As from the 10th the weather conditions in the Channel would be reasonable for an attempted break-through in darkness. On 15 February there will be no moon and the tidal conditions at Dover would favour a passage between 04.00 and 06.00 hours.
"Finally, the large number of destroyers and small torpedo boats that have been concentrated at Brest would seem to indicate an attempt to force a way up the Channel — any time after Tuesday, 10 February."
This was remarkably accurate. Yet Sir Philip hesitated to act upon his own document. Beaufort torpedo bombers under his command, which were possibly the greatest danger to the German ships, were left where they were. None were moved towards Dover. This decision was to bear heavily on the outcome of the battle. Also Joubert's RAF staff officers, impressed by the top secrecy of the operation, locked the battle-plans carefully away in safes. They considered their contents too secret to be revealed to the aircrews. No pilots were told what to look for before they took off.
Admiral Power and his planning staff were convinced if the Germans broke out into the Channel it would be "a simple battle." When they fully realized the possibility of a break-out by the Scharnhorst and Gneisenau, the Home Fleet, apart from ships patrolling the Denmark Straits, was anchored in Scapa Flow keeping a watchful eye on the German battleship Tirpitz hidden in a fiord near Trondheim.
What had they ready to meet the break-out? Very little. The mine-layer Welshman, steaming at 39 knots, laid 1,000 magnetic and contact mines between Ushant and Boulogne. In the first week in February Bomber Command also laid 98 magnetic mines off the East Friesian Islands.
The Admiralty also made three small defensive gestures. It moved six Swordfish torpedo-carrying planes from their base at Lee-on-Solent to the fighter fields at Manston on the tip of the Kent coast, and alerted six MTBs stationed at Dover and three at Ramsgate. They also ordered six old destroyers to Harwich in readiness to intercept the German battleships.
Yet the behaviour of the Admiralty is not entirely to be dismissed by hindsight as ineffectual and puzzling. It was the blackest period of the war for Britain. In the defence of Singapore — due to fall to the Japanese forty-eight hours after the Scharnhorst and Gneisenau break-through — the two British capital ships, the Repulse and the Prince of Wales, had been sunk by land-based Japanese aircraft. The Prince of Wales, sister ship of King George V, was one of Britain's newest battleships. When she went down with her commander, Admiral Sir Tom Phillips, it was a numbing blow to the Royal Navy. It weighed very heavily with the First Sea Lord Sir Dudley Pound.
That is why he hesitated. His naval power was stretched to the limit from Singapore to Scapa Flow. If he operated his great ships near the occupied coast of Europe they might also be sunk by determined attacks by German aircraft. It was a chilling thought. Like Jellicoe, Royal Naval Chief in the First World War, "He was the man who could lose the war in an afternoon." If several of his battleships were sunk or put out of action, needing months of repairs, it could change the whole picture of naval warfare in European waters.
This was why Dudley Pound stated, "On no account will heavy ships be brought south where they will be exposed to enemy air attack, torpedo-boat attack and risk being damaged by our own and enemy mine-fields."
His staff queried this point of view asking, "But surely the light forces available will be totally inadequate to deal with the German battle fleet?" The curt answer was, "We have scraped together all that is at present available."
The real reason was that he never really believed that the Germans would be foolhardy enough to try and bring their ships through Dover Straits in daylight. Dudley Pound was an orthodox career admiral of the old school. The Dictionary of National Biography called his personality "reserved and unbending." Appointed in 1939, he was at 65 already over retiring age. He was also overworked, tired and ill. Although too old to cope with his job unaided, he did not even have a deputy.[4]
Also, he greatly under-estimated the resolution of the former Austrian corporal, the "land animal" Adolf Hitler, who had ordered the daring plan.
Pound made one other move. A third submarine, H.M.S. Sealion, commanded by Lt.-Cdri G. R. "Joe" Colvin, hastily sailed from Portsmouth for Brest. Sealion was a fast 768-ton S-Class boat built in 1934 with a speed of fourteen knots. Colvin's orders were: "Your operational area is designed to intercept the main enemy units should they break out into the Atlantic or proceed south-eastwards to another Biscayan port." As the Admiralty were still undecided about the battleships' possible route, Colvin decided to keep patrolling as near to Brest as he dared.
Why were only his new submarine and two old ones sent to watch for such an important target? The reason was that seventeen British submarines had been lost in the Mediterranean alone since Italy had declared war in June 1940, and others had been sent to the Far East for the war against Japan.
Although Sealion was considered to have a good chance of encountering the battleships either by night or day, Joe Colvin had an extremely difficult task for many reasons. The tides along the Normandy and Britanny coast were running between three and four knots, and large waves breaking over the rocks made it very difficult to keep accurate station.
Colvin had a bigger problem. Sealion had just returned from three months' service with the Bussian Navy, and at the end of this tour of duty most of the crew of reservists had been relieved. He had taken aboard twelve replacements. These included the torpedo-gunner's mate, one of the key men in a submarine. Even his First Lieutenant, E. E Young, a wartime sailor, had only joined with two other new officers just before sailing.
On the morning he sailed from Portsmouth, Colvin had no doubts about his scratch crew's courage, but they needed time to master the intricate system of dials and levers in their modern submarine. His main worry was whether his crew would be able to man the torpedo tubes efficiently, for there could be no fumbling when the moment came. There was also a problem with the torpedoes themselves. He had sailed so hurriedly that he had a mixed cargo of torpedoes consisting of four modern ones and four old, not very efifective, Mark Four type.
With this inexperienced crew aboard, Colvin nosed Sealion towards Iroise Bay, which surrounds Brest. His intention was to sneak among the German battleships while they were exercising, fire his torpedoes and escape submerged out to sea. For three days he cruised at periscope-depth watching and waiting for the battleships, but they remained in harbour.
On 7 February, a signal from Sir Max Horton said the German ships could be observed exercising in the approaches to Brest. For another forty-eight hours Colvin patrolled between 14–20 miles from Brest harbour — and still saw nothing.
On 9 February, he decided the moment for encountering the German ships was near. He fired off his four Mk-Four torpedoes in one salvo at sea and replaced them with the later type ready for immediate action. Then he sailed submerged into the northern part of the bay towards the boom guarding Brest Harbour. Shortly after midday Colvin raised his periscope in a choppy sea with good visibility and sighted Whistle Buoy, marking the end of the swept channel into Brest. As this was where the battleships must come out, he dived near the buoy and lay there until darkness came. At 8 p.m. he surfaced to wait for the Germans to come for night exercise. While he lay in the dark on the surface, another signal from Sir Max Horton reported the German ships still lying at their berths inside the harbour. But Colvin still kept up his vigil.
4
A few months after the break-out, in the summer of 1942, a deputy was appointed — but too late to give Pound the relief he needed. His health was already failing. He kept the job until his last illness, dying in harness, aged 66, on Trafalgar Day, 21 October 1943—eighteen months after the break-out. On 27 October a cruiser sailed from Portsmouth and scattered his ashes at sea.