 When Bacon heard about the raid , he sent six Tribal @-@ class destroyers — HMS Amazon , Mohawk , Viking , Tartar , Cossack and Nubian — to engage the Germans . Due to a misinterpretation of his orders , the British commander of the destroyer division — Commander Henry Oliphant of the Viking — deployed his destroyers in two loose groups , one consisting of Viking , Mohawk , and Tartar and the other Nubian , Amazon and Cossack . Nubian soon steamed far ahead of her group and was the first vessel to reach the scene of Flirt 's sinking . Another half @-@ flotilla of German boats had caught the empty British transport Queen off Goodwin Sands as it returned from the French coast , boarded it and removed her crew before sinking her . 
