Sinking of the raider Leopard

On the afternoon of 16 March 1917, in the Norwegian Sea, several hundred kilometres north of the Shetlands, the British armoured cruiser Achilles and the armed boarding steamer Dundee sank the German auxiliary cruiser Leopard. The raider, disguised as a Norwegian freighter, was trying to break through the British blockade into the Atlantic. She went down with all hands, and with her died six Britons who had boarded her shortly before.

A prize of the Möwe

Leopard was in reality the British freighter Yarrowdale, built in 1912. On 11 December 1916 she was stopped in the Atlantic by the German raider Möwe, which had just set out on her second cruise. Count Dohna-Schlodien did not sink the ship; instead he transferred to her several hundred prisoners from ships sunk earlier and sent her home with a prize crew. Yarrowdale slipped through the British patrols and at the turn of the year reached Swinemünde. A fast, modern ship, she was suitable for a raider, as Dohna himself had recommended. At the shipyard in Kiel she was armed with five 150 mm guns and four 88 mm guns, hidden behind folding screens, and with torpedo tubes. In January 1917 she was commissioned as Leopard. According to German figures she had a crew of 319, and her commander was Korvettenkapitän Hans von Laffert.

Leopard was to relieve Möwe, which was already finishing her cruise. She put to sea in the first days of March. According to some accounts she passed through the Little Belt on 7 March, according to others she left Kiel on 10 March. German radio intelligence, which could read some British signals, warned Laffert that the British had strengthened their patrols between Scotland and Greenland, and later that they had changed their cipher. Laffert nevertheless sailed on. The British, too, knew something. According to the British official history of the naval war, the Admiralty had information about German intentions and ordered the commander of the Grand Fleet, Admiral David Beatty, to strengthen the patrols in the north. The cruisers that had been watching the Norwegian coast, however, returned on 14 March without having met anyone. On the patrol line north of the Shetlands there remained the ships of Rear-Admiral Sydney Fremantle’s 2nd Cruiser Squadron, each paired with an armed boarding steamer for examining shipping.

A ship without a wireless

On 16 March, the last day before they were due to be relieved, Achilles under Captain Francis Leake and Dundee under Commander Selwyn Day were patrolling the northern end of the line. A cold wind was blowing, and low clouds brought snow and icy rain every so often. Shortly before noon the cruiser sighted a steamer heading east. The ship was fast, and Achilles caught up with her only at about two in the afternoon. The stranger obediently stopped. She flew the Norwegian flag and bore the name Rena, just like the raider Greif a year earlier, sunk in the same waters.

Day grew suspicious. The Rena in Lloyd’s Register was of about 3,000 tons, and this ship was clearly larger. The letter N in the name had been painted upside down, superfluous wooden structures had disappeared from the deck, no wireless aerial could be seen, and for several hours the ship had steamed steadily at 13 knots, which an ordinary freighter could not have managed. Day told his officer, Lieutenant Frederick Lawson of the reserve, an Australian, that he had a raider in front of him. Lawson volunteered to take the boat with the boarding party. According to the British official history, it was an act of conscious courage that cost him his life. At a quarter to three the boat with Lawson and five seamen, four of them Shetland fishermen, disappeared behind the stranger’s side. Day meanwhile manoeuvred so as to keep astern of her and not let her bring her broadside to bear, for a single salvo would have been enough to sink Dundee.

The fight

Minutes passed with no signal from Lawson. The ship kept turning, as if trying to outmanoeuvre Dundee. At about 3.40 p.m., almost an hour after the boat had left, the Norwegian flag painted on her side fell into the sea with a crash. Day at once ordered fire to be opened, and almost at the same moment two torpedoes passed a dozen or so metres astern of Dundee. The steamer, armed with two 102 mm guns, raked the raider’s stern along the length of her hull at close range, and every shell hit. After a few minutes smoke and steam were pouring out of Leopard. When the German turned, Day turned away so as to avoid her broadside, and then steamed towards Achilles so as not to mask her target. The cruiser, which was then a few miles off, opened fire at a range of about 5 kilometres.

The raider defended herself fiercely. She returned fire and also fired a torpedo towards Achilles. According to Leake’s report, a torpedo from the cruiser in turn hit Leopard’s bow. For almost an hour Achilles’s heavy shells caused fires and explosions on the German ship. Towards the end some observers had the impression that the forward part of the hull was glowing red-hot. The Germans nevertheless fired to the end and did not surrender. Shortly after 4.30 p.m. Leopard sank. The British did not search for survivors, fearing a submarine that one of the ships believed it had sighted during the action. Beatty later concluded that it had most probably been a floating barrel. No one survived from the raider’s crew or from the boat of Lawson, who had most probably been taken prisoner before the fighting began.

The last raider through the blockade

In his report to the Admiralty Beatty praised Day for shelling the raider for five or six minutes from about 900 metres before she could bring a gun to bear on him. He considered that the interception of Leopard was the fruit of long, patient work in very difficult conditions. The British official history also paid tribute to the German crew, who could have surrendered without loss of honour but preferred to die. On Dundee and Achilles it was believed that the raider had fought under the Norwegian flag, but the author of the official history admitted that in the confusion it was easy to be mistaken.

Leopard was the second raider, after Greif, to be stopped by the British blockade at the very start of her cruise. A few days later, on 20 or 21 March, the homeward-bound Möwe passed unnoticed through the waters off the Norwegian coast, which British cruisers were no longer watching by then. According to the British official history of seaborne trade, Leopard was the only surface raider the Germans sent to sea in the first three months of 1917. They were relying more and more on submarines.