Still steaming at twenty knots, the warships entered the dangerous shallow waters off the Dutch coast. Fifteen minutes after the Junker sighting, the first mark-buoy at the far end of the sandbanks loomed up ahead of Scharnhorst. As soundings gave fifteen fathoms, the battleships' speed was increased to twenty-seven knots. The officers on the bridges of the battleships knew this was dangerously fast and waited anxiously until they were clear of the sandbanks and could resume formation.
At 2:11 p.m., when Pizey was in the middle of the minefield, 12 Hunt Class destroyers left ports in the Thames Estuary to support him. They were Garth, Fernie, Berkeley, Eglinton, Hambledon, Quorn, Southdown, Meynell, Holdness, Cattistock, Pytchley and Cottesmore. At 2:16 p.m., Commander C. de W. Kitcat in the Eglinton was ordered to patrol forty miles to the east of Harwich with six destroyers. At the same time Lt. C. W. H. Farringdon aboard Meynell was ordered to patrol with five other destroyers near Number 51 Buoy, thirteen miles east-south-east of Harwich, and await further orders.
At 2:30 p.m., just over an hour after entering the minefield, all Pizey's destroyers were clear. At: the same moment, a wireless message told Admiral Ciliax in Scharnhorst that Group North, under Admiral Wolfram based in Kiel, had taken over from Admiral Saalwächter of Group West in Paris.
In Group West, Commander Hugo Heydel, the first operations officer, had moved his charts back into the operations room. Commodore Friedrich Rüge, without whose mine-sweeping operations the break-out would not have been possible, was so pleased that the ships had steamed through his area without damage that he did something unprecedented. He ordered champagne for the operational staff.
At the same moment, Scharnhorst was off the mouth of the Scheldt near Flushing. Helmuth Giessler looked at his charts as they reached "Point Delta" in their planned course. A messenger reported guard-boat Number Three was 4,000 yards away and the depth of water twenty fathoms.
Two minutes later at 2:32 p.m., there came a violent shock. The heavy ship seemed to lurch in the water and men were nearly flung out of the crow's nest. In the Luftwaffe Control Room radio apparatus came crashing down on people's heads and Lt.-Col. Hentschel sprained his left knee and arm.
Staff Captain Reinicke, in the charthouse below the bridge, heard the deep grumbling noise of an underwater explosion. Then the shock flung him upwards and his head struck the metal ventilation casing just above the chart table. When he rushed on to the bridge he saw the ship was losing way. All the lights went out and soon she was lying rolling slightly in a choppy sea.
The Scharnhorst had struck a mine dropped by the RAF in eighteen fathoms of water. The generators ceased working and electric current failed throughout the ship. Water began to pour into the engine room, who reported they must heave-to for a time. She immediately sheered off to starboard, dropping away from the line of following ships. Captain Hoffmann ordered the main engines to be stopped and damage control parties sprang into action.
It was such a big explosion that Captain Fein on the bridge of Gneisenau following Scharnhorst at first thought his own ship was hit. Then he and his officers saw Scharnhorst ahead belching black smoke and gushing a large quantity of oil on the port side.
Prinz Eugens crew also heard a violent explosion to port followed by a heavy swell. Then a false warning of an approaching torpedo track made them change course and they lost sight of Scharnhorst. There also came a sudden deterioration in the weather. Visibility was less than a mile with light rain and the cloud ceiling down to 1,000 feet.
Aboard Scharnhorst, the quietness was eerie with the engines stopped after going full steam ahead for nineteen hours. They watched Gneisenau and Prinz Eugen race past them. They were carrying out orders that if one of the big ships was sunk or stopped, none of the others were to heave-to to render assistance. They were to sail on.
Aboard Scharnhorst, a young engineer officer, Lt. Timmer, made a rapid inspection of the damage and reported to the bridge, "Two double bottom compartments flooded and a large hole in the starboard side of the hull." As Admiral Ciliax considered he could no longer continue his command from the disabled battleship, he decided to transfer his flag to one of the destroyers. Reinicke gathered up all his confidential papers and books and raced down to the quarter-deck to await the Admiral's orders. Col. Ibel signalled to Lt.-Col. Dorando aboard Prinz Eugen: "I am crossing over with staff to Z.29. Take over control of the fighters and tell the Commander." He did this because all Scharnhorst's radio connections had failed and the fighters could no longer be advised from her.
As the destroyer Z.29 came alongside, pitching and rolling, Captain Hoffmann began to receive damage reports from his Chief Engineer, Walther Kretschmer. He reported that the engines were stopped because the shock of the explosion had shut all the automatic valves. But there did not appear to be much damage. Some wing cells aft were taking in water and turret "A" announced a slight inrush of water. There was also some flooding in the port foc'sle.
Admiral Ciliax shook hands with Captain Hoffmann saying, "I hope Scharnhorst will eventually make it. Follow the Squadron as best you can and put into the Hook of Holland or the nearest port in emergency."
The seamen of both ships were dangling fenders, but there were great risks of damage. Ciliax, Reinicke and Luftwaffe Colonels Ibel, Elle and Hentschel lined up outside the rail of Scharnhorst to make a jump for it. The sailors below in the destroyer stood ready in their wet oilskins to cushion their fall. In the mounting wind and rough seas, the destroyer tossed heavily and had trouble keeping alongside the more slowly rolling battleship.
Admiral Ciliax and his staff, carrying documents and registers, started to leap on to the destroyer's heaving deck. For Col. Hentschel, with his sprained ankle, it was a specially agonizing jump. While they were doing it, Z.29 collided with Scharnhorst. When she pulled away with the Admiral safely aboard at last, there was a rending crash which left a jagged wing portion of her bridge hanging from the Scharnhorst's superstructure.
Those of the ship's company aft were amazed to see their Admiral, who had been piped aboard with salutes, heel-clicking and barked orders from petty officers only a few hours previously, leave the ship with so little ceremony. One moment the figures of the Admiral and his staff were silhouetted against the rail. Then they were gone and the tossing destroyer, her superstructure and fo'c'sle dented and scraped by the encounter, had moved clear. The next minute, Z.29 was dashing at more than thirty knots after Gneisenau, abandoning Scharnhorst astern in the mists and rain.
When the destroyer had disappeared into the gloom of the dying February afternoon, four torpedo boats—T.13, 15, 16 and 17—stood by the stricken Scharnhorst.
It was 2:40 p.m. when Ciliax, accompanied by Captain Reinicke, "abandoned" ship. The impetuous departure of Ciliax, without waiting even five minutes for a report on the state of the ship, was typical of a man suffering from intermittent indigestion pains. He was always a man in a hurry.