Heligoland (20 page)

From the moment war was declared, British submarines kept a constant watch on German shipping in the Heligoland Bight, venturing far into the protected area and noting the routine of the various units of the Kaiser’s fleet. Justifiable worries about the risk posed by German submarines to British transport ships meant that during 15–17 August 1914, when the greater part of the BEF was shipped across the Channel, the Heligoland Bight was closely blockaded by Royal Navy submarines and destroyers. Their operation was a success, but at the time the British public was impatient for a glorious victory at sea.

Map 5
In 1914, Winston Churchill, the First Lord of the Admiralty, was initially so keen to storm Heligoland’s cliff-top fortifications and long-range guns, he had special bombardment ships constructed. Disastrously he opted instead to attack the Dardanelles. (
The Graphic
, 1918)

As dawn broke on 28 August 1914 British light cruisers of the Harwich Force, under the command of Commodore Sir Reginald Tyrwhitt, were carrying out a sweep several miles west of the coast of Heligoland when they sighted dim shadows in the mist. These proved to be German destroyers, which scuttled back to the shelter of Heligoland at top speed as soon as they sighted the British cruisers. One German destroyer, the
Frauenhob
, failed to regain Heligoland and was sunk by the 6in guns of Tyrwhitt’s own ship HMS
Arethusa
. Presumably the menacing guns of the fortress, atop the lofty red cliffs, could not see the British ships through the mist. For twenty-four years Germany had spent lavish amounts of money on constructing sophisticated state-of-the-art defences, and up-to-the-minute observation and communication systems, but it all proved worthless in the face of Heligoland’s weather!

After this first contact the German light cruisers ventured forth from the island to look for their opponents. They were joined by the
Mainz
, which had dashed out from Emden, and the
Köln
, the torpedo-boat squadron’s flagship, from Wilhelmshaven. The
Mainz
became separated from the other German vessels, but put up a good fight before she was sunk. Admiral Sir David Beatty’s battle cruiser squadron now appeared over the horizon and entered the fight. Up to this point the German naval units had been all in a muddle, largely because of the weather conditions; their headquarters at Heligoland had been unable to figure out exactly how many British ships were present, let alone identify them by class. As Beatty’s squadron arrived, they tried to recall all their ships but it was now too late for them to run to safety. The German light cruiser
Ariadne
was sunk by Beatty’s heavy cruisers and soon afterwards the
Köln
met the same fate. With the exception of one stoker, she sank with her entire crew – which included the newly appointed Admiral of Torpedo-Craft. As the
Köln
went down Beatty’s heavy cruisers headed towards Britain, leaving Tyrwhitt’s light cruisers to fight a rearguard action. By then the German battlecruisers had been alerted. One of these ‘four-funnellers’, the
Stralsund
, sighted Tyrwhitt’s
Arethusa
and opened fire. Unable to match the German battlecruisers, all the British ships turned and fled, escaping with only minutes to spare.

Immediately dubbed the ‘Battle of Heligoland Bight’, the action was the first surface naval battle of the First World War. In Britain news of the sinking of three German light cruisers and a torpedo-boat sparked off much public elation.
The Times
hailed it as a ‘great victory’; the
London Gazette
published an apparently full report of the action; and the famous military writer Lionel Cecil Jane celebrated it with a special Oxford Pamphlet. Commodore Tyrwhitt became something of a minor national hero and was soon venerated in the book
The Harwich Naval Forces
, written by the pioneering small boat yachtsman Edward Knight.

This British victory was both a psychological and a material blow to the German Navy, although it came as no surprise to those in authority, who were convinced their forces could not hold their own against the British. Reluctant to risk another surface action, they decided to reduce the British fleet by submarine and mine action.
⁴
The next major clash occurred six months later at the Dogger Bank, some 200 miles west of Heligoland. On 24 January 1915, having received intelligence that a German fleet under Admiral Hipper was approaching the Dogger Bank, Admiral Beatty prepared to intercept it. Hipper’s intention was probably to pretend to flee in order to lure the British fleet on to the minefields he had laid off Heligoland. The first contact was made by Tyrwhitt’s squadron, to whom Beatty again gave his support. In the ensuing fight Beatty’s flagship, the
Lion
, was repeatedly hit, possibly by the huge battleship
Helgoland
, and he had to transfer his flag to another cruiser. As soon as Hipper saw Beatty’s fleet he made for Heligoland and the battle developed into a chase. The German ships, a few of them severely battered, fled through their minefield. Thankful to gain shelter at the island, the German warships – as in 1864 – anchored there to lick their wounds. Subsequently the Admiralty published a telegraph report of the fight purportedly from Beatty but in fact amended to meet Admiralty views. Beatty was made to say that it was he who ‘broke off the engagement owing to the presence of “submarines”’. As a result, he came in for a large amount of hostile press criticism for apparently allowing the Germans to escape.

