He added dramatically, "The situation of the Brest Group is comparable with that of a cancer patient, who is doomed unless he submits to an operation. An operation, even though it might be a drastic one, will offer at least some hope that the patient's life may yet be saved. The passage of our ships through the Channel would be such an operation. It must therefore be attempted."
Finally Hitler said, "Nothing can be gained by leaving the ships at Brest. Should the Brest Group manage to escape through the Channel, however, there is a chance that it might be employed to good advantage at a later date. If the ships remain at Brest their ability to tie up enemy air forces may not continue for long. As long as they are in battle-worthy condition they will constitute worthwhile targets, which the enemy will feel obliged to attack. But the moment they are seriously damaged — and this may happen any day — the enemy will discontinue his attacks. In view of all this and in accordance with the suggestion of the C-in-C Navy I decide that the operation is to be prepared as proposed."
That was it. After the conference Hitler entertained his admirals and generals at dinner in the concrete shelter where he lived. He ate frugally as usual but was more genial than anyone had seen him for a long time. He said, almost jovially, "You will find that this operation will turn out to be our most spectacular naval success of the war."
He revealed his only doubt — would the Luftwaffe manage it? He realized that Galland with his fighters was the key figure in the operation. Saying good-bye to him he asked quietly, "Do you think they will bring it off?" When Galland assured him he thought they would he dismissed him with a rare smile.
The decision was made. Far from dismantling the great ships the Germans were to fight them through the English Channel in daylight. An attempt like this had not been made by an enemy of England for over three centuries — since the Spanish Armada of 1588.
II
INVITATIONS TO A MASKED BALL
When Hitler made his decision on 12 January in Wolfs Lair there remained only a month to go before the operation, which was now code-named Cerberus.
The time most suitable for the break-out had already been worked out. Ideally it would be a night with low cloud cover, no moon, and worsening visibility and weather conditions. From the beginning of February darkness prevailed from 7:30 p.m. until 7:30 a.m. G.M.T. The new moon was on 15 February. The most favourable tides and currents were between 7 and 15 February. Therefore the operation must be carried out during this period. But the date depended upon the weather.
An exact forecast was extremely difficult as German meteorologists had only the scantiest weather data. Their sole information came from long-range reconnaissance planes over the Atlantic. So three U-boats were diverted from the Atlantic to Iceland — the area that determines the weather — for meteorological observation. Their reports enabled the Germans to make an accurate weather forecast, the meteorologists predicted favourable weather for 11 February, so it was decided the ships would sail from Brest that night.
Zero hour was fixed for 7:30 p.m. on 11 February. But a more critical zero hour was due at noon next day. This would be the time when the battleships would begin steaming through the Dover Straits.
The time schedule for the operation was: put to sea from Brest in the evening, pass the narrows of Dover-Calais by noon of the following day; navigate along the Dutch coast in the afternoon; enter the North Sea in the evening. A twenty-eight-knot cruising speed was planned.
The Germans now overwhelmingly agreed that a daylight passage was the only answer. Every officer in the secret appreciated that to force the Dover Straits in daylight was a practical if perilous plan. A night dash past Dover when the ships almost certainly had been detected in daylight seemed frighteningly difficult. For then the British defences would be alert and waiting for them. During a night voyage along the French coast there was just a possibility they might take the British by surprise.
But the first and greatest danger lay in the heavily mined narrow waters. The main burden of trying to ensure a mine-free lane fell to Commodore Friedrich Rüge, in command of all the mine-sweeping flotillas along the Channel coast.
Group West ordered him to throw every available minesweeper into clearing a channel for the battleships. A meeting at Group West attended by Giessler and the three captains showed the provisional route running through the series of numbered squares into which the Channel was divided. This route avoided mines laid by the RAF and Royal Navy leaving, if possible, only German mine fields to be dealt with.
Ruge's headquarters was in the Bois de Boulogne — a hundred yards away from Group West in Paris. Only his Chief of Staff, Captain Hagen, and his first operations officer, Cdr. Hugo Heydel, knew what was happening. Obviously Heydel could not continue to work in the general operations room in case the secret leaked out. But how could he leave it without starting gossip? Ruge devised a little plot. He told Heydel to complain that the clamour in the busy operations room made it impossible for him to concentrate. Then Ruge took up his complaint and arranged for him to exchange with an officer who had a private room. No one suspected anything and Heydel could get on with his planning in secret.
But Ruge faced a much greater problem of secrecy. This was that he could not hold an overall briefing conference with his captains nor order his mine-sweeping flotillas to sweep an obvious course. Instead he divided the route up into a jigsaw and directed his mine-sweepers to sweep individual sections. These individual pieces of the mine-sweeping jigsaw were plotted day by day by Heydel on a secret chart in his private room.
Ruge's other problem was finding suitable excuses for issuing his orders, in case his crews began to wonder why all this intensive mine clearing had started. Many pretexts had to be devised to enable him to make a complete sweep of the proposed route. False reports were concocted about British mine-fields as an excuse for sweeping German mines. These reports were given to the mine-sweeping officers and men as genuine operational information.
The orders given by Commodore Ruge to his flotillas were crystal-clear. He laid down that the Channel was only to be swept at night and time limits for each stage were to be punctually adhered to. But to the officers carrying them out in ignorance of the over-all picture the whole operation seemed bewildering and purposeless.
Although Ruge could not rouse his crews to enthusiasm for the task which they were doing, they carried it out with the utmost efficiency. During January, under cover of darkness, German mine-sweepers groped their way along the heavily mined route. Continual bad weather made their task more difficult.
On 25 January the destroyer Bruno Heinemann, sailing to Brest to form part of the escort for the battleships on their break-out, struck a mine off Ruytingen and sank. This was the first indication ftiat a new British mine-field had been laid on the intended course of the German battleships. Despite worsening weather the mine-sweepers exploded over thirty magnetic mines in this area. In the first days of February they worked in the Straits of Dover only a few miles off the English coast. All the route was continually swept until the last moment. Ruge was at last able to report to Group West that the many tasks imposed upon the small number of mine-sweepers available were carried out punctually and with the loss of only two boats.
At the same time, destroyers and torpedo-boats needed to screen the battleships began sailing westward down the Channel. Their movements were made an excuse for some of the mine-sweeping operations required.