Action off Lerwick

The action off Lerwick (, "Lerrick") was a naval engagement on 17 October 1917 fought in the North Sea during the First World War. The German light, minelaying cruisers and attacked a westbound convoy of twelve colliers and other merchant ships and their escorts, part of the regular Scandinavian convoy. The two escorting destroyers and nine neutral Scandinavian ships were sunk off Shetland, Scotland.
Admiralty code breakers had uncovered the call signs of "Bremse" and "Brummer" and by direction finding knew that they had sailed from Wilhelmshaven to (Lister Deep) north of Sylt but an operation as far north as the Scandinavian convoy collier route was not anticipated by the British naval commanders because the Admiralty failed promptly to pass on the information.
Both of the British destroyer commanders were commended for their bravery, though some members of the Admiralty felt that by leaving the convoy to engage a superior enemy force, they had left the merchant ships open to attack. Other British ships did not receive reports of the attack until late afternoon, were not in a position to intercept and the German cruisers returned safely to port. The British called the attack on neutral vessels, giving no time for the crews to abandon ship, an outrage.
The Germans denied allegations that their ships had fired on survivors in the water, despite the evidence of gunshot wounds to some crewmembers. Admiral David Beatty, the commander-in-chief of the Grand Fleet, severely criticised the Admiralty for failing to pass on information derived from the code-breakers of Room 40.
Background.
Neutral shipping.
The German U-boat campaign inflicted serious losses on neutral shipping but British counter-measures along the east coast of Britain and in the North Sea, including escorted convoys, managed to limit the losses of Scandinavian merchant ships. British losses continued unabated and in the last three months of 1916 losses of 618,000 Gross Register Tons (GRT) were matched by only 220,000 GRT of new ships. From January to March 1917, 912,000 GRT were lost for a replacement of 326,000 GRT. Neutral shipping was an important addition to the British merchant fleet but in the last quarter of 1916, non-British shipping losses, excluding those of the Central Powers were 1, 159,000 GRT and in the next three months were 1,619,000 against new building of 587,000 GRT (mostly US construction). British ships were being fitted with defensive armament, often a 4.7-inch gun with a naval crew. Neutrals were afraid to arm their ships and compromise their status as non-combatants, making them more vulnerable than the British ships.
Norway.
In February 1917, the British government took soundings with several neutral governments over the purchase their merchant fleets but the suggestion was spurned. In negotiations with the Norwegian government about the resumption of coal imports from Britain, the Norwegians were so desperate for coal that they offered the merchant fleet if the matter could be carried off without German reprisals. The suggestion was all the more compelling to the Norwegians because the British could requisition their ships with no provision for any supplies to Norway. In June 1917, about 300,000 people protested against rising food prices, 40,000 in the capital, Kristiania. The Norwegian Prime Minister Gunnar Knudson thought that another coal shortage would cause mass unemployment, social unrest and possibly revolution. It was suggested that rather than sell the fleet, the Norwegians should charter it and that armed British ships be substituted on the routes suffering the worst losses from German U-boats. The Norwegian Shipowners' Association () would agree to The Tonnage Agreement in which the transport of coal to Norway would be assured by British charter or requisition of the ships. The connivance of the Norwegian government in the arrangement would be camouflaged by being made by the and the Ministry of Shipping. The British gained 130 freighters of 200,000 GRT and the Norwegians of coal per month.
The Scandinavian convoy.
In April 1917, the British began shipping coal north from the Humber Estuary to Lerwick in the Shetland Islands and then across the North Sea to Norway. The monthly quota of required daily convoys from Lerwick, most being neutral Scandinavian ships, usually escorted by two British destroyers from a pool of eight detached from the Grand Fleet, supported by several armed trawlers. To 1 July, 351 ships made the eastbound journey from Lerwick and 385 the voyage westwards from Norway, an average of 368 round trips a month, for the loss of twenty ships. In July, ten ships were sunk by the attacks of SM U-67, SM U-60 SM U-94, SM U-52 and SM UC-55, from 454, a loss of 2.2 per cent. Seven depth charge attacks were made by escort ships to no effect and was torpedoed while escorting colliers northwards up the British coast to Lerwick. In anticipation of the added difficulty of escorting colliers in the autumn, winter and spring, several cruisers were sent to the Humber. The Scandinavian convoys had been a considerable success but had to sail in waters where they were vulnerable to German surface vessels for most of the journey. The return voyage began in Bergen in Norway, a neutral port where sailings could be observed by Germans and the use of neutral ships made it impossible for the British to keep convoy procedures and sailings secret.
