Northern Patrol

The Northern Patrol also known as Cruiser Force B and the Northern Patrol Force was an operation of the British Royal Navy during the First World War and Second World War. The Patrol was part of the British "distant" blockade of Germany. Its main task was to prevent trade to and from Germany by checking merchant ships and their cargoes. It was also to stop German warships, raiders and other German naval ships from leaving the North Sea for the Atlantic Ocean or entering the North Sea from the Atlantic, protect Shetland against invasion and to gather intelligence from intercepted neutral ships.[1]

Northern Patrol
Active1904–1917, 1939–1941
Country United Kingdom
Branch Royal Navy
TypeNaval Force
Garrison/HQScapa Flow

First World War

In 1904, ten years before the start of the First World War, the British naval War Plan saw Germany as the main potential enemy. The War Plan included a distant naval blockade to cut trade to and from Germany, including goods carried in neutral vessels. In case of war with Germany, a special naval force was to patrol the sea routes between the north of Scotland and Norway and intercept traffic from the Atlantic into the North Sea. The force was named Cruiser Force B or the Northern Patrol Force and operated under the authority of the commander of the Grand Fleet in the First World War and the Home Fleet in the Second World War . It was to operate from Scapa Flow in the Orkney Islands.[1] The force was later renamed the 10th Cruiser Squadron. The Admiral Commanding, Orkneys and Shetlands was established at the outbreak of hostilities in 1914 to run the Grand Fleet's principal base at Scapa Flow, which included the local defence forces for the base. The Northern Patrol operated within this command but its relationship to this shore command is unclear.[2]

Diagram of an Edgar class cruiser (Brasseys 1897)

By 1914 the Northern Patrol was to comprise eight Edgar class cruisers from the reserve fleet, some of the oldest in the Navy, to be augmented with armed merchant cruisers as soon as suitable merchant vessels had been converted.[3] With war between Great Britain and Germany expected to break out any moment, the 10th Cruiser Squadron was mobilised on 1 August 1914 under the command of Rear-Admiral Dudley de Chair. The first cruisers arrived at their Scapa base on 6 August 1914, two days after Britain declared war on Germany; operations started on 9 August 1914.[4] At first the area to be patrolled was from the Shetland Isles eastwards to the Norwegian coast and southwards to Scotland.[5]

The Edgars were poor sea-keepers and with old and unreliable engines were soon found unsuitable for operations with the Northern Patrol.[6] In mid-August 1914 the first armed merchant cruiser started operations with the Northern Patrol and soon enough AMCs were available to recall the surviving seven Edgars (HMS Hawke had been lost in October 1914) on 20 November 1914.[7] The AMCs had better sea-keeping and more reliable machinery than the Edgars and provided their crews with far more comfortable quarters.[8] Later, armed trawlers were added to the force and warships from the Grand Fleet or other commands were sometimes temporarily attached to the patrol.

Admiral De Chair was replaced early in 1916 by Rear-Admiral (later Vice-Admiral) Reginald Tupper.[9] Tupper commanded the 10th Cruiser Squadron until it was abolished in November 1917. By then the entry of the United States, the main source of contraband, in the war drastically reduced the need for the blockade. The ships of the force were reassigned to convoy and anti-submarine work.[10]

The ships of the Northern Patrol inspected almost 13,000 merchant vessels at sea. Only 642 ships managed to penetrate the blockade without being inspected. The force lost one cruiser and ten AMCs. The blockade is generally considered to have been one of the main causes of the defeat of Germany in the First World War.[11]

Rear-Admiral Commanding
RankFlagNameTerm
Rear-Admiral Commanding, Northern Patrol[12]
1Rear-AdmiralSir Dudley de ChairAugust 1914 – March 1916
2Rear-AdmiralSir Reginald TupperMarch 1916 – December 1917

Components
Distribution of the Northern Patrol, 1914–1917
UnitDateNotes
110th Cruiser SquadronAugust 1914 – December 191723–24 Ships (armed merchant cruisers)[13][14]

Second World War

The Northern Patrol was re-established on 6 September 1939, three days after the start of the Second World War. Its area of operations was more extensive than during the First World War and included the areas north of Scotland and Ireland, between the north of Scotland and Norway, around Shetland, the Faeroe Islands and Iceland and the Denmark Strait, between Iceland and Greenland.[15]

