On 12 February 1942, the German warships Scharnhorst, Gneisenau and Prinz Eugen brazenly sailed from Brest, through the Dover Strait, and back to Germany under very the noses of the British. Chris Goss charts what happened that day.
WAR AT SEA: THE CHANNEL DASH
On 29 December 1941, Adolf Hitler had insisted that the Scharnhorst, Gneisenau and Prinz Eugen be brought back to the North Sea to counter any possible invasion of Norway by the Allies, or else to be paid off and their guns used for coastal defences. Vizeadmiral Otto Ciliax, Befehlshaber der Schlachtschiffe, agreed that the ships could be brought through the English Channel only if they had total air cover, which was agreed with the recently appointed Generalleutnant Adolf Galland, General der Jagdflieger, who would be personally responsible for the planning and coordination of the air effort.
Operations ZERBERUS (Cerberus) was thus born and feverish preparations for what became known as the ‘Channel Dash’ were put in motion.
Earlier, and following the successful conclusion of Operation BERLIN, the Scharnhorst (under Kapt Kurt-Caeser Hoffmann) and Gneisenau (Kapt Otto Fein) arrived at Brest on 23 March 1941 after having sunk or captured no less than 22 ships in just 60 days. Now, urgent repairs to the Scharnhorst’s boilers were need, with Brest being the only port with a dry dock large enough to take a ship of her size. The works were completed by mid-July 1941, and on 24 July 1941 she headed south for La Pallice on sea trials, only to be damaged that same day in a daylight attack by Halifaxes of 35 and 76 Squadrons.
The Gneisenau was then dogged by bad luck-on 4 April 1941, an air raid seeing a bomb landing in the dock where she was lying. As it did not explode, she was moved out into the harbour and two days later she came under air attack when three Bristol Beauforts of 22 Squadron, two carrying torpedoes and one carrying bombs, were tasked to attack.
Flying Officer Kenneth Campbell was the first to go in, and as it would transpire the only one to attack the Gneisenau, hitting her towards the stern and causing considerable damage. On climbing away, however, Campbell’s aircraft was hit by flak and crashed in flames into the harbour killing all four crew.
The remaining aircraft flown by Flying Officer Jimmy Hyde DFC and Sergeant Alan Camp became lost and failed to attack the primary target, while Sergeant Henry Menary also got lost but managed to bomb a lone ship away
