The Hinrich Hey (Wreck)

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Surprisingly, it took only four minutes to sink the sturdy steam trawler Hinrich Hey. She had been specially built in Hamburg in 1934 to stand the shocks of fishing amid the ice of Arctic waters, with strengthened hull and an ice-breaker bow, but she could not stand up to torpedoes.

When WW2 broke out, her fishing days were over and she was commandeered by the German Navy, converted into an armed patrol vessel by the addition of an 88mm and 20mm guns, and numbered V210. Based at Saint Malo with the 2nd Patrol Boat Flotilla, she was used mainly as an escort for merchant shipping.

By the end of June 1944, all German shipping along the coast of northern France had orders to sail under cover of darkness because of ever-increasing air attacks. It was a ruling that had the full support of the old reservists and even older fishermen who made up the crews of the German patrol vessels.

On 5 July 1944, following those orders, a convoy of five small ships left Jersey shortly before midnight and headed for St Malo. Hinrich Hey led the way, her sister patrol ship Walter Darre bringing up the rear.
Of the five boats, the Minotaure was carrying 468 slave labourers, mostly Russians, who were forced to work for the Nazis and had been building fortifications in the Channel Islands. Also aboard were some children and a group of French prostitutes. At 1am, when the convoy was some eight miles from St Malo, all hell broke loose.

The German ships had been ambushed by five motor torpedo boats of the 65th Canadian Flotilla, which fired flares to light up the convoy and then launched almost every torpedo they carried. The torpedo explosions were followed by accurate gunfire.

The Hinrich Hey sank immediately. Two minutes later the Walter Darre hit the seabed only 350m away. The fire of the MTBs then concentrated on the Minotaure, which received three direct hits. Her bow was almost blown off, but her captain managed to keep her afloat by going full astern.

Even so, many of those aboard the Minotaure had been killed by the time the Canadians broke off the action and disappeared back into the darkness. In total, more than 250 people had died in just four minutes of action.