Net mine barrage.
Earlier in 1917, the Admiralty anticipated that U-boats would soon return to Germany. In early October 1917 another attack was planned. U-boats sailed between two minefields to the east of the Dogger Bank and the Outer Silver Pit, a funnel in the North Sea long, wide at the north end, narrowing to at the southern end. A barrage of underwater mine nets were to be laid at the narrow end of the funnel. At the wide (northern) end, four submarines mounted a standing patrol and further south, two destroyer leaders, fourteen destroyers and a yacht patrolled between the Moray Firth and the Firth of Forth. Net drifter fishing boats, were to place nets in the funnel between the Firth of Forth and Flamborough Head. Four destroyers and sixteen trawlers, commanded from the yacht, HMY "Goissa". The southernmost end of the funnel, where U-boats had to skirt the Dogger Bank minefields, to be patrolled by Harwich Force. To maintain the standing patrols required between destroyers and flotilla leaders, with from Harwich Force, beginning on 27 September.
Storms interrupted the operation several times and the submarines, patrol ships and net barrage boats saw nothing of note during the operation. The net drifters reported nine underwater explosions as the nets were being strung out. The explosions were taken to be premature explosions of mines catching in the nets. As dark fell more explosions were heard, two green rockets were spotted at the east end of the net line and another series explosions were heard. On 3 October, hydrophones detected a submarine at the west end of the nets, an explosion and then silence; other boats' hydrophone sets gave similar indications. There was silence until 9 October, when the destroyer was attacked north of the net barrage. Before the U-boat was expected to reach the nets, another was seen and attacked, then a U-boat engine was heard clearly and a depth charge dropped. The weather had damaged the nets and mines and on 10 October the operation was terminated. The Director of Naval Intelligence reported a month later that three U-boats had been destroyed close to the mine trap; German sources later confirmed that SM U-50, SM U-66 and SM U-106 had been sunk.
Prelude.
High Seas Fleet.
During late 1917, the commander of the High Seas Fleet, () Admiral Reinhard Scheer, decided to augment the U-boat campaign with attacks on the Scandinavian convoys by surface ships. Scheer hoped to "terrorise" Scandinavian neutrals, who were co-operating with the British and sailing in convoys with naval escorts. Scheer anticipated that success would force the British to divert naval ships from counter-U-boat operations and create an opportunity to engage the Grand Fleet at an advantage. U-boat reports gave the impression that much shipping was moving between Lerwick and Bergen in Norway. German bases to the south of the route made a surprise attack at the east end of the convoy route by surface ships feasible. The short days and stormy weather in the autumn and winter increased the possibility that a sortie could go unobserved.
By forcing the British to reinforce the escorts of the Scandinavian convoy, a surface ship attack could help the wider U-boat campaign. The new, fast, minelaying light cruisers "Brummer" ( Max Leonhardi) and "Bremse" ( Siegfried Westerkamp), with a speed of , each armed with four naval guns and two (22-pounder) anti-aircraft guns, were chosen for an operation against the Scandinavian convoy. The minelaying gear was taken off and the ships disguised to look like British C-class cruisers. "Brummer" and "Bremse" kept wireless silence and "Brummer" had a wireless interception team on board to jam British signals. On 17 October, a westbound convoy of two British, one Belgian, and nine Scandinavian ships was off Lerwick.
Room 40.
