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Channel Dash
The Channel Dash (German: Unternehmen Zerberus, Operation Cerberus) was a German naval operation during the Second World War. A Kriegsmarine (German Navy) squadron comprising two Scharnhorst-class battleships, Scharnhorst and Gneisenau, the heavy cruiser Prinz Eugen and their escorts was evacuated from Brest in Brittany to German ports. Scharnhorst and Gneisenau had arrived in Brest on 22 March 1941 after the success of Operation Berlin in the Atlantic. More raids were planned and the ships were refitted at Brest. The ships were a threat to Allied trans-Atlantic convoys and RAF Bomber Command attacked them from 30 March 1941. Gneisenau was hit on 6 April 1941 and Scharnhorst on 24 July 1941, after dispersal to La Pallice. In late 1941, Adolf Hitler ordered the Oberkommando der Marine (OKM; German Navy High Command) to plan an operation to return the ships to German bases in case of a British invasion of Norway. The short route up the English Channel was preferred to a detour around the British Isles for surprise and air cover by the Luftwaffe and on 12 January 1942, Hitler gave orders for the operation.
The British exploited decrypts of German radio messages coded with the Enigma machine, air reconnaissance by the RAF Photographic Reconnaissance Unit (PRU) and agents in France to watch the ships and report the damage caused by the bombing. Operation Fuller, a joint Royal Navy–RAF contingency plan, was devised to counter a sortie by the German ships against Atlantic convoys, a return to German ports by circumnavigating the British Isles, or a dash up the English Channel. The Royal Navy had to keep ships at Scapa Flow in Scotland in case of a sortie by the German battleship Tirpitz from Norway. The RAF had sent squadrons from Bomber and Coastal commands overseas and kept torpedo bombers in Scotland ready for Tirpitz, which limited the number of aircraft available against a dash up the Channel, as did the winter weather which reduced visibility and blocked airfields with snow.
On 11 February 1942, the ships left Brest at 10:45 p.m. (German time) and escaped detection for more than twelve hours, approaching the Strait of Dover without discovery. The Luftwaffe provided air cover in Unternehmen Donnerkeil (Operation Thunderbolt) and as the ships neared Dover, the British belatedly responded. Attacks by the RAF, Fleet Air Arm, Navy and bombardments by coastal artillery were costly failures but Scharnhorst and Gneisenau were damaged by mines in the North Sea (Scharnhorst was out of action for a year). By 13 February, the ships had reached German ports; Winston Churchill ordered an inquiry into the débâcle, and The Times denounced the British fiasco. The Kriegsmarine judged the operation a tactical success and a strategic failure because the threat to Atlantic convoys had been sacrificed for a hypothetical threat to Norway. On 23 February, Prinz Eugen was torpedoed off Norway and after being repaired, spent the rest of the war in the Baltic. Gneisenau went into dry dock and was bombed on the night of 26/27 February, never to sail again; Scharnhorst was sunk at the Battle of the North Cape on 26 December 1943.
German commerce raiding against British north Atlantic convoys was made easier by the capture of Norway and France in 1940. An abortive sortie by the cruiser Admiral Hipper ended at Brest, at the west end of the Brittany peninsula, on 27 December 1940. After five weeks of attacks by Bomber Command to no effect, the ship put to sea on 1 February 1941, sank numerous ships and returned on 14 February, before sailing to Germany using the roundabout route via the Denmark Strait the next day, reaching Kiel on 28 March. The commerce raids in the north Atlantic during the winter of 1940–1941 by Scharnhorst-class battleships Scharnhorst and Gneisenau, the heavy cruisers Admiral Scheer and Admiral Hipper sank British shipping at a higher rate than German surface ships achieved for the rest of the war. The British reformed 19 Group for Coastal Command in January 1941, which kept watch on the German ships at Brest; Scharnhorst and Gneisenau arrived at the port on 22 March 1941.
