Second Battle of Heligoland Bight, 1917: a chase through the minefields

In the autumn of 1917 the war in the North Sea had become a war of mines. On 17 November a British force came racing into the Heligoland Bight to catch the German ships clearing them, and a running fight followed through smoke, minefields and confusion. The naval historian James Goldrick sums it up as an inconclusive action, unsatisfactory for both Germans and British.²

Mines in the Bight

In 1917 the British had at last begun an effective offensive minelaying campaign in the Heligoland Bight, once they had a reliable mine, copied from a German model. The minefields hemmed in both the High Seas Fleet and the U-boats on which Germany depended to starve Britain, and keeping channels open absorbed more and more of the German navy's ships and men.³

Admiralty intelligence revealed the German sweeping operations. On 17 November the Germans had 14 minesweepers and two mine breakers at work, escorted by eight torpedo boats and four light cruisers under Rear Admiral von Reuter in the Königsberg. The battleships Kaiserin and Kaiser gave distant cover, some 60 miles to the southeast.⁴

Three lines on a chart

The British came in early that morning: the large light cruisers Courageous and Glorious and the 1st and 6th Light Cruiser Squadrons with their destroyers under Vice Admiral Napier, covered from the west by the 1st Battle Cruiser Squadron. Their knowledge of the mines was patchy. Napier knew he could go past Line A and believed he could pass Line B, which allowed for recent British minefields, but he was not to go beyond Line C. The light cruisers' charts did not show Line C at all, and Napier did not know that it marked old British mines that no longer worked.⁵

Smoke and pursuit

Contact came at long range, with the rising sun behind the Germans. Courageous and Glorious engaged the German cruisers while the 6th Light Cruiser Squadron went for the sweepers. Under fire from 15-inch guns, every German ship made smoke, and within fifteen minutes all were hidden. Von Reuter took risks: he delayed his withdrawal until all his small craft were safe and led them through waters thought to be mined. The British, fearing torpedo boats or U-boats behind the smoke, slowed, and Napier never ordered more than 25 knots from his two fast cruisers, which could make over 30. When he paused at Line B, the Germans gained four miles.⁶

The battlecruiser Repulse, detached under Rear Admiral Phillimore, took the lead, and the light cruisers pressed on, unaware of the limits. At about nine o'clock the battlecruiser commander, Admiral Pakenham, recalled the force, but Napier went on a little longer. The British cruisers Cardiff, Caledon and Royalist had already been hit, German aircraft bombed the British ships, and the German battlecruisers Hindenburg and Moltke were putting to sea.⁷

The battleships

In Goldrick's account the Kaiserin and the Kaiser came in sight of von Reuter at 9:30. Their captain saw his job as covering a retreat, and when von Reuter tried to order them northwest the signal did not get through; the battleships turned east. Shortly before they opened fire on the British light cruisers, a shell struck the light cruiser Calypso, killing everyone in her conning tower; her captain, Herbert Edwards, was also killed. Her gunnery officer took command and brought her home. The sources differ on what hit her: Goldrick writes of a 150 mm round and the British official history of a hit from one of the German cruisers, while Royal Museums Greenwich describes a 12-inch shell from the Kaiserin.⁸

Repulse, probably as unaware of Line C as the cruisers, kept up the chase and scored the one important hit of the day, setting the Königsberg on fire and slowing her. That ended von Reuter's hope of turning back; the British cruisers turned away from the battleships' salvoes, and a sudden fog closed the action.⁹

Recriminations

Neither side lost a warship. Royal Museums Greenwich records the German mark boat Kehdingen, a requisitioned trawler, as the only German vessel lost. Both navies argued afterward. The Kaiserin's captain was posted ashore. Napier was bitterly criticized for not using his fast cruisers' speed, and Pakenham was particularly critical of the risks Phillimore took, though Beatty backed Phillimore. Goldrick argues that the failure helped bring about the dismissal of the First Sea Lord, Admiral Jellicoe, six weeks later. One small footnote belongs to Australia: aboard Glorious were five 18-year-old midshipmen of the Royal Australian Naval College's first entry, the first of its graduates to see action.¹⁰