In this section, the course of British code breaking and communication between the Admiralty, Beatty and ships at sea has anticipated events for continuity. On 15 October, Room 40 decrypted a message from "Brummer" that "Most Secret Order 71950" had been put back to 16 October. The message contained notice that the ship would sail via Norman Deep, because Way Blue had been blocked by mines, asking that minesweeping be carried out. An hour later, Admiral Sir Henry Oliver, the Deputy Chief of the Naval Staff, dispatched a signal to Beatty, "Minelayer Brummer leaves via Norman Deep tomorrow 16 to northward probably for minelaying. She should be intercepted". More decodes became available to Oliver soon afterwards and should have suggested that minelaying might not be the reason for the sortie; wireless silence was unusually rigorous and a decoded message from the submarine "UB"-64 described much shipping off Lerwick. Late on 16 October, the light cruiser "SMS Regensburg" reported that it would be off List auf Sylt at the north end of the island of Sylt with destroyer escorts, corresponding to a signal from "Brummer" that afternoon. Signals were then decrypted ordering all U-boats to refrain from attacks on light cruisers, except when certain that they were British. Oliver had undertaken to pass on new data to ships at sea but failed to supply this, the inferences that could be drawn from them or to contact Beatty until eighteen hours later, by when the convoy had been attacked.
15 October convoy.
An eastbound convoy departed Lerwick on 15 October, escorted by the destroyers (Lieutenant Commander Charles Fox, escort leader) and (Lieutenant Commander Edward Brooke), with two naval trawlers, and . The destroyers were each armed with three 4-inch Mk IV (100 mm) guns, three 2-pounder pom-pom Mk II and two 21-inch (533 mm) torpedo tubes. Around noon on 16 October, "Mary Rose" left the convoy to join the next westbound convoy assembling at Bergen as "Stongbow" saw to the dispersal of the eastbound colliers to their destinations. "Mary Rose" departed from Bergen with the westbound convoy, comprising one Danish, five Norwegian, three Swedish, two British and a Belgian freighter, on the afternoon of 16 October. "Mary Rose" sailed beyond the convoy and after dark, when "Strongbow" made rendezvous, the destroyers were unable to communicate. "Strongbow" sailed on the port side of the convoy. The night of passed quietly and by on 17 October, half an hour after dawn, "Mary Rose" was still ahead of the convoy. There was a fresh [] breeze blowing from the south-west and a heavy swell in good visibility. The escorts had not been informed of the sailing of a German surface force, the steps taken to intercept them or that an alarm covering the North Sea had been in force for two days.
Grand Fleet.
After the success of the mine trap at the beginning of October and the mines laid across the Heligoland Bight, U-boats had begun to use the Kattegat into the Baltic Sea for transit. German minesweepers were constantly busy clearing mines with battleships in support in case of British attacks. The British devised a plan to lay mines close to the German coast and river mouths to take advantage of the High Seas Fleet operating temporarily in the Baltic. While the arrangements were being made, four light cruisers, twelve destroyers and a destroyer leader were ordered to attack the German minesweepers operating in the German Bight. The Admiralty postponed the cruiser operation against German minesweepers and ordered all light cruisers and the twelve destroyers to prepare to sail to intercept a German surface force believed to be in the North Sea.
Ignorant that the Admiralty was failing to pass on information, Admiral David Beatty, the commander of the Grand Fleet, was constrained to scour the North Sea. Six light cruisers and six destroyers from Rosyth were ordered to the Bovbierg Light by on 16 October, to patrol a line south-west from Denmark towards the Horns Reef channel, a gap in a shallow sandy reef of glacial deposits in the North Sea, about off , the westernmost point of Denmark. A light cruiser squadron from Scapa Flow, accompanied by five destroyers, was to be off Jaederens Point in south-western Norway by to observe a line from the point to Hanstholm in north Denmark, across the west end of the Skagerrak. Two more light cruiser squadrons, each with five or six destroyers, were sent to patrol lines in the central North Sea by noon on 16 October. After notice from the Admiralty that would be reconnoitring on the same day, Beatty ordered , a battlecruiser which carried aircraft, to conduct a sweep eastwards from just north of Middlesbrough.
Action.
Soon after on 17 October at about there was a south-westerly wind, heavy swell and poor light, visibility no more than . Lookouts on "Strongbow" spotted two unusual vessels converging on the destroyer; three challenges were signalled to the ships and the third challenge received an erroneous reply. Brooke called the ship to action stations. When the range was down to within and before the crew could reach action stations, the German ships opened fire with their guns. The first German salvoes at "Strongbow" cut the main steam pipe; many members of the crew below decks were scalded to death; Brooke was wounded and the ship was left dead in the water, with its decks covered with casualties. Other hits knocked out the wireless before the signaller could raise the alarm. "Mary Rose" also sent a wireless signal as it closed with the German ships and another station asked for the signal to be repeated but "Brummer" jammed the signal. The German ships jammed every subsequent attempt by the British to transmit a distress call.
