Channel Dash

11–13 February 1942, English Channel, Strait of Dover and North Sea

German success; the ships reached home, but two were mined

Hitler wanted Scharnhorst, Gneisenau and Prinz Eugen, bombed again and again at Brest, brought home to defend Norway. Vice-Admiral Otto Ciliax took them out after dark on 11 February and steamed straight up the English Channel in daylight, with destroyers, torpedo boats, E-boats and an umbrella of Luftwaffe fighters. Jammed radar, broken-down patrol aircraft and confusion meant the British did not spot them until late the next morning, off Le Touquet. The Dover guns fired and missed. Lieutenant-Commander Eugene Esmonde led six slow Swordfish of 825 Squadron against them with a handful of Spitfires; all six were shot down, and Esmonde was given a posthumous Victoria Cross. Six old destroyers from Harwich attacked off the Dutch coast, Worcester was badly hit, and RAF bombers flew hundreds of sorties without a hit. But Scharnhorst struck two air-laid mines and Gneisenau one. "Vice-Admiral Ciliax has succeeded where the Duke of Medina Sidonia failed," said The Times. Yet the ships were out of the Atlantic: Gneisenau was bombed in dock at Kiel two weeks later and never sailed again.