From 10 January to mid-April 1941, Bomber Command aimed 829 long tons (842 t) of bombs at the ships in Brest harbour. Winston Churchill issued the Battle of the Atlantic directive on 9 March, directing the priority of the British war effort temporarily to counter the German campaign against Atlantic convoys. The RAF photographic reconnaissance unit (1 PRU) discovered Scharnhorst and Gneisenau in port on 28 March. Bomber Command flew about 1,161 sorties against the ships in Brest, through poor weather over the next two months. Gneisenau needed an engine room overhaul and entered dry dock on 4 April and an unexploded bomb was found between the stocks under the ship. Gneisenau had to be refloated and removed to defuse the bomb. Gneisenau was moored in an exposed position in the roadstead, where it was photographed by a 1 PRU Spitfire on 5 April. A raid was quickly planned with the six Beaufort torpedo bombers at RAF St Eval for an attack at dawn the next day.
Three Beauforts carried bombs to damage the torpedo nets that were presumed to protect the ship and three carried torpedoes. Two of the bombers bogged when taxiing for take-off and the third never found Brest in the thick weather. Two of the torpedo-bombers arrived off Brest, where they were to wait until the nets had been bombed. As dawn arrived the Beaufort flown by Kenneth Campbell attacked and dropped the torpedo as they passed over the mole giving it the maximum distance to arm on its run to its target. There were no torpedo nets and Gneisenau was hit on the starboard side near the after turret; the Beaufort was shot down, killing all on board. The damage to Gneisenau was severe, affecting the starboard propeller shaft bearings and shaft tunnel, causing flooding where the explosion destroyed the watertight integrity of stuffing boxes. Fuel and seawater got into some important compartments and some equipment suffered shock damage. A salvage tug was needed to assist in getting the flooding under control.
Gneisenau went back into dry dock; on the night of 10/11 April, was hit by four bombs and had two near misses. One of the hits did not explode but the others killed 75 crewmen, jammed 'B' turret and distorted the armoured deck near it, made about a third of the crew quarters uninhabitable by fire and blast damage, destroyed the kitchens and bakery and affected some gunnery control systems. The damage to Gneisenau led the Seekriegsleitung (SKL) to raise the question of the suitability of Brest for heavy surface units; Raeder disagreed and wanted more air defences instead. Scharnhorst was not damaged but the bomb hits on the docks delayed its refit, which included a substantial overhaul of its machinery; the boiler superheater tubes had a manufacturing defect that had plagued the ship throughout Operation Berlin. Repairs had been expected to take ten weeks but delays, exacerbated by British mine laying in the vicinity, caused them to miss Unternehmen Rheinübung (Operation Rhine Exercise). The sortie by Bismarck and Prinz Eugen into the North Atlantic went ahead and Bismarck was sunk; Prinz Eugen returned to Brest on 1 June. Hitler ordered that capital ships must operate with much greater caution, that severely limited the freedom of action of the German surface fleet.
During the summer the new RAF heavy bombers attacked Gneisenau, Prinz Eugen and Scharnhorst. Prinz Eugen was hit on the night of 1/2 July and put out of action. The sailing on 21 July of Scharnhorst to La Pallice forestalled a surprise attack by Bomber Command. Scharnhorst was attacked by six Stirling bombers on the evening of 23 July and German fighters shot down one bomber. The attack on Brest took place in daylight on 24 July, with a loss of 13 bombers; La Pallice was bombed again by fifteen Halifaxes. The formation was met by 12 to 18 Bf 109s and anti-aircraft fire (FlaK) five bombers being shot down, five seriously damaged and Scharnhorst hit five times. While returning to Brest containing 3,000 long tons (3,000 t) of seawater, Scharnhorst was attacked by a Beaufort but shot it down before it could drop its torpedo. By late July 1941, the bombing left the three large ships in Brest undergoing extensive repairs. Lützow had been seriously damaged by a torpedo on 13 June; Admiral Scheer and Admiral Hipper were undergoing maintenance in German shipyards, Tirpitz was still working up and Bismarck had been sunk. British code breakers had contributed to the destruction of the German supply-ship network in the Atlantic that supported surface ship actions against Allied convoys.
