Battle of North Cape
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| Battle of the North Cape | |||||||
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| Part of World War II | |||||||
 Scharnhorst |
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| Combatants | |||||||
 Nazi Germany |
 United Kingdom |
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| Commanders | |||||||
| Erich Bey† | Bruce Fraser | ||||||
| Strength | |||||||
| 1 battleship 5 destroyers |
1 battleship 1 heavy cruiser 3 light cruisers 9 destroyers |
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| Casualties | |||||||
| 1 battleship sunk | 1 battleship lightly damaged 1 heavy cruiser lightly damaged 1 light cruiser lightly damaged 1 destroyer lightly damaged |
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| Atlantic Campaign |
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| River Plate – Altmark – SC-7 – HX-84 – HX-106 – Berlin – Denmark Strait – Bismarck – Mediterranean – Channel Dash – St. Lawrence – Laconia – PQ-17 – Barents Sea – North Cape |
In the World War II naval Battle of the North Cape, ships of the British Royal Navy sank the German light battleship Scharnhorst off Norway's North Cape on December 26, 1943. It may be the northernmost naval battle in history.
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[edit] Background
Operation Ostfront was an attempt by the Kriegsmarine to intercept the Russia-bound Arctic convoy JW 55B. The convoy, sighted three days before by a Luftwaffe aircraft, consisted of nineteen cargo vessels, escorted by the destroyers HMS Onslow, HMS Onslaught, HMS Orwell, HMS Scourage, HMS Impulse, HMCS Haida, HMