Operation Wikinger

Operation Wikinger (English: Operation Viking) was a German naval sortie into the North Sea by six destroyers of the  on 22 February 1940 during the Second World War. Poor inter-service communication and co-operation between the  and the  resulted in the loss of two German warships through friendly fire bombing and German or British mines. Only sixty survivors were rescued and the operation was called off.

 had sent several signals to the naval  with information about air operations over the North Sea  had not been informed about the naval operation. A request by  for air support on 23 February led  to ask if destroyers were at sea but the reply came too late; a Kampfgeschwader 26 bomber attacked the destroyers.

An inquiry exonerated the bomber crew because they had received no warning and no recognition flares had been fired from the ships. Reports of submarines, indiscriminate firing and general excitement on the destroyers caused uncertainty, but the committee ruled that the destroyer Leberecht Maass was bombed and that around  there was a big explosion amidships. At  there was a bigger explosion on the destroyer Max Schultz, which broke up and sank.

Background

OKW

, the supreme command of the German armed forces, had issued standing orders for  co-operation in naval operations.  was obliged to inform  of naval sorties and  was required to tell  of air operations. Sufficient notice was necessary to ensure that operations by one service did not interfere with those of the other. Air attacks east of the  minefield were prohibited unless at the request of  unless it was certain that the ship was hostile. West of the minefield, apart from attacks on submarines, which were notoriously difficult to identify, the  was allowed to attack on sight, even when  had ships in the area, provided that this was reported.

From 17 October 1939 to 10 February 1940, the Germans had conducted eleven mining operations, planting 1,800 mines off estuaries and ports on the east coast of Britain, which sank 66 ships (238,467 gross register tons [GRT]), three destroyers and a trawler. Grand admiral () Erich Raeder, the head of the  (Maritime Warfare Command) of the  (War Navy) sought to disrupt the activities of British trawlers around the Dogger Bank, which were suspected of spying, possibly to find the swept channels in the  minefield belt.  (Generaladmiral Alfred Saalwächter) planned to intercept the British vessels with the six destroyers of the  (1st Destroyer Flotilla,  Fritz Berger), which embarked prize crews. The flotilla comprised the destroyers Friedrich Eckoldt (flotilla leader), Richard Beitzen, Erich Koellner, Theodor Riedel, Max Schultz and Leberecht Maass.

On 21 February, 4 , II./KG 26, equipped with Heinkel He 111 bombers and based at Neumünster, Schleswig-Holstein as part of  (General der Flieger Hans Geisler), was briefed to fly an anti-shipping raid between the Thames Estuary and the Humber Estuary. The crews were ready by  on 22 February and began to take off at  Visibility over the North Sea was estimated at  with a full moon to the south-east. The first bomber airborne was 1H+IM, flown by Feldwebel Jäger who headed north, then used the south end of Sylt as a route marker and flew on a bearing of 241° towards the Humber at .

Prelude
 reported the air operation to  as usual but an admiral failed to pass on the information, leaving the 1st Destroyer Flotilla ignorant of  the  operation. The mistake should have been uncovered when  asked,  (Fighter Leader German Bight) during the afternoon of 22 February, for air support to cover the destroyers as they returned to port on 23 February but this was not forwarded to  At about  on 22 February, a telephone call was made on behalf of Admiral Otto Ciliax, the chief of staff of , with a request that aircraft already in the air be limited to attacks off the English coast; this was impossible because  did not have the codes. Both headquarters insisted that the other contact their forces by wireless to warn them but neither did.

Operation Viking/

Sortie

Operation Viking () began at 19:00 on 22 February 1940. The flotilla, operating from their anchorage near Wilhelmshaven off Schillig, was proceeding quickly towards , a -wide swept channel of the , a defensive minefield protecting the German Bight. The ships were sailing on a bearing of 300°, when they were attacked from the air. At about   Döring the gunner of Heinkel 1H+IM, flying towards the English coast, had seen the wake of a ship to port and reported it to the pilot,  Jäger. The pilot saw a ship, moving fast towards the north-west. On the sea, lookouts on Friedrich Eckoldt saw an aircraft pass overhead at an estimated , not showing appropriate recognition signals, which return soon after. At  the pilot and the observer,  Schräpler, were certain that the ship was a merchant vessel, which also failed to show recognition signals.

Air attack
While hesitating to attack, the Heinkel was fired on with  anti-aircraft guns by Richard Beitzen and Erich Koellner, whose officers thought that they had identified a British aircraft.  Döring returned fire with the ventral machine-gun at once. The lookouts on Max Schultz saw German markings on the aircraft at the last moment but their wireless message on the common frequency went unheeded.  Günther Hosemann claimed that he saw the  markings in the light of the gun flashes but others doubted him. At  Men on Max Schultz saw the aircraft come out of a cloud bank with the moon astern of it and transmitted "" ("Aeroplane has been sighted in the black cloud in front of the moon") as Jäger made a bombing run at , convinced by the gunfire from the ship that it was hostile.

The first two bombs and the fourth missed but the third bomb hit Leberecht Maass amidships, between bridge and the first funnel. The ship quickly lost speed, veering to starboard and sending "" ("Have been hit. Need assistance."). As the other ships turned to assist the ship, Berger ordered them back into formation, lest they strayed out of the swept channel but reversed course at . Friedrich Eckoldt slowly approached Leberecht Maass, making rescue and towing equipment ready and was  distant when the aircraft returned for a second bombing run and hit Leberecht Maass with two bombs out of four. A big fireball rose from around the stern funnel and those above deck on Friedrich Eckoldt saw that Leberecht Maass had broken in two and was sinking in  as the Heinkel departed to the west. The other destroyers manoeuvred towards Leberecht Maass, Erich Koellner stopping engines to drift towards the survivors in the water between the two halves of the ship, sending "" ("To all. Maass going down. Send boats."). With lifeboats swung out, ready to begin the rescue, Erich Koellner, along with those of Friedrich Eckoldt and Richard Beitzen began taking on survivors.

Loss of Max Schultz
At  there was another big explosion and lookouts on Richard Beitzen reported another air attack; Theodor Riedel,  from the explosion, was moving towards it when it obtained a hydrophone contact to starboard, which caused more confusion. Theodor Riedel dropped four depth-charges which detonated too close to the destroyer and jammed the rudder, the ship moving in circles until it was freed. The other destroyers continued to rescue survivors but then a lookout on Erich Koellner reported a submarine. Berger gave orders to stop the rescue until the submarine was sunk, Max Schultz not replying to the order. Erich Koellner accelerated to attack the submarine, one of its boats, not yet cast off, being dragged under the stern. The captain tried to ram the submarine but it was probably the bows of Leberecht Maass. Max Schultz, still not replying to wireless calls, had struck one of the 120 mines laid in  by the British destroyers  and  on the night of 10/11 January.

Higher commands
During the evening,  received information from KG 26 that one of its aircraft had attacked a ship, about  north of the  lightvessel. The aircraft had received return fire and the crew claimed to have sunk the ship. Wireless messages from the area were passed on to  and SKL. The message

was received at  and at 

The report was forwarded to , the commander in chief of the , Hermann Göring and its chief of staff, Hans Jeschonnek, who asked if this could have anything to do with the sinking of Leberecht Maass and Max Schultz. The  war diary for 22 February 1940 recorded that at 

The fate of the destroyers came into doubt after Jäger had landed and reported sinking a ship  from

Return to base
At  after thirty minutes of confusion, including reports of torpedo tracks and periscopes, Berger ordered the surviving four ships to return to base ("" ["Course 120. Speed "]) after recovering the lifeboats left when the submarine hunt began. Most of the men in the water had died of hypothermia by the time that the destroyers returned. Sixty survivors were rescued from the 330 men on Leberecht Maass, none of the 308 men on Max Schultz survived, one man on Erich Koellner was reported missing. The dispatch of a  to search for survivors was cancelled due to thick fog and at  on 23 February a He 111 flying over the island of Borkum, was shot down by navy anti-aircraft guns.

Aftermath

Analysis
In 2014, Gerhard Koop and Klaus-Peter Schmolke wrote that the British destroyers Ivanhoe and Intrepid had laid 120 tethered mines on the night of 10/11 January, roughly in the area that Leberecht Maass and Max Schultz sank. The authors wrote that it was certain that Leberecht Maass was bombed at  and they concluded that the second explosion at  was a mine. When Max Schultz and the other destroyers turned to render assistance, they strayed outside the swept channel, Max Schultz hit a mine and sank.

Casualties
More than 320 crewmen were killed in Max Schultz, along with 286 members of the crew of Leberecht Maass.

Committee of Inquiry
The inquiry concluded that reports of submarines, indiscriminate firing of anti-aircraft guns and general excitement contributed to the uncertainty about the timing of events. The committee decided that there had been a bomb attack at  when three bombs fell  abeam of Max Schultz, at about  Leberecht Maass was hit towards the bows and around  there was a big explosion amidships of Leberecht Maass. At  Max Schultz suffered a huge explosion, broke up and sank. The aircrew claimed that they made only two bombing runs at  and  a discrepancy that could not be accounted for. The Heinkel crew was exonerated because they had received no warning and no recognition flare had been fired by the ships.

Subsequent events
Destroyer operations in the North Sea were suspended until Operation Weserübung (9 April – 10 June 1940) when another ten destroyers were sunk. Of 22 destroyers built before the war bearing names, only ten were left to cover a coast from the north of Norway to the Baltic and the coast of Estonia, followed by the coasts of the Low Countries and France after 10 June 1940. Three new destroyers joined the fleet in 1940 but the number rose above 22 only in mid-1943.

See also
 Friendly fire incidents of World War II
 List of German military equipment of World War II

Notes

References

Bibliography

 
  Translated from Die deutschen Zerstörer 1939–1945 Bernard & Graefe Verlag, Bonn (1995). Originally published in English by Greenhill books, Lionel Leventhal (2003)

Further reading
 

North Sea operations of World War II
Friendly fire incidents of World War II
Naval operations of the Kriegsmarine
Naval battles and operations of the European theatre of World War II
February 1940 events