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Channel Dash AI simulator
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Channel Dash
The Channel Dash (German: Unternehmen Zerberus, Operation Cerberus) was a German naval operation during the Second World War. A Kriegsmarine (German Navy) squadron comprising two Scharnhorst-class battleships, Scharnhorst and Gneisenau, the heavy cruiser Prinz Eugen and their escorts was evacuated from Brest in Brittany to German ports. Scharnhorst and Gneisenau had arrived in Brest on 22 March 1941 after the success of Operation Berlin in the Atlantic. More raids were planned and the ships were refitted at Brest. The ships were a threat to Allied trans-Atlantic convoys and RAF Bomber Command attacked them from 30 March 1941. Gneisenau was hit on 6 April 1941 and Scharnhorst on 24 July 1941, after dispersal to La Pallice. In late 1941, Adolf Hitler ordered the Oberkommando der Marine (OKM; German Navy High Command) to plan an operation to return the ships to German bases in case of a British invasion of Norway. The short route up the English Channel was preferred to a detour around the British Isles for surprise and air cover by the Luftwaffe and on 12 January 1942, Hitler gave orders for the operation.
The British exploited decrypts of German radio messages coded with the Enigma machine, air reconnaissance by the RAF Photographic Reconnaissance Unit (PRU) and agents in France to watch the ships and report the damage caused by the bombing. Operation Fuller, a joint Royal Navy–RAF contingency plan, was devised to counter a sortie by the German ships against Atlantic convoys, a return to German ports by circumnavigating the British Isles, or a dash up the English Channel. The Royal Navy had to keep ships at Scapa Flow in Scotland in case of a sortie by the German battleship Tirpitz from Norway. The RAF had sent squadrons from Bomber and Coastal commands overseas and kept torpedo bombers in Scotland ready for Tirpitz, which limited the number of aircraft available against a dash up the Channel, as did the winter weather which reduced visibility and blocked airfields with snow.
On 11 February 1942, the ships left Brest at 10:45 p.m. (German time) and escaped detection for more than twelve hours, approaching the Strait of Dover without discovery. The Luftwaffe provided air cover in Unternehmen Donnerkeil (Operation Thunderbolt) and as the ships neared Dover, the British belatedly responded. Attacks by the RAF, Fleet Air Arm, Navy and bombardments by coastal artillery were costly failures but Scharnhorst and Gneisenau were damaged by mines in the North Sea (Scharnhorst was out of action for a year). By 13 February, the ships had reached German ports; Winston Churchill ordered an inquiry into the débâcle, and The Times denounced the British fiasco. The Kriegsmarine judged the operation a tactical success and a strategic failure because the threat to Atlantic convoys had been sacrificed for a hypothetical threat to Norway. On 23 February, Prinz Eugen was torpedoed off Norway and after being repaired, spent the rest of the war in the Baltic. Gneisenau went into dry dock and was bombed on the night of 26/27 February, never to sail again; Scharnhorst was sunk at the Battle of the North Cape on 26 December 1943.
German commerce raiding against British north Atlantic convoys was made easier by the capture of Norway and France in 1940. An abortive sortie by the cruiser Admiral Hipper ended at Brest, at the west end of the Brittany peninsula, on 27 December 1940. After five weeks of attacks by Bomber Command to no effect, the ship put to sea on 1 February 1941, sank numerous ships and returned on 14 February, before sailing to Germany using the roundabout route via the Denmark Strait the next day, reaching Kiel on 28 March. The commerce raids in the north Atlantic during the winter of 1940–1941 by Scharnhorst-class battleships Scharnhorst and Gneisenau, the heavy cruisers Admiral Scheer and Admiral Hipper sank British shipping at a higher rate than German surface ships achieved for the rest of the war. The British reformed 19 Group for Coastal Command in January 1941, which kept watch on the German ships at Brest; Scharnhorst and Gneisenau arrived at the port on 22 March 1941.
