Wikipedia:WikiProject Military history/News/November 2017/Op-ed


 * ''By TomStar81

On 17 October 1917, two light cruisers of the Imperial German Navy's surface fleet participated in the Action off Lerwick, in which the German ships attacked a group of neutral cargo vessels sailing under Scandinavian flags. This attack, unusual at the time for its use of the surface fleet as opposed to the U-boats which had enjoyed much greater success against the Royal Navy, drew outrage for use of armed force against neutral cargo ships. It is not clear, in hindsight, whether this outrage was justified, given the colliers were transporting war material in convoy. The action, which saw the loss of nine colliers, also resulted in the loss of the Royal Navy destroyers Strongbow and Mary Rose, while the two German cruisers escaped the battle without damage or loss of life. The resulting uproar over the loss of the coal ships and charges that the Germans had not allowed for sufficient time for the civilians aboard the coal ships to evacuate compelled the British Admiralty to reply in kind to the German attack.

The Royal Navy's response came during the Second Battle of Heligoland Bight on 17 November 1917, after British Naval Intelligence caught wind of an Imperial German Navy surface group that had put to sea with the intention of clearing naval mines laid by the Royal Navy. The intelligence was passed to the Admiralty, which put together a surface force that included battlecruisers to intercept and hopeful destroy the German task force. Around 7:30 AM the Royal Navy sighted its enemy and the battle began with the opening salvo at 7:37, but the Imperial German Navy's task force elected to withdraw rather than stand and fight. This turned what the Royal Navy had hoped would be a retaliatory strike into a race to catch up with the withdrawing German surface assets. The chase was hampered initially by the presence of naval mines, which had to be navigated around carefully lest the Royal Navy incur further losses, and finally ended two hours later when the British reached the edge of known minefields and the withdrawing German surface force was reinforced by SMS Kaiser and Kaiserin, two Imperial Germany Navy battleships that had come out to cover the minesweepers. The battleships and battlecruisers engaged each other briefly before the Royal Navy, conceding the chase, elected to withdraw from the area and thus brought the battle to an inconclusive close.

Against the loss of the nine merchant vessels and two destroyers one month earlier, the British had to settle for a single minesweeper sunk in this retaliatory operation.