the two ships sailed back to Germany, arriving on the morning of 22 July. On the evening of 1 August, the captain announced to the crew that the Kaiser had ordered the navy to prepare for hostilities with the Russian Navy. World War I At the start of World War I, Helgoland was assigned to I Division, I Battle Squadron. Helgoland was stationed off the heavily fortified island of Wangerooge on 9 August. Minefields and picket lines of cruisers, torpedo boats, and submarines were also emplaced there to defend Wilhelmshaven. Helgolands engines were kept running for the entirety of her deployment, so that she would be ready to respond at a moment's notice. Four days later, on 13 August, Helgoland returned to Wilhelmshaven to refuel. The following day, naval reservists began arriving to fill out the wartime complements for the German battleships. The first major naval action in the North Sea, the Battle of Helgoland Bight, took place on 28 August 1914. Helgoland was again stationed off Wangerooge. Despite her proximity to the battle, Helgoland was not sent to aid the beleaguered German cruisers, as she could not be risked in an unsupported attack against possibly superior British forces. Instead, the ship was ordered to drop anchor and await relief by . By 04:30, Helgoland received the order to join and sail out of the harbor. At 05:00, the two battleships met the battered cruisers and . By 07:30, the ships had returned to port for the night. Three days later, on 31 August, Helgoland was put into drydock for maintenance. On the afternoon of 7 September, Helgoland and the rest of the High Seas Fleet conducted a training cruise to the main island of Helgoland. Raid on Scarborough, Hartlepool, and Whitby The first major operation of the war in which Helgoland took part was the raid on Scarborough, Hartlepool and Whitby on 15–16 December 1914. The raid was conducted by the battlecruisers of the I Scouting Group; Helgoland and the other dreadnoughts of the High Seas Fleet steamed in distant support of Franz von Hipper's battlecruisers. Friedrich von Ingenohl, the commander of the High Seas Fleet, decided to take up station in the middle of the North Sea, about 130 miles east of Scarborough. The Royal Navy, which had recently received the German code books captured from the beached cruiser Magdeburg, was aware that an operation was taking place,