German newspaper accounts variously claimed one or four British cruisers, while the official account credited the torpedo boats with sinking two new cruisers. The Admiralty answered by identifying the vessels as the 10th Minesweeping Flotilla. The Royal Navy nevertheless sent the Battle Cruiser Fleet, the 5th Cruiser Division, other Grand Fleet elements, and the Harwich Force southward. Those formations found no German light forces to engage. On the return journey, HMS Arethusa struck a mine laid by a German submarine and was lost. The operation therefore produced an actual British cruiser casualty, though it did not occur in the surface action described by the German claims.
Notable Point · 10:12-11:42
German cruiser claims and the loss of HMS Arethusa
German accounts claimed between one and four cruisers, while the British response sortie later lost the real cruiser HMS Arethusa to a mine.