From 10 January to mid-April 1941, Bomber Command aimed 829 long tons (842 t) of bombs at the ships in Brest harbour. Winston Churchill issued the Battle of the Atlantic directive on 9 March, directing the priority of the British war effort temporarily to counter the German campaign against Atlantic convoys. The RAF photographic reconnaissance unit (1 PRU) discovered Scharnhorst and Gneisenau in port on 28 March. Bomber Command flew about 1,161 sorties against the ships in Brest, through poor weather over the next two months. Gneisenau needed an engine room overhaul and entered dry dock on 4 April and an unexploded bomb was found between the stocks under the ship. Gneisenau had to be refloated and removed to defuse the bomb. Gneisenau was moored in an exposed position in the roadstead, where it was photographed by a 1 PRU Spitfire on 5 April. A raid was quickly planned with the six Beaufort torpedo bombers at RAF St Eval for an attack at dawn the next day.
Three Beauforts carried bombs to damage the torpedo nets that were presumed to protect the ship and three carried torpedoes. Two of the bombers bogged when taxiing for take-off and the third never found Brest in the thick weather. Two of the torpedo-bombers arrived off Brest, where they were to wait until the nets had been bombed. As dawn arrived the Beaufort flown by Kenneth Campbell attacked and dropped the torpedo as they passed over the mole giving it the maximum distance to arm on its run to its target. There were no torpedo nets and Gneisenau was hit on the starboard side near the after turret; the Beaufort was shot down, killing all on board. The damage to Gneisenau was severe, affecting the starboard propeller shaft bearings and shaft tunnel, causing flooding where the explosion destroyed the watertight integrity of stuffing boxes. Fuel and seawater got into some important compartments and some equipment suffered shock damage. A salvage tug was needed to assist in getting the flooding under control.
Gneisenau went back into dry dock; on the night of 10/11 April, was hit by four bombs and had two near misses. One of the hits did not explode but the others killed 75 crewmen, jammed 'B' turret and distorted the armoured deck near it, made about a third of the crew quarters uninhabitable by fire and blast damage, destroyed the kitchens and bakery and affected some gunnery control systems. The damage to Gneisenau led the Seekriegsleitung (SKL) to raise the question of the suitability of Brest for heavy surface units; Raeder disagreed and wanted more air defences instead. Scharnhorst was not damaged but the bomb hits on the docks delayed its refit, which included a substantial overhaul of its machinery; the boiler superheater tubes had a manufacturing defect that had plagued the ship throughout Operation Berlin. Repairs had been expected to take ten weeks but delays, exacerbated by British mine laying in the vicinity, caused them to miss Unternehmen Rheinübung (Operation Rhine Exercise). The sortie by Bismarck and Prinz Eugen into the North Atlantic went ahead and Bismarck was sunk; Prinz Eugen returned to Brest on 1 June. Hitler ordered that capital ships must operate with much greater caution, that severely limited the freedom of action of the German surface fleet.
During the summer the new RAF heavy bombers attacked Gneisenau, Prinz Eugen and Scharnhorst. Prinz Eugen was hit on the night of 1/2 July and put out of action. The sailing on 21 July of Scharnhorst to La Pallice forestalled a surprise attack by Bomber Command. Scharnhorst was attacked by six Stirling bombers on the evening of 23 July and German fighters shot down one bomber. The attack on Brest took place in daylight on 24 July, with a loss of 13 bombers; La Pallice was bombed again by fifteen Halifaxes. The formation was met by 12 to 18 Bf 109s and anti-aircraft fire (FlaK) five bombers being shot down, five seriously damaged and Scharnhorst hit five times. While returning to Brest containing 3,000 long tons (3,000 t) of seawater, Scharnhorst was attacked by a Beaufort but shot it down before it could drop its torpedo. By late July 1941, the bombing left the three large ships in Brest undergoing extensive repairs. Lützow had been seriously damaged by a torpedo on 13 June; Admiral Scheer and Admiral Hipper were undergoing maintenance in German shipyards, Tirpitz was still working up and Bismarck had been sunk. British code breakers had contributed to the destruction of the German supply-ship network in the Atlantic that supported surface ship actions against Allied convoys.