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Eighty years ago today the German Navy successfully executed a daring operation to reposition their battleships Scharnhorst, Gneisenau and Prinz Eugen from Brest in western France to German ports on the North Sea.

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Squadron Leader Bill Igoe and the 1942 Channel Dash

Eighty years ago today the German Navy successfully executed a daring operation to reposition their battleships Scharnhorst, Gneisenau and Prinz Eugen[1] from Brest in western France to German ports on the North Sea.  The press described the British failure to stop this ‘Channel Dash’ as a ‘fiasco’.  There were multiple instances of poor planning and bad luck, and a heroic yet unsuccessful attack from the Fleet Air Arm which resulted in the award of a Victoria Cross.  However, there was also one British success. Squadron Leader Bill Igoe, a Sector Controller in 11 Group, identified the battleships through radar plots and raised the alarm.  This proved that the Dowding System, the predecessor of today’s Air Surveillance and Control System, was able to track aircraft and ship movement in the Channel, which presaged its future role in Second World War air-maritime operations.

The Battleships Scharnhorst and Gneisenau steaming up the English Channel
The Battleships Scharnhorst and Gneisenau steaming up the English Channel – IWM MH 4981.

The Germans chose to use the short route up the English Channel to minimise the period the battleships were under risk of attack in open water.  They swept the Channel of mines, the battleships transited at high speed, and the Luftwaffe provided a standing patrol of 16 fighters over the ships.  By 1942 parts of the Dowding System’s radar network were configured to detect both aircraft and ships.  The German Signals Intelligence Organisation was tasked to reduce the effectiveness of British radar cover, and commenced low-power jamming of radar frequencies in early February, slowly increasing intensity to disguise its source.

The battleships sailed from Brest on the night of 11 Feb 1942.  The British had placed a submarine and several maritime patrol aircraft specifically to detect such a breakout, but chance timing and equipment failure meant that the battleships were not detected.  The following morning, 12 February 1942, the daily Fighter Command reconnaissance patrols over the Channel did not catch sight either, but this was hardly surprising given the poor weather, with overcast low cloud and poor visibility.  The ships entered the coverage of British coastal radar at about 0800 that morning, although the German jamming made them difficult to spot.  The only radar with a solid plot was the new Type 271 operating at Swingate on the cliffs above Dover.  They reported plots moving north-east at 25 knots, but these were initially identified as Air-Sea-Rescue aircraft.

A map of the Channel Dash from the original Admiralty account of the event
A map of the Channel Dash from the original Admiralty account of the event – Crown Copyright.

Squadron Leader Bill Igoe came on duty as Senior Controller in the Biggin Hill Sector Operations Room later in the morning.  The Biggin Hill Sector stretched from the southern side of London all the way to the south coast.  He was aware that the German ships could be moving from Brest any day, and he examined the plots moving at 25 knots.  He knew they were too fast for a freighter convoy, but far too slow for aircraft on Air-Sea-Rescue work.  That would, however, be the speed expected of the battleships!  Quickly picking up his secure telephone, he warned 11 Group operations of his suspicions, and then scrambled two Spitfires of 91 Squadron at Hawkinge to gain a positive identification.  The 91 Squadron aircraft reported a flotilla of enemy ships, while two other Spitfires from Kenley flying an intruder mission over France identified two of the battleships and reported them on landing at 1109.  The hunt was now on!  Just after noon, the coastal guns of Dover fired on the battleships in poor visibility to little effect.  The ships were then attacked by motor torpedo boats and destroyers of the Royal Navy, and by six Swordfish of 825 Squadron Fleet Air Arm – none of the Swordfish survived the attack and their leader, Lieutenant Commander Eugene Esmonde, was posthumously awarded the Victoria Cross for his ‘high courage and splendid resolution’.

Lt Cdr Eugene Esmonde (second left) who was awarded a posthumous VC
Lt Cdr Eugene Esmonde (second left) who was awarded a posthumous VC as a result of his leadership and courage during the Fleet Air Arm’s attack on the German Battleships – Royal Navy.

The three German battleships survived the Channel Dash and made it to German North Sea ports.  British public opinion was appalled at the inability to block the Straits of Dover to hostile ships.  Historians assessed the Channel Dash as a tactical victory for Germany, but a strategic defeat, as their threat of powerful battleships attacking Atlantic convoys had been removed.

In contrast to the poor planning and sketchy cooperation between the British Services (and a dollop of bad luck), Squadron Leader Igoe’s actions are worthy of praise.  He fully understood the operational situation; he had good knowledge of the performance of various aircraft and ships; and he could apply these to the situation he was seeing on his display map at Biggin Hill.  He wasn’t willing to accept unthinkingly previous evaluations, but critically analysed what he was seeing with a keen intellect.  He and had the moral courage to raise a warning and to take action to confirm his thinking.  While it is difficult to assert that the battleships could have been stopped if British forces had attacked sooner, there is no doubt that more attacks could have been arranged if Squadron Leader Igoe’s initial warning had received the prioritisation it deserved.  To the RAF’s ASACS today, Squadron Leader Igoe is a shining example of Air Battle Management and a role model to all our operators on 19 and 20 Squadrons.

A Fighter Command Sector Operations Room in 1942
A Fighter Command Sector Operations Room in 1942 – this is the environment in which Squadron Leader Igoe deduced that the Scharnhorst, Gneisenau and Prinz Eugen were on the loose. IWM CH 7697.

[1] Prinz Eugen was technically a ‘heavy cruiser’, but we’ll continue to refer to it as a battleship in this article for convenience.

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