The Battle of Kerguelen (Part One) :
Kapitan Sur See Theodor Krancke made the most famous (or infamous) decision of his life , when he decided on 23rd February 1941 to do what Atlantis and Kormoran had failed to do - overwhelm the tiny Anglo-Australian outpost of Kerguelen. At the time, he was being hunted by a Royal Navy task force consisting of HMS Hermes, HMS Capetown, HMS Emerald, HMS Hawkins, HMS Shropshire and HMAS Canberra, which might have forced him to run to the South Atlantic, but instead he went to attack Kerguelen and in so doing changed the course of the war. At the time, HMANB Port Resolution had only one destroyer and three corvettes, four motor torpedo boats and four 12-pounder naval guns in individual shore batteries. RAAF Kerguelen had four Anson maritime recce aircraft, one Hudson torpedo bomber and eight Brewster Buffalo fighters - a pitiful and elderly force backed up by two Catalina.flying boats and three elderly Walrus reconnaissance aircraft. Ashore there were three hundred and five Home Guards, thirty two Royal Marine artillerymen, five old Boer-War vintage Vickers guns, two early-model Stokes trench mortars. and assorted SMLE rifles. Also a sufficiency of ammunition.
A patrolling Anson sighted the Admiral Scheer ten miles north of Kerguelen at dawn on 1st March 1941 and radioed the news back, then had to try to run for it when Krancke ordered an Arado 196 seaplane catapulted off to try to shoot the elderly recce plane down. The Arado nearly did it, but had to turn tail after its first attempt, when two Brewster Buffaloes appeared and shot down the Arado, the two crew parachuting to land on Kerguelen. In the meantime, the Scheer headed east and south round Kerguelen, the AA gunners worrying about torpedo planes, unaware that the Hudson was in a hangar with engine trouble. The first attacks came from the destroyer and MTBs, ambushing Admiral Scheer off Norway Bay, the secondary batteries of the pocket battleship and the AA guns trying to sink the foe before torpedoes could be launched; the destroyer was sunk and two MTBs, the last two MTBs launching four 21-inch torpedoes at the Admiral Scheer. Two torpedoes missed, two hit, one causing minor damage, the other penetrating the armoured belt but causing flooding that was contained by damage control parties. Only one MTB escaped sinking, retreating up Norway Bay as the pocket battleship entered Morbihan Bay, the main turrets rotating as they aimed at RAAF Kerguelen and fired four salvos; the twenty four big shells wrecked two hangars, the fuel tanks, control tower and five aircraft, ere the secondary batteries added their own devastating weight.
Having apparently wrecked the airfield, Admiral Scheer methodically wrecked the Port and silenced the four 12-pounder battery positions before they could fire, then switched targets to the small explosive works and the radio and cable relay stations, shredding them, before levelling the main turrets at the town and sending an officer and armed Marines ashore to negotiate a surrender. The Lieutenant-Governor Sir Henry Lionel Galway had prudently evacuated most of the population to shelter further inland, using his military training (he was a Lieutenant-Colonel) to set up ambush positions in case of a landing.
"My Kapitan requires your surrender and that of Kerguelen, or he will destroy the town, churches and population." The young officer of Marines addressed Galway. "You have five minutes."
"The town is evacuated." Galway told him. "The Admiralty have been contacted by radio and by cable. The longer you stay, the more certain is your destruction. If you try to hunt us ashore, you will find you have roused a nest of hornets. We have hundreds of excellent rifles and snipers. We are also rather good at grenades and land-mines. Please leave. Now. Or I will require your ship to surrender to me." Which reply was to amuse and irritate Krancke.
During the next half-hour, Admiral Scheer levelled the town and Theodor Krancke meditated on the value of landing enough men to defeat Galway, but satisfied himself with sinking an incautious corvette and then headed for the open sea, after an attack that had destroyed Kerguelen as a military asset. But he was faced with the need to stop the flooding and repair his ship, so needed to find somewhere his ship could hide for a day or so; he had wrecked the airfield and the port, so he guessed that Galway, the Navy and the RAAF, had few assets left to trace him. He deliberately took a course northeast towards Isle St.-Paul, where his chart showed a flooded crater; the entrance was shallow, but he meant to double back and use the fjord called 'Baie de Chaleur' at the north west tip of Kerguelen.
