Operation Zerberus (Cerberus)
WW2DB: Operation Cerberus
Operation Cerberus 11 Feb 1942 - 13 Feb 1942
Contributor:
C. Peter Chen
Hitler knew the importance of Norway very well. It supplied Germany with iron ore and provided a northern flank for the German heartland. Given the importance of Norway in his mind (meanwhile completely underestimating the importance of the French coast), he ordered German warships stationed in Brest to move to Norway to join the battleship Tirpitz to protect Norway's long coastlines. The German fleet at Brest had been sitting uselessly in the port of Brest, trapped by Allied air superiority; in fact, British air missions had, on more than one occasion, damaged German ships while they ported in Brest. Because the North Atlantic was beginning to become dominated by Allied air and surface power, the German ships now must make the trip through the English Channel, hence the British nickname "the Channel Dash" for this operation. The operation was deemed so risky an operation that Grand Admiral Erich Räder refused to take responsibilities for the operation.
On the other side of the English Channel, British intelligence detected a heightened state of activity on the French coast, and suspected that the German fleet might be planning to move. As a response, the British Navy laid more mines in the English Channel. By now, there were more than 1,000 mines in the narrow body of water.
On 11 Feb 1942, battlecruisers Scharnhorst and Gneisenau along with heavy cruiser Prinz Eugen left the port of Brest escorted by six destroyers. The detection of the German fleet finally reached British high command after 13 hours. The shore batteries near Dover fired on the approximate location of the German fleet, but all shells missed their targets. After a few motor torpedo boats failed to hit the German ships with their torpedoes, six Swordfish aircraft were launched immediately to intercept the German fleet, though the Swordfish were all lost without inflicting any significant damage. Because of the bad weather, Bomber Command was not able to dispatch any heavy aircraft to engage the German ships; when they finally decided to launch bombers, only a small number were able to drop their payloads because they were not able to reach the ideal altitude due to the thick clouds. The final act of the series of British failures involved in some British aircraft mistakingly attacking British destroyers that were sent out to make contact with the German fleet.
The German fleet sailed through the English Channel, to the embarrassment of the British, without being challenged again. The ships reached their destination at dawn 13 Feb. Scharnhorst did receive damage from a mine, however. 17 German land-based aircraft had also been lost while covering the operation.
By moving the ships away from the French coast, the Germans actually gave the Allies a small breathing space in terms of naval operations off the coast of Western Europe. As Räder, who disagreed with this operation, said, Germany had won "a tactical victory (but) had suffered a strategic defeat."