Battle of Audierne Bay

Part of Battle of the Atlantic, Invasion of Normandy

6-inch guns of HMS Mauritius firing during the action in Audierne Bay 23 August 1944

Date	23 August 1944
Location	Bay of Audierne between Brest and Lorient, France
Result	Allied victory

Belligerents

United Kingdom

Canada

Germany

Commanders and leaders

William Davis

Unknown

Strength

1 cruiser
2 destroyers

10 armed ships

Casualties and losses

None

8 ships sunk

The Battle of the Audierne Bay took place on 23 August 1944 and was an engagement between German and Allied naval flotillas. Three Allied warships, which had already established control off the coast of Brittany and were lurking off Audierne south of the invested fortress of Brest, intercepted and sank eight German vessels of an armed convoy. This was the conclusion of Operation Kinetic; an allied plan to intercept shipping and hinder Germans besieged at Brest.

By 11 August, the Mortain counter-offensive had ground to a halt. To the east, US forces took Argentan on 13 August while British and Canadian forces closed in toward Falaise from the north, thus initiating the drive to encircle and destroy two German armies inside the Falaise Pocket. As the siege of the Breton ports continued, the focus of the war was quickly shifting further east.

Operation Kinetic had been set up by the Royal Navy Command Headquarters; the objective of which was to eliminate the German navy all along the French Atlantic ports. Of three Forces of Kinetic - Force 27 under the command of William Davis, consisting of the light cruiser HMS Mauritius and the destroyers HMS Ursa and HMCS Iroquois, departed Plymouth on 13 August to carry out a new patrol along the central section of the Biscay coast. With the Germans under the command of Marinegruppenkommando West on the move to evacuate by sea, the ongoing Kinetic had already scored two successes and was finalizing for the naval offensive in the Bay of Biscay to complete the success.

On the night of 22/23 August, under orders from naval intelligence the cruiser HMS Mauritius and the destroyers HMCS Iroquois and HMS Ursa were patrolling Audierne Bay between Brest and Lorient and radar soon picked up a large contact heading towards them.

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