Brooke ensured that the codebooks and confidential papers had been jettisoned then ordered the ship to be scuttled; the survivors took to the water in a Carley float at about The German cruisers inflicted more damage on "Strongbow" while "Elise" was manoeuvring to rescue the crew and the ship sank at about Four of the merchantmen were sunk with gunfire; Fox heard the noise astern, assumed that a U-boat had attacked the convoy and turned towards it, with enough time to go to action stations, hampered by not being able to use the torpedoes and guns at the same time, because the range and deflection transmitters were not working. Fox soon saw the German cruisers and attacked at high speed, opening fire at about from a range of . The nearest German ship replied with erratic fire but at , as Fox changed course, the German ships hit "Mary Rose" at about Fox gave the order "abandon ship" and eight men got away on a Carley float. The German ships fired on the Carley float and a motor boat carrying survivors of "Strongbow" 
With "Mary Rose" sunk, the Germans returned their attention to the freighters; the Germans ignored Prize rules, firing at the merchant ships without giving time for the crews to abandon them. The Danish "Margrethe" had stopped engines as soon as the attack began but was fired on as boats were lowered; as the lifeboats were rowed away, astern of "Margrethe", shells fell close by. With the ship on fire and the boilers exploding, "Bremse" and "Brummer" attacked the other ships, sinking five more. The wreck of "Margrethe" was sunk by "Bremse" and "Brummer" with broadsides from both beams as they left the area, making for home at "P. Fannon", the two British and the Belgian ships escaped; "Elise" returned when the coast was clear to rescue survivors, including 45 men from the crew of "Strongbow". (The survivors from "Mary Rose" reached Norway and were tended by lighthouse keepers.) Attempts by the British ships to send wireless messages having failed, British naval forces in the area continued a search for a minelayer. The Admiralty thought that the German ships were still in port but postponed the Lerwick to Norway sailing due on 18 October, prompting Beatty to ask for clarification. Oliver sent a report at suggesting that the ships were chasing convoys ("Bremse" and "Brummer" were north of Bergen, running south for Horns Reef).
At about "Elise" encountered the destroyers and ; news of the German attack was signalled to the commodore of flotillas. Admiral Sir Frederic Brock, the Admiral Commanding, Orkneys and Shetlands received the signal at and Beatty was informed between and when the German ships were north of Stavanger. Beatty sent new orders to the ships out on patrol at to sail eastwards and intercept the German cruisers at Horns Reef at dawn but by then the ships were off Denmark. The German ships maintained wireless silence until early on 18 October, when the British code breakers decrypted an intercepted signal from "Brummer" that the "first task had been carried out but that the second task had fallen through" and that the two cruisers were off the (Lighthouse) at Hvide Sande in north-west Denmark.
Aftermath.
Analysis.
In 1983, Patrick Beesly wrote that the German attack had been well planned and efficiently carried out but that the Admiralty should have been more effective in its countermeasures. At on 17 October, Oliver signalled to Beatty,
Beesly wrote that had Beatty received the signal during the evening of 16 October, rather than after an eighteen-hour delay, he would have probably issued different orders, with more chance to protect the convoy and sink the cruisers. Beesly called the failure to communicate inexcusable; contemporary records show that all decodes were sent by Room 40 to the Operations Division with, at most, a fifty-minute delay since interception. Room 40 was not allowed knowledge of the positions of British ships which, with the decrypts, would have shown the peril which the Scandinavian convoys faced. The Operations Division keep a plot and received the data from Room 40; Beesly called the failure to communicate another example of "Oliver's many inexplicable failures to make proper use of the priceless intelligence at his disposal".
In 1994, Paul Halpern wrote that the Admiralty was still overly secretive of its code-breaking activities and lack of liaison between departments led to failures of interpretation of information. Room 40 discovered from its call sign that "Brummer" had sailed and assumed that it was on a minelaying sortie. but was kept in ignorance of British ship movements, information on which was reserved for the Operations Division. Had the code-breakers been privy to this information they might have inferred German intentions. Halpern also wrote that it was remiss of the Operations Division to not consider that the German ships were out to attack a convoy and to take so long to communicate with Beatty, who, with some asperity, laid blame on the Admiralty in the aftermath.
