trouble. In a communiqué he wrote that “fortunately” many Germans had been saved, and to the funeral of an officer from G 85 at Dover he sent a wreath inscribed “to a gallant enemy”. For this he was showered with indignant letters, but he defended himself by saying that the navy had always rescued survivors, and the prisoners had provided valuable information.

Bacon regarded the clash as proof that the German ships had learned in their raids to flee rather than fight, since six of them had escaped from two British ships. According to the British official history it was in a sense a turning point: the German command realised that it could no longer count on inflicting more losses in the strait than it suffered itself. In the following days the torpedo boats from Flanders struck once more at Dunkirk and then at the Kent coast, but for many months they did not venture into the strait itself. The clash ended the series of night raids in the strait itself that had begun with the sortie of October 1916. The Germans carried out the next one only in February 1918.