German raid on Yarmouth

On the morning of 3 November 1914 German battlecruisers appeared off the coast of Norfolk and shelled the area around Great Yarmouth. It was the first sortie by large German warships to the English coast since the beginning of the war. The raid on Yarmouth did little damage, but it showed that the German fleet could approach the British coast with impunity.

Hipper’s sortie

After the defeat in the Battle of Heligoland Bight in August, the German command looked for a way to raise morale in the High Seas Fleet. Rear-Admiral Franz Hipper, commander of the battlecruisers, proposed an expedition to the east coast of England. Light cruisers were to lay mines on the shipping lanes off Yarmouth and Lowestoft, while the heavy ships covered them and shelled the coast.

Hipper’s squadron left the Jade estuary on the afternoon of 2 November. It consisted of the battlecruisers Seydlitz, Moltke and Von der Tann, the armoured cruiser Blücher and four light cruisers: Strassburg, Graudenz, Kolberg and Stralsund. Other German ships covered the return route. After a night crossing of the North Sea the Germans reached the British coast at dawn.

Halcyon and Lively

The waters off Yarmouth were then patrolled by the old torpedo gunboat Halcyon, serving as a minesweeper, and the destroyers Lively and Leopard. At about 7 a.m. Halcyon came upon the Germans and challenged them to make the recognition signal. The answer was fire from heavy guns. The gunboat survived the shelling without a direct hit, although splinters destroyed her wireless aerials and wounded three sailors, one of whom died. The destroyer Lively covered her with a smokescreen, one of the first such manoeuvres of the war.

Meanwhile Stralsund was laying mines. At about 7.40 a.m. the German ships fired several salvoes towards the land, but the shells fell on the beach at Gorleston and did no damage in the town. When the mines had been laid, Hipper turned for home.

Loss of D5

Three British submarines set out from Yarmouth in pursuit: E10, D3 and D5. None managed to attack. D5 struck a mine and sank. Only four or five men were saved, including her commander, Lieutenant-Commander Godfrey Herbert, and about 20 sailors were killed. It is most often assumed that the mine came from the field laid by Stralsund, although according to some sources the submarine hit a drifting British mine. Several fishing boats also sank on Stralsund’s minefield the same day.

The British reacted late. The Admiralty at first believed that the raid was meant to divert attention from another, more serious attack, and only later sent Vice-Admiral David Beatty’s battlecruisers to intercept. By then the Germans were far away. In Britain the raid itself was quickly overshadowed, because almost at the same time news arrived of the British squadron’s defeat at the Battle of Coronel.

A Pyrrhic success

In Germany the raid was hailed as a success, and Hipper received the Iron Cross, although he himself thought little had been achieved. In fact the Germans suffered the heaviest loss themselves. Thick fog lay over the Jade estuary and the returning ships had to wait at sea. On the morning of 4 November the armoured cruiser Yorck, which had been covering the squadron’s return, ran onto a German minefield and sank with several hundred sailors. Yet the ease with which Hipper’s squadron had reached the British coast and returned encouraged the German command to undertake another, much bloodier expedition. In December the battlecruisers shelled Scarborough, Hartlepool and Whitby.