The German newspapers trumpeted the success,
a claim by the Swedish captain of SS "Visbur" was publicised that the British trawlers had rescued British sailors and abandoned the Scandinavian survivors. In Britain, the "Daily Mail" blamed the government and the Admiralty for the failure, much to the disdain of at least one of the officers on the Scandinavian convoy route who called the "Mail" a beastly paper in his diary. The fiasco was regarded as an outrage by the Allies who protested that the attack on neutral ships was illegal and that the Germans gave the crews of the merchant vessels no time to evacuate, causing so many civilian casualties. Both of the British destroyer commanders received credit for bravery, though some members of the Admiralty felt that by leaving the convoy to engage a superior enemy force, they had left the merchant steamers open to attack.
Courts of enquiry were held into the losses of "Strongbow" and "Mary Rose"; the inquiry into the loss of "Strongbow" found grounds for regret that the German ships were challenged three times before the captain called the crew to action stations. The findings of the hearing into the loss of "Mary Rose" included concluded that while Fox and his crew fought bravely, by choosing to attack the German ships, Fox left the convoy without protection when he could have held off and concentrated on transmitting sighting reports. Courts martial findings blamed Fox for not attacking with torpedoes but described his decisions as "in the highest traditions of the service"; Brooke was blamed for not keeping at a distance but ruled that this was an error of judgement rather than a matter for disciplinary action.
In 2019, Steve Dunn wrote that the verdicts were unduly harsh, since after the war German records showed that "Mary Rose" sent a wireless message which received a reply before the German ships jammed subsequent signals. Dunn also wrote that defensive tactics were alien to the offensive culture of the Royal Navy. In his diary, the Secretary of the Imperial War Cabinet, Sir Maurice Hankey, wrote that, despite the Admiralty having been warned of a likely attack by a reliable source, it had bungled; Sir Eric Geddes blamed the First Sea Lord, Admiral John Jellicoe and wanted him replaced by Admiral Rosslyn Wemyss.
Casualties.
Of the 98 crew of "Mary Rose", 88 were killed, two officers and eight men surviving; the 86 crew of "Strongbow" suffered 47 killed. The Swedish "H. Wikander" suffered sixteen fatal casualties and the Norwegian "Kristine" ten of the eleven crewmen still on board while abandoning ship were killed; the mate was found in a boat dead of gunshot wounds with three wounded crewmembers. Captain Roeneviz, the master of "Kristine" was picked up by a lifeboat from "Habil" and said that after he ordered the crew to abandon ship, a shell hit the after lifeboat, killing seven men, at which the crew re-boarded "Kristine" and vainly signalled to the German to cease firing. Roeneviz told reporters later,
Thirty-six merchant sailors were killed and 119 survivors landed in Norway. The German ships were accused of shelling survivors in the water but the accusation was denied, despite evidence of gunshot wounds and the testimony of survivors.
Subsequent events.
The Norwegian government sent a protest to the German Foreign Office () against an infringement of freedom of the seas. The government claimed that German depredations were the reason for Norwegian ships joining convoys guarded by belligerents against Germany and called on Germany to order submarine commanders to refrain from endangering Norwegian sailors. At the Admiralty a conference was held on 22 October from which on 5 November Beatty and his staff made proposals to change the system of Scandinavian convoys. Convoys should sail from Methil Docks, on the north bank of the Firth of Forth, which was better equipped than Lerwick and closer to Swedish and Danish trade routes. The southward move would send convoys closer to German bases, against which the convoys should be integrated into the Atlantic convoy system, with cruiser protection. The next Scandinavian convoy sailed from Norway to Lerwick on 20 October. From 11 to 12 December the Germans undertook a more ambitious operation simultaneously to intercept a Scandinavian convoy and shipping on the route along the British east coast to Lerwick and back.
Orders of battle.
Data taken from Marder (1969) unless indicated
Royal Navy.
Data taken from Newbolt (2003) unless indicated
Convoy.
Data taken from Dunn (2019) unless indicated