 When World War II began in September 1939 , Richard Beitzen was initially deployed in the western Baltic to enforce a blockade of Poland , but she was soon transferred to the Kattegat where she inspected neutral shipping for contraband goods beginning in mid @-@ September as one turbine was not operational . On the night of 12 / 13 December , German destroyers sortied to lay minefields off the British coast . Under the command of Commodore ( Kommodore ) Friedrich Bonte in his flagship Z19 Hermann Künne , Richard Beitzen , Z8 Bruno Heinemann , Z14 Friedrich Ihn , and Z15 Erich Steinbrinck laid 240 mines off the mouth of the River Tyne , where the navigation lights were still lit . The British were unaware of the minefield 's existence and lost eleven ships totaling 18 @,@ 979 gross register tons ( GRT ) . En route home the destroyers were ordered to escort the crippled light cruisers Leipzig and Nürnberg which had been torpedoed by the submarine HMS Salmon while covering the destroyers ' withdrawal . Despite their escort , the submarine HMS Ursula managed to sneak inside the anti @-@ submarine screen and fired a salvo of six torpedoes at Leipzig in the Elbe estuary the following day . Two of the torpedoes struck F9 which sank three minutes later with heavy loss of life , but the other torpedoes missed . 