Fed up with inaccurate newspaper stories derived from such distorted official reports, on 21 June 1916 Beatty sent a furious letter to Balfour, the First Lord of the Admiralty (Churchill had resigned from that post after the Dardanelles fiasco). In those days senior public servants sometimes had enough character to speak out against ministers. In that letter, written aboard the
Lion
, Beatty revealed that his victory in the August 1914 Battle of Heligoland Bight had nearly been a catastrophe. Owing to faulty staff work at the Admiralty, he thundered, one portion of the force employed was unaware of the presence of the other – a fact that was never permitted to appear in print. As a result, the initial support for Commodore Tyrwhitt’s squadron was

Beatty was by no means exaggerating the danger to British warships in some parts of the North Sea. On 22 September 1914, just a month after the Battle of the Bight, three elderly British cruisers,
Aboukir
,
Cressy
and
Hogue
, had been swiftly sunk by a lone submarine, the
U-9
, just off the Dutch coast.

Air forces were soon to be employed to support naval operations in the Bight. Erskine Childers, who was respected within Naval Intelligence circles as something of an enthusiast for unconventional forms of warfare in the Heligoland Bight area, unexpectedly found himself embroiled in this new, and totally untried, form of fighting. It was, after all, only five years earlier, in 1909, that Louis Blériot had made the first powered cross-Channel flight. Since then the Royal Navy, one of the earliest fighting forces to recognise the military potential of aircraft, had founded the Royal Naval Air Service (RNAS), a fledgling dare-devil unit. Like any RNVR officer, when war broke out Childers would have expected to be called up to serve in ships or perhaps submarines. Yet although he knew nothing about aircraft – indeed, he had never even flown – he was immediately assigned to the RNAS. Within a week of updating his paper on the German coast and the Frisian Islands for Admiral Richmond, on 18 August 1914 Childers was sent to Chatham as a commissioned RNAS officer to join HMS
Engadine
, the navy’s latest seaplane carrier.

As a naval observer his duties would be to assist with seaplane navigation and dropping bombs.
Engadine
had not been designed for her new carrier role, operating three Short 135 seaplanes. Initially a Channel ferry, like her sister ships
Empress
and
Riviera
, she had no proper flight-deck and could only launch and recover her aircraft by precariously craning them to and from the sea. At about the time of the Battle of Heligoland Bight, Childers was informed that
Engadine
’s forthcoming secret mission would be to attack the Zeppelin hangars just south of Cuxhaven. In addition to his task of instructing the seaplane pilots in the art of navigation, he had been selected to go along for the ride on account of his unique local knowledge of the North Sea islands. Zeppelins were a serious threat which somehow had to be tackled. With their magnificent cruising range and ability to fly at altitudes beyond the accurate range of British guns, they were the ‘eyes’ of the German fleet; later they would also become a menace to civilians – the first Zeppelin appeared over the British coast on 20 December 1914.

Having spent the summer months on the North Sea close to the mouth of the Tyne spotting for mines
Engadine
sailed to Harwich to join Tyrwhitt’s Harwich Force. On 11 October a force was readied to attack Heligoland itself with the seaplanes, but the following day it was deemed ‘too risky’, and called off. However, a fortnight later the seaplane group, escorted by the Harwich Force, put to sea and headed for Heligoland. Childers’s task had been to prepare charts for the pilots. The intention was to close to within 12 miles of the island, then launch the aircraft, which would fly 50 miles to the target at Cuxhaven. However, various mechanical mishaps with the seaplanes led to the cancellation of the raid in the early hours and soon
Engadine
was back in port. Undeterred, the Admiralty decided to rerun the scheme, but with rather more thoughtful planning and a greater sense of purpose.
⁵

Churchill, having read intelligence reports that German battleships were gathering in the Weser and Elbe estuaries, wrote to Jellicoe, the Commander-in-Chief of the Grand Fleet, advising that ‘the aerial attack on the Cuxhaven shed, which we had previously thought desirable in itself, might easily bring on a considerable action in which your battle-cruisers and the Grand Fleet might take part without undue risk’. Churchill’s idea was to lure the Germans into what might turn out to be a decisive naval battle. Childers, having for some time wondered how seaplanes might be navigated more accurately in the Heligoland Bight, hastily prepared air charts showing every sea-mark he could recollect. The operation was planned to start on 25 December 1914, and for the first time in history aircraft, surface ships and submarines were deployed together in a combined operation. Having been transferred from the
Engadine
to a sister ship, the
Riviera
, he was selected at the last minute to be the observer in the leading seaplane, and early that Christmas morning Childers was rowed in a dinghy through a heavy swell from the
Riviera
to seaplane no. 136, his designated flying machine. As before, the planes were readied for action something like a dozen miles from Heligoland.

What became known as the ‘Cuxhaven Raid’ started well. Seven seaplanes took off and headed towards Heligoland. The weather was clear and Childers could see what he described as Heligoland’s ‘grim cliffs’. As the aircraft approached the mouth of the Elbe estuary he ought to have been able to make out the Scharhorn and Knechtsands, where the
Dulcibella
nearly came to grief in
The Riddle of the Sands
, but the seaplanes were now encountering thick weather and were compelled to fly low. This was no fictitious adventure but the real thing – and very dangerous. At lower altitude the aircraft were exposed to heavy fire at short range from ships and shore batteries. A few machines were hit, but most remained airborne. As his seaplane circled Cappel, near Cuxhaven, Childers prepared to hand-release the Hales bombs on to the Zeppelin hangars they were aiming for, but a misfire caused by extreme moisture in the seaplane’s 200hp motor forced them to seek open water. As they struggled towards the
Riviera
they spotted fourteen large German warships anchored in the Schilling Roads, in the Jade estuary just off Wilhelmshaven, which acknowledged their presence with anti-aircraft fire. Bursting shrapnel shells severed some wing wires and damaged a chassis strut.

At about that time, realising an attack was on, the Heligoland garrison belatedly launched a defence with such aircraft as it had at its disposal. As yet, no means had been found by which the limited space on the island could be utilised for operating Zeppelins or land-based aircraft. The only flying machines to hand were a squadron of military float-planes kept ready in a neat line alongside the inner harbour. A few of these roared off into the air and scattered in search of the fourteen British warships involved in the raid. They too carried bombs, but when these were dropped on the British vessels they either failed to explode or simply bounced off. As a consequence of the British seaplanes’ reconnaissance a part of the German fleet was moved from Cuxhaven to various places further along the Elbe and the Kiel Canal.

By eleven o’clock Childers was back on board the
Riviera
, refreshing himself with Bovril, sherry and a snack in the wardroom. His views must have been mixed. The raid had not been an unqualified success: only four of the British planes had returned; the Zeppelin sheds had been neither located nor destroyed; and the German fleet had not been lured into action. Nevertheless, a precedent for combined operations had been set and valuable information regarding the disposition of German ships and defences had been obtained. The Admiralty honoured Childers’s participation by sending a copy of
The Riddle of the Sands
to every ship in the navy. Churchill regarded the exercise as an invaluable experience and personally thanked Childers for having displayed ‘daring against the Germans on the Cuxhaven Raid’.
⁶
For Erskine, the adventure had confirmed the need for accurate maps of the Heligoland Bight. In 1916, by which time he was serving with Coastal Motor Boats, he persuaded the Admiralty’s Hydrographic Department to produce an improved quality chart covering Heligoland, the Elbe and the entrance of the Kiel Canal at Brunsbüttel, to be used for planning raids in that area, as he had done in seaplanes near Heligoland on 28 September and 22 October 1916. A limited number of these revised charts were produced, and became known as the ‘Childers Charts’.