.Operation Cerberus - Channel Dash; Scharnhorst, Gneisenau - Blockade - OpRo > .
42-2-11 Unternehmen Donnerkeil (Operation Thunderbolt)
On 11 February 1942, the Kriegsmarine ships left Brest at 9:14 p.m. and escaped detection for more than twelve hours, approaching the Strait of Dover without discovery. The Luftwaffe conducted Unternehmen Donnerkeil (Operation Thunderbolt) to provide air cover and as the ships neared Dover, the British belatedly began operations against the German ships. The RAF, the Fleet Air Arm, Navy and coastal artillery operations were costly failures but Scharnhorst and Gneisenau hit mines in the North Sea and were damaged (Scharnhorst being put out of action for a year). By 13 February, the ships had reached German ports, Winston Churchill ordered an inquiry into the debacle and The Times denounced the British fiasco. The Kriegsmarine judged the operation to have been a tactical success and a strategic failure, by exchanging a threat to Atlantic convoys by German surface ships for a hypothetical threat to Norway. On 23 February, Prinz Eugen was torpedoed off Norway, repaired and spent the rest of the war in the Baltic. Gneisenau went into a 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.
Background
A Kriegsmarine (German navy) squadron of both of the Scharnhorst-class battleships, the heavy cruiser Prinz Eugen and escorts, ran a British blockade from Brest in Brittany. Scharnhorst and Gneisenau had arrived in Brest on 22 Mar 1941 after the successful Operation Berlin in the Atlantic. Further anti-commerce raids were planned (until late May 1941) and the ships used the dockyard facilities at Brest for refit and repair. They represented a substantial threat to Allied trans-Atlantic convoys, so a series of air raids were carried out by the Royal Air Force (RAF) against the two ships from 30 Mar 1941 (and also targeting Prinz Eugen, which arrived on 1 June 1941). Serious damage was inflicted on Gneisenau on 6 April 1941 and on Scharnhorst on 24 July 1941 after dispersal to La Pallice. As the repair of this damage reached completion in August, consideration was given to evacuating the ships.
In late 1941, Adolf Hitler ordered Oberkommando der Marine (OKM German Navy high-command), to plan an operation to return the ships to German bases, to counter a possible British invasion of Norway. A meeting was held in Paris on 1 January 1942, for the final planning of the operation. The short route up the English Channel was preferred to a detour around the British Isles, to benefit from surprise and from air cover by the Luftwaffe and on 12 January 1942, Hitler gave orders for the operation to be conducted.
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 run by the Secret Intelligence Service (MI6) to keep watch on the ships and report the damage caused by British bombers. 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 concentration of British ships in southern waters was inhibited by a need to keep ships at Scapa Flow in Scotland, in case of a sortie by the German battleship Tirpitz from Norway. The RAF had been required to detach squadrons from Bomber and Coastal commands for overseas service and also kept torpedo-bombers in Scotland ready for Tirpitz, which constrained their ability to assemble large numbers of aircraft against a dash up the Channel, as did the winter weather which reduced visibility and unpredictably blocked airfields with snow.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Channel_Dash
Winds of War & WW2 Blunders - Tony Blake
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLtakTnKQQMCzR04v6PVlQtBkXlJ9DB2Za
42-2-11 Unternehmen Donnerkeil (Operation Thunderbolt)
On 11 February 1942, the Kriegsmarine ships left Brest at 9:14 p.m. and escaped detection for more than twelve hours, approaching the Strait of Dover without discovery. The Luftwaffe conducted Unternehmen Donnerkeil (Operation Thunderbolt) to provide air cover and as the ships neared Dover, the British belatedly began operations against the German ships. The RAF, the Fleet Air Arm, Navy and coastal artillery operations were costly failures but Scharnhorst and Gneisenau hit mines in the North Sea and were damaged (Scharnhorst being put out of action for a year). By 13 February, the ships had reached German ports, Winston Churchill ordered an inquiry into the debacle and The Times denounced the British fiasco. The Kriegsmarine judged the operation to have been a tactical success and a strategic failure, by exchanging a threat to Atlantic convoys by German surface ships for a hypothetical threat to Norway. On 23 February, Prinz Eugen was torpedoed off Norway, repaired and spent the rest of the war in the Baltic. Gneisenau went into a 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.
Background
A Kriegsmarine (German navy) squadron of both of the Scharnhorst-class battleships, the heavy cruiser Prinz Eugen and escorts, ran a British blockade from Brest in Brittany. Scharnhorst and Gneisenau had arrived in Brest on 22 Mar 1941 after the successful Operation Berlin in the Atlantic. Further anti-commerce raids were planned (until late May 1941) and the ships used the dockyard facilities at Brest for refit and repair. They represented a substantial threat to Allied trans-Atlantic convoys, so a series of air raids were carried out by the Royal Air Force (RAF) against the two ships from 30 Mar 1941 (and also targeting Prinz Eugen, which arrived on 1 June 1941). Serious damage was inflicted on Gneisenau on 6 April 1941 and on Scharnhorst on 24 July 1941 after dispersal to La Pallice. As the repair of this damage reached completion in August, consideration was given to evacuating the ships.
In late 1941, Adolf Hitler ordered Oberkommando der Marine (OKM German Navy high-command), to plan an operation to return the ships to German bases, to counter a possible British invasion of Norway. A meeting was held in Paris on 1 January 1942, for the final planning of the operation. The short route up the English Channel was preferred to a detour around the British Isles, to benefit from surprise and from air cover by the Luftwaffe and on 12 January 1942, Hitler gave orders for the operation to be conducted.
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 run by the Secret Intelligence Service (MI6) to keep watch on the ships and report the damage caused by British bombers. 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 concentration of British ships in southern waters was inhibited by a need to keep ships at Scapa Flow in Scotland, in case of a sortie by the German battleship Tirpitz from Norway. The RAF had been required to detach squadrons from Bomber and Coastal commands for overseas service and also kept torpedo-bombers in Scotland ready for Tirpitz, which constrained their ability to assemble large numbers of aircraft against a dash up the Channel, as did the winter weather which reduced visibility and unpredictably blocked airfields with snow.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Channel_Dash
Winds of War & WW2 Blunders - Tony Blake
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLtakTnKQQMCzR04v6PVlQtBkXlJ9DB2Za
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