| Action of 29 February 1916 | |||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Part of theFirst World War | |||||||
 RMS Alcantara (left) andSMS Greif (right) duelling at close range | |||||||
| |||||||
| Belligerents | |||||||
 United Kingdom |  Germany | ||||||
| Commanders and leaders | |||||||
 Thomas Wardle |  Rudolf Tietze | ||||||
| Strength | |||||||
| 1 light cruiser 2 armed merchant cruisers 1 destroyer | 1 auxiliary cruiser | ||||||
| Casualties and losses | |||||||
| 72 killed 1 armed merchant cruiser sunk | 187 killed 125 captured 1 auxiliary cruiser sunk | ||||||
Theaction of 29 February 1916 was a naval engagement fought during theFirst World War between theUnited Kingdom and theGerman Empire.SMS Greif, a Germancommerce raider, broke out into theNorth Sea andAdmiralSirJohn Jellicoe dispatchedRoyal Navy warships to intercept the raider. Four British vessels intercepted the commerce raiderGreif. Thearmed merchant cruiserRMS Alcantara andGreif fought a brief engagement before British reinforcements arrived when both were severely damaged, both being sunk.
In April 1915 theAdmiralty requisitionedAlcantara and the other "A-series" shipsAvon,Arlanza andSS Atlantis asarmed merchant cruisers.[1]Alcantara was armed with six 6 in (150 mm) guns,anti-aircraft guns anddepth charges.[2] On 17 April atLiverpool she was commissioned into the 10th Cruiser Squadron as HMSAlcantara.[3]Arlanza andAndes were also commissioned into the 10th Cruiser Squadron, which joined theNorthern Patrol, part of theBlockade of Germany. The Squadron patrolled about 200,000 sq mi (520,000 km2) of theNorth Sea,Norwegian Sea andArctic Ocean to prevent German ships from sailing to or leaving theNorth Atlantic.[1]
Guben, a 4,962gross register tons (GRT) German-Australian Line (Deutsche-Australische Dampfschiffs Gesellschaft) freighter, was converted to aauxiliary cruiser and renamedSMS Greif.[4] The cruiser was armed with four hidden 150 mm (5.9 in)guns, a 105 mm (4.1 in) gun and twotorpedo tubes.Greif had a complement of around 360 officers and men and had orders to sail around the north of Iceland into the Atlantic via theDenmark Strait to operate as acommerce raider and then make forGerman East Africa, if it could not return to Germany.[5]
Greif departed its home port ofHamburg into the North Sea on 27 February; at noon on 28 February, the Admiralty warned Jellicoe that a ship, escorted by the submarineSM U-70 40 nmi (74 km; 46 mi) ahead until a position at 59° 20' N, had left the Elbe.[6] Admiral SirJohn Jellicoe ordered twocruisers and four destroyers from Rosyth into the North Sea, to block the path of the ship if it sailed west and the light cruisersHMS Comus (CaptainAlan Hotham),Calliope andBlanche with the destroyerHMS Munster, from Scapa Flow (Scapa), to sweep the Norwegian coast in case it sailed north. Just after midnight, British wireless direction-finders plotted a German ship offEgersund on the south-west coast of Norway and the light cruisers from Scapa were ordered to search an arc radiating from Egersund.Columbella andPatia of the 10th Cruiser Squadron, part of the Northern Patrol, were sent to search from the north end of theShetland Isles to the north-east.[7] The auxiliary cruiserHMS Andes (15,620 GRT, Captain G. B. W. Young) was already there, having arrived to relieveRMS Alcantara (16,034 GRT, CaptainThomas Wardle), which was due to sail to Liverpool to re-coal.[8] Wardle had arranged to meet the relief 60 nmi (69 mi; 110 km) east of Shetland and was close to the meeting-point at 08:00, when a signal arrived orderingAlcantara to remain, because a disguised German auxiliary cruiser was expected to sail through the patrol line that day from the south.[7]
At about8:45 a.m. on 29 February,Alcantara was steaming north-north-east up its patrol line, when lookouts spotted smoke off the port beam; Wardle manoeuvred closer to identify the source of the smoke. Unbeknownst to him, the smoke was from SMSGreif. A few minutes laterAndes signalled "Enemy in sight north-east 15 knots" [17 mph (27 km/h)]. Wardle orderedAlcantara to turn north at maximum speed and soon sighted a ship with one funnel, flying Norwegian flags. Another message fromAndes described a two-funnelled ship and the identity of the ship in sight remained doubtful. A few minutes later,Andes was seen to starboard, apparently steaming north-east at speed, as if in pursuit. Before joining the chase, Wardle decided to examine the unknown ship, went to action stations and fired two blanks to force itheave to.[9]
By 09:20, Wardle had received a signal byAndes that it had altered course to the south-east, which only added to the ambiguity, because the ship could not be the one being pursued. The lookouts on theAlcantara could see the Norwegian nameRena on the stern and that the ship looked authentic.[9] A boat was lowered fromAlcantara when it was about 1,000 yd (910 m) astern to check the ship's particulars, as the voyage of theRena had been notified to the Admiralty. Wardle signalled to theAndes of developments and Young replied with "This is the suspicious ship". As the message was being read, a gun at the stern of the "Rena" was unmasked and flaps fell down along the sides, revealing more guns.Greif opened fire, hitting the boat containing the boarding party and damagingAlcantara'stelemotor steering gear before the British ship could reply.[10]
Alcantara's gunners opened fire and the ship closed with the raider as it began to get under way. For about fifteen minutes the ships exchanged fire;Andes opened fire as it arrived andGreif began to disappear in a pall of smoke. The German gunners ceased fire and boats full of survivors were seen pulling away from the smoke.Alcantara was badly damaged and also ceased fire, apparently torpedoed and listing to port; Wardle ordered an abandon ship and by11:00 a.m. the list had putAlcantara on its beam ends (on the brink ofcapsizing); it sank with 69 members of the crew.[10] Hotham, inComus, the most northern of the cruisers from Scapa, had seen the signals fromAndes and sailed south in company with the destroyerMunster; he arrived as the action ended, beginning rescue work with the crew of theAlcantara as it sank.Andes had reported a submarine between it and the lifeboats and could not close; after several submarine alarms,Comus andAndes moved closer to the wreck ofGreif and sank it with gunfire; about 220 men of its crew of 360 were rescued.[11]
Four British warships had encounteredGreif which had been sunk; Wardle inAlcantara was later criticised for manoeuvring too close to the raider before properly identifying the ship, which out-gunned his ship. The mistake cost Wardle his vessel and several casualties but he was awarded theDistinguished Service Order and eventually reached the rank ofrear admiral. The swift end to the voyage of theGreif led to the German Admiralty suspending commerce raiding and renewing their emphasis on submarine warfare.[12]
Royal Navy:
German Navy: