The remainder of 1916 and through 1917 was largely uneventful for Hipper. He was placed in command of a detachment of the High Seas Fleet, composed of two battlecruisers, eleven battleships, four light cruisers, and twelve torpedo boats, sent to Denmark to retrieve a pair of stranded U-boats in November 1916. One was successfully returned to Germany, but the other had to be destroyed to prevent its capture. On the return to Germany, and were torpedoed by a British submarine. A year later, a brief skirmish took place in the Helgoland Bight between British and German capital ships.