Harwich Force clashes with German torpedo boats

On the night of 22–23 January 1917 a series of night actions took place in the waters between Harwich in England and the coast of Holland. British light cruisers and destroyers from Harwich tried to intercept the German 6th Torpedo Boat Flotilla, which was being transferred from Heligoland to Zeebrugge on the Flanders coast. Despite the overwhelming British superiority, most of the German ships got through to their destination. The flotilla’s flagship, V69, was badly damaged and its commander killed, but the British lost the destroyer Simoom with 47 men.

Since the autumn of 1916 German destroyers sent from the High Seas Fleet had been stationed in the Belgian ports; in October they had raided the barrage in the Strait of Dover, and in November they had ventured off the Suffolk coast. On the morning of 22 January the Admiralty learnt that in the afternoon another flotilla would leave the German river mouths for Zeebrugge. It owed this knowledge to the cryptanalysts of Room 40, who were reading German wireless signals. It was the 6th Flotilla of Korvettenkapitän Max Schultz, a veteran of the Battle of Jutland: the leader V69 and ten large torpedo boats, in practice modern destroyers. At 11.40 a.m. Commodore Reginald Tyrwhitt received orders to intercept them. In the afternoon he put to sea with six light cruisers, two flotilla leaders and sixteen destroyers, some of them borrowed from the Dover forces. He deployed them in several groups to bar both possible routes: along the Dutch coast past the Maas and Schouwen Bank lightships, and across the middle of the bight past the North Hinder lightship. The night was clear and freezing, and the decks were soon covered in ice.

At about 2.45 a.m. British time the German flotilla ran into three of Tyrwhitt’s light cruisers, Centaur, Aurora and Conquest. Both sides opened fire without switching on their searchlights, since the ships were betrayed by the glow from their funnels. V69 was hit by a shell that jammed her rudder. The ship began to circle and was rammed by G41, which was itself badly damaged. According to German sources a shell also struck V69’s bridge and killed Schultz. The rest of the flotilla broke away from the British under cover of a smoke screen, while the torpedo boat S50 lost touch with the others in the confusion and carried on alone. At about 3.40 a.m. a second group of cruisers, Penelope, Cleopatra and Undaunted, came upon the slowly moving V69 and riddled her with shells at close range in the light of their searchlights. On Penelope they were sure they had sunk her, but the searchlights were switched off too soon. The crippled V69, with a funnel shot away and a large hole in her stern, limped into the Dutch port of IJmuiden. G41 reached Zeebrugge along the Dutch coast.

After the first clash the British force scattered. Tyrwhitt’s orders did not say what the destroyers were to do if the cruisers encountered the enemy, and some commanders left their assigned patrol lines to chase the Germans on their own account. Meanwhile the main body of the 6th Flotilla slipped past the Schouwen Bank lightship unseen a few minutes before four and got beyond the reach of the British. Only the lone S50 ran into the British destroyers. She exchanged fire briefly with Simoom’s group and then hit Simoom with a torpedo. Simoom’s magazine exploded. The survivors were taken off by the destroyer Morris, and in the morning the wreck, which was still afloat, was sunk by the flotilla leader Nimrod. According to British casualty lists 47 members of Simoom’s crew were killed, including her commanding officer, Commander Edwin Inman. On the cruiser Undaunted an iced-up gun burst, killing two sailors. S50 turned back along the Dutch coast and returned to Germany.

The British official naval history called the outcome of the night “singularly disappointing”. Although the Admiralty knew the enemy’s movements and had crushing superiority, most of the German ships reached Flanders, inflicting more losses than they suffered. The causes were found in the chaos of night fighting and the lack of clear orders in case contact was lost. A German communiqué of 23 January announced the destruction of one British destroyer in action and of a second, seen later from an aircraft in a sinking condition. The British were unable to prove that V69 had entered IJmuiden fleeing from pursuit, so the Dutch government refused to intern the ship. After makeshift repairs she returned to Germany in February. Within a few days the reinforced German forces in Flanders put to sea again.