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.