Meeting on high sea

On February 19 1940, six German destroyers were sent to intercept a number of suspicious British fishing vessels off the Dogger Bank. The destroyers were sailing through a cleared channel between German minefields when a German bomber passed over the flotilla. The plane made no recognition signals, so the ships assumed it was a British reconnaissance plane and opened fire. This was enough to convince the bomber crew the ships were hostile, so the plane made two bombing runs, sinking the destroyer Leberecht Maass. 

As the surviving ships moved in to recover survivors, Max Schultz then exploded and sank after hitting either a British or German mine. Chaos broke out as the rest of the destroyers dashed back and forth between erroneous reports of air and submarine attack. Theodor Riedel began dropping depth charges, the explosions of which jammed her rudder. After half an hour of confusion and mayhem, the surviving ships were ordered to return home. 578 German sailors died in total. 