Galway had lost most of his naval and air forces, but still had radios to contact his two corvettes, the MTB and the few precious seaplanes and flying boats. Two Buffaloes and two Ansons had been in dispersal shelters and would be able to fly off the repaired runways by nightfall. His advisors had seen the damage to the pocket battleship and considered that Krancke would not get up to full speed without making repairs. Saint-Paul was too shallow to enter and that meant something like the Atlantis trick would have to take place. A coast watcher was flown north in a Walrus and had actually been put in position before Admiral Scheer arrived; he had to skedaddle with his radio when Krancke put Marines ashore to secure the anchorage. He reported what was happening, the dispositions of the Marines and the machine guns and auto cannon with which they held the heights round the Baie de Chaleur fjord.
"The Herr Kapitan Krancke has made a big mistake!" Governor and Lieutenant-Colonel Galway declared. "Whilst he is working on the damage, his ship cannot run from the Royal Navy. The sooner the Indian Ocean Squadron comes, the sooner Admiral Scheer will be a sunken scrapheap. And if we warn him that they are only two days away - or less - he may skimp repairs and leave whilst his ship is unable to reach full speed. We need to do what was done to the Graf Spee..."
The Home Guard Lieutenant who advanced under a white flag was almost shitting in his trousers, but he was not shot and was taken across to the pocket battleship to see Krancke, aware that the ship had been heeled over so that her starboard bilge keel and the damage showed. But he was hustled rapidly aboard and taken to a sea-cabin where Krancke was waiting, to read the message sent to him by Galway.
"'...My advisors tell me that the hull damage will slow Admiral Scheer to a speed at which the Royal Navy can catch you. The longer you remain, the closer they will be. I propose that you scuttle your ship and surrender to the Colony, rather than let your officers and men end up as corpses in a wreck. I remain, mein Herr, your only hope, Lieutenant-Colonel Galway, Governor of the Crown Colony and Territory of Kerguelen...'"
"Alte Teufel!" Krancke swore. "Tell the Herr Governor I hear what he says and will think on it, but not to waste lives - this is a very powerful ship. Now - go!"
The Lieutenant went, still clutching his white truce-flag, leaving Krancke to worry; his radio operators had monitored uncoded messages that announced the exact location of the pocket battleship, obviously a trick of Galway to increase the pressure. Krancke knew the British had two 8-inch and four 6-inch gunned cruisers hunting him, as well as the little carrier HMS Hermes and could call in other vessels in support. He was aware of the odds against him and particularly feared the carrier, so was heartened by a message from agents in Goa that Hermes had been torpedoed and sunk by an Italian submarine. That massively altered the situation and made it worthwhile to finish the repairs.
Kapitan Sur See Theodor Krancke made the most famous (or infamous) decision of his life , when he decided on 23rd February 1941 to do what Atlantis and Kormoran had failed to do - overwhelm the tiny Anglo-Australian outpost of Kerguelen. At the time, he was being hunted by a Royal Navy task force consisting of HMS Hermes, HMS Capetown, HMS Emerald, HMS Hawkins, HMS Shropshire and HMAS Canberra, which might have forced him to run to the South Atlantic, but instead he went to attack Kerguelen and in so doing changed the course of the war. At the time, HMANB Port Resolution had only one destroyer and three corvettes, four motor torpedo boats and four 12-pounder naval guns in individual shore batteries. RAAF Kerguelen had four Anson maritime recce aircraft, one Hudson torpedo bomber and eight Brewster Buffalo fighters - a pitiful and elderly force backed up by two Catalina.flying boats and three elderly Walrus reconnaissance aircraft. Ashore there were three hundred and five Home Guards, thirty two Royal Marine artillerymen, five old Boer-War vintage Vickers guns, two early-model Stokes trench mortars. and assorted SMLE rifles. Also a sufficiency of ammunition.
A patrolling Anson sighted the Admiral Scheer ten miles north of Kerguelen at dawn on 1st March 1941 and radioed the news back, then had to try to run for it when Krancke ordered an Arado 196 seaplane catapulted off to try to shoot the elderly recce plane down. The Arado nearly did it, but had to turn tail after its first attempt, when two Brewster Buffaloes appeared and shot down the Arado, the two crew parachuting to land on Kerguelen. In the meantime, the Scheer headed east and south round Kerguelen, the AA gunners worrying about torpedo planes, unaware that the Hudson was in a hangar with engine trouble. The first attacks came from the destroyer and MTBs, ambushing Admiral Scheer off Norway Bay, the secondary batteries of the pocket battleship and the AA guns trying to sink the foe before torpedoes could be launched; the destroyer was sunk and two MTBs, the last two MTBs launching four 21-inch torpedoes at the Admiral Scheer. Two torpedoes missed, two hit, one causing minor damage, the other penetrating the armoured belt but causing flooding that was contained by damage control parties. Only one MTB escaped sinking, retreating up Norway Bay as the pocket battleship entered Morbihan Bay, the main turrets rotating as they aimed at RAAF Kerguelen and fired four salvos; the twenty four big shells wrecked two hangars, the fuel tanks, control tower and five aircraft, ere the secondary batteries added their own devastating weight.