As in the First World War, older cruisers from the reserve fleet made up the original units of the new Northern Patrol, four C-class and four D-class light cruisers, with the heavy cruiser Effingham as flagship and for a short time the two light cruisers of the E-class; Armed merchant cruisers soon replaced those.[16] As in the First World War, warships from the Home Fleet or other commands were sometimes temporarily attached to the Northern Patrol.[17] The force continued to operate within the Orkneys and Shetlands Command but was not under the admiral commanding.[18]

Rear-Admiral/Vice-Admiral Commanding
RankFlagNameTerm
Rear-Admiral/Vice-Admiral Commanding, Northern Patrol[19][20][21]
1Vice-AdmiralSir Max HortonSeptember 1939 – January 1940
2Vice-AdmiralAllen HuntJanuary–July 1940
3Rear-AdmiralErnest SpoonerJuly–September 1940

Components
Distribution of the Northern Patrol 1939–1945
UnitDateNotes[22]
17th Cruiser SquadronSeptember–December 1939
212th Cruiser SquadronSeptember – 3 October 1939re-titled 11th Cruiser Squadron
311th Cruiser Squadron3 October 1939 – January 1940

Note: These squadrons were supplemented and then replaced by armed merchant cruisers which operated until dispersed or sent to other duties between 1940 and 1941.

See also

References
  1. Hampshire 1980, p. 17.
  2. Watson, Graham (27 October 2015). "The Home Commands". naval-history.net. Naval History. Retrieved 31 October 2016.
  3. Hampshire 1980, pp. 18, 35.
  4. Hampshire 1980, p. 21.
  5. Halpern 1995, p. 48.
  6. Hampshire 1980, p. 32.
  7. Hampshire 1980, p. 34.
  8. Hampshire 1980, pp. 38–39.
  9. Hampshire 1980, p. 71.
  10. Hampshire 1980, pp. 86–87.
  11. Hampshire 1980, pp. 87–88.
  12. Harley, Tony; Lovell, Simon, eds. (15 July 2016). "Northern Patrol". dreadnoughtproject.org. The Dreadnought Project. Retrieved 31 October 2016.
  13. Watson, Dr Graham (27 October 2015). "Royal Navy Organisation and Ship Deployment, Inter-War Years 1914–1918". www.naval-history.net. Gordon Smith. Retrieved 27 February 2018.
  14. Watson, Dr Graham (11 July 2015). "Tenth Cruiser Squadron, Northern Patrol of the Grand Fleet, 1914–1917". www.naval-history.net. Gordon Smith. Retrieved 16 February 2018.
  15. Hampshire 1980, p. 93.
  16. Hampshire 1980, pp. 88–89.
  17. Hampshire 1980, p. 107.
  18. Watson, Graham (19 September 2015). "Major Wartime Shore Commands". naval-history.net. Naval History. Retrieved 31 October 2016.
  19. TNL 1913, p. 87.
  20. Watson, Graham (19 September 2015). "Major Wartime Shore Commands". naval-history.net. Naval History. Retrieved 31 October 2016.
  21. Bruce & Cogar 2014, p. 181.
  22. Watson, Dr Graham (19 September 2015). "Royal Navy Organisation in World War 2, 1939–1945". www.naval-history.net. Gordon Smith. Retrieved 27 February 2018.

Bibliography
  • Bruce, Anthony; Cogar, William (2014). Encyclopedia of Naval History. Hoboken: Routledge. ISBN 978-1-135-93534-4.
  • "Flag Officers – Vice Admirals". The Navy List. HMSO. October 1913. p. 87. OCLC 59612682.
  • Hampshire, A. Cecil (1980). The Blockaders. London: William Kimber. ISBN 0-7183-0227-3.
  • Halpern, P. G. (1995) [1994]. A Naval History of World War I (pbk. UCL Press, London ed.). Annapolis: Naval Institute Press. ISBN 1-85728-498-4.

Further reading
  • Bell, A. C. (2015) [1937]. A History of the Blockade of Germany and of the Countries Associated with Her in the Great War: Austria-Hungary, Bulgaria, and Turkey 1914–1918. History of the Great War based on official documents by direction of the Historical Section of the Committee of Imperial Defence (facs. repr. The Naval & Military Press and the Imperial War Museum, Department of Printed Books ed.). London: HMSO. ISBN 978-1-84734-102-0. Completed in 1921 as The Blockade of the Central Empires 1914–1921, published marked "Confidential" in 1937 with new title
  • Massie, Robert K. (2003). Castles of Steel: Britain, Germany and the Winning of the Great War at Sea. London: Pimlico. ISBN 978-1-84413-411-3.

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