The Channel Dash, the Race of the Channel. This is how the English defined the – for them – embarrassing maneuver of retreat of the German naval surface forces from the French Atlantic coast, past Dover and up to relatively safer ports in Germany. A humiliation that was, however, also the epilogue of every war initiative of the Kriegsmarine, heir of the glorious Kaiserliche marine of the Wilhelmine Empire.
The relations between Adolf Hitler and the Navy, especially its surface component, were always quite cold and culminated at the beginning of 1943 with the removal of the Grossadmiral Erich Raeder. The submarine force definitely took over even if, with the exception of brief periods characterized by particular circumstances (think of theoperation Paukenschlag, launched along the east coast of the United States just after the latter's entry into the war, still completely unprepared for anti-submarine defense and which lost dozens of merchant ships in a few weeks) never had the numbers and the capacity to represent that existential threat that literature and cinema have later handed down.
The surface force was even less successful in interdicting British naval trade, despite having some of the finest ships of the day. Bismarck, undoubtedly the most famous of the Nazi battleships, remained at sea for seven days before being sunk by a British naval force that, alone, matched the entire enemy battle core. Her sister ship Tirpitz spent almost her entire operational life hidden in the Norwegian fjords, nicknamed by locals “The Lonely Queen of the North”, until she was sunk there in 1944 using five-ton seismic bombs. One by one the large ships were hunted down and sunk: the Graf spee, the raider Atlantis, Bismarck. Each of them wrote epic pages of naval history but, overall, they sank perhaps fifty ships of various nationalities – the Bismarck only one, the battlecruiser HMS Hood – while the Anglo-Americans moved thousands of them. It is therefore not surprising that the latter managed to concentrate enough men and materials to invade Western Europe.
At the end of 1941, three battleships remained on the Atlantic coast. Prinz Eugen (photo), escaped the fate of the Bismarck after having followed the flagship for the first few days in its only outing at sea, Scharnhorst (opening photo) and the Gneisenau. Anchored in the port of Brest, repeatedly targeted by air attacks and with no prospect of being able to operate in the Atlantic, Hitler ordered their return to Germany to then move them to Norway and counter, together with the Tirpitz, the convoys headed to the Soviet Union.
Renamed Operation Cerberus and covered by the utmost secrecy, the retreat would have taken place through mined waters controlled by the RAF and the Royal Navy.
The chosen date was mid-February 1942, and the timing was calculated to take advantage of both the darkness of the night and the light of day to facilitate the air cover offered by the Air force. The operational command was given to the Vice Admiral Otto Ciliax, on the Scharnhorst.
Although the British had foreseen this possibility, the preventive measures taken by the Germans were completely successful, and it was only by chance that the formation was discovered when it was already well inside the Channel.
During the day of the 12th, the weather conditions, the protection of the fighter planes and the skill of the German gunners marked the failure of the operation. Fuller, the naval air attempt to stop the three ships from advancing. The British lost an entire group of torpedo bombers Swordfish, the plane that had contributed to the end of the Bismarck, which however had not enjoyed any air support.
Among the victims was Captain Eugene Esmonde (pictured, second from left, in front of a Swordfish), already decorated with the Distinguished Service Order for having participated in the hunt for Bismarck and later with the Victoria Cross in memory of this last action. Otto Ciliax paid tribute to the sacrifice of the pilots.
A total of about forty aircraft of all types were lost, and the destroyer Worcester was almost destroyed while attempting to launch a torpedo. Even the fire of the coastal artillery, a desperate attempt, proved useless. During the day of the 13th, at different times, the three ships managed to reach the German ports. However, not everything had gone in the best way: both the Scharnhorst that it Gneisenau, having survived whatever the English threw at them, accidentally ran into naval mines which forced months of repairs in port.
Il Prinz Eugen, which arrived unscathed, was torpedoed by a British submarine less than two weeks later and did not return to service for the rest of the year. It would later be relegated to operations in the Baltic against Soviet forces; after the war it was among the target ships sunk in the nuclear test at Bikini Atoll in 1947. It Gneisenau (last photo) never returned to service; hit by British aircraft while still under repair, it was decided to dismantle its artillery and use it to reinforce the famous but useless Atlantic Wall. Sunk to make an underwater barrage, it was later recovered and dismantled. Tower C is still visible at Fort Austrat, Norway.
Only the Scharnhorst returned to fight, reaching as expected the Tirpitz. He met his end on Christmas Day 1943 in the Battle of the North Cape, commanding the Rear Admiral Erich Bey (veteran of the Norwegian campaign and Operation Cerberus). Surrounded by a vastly superior British force, the German cruiser went down with almost all of her crew. Admiral Bruce Fraser, who was made Baron of the North Cape for this victory and who had with him Scharnhorst a personal account having this previously sunk the aircraft carrier Glorious whom he had commanded, he told his crew that he expected each of them to demonstrate the same valor as the German crew when faced with a superior opponent.
The operation Cerberus it was therefore useless to the final outcome of the conflict, because the units moved to Germany were lost in a short time anyway and did not alter the outcome of events. It was, moreover, an implicit admission that the battle for control of the Atlantic routes was now lost and it no longer made sense to leave the ships that had participated exposed.
To ensure that the large German battleships, and especially the Tirpitz, unable to return to the Atlantic, the British launched a commando raid against the port of Saint Nazaire in March 1942, destroying the only dock capable of accommodating her.
In any case, it remains a stain on the history of the Royal Navy, which had maintained absolute control of the Channel since the Anglo-Dutch wars of the seventeenth century. The day after the passage of the three German ships, the Times he had fiery words against the failure to prevent this setback.
"Nothing more mortifying to the pride of our sea-power has happened since the seventeenth century”.
Photo: Bundesarchiv / Royal Navy