Having apparently wrecked the airfield, Admiral Scheer methodically wrecked the Port and silenced the four 12-pounder battery positions before they could fire, then switched targets to the small explosive works and the radio and cable relay stations, shredding them, before levelling the main turrets at the town and sending an officer and armed Marines ashore to negotiate a surrender. The Lieutenant-Governor Sir Henry Lionel Galway had prudently evacuated most of the population to shelter further inland, using his military training (he was a Lieutenant-Colonel) to set up ambush positions in case of a landing.
"My Kapitan requires your surrender and that of Kerguelen, or he will destroy the town, churches and population." The young officer of Marines addressed Galway. "You have five minutes."
"The town is evacuated." Galway told him. "The Admiralty have been contacted by radio and by cable. The longer you stay, the more certain is your destruction. If you try to hunt us ashore, you will find you have roused a nest of hornets. We have hundreds of excellent rifles and snipers. We are also rather good at grenades and land-mines. Please leave. Now. Or I will require your ship to surrender to me." Which reply was to amuse and irritate Krancke.
During the next half-hour, Admiral Scheer levelled the town and Theodor Krancke meditated on the value of landing enough men to defeat Galway, but satisfied himself with sinking an incautious corvette and then headed for the open sea, after an attack that had destroyed Kerguelen as a military asset. But he was faced with the need to stop the flooding and repair his ship, so needed to find somewhere his ship could hide for a day or so; he had wrecked the airfield and the port, so he guessed that Galway, the Navy and the RAAF, had few assets left to trace him. He deliberately took a course northeast towards Isle St.-Paul, where his chart showed a flooded crater; the entrance was shallow, but he meant to double back and use the fjord called 'Baie de Chaleur' at the north west tip of Kerguelen.
Galway had lost most of his naval and air forces, but still had radios to contact his two corvettes, the MTB and the few precious seaplanes and flying boats. Two Buffaloes and two Ansons had been in dispersal shelters and would be able to fly off the repaired runways by nightfall. His advisors had seen the damage to the pocket battleship and considered that Krancke would not get up to full speed without making repairs. Saint-Paul was too shallow to enter and that meant something like the Atlantis trick would have to take place. A coast watcher was flown north in a Walrus and had actually been put in position before Admiral Scheer arrived; he had to skedaddle with his radio when Krancke put Marines ashore to secure the anchorage. He reported what was happening, the dispositions of the Marines and the machine guns and auto cannon with which they held the heights round the Baie de Chaleur fjord.
"The Herr Kapitan Krancke has made a big mistake!" Governor and Lieutenant-Colonel Galway declared. "Whilst he is working on the damage, his ship cannot run from the Royal Navy. The sooner the Indian Ocean Squadron comes, the sooner Admiral Scheer will be a sunken scrapheap. And if we warn him that they are only two days away - or less - he may skimp repairs and leave whilst his ship is unable to reach full speed. We need to do what was done to the Graf Spee..."
The Home Guard Lieutenant who advanced under a white flag was almost shitting in his trousers, but he was not shot and was taken across to the pocket battleship to see Krancke, aware that the ship had been heeled over so that her starboard bilge keel and the damage showed. But he was hustled rapidly aboard and taken to a sea-cabin where Krancke was waiting, to read the message sent to him by Galway.
"'...My advisors tell me that the hull damage will slow Admiral Scheer to a speed at which the Royal Navy can catch you. The longer you remain, the closer they will be. I propose that you scuttle your ship and surrender to the Colony, rather than let your officers and men end up as corpses in a wreck. I remain, mein Herr, your only hope, Lieutenant-Colonel Galway, Governor of the Crown Colony and Territory of Kerguelen...'"
"Alte Teufel!" Krancke swore. "Tell the Herr Governor I hear what he says and will think on it, but not to waste lives - this is a very powerful ship. Now - go!"
The Lieutenant went, still clutching his white truce-flag, leaving Krancke to worry; his radio operators had monitored uncoded messages that announced the exact location of the pocket battleship, obviously a trick of Galway to increase the pressure. Krancke knew the British had two 8-inch and four 6-inch gunned cruisers hunting him, as well as the little carrier HMS Hermes and could call in other vessels in support. He was aware of the odds against him and particularly feared the carrier, so was heartened by a message from agents in Goa that Hermes had been torpedoed and sunk by an Italian submarine. That massively altered the situation and made it worthwhile to finish the repairs.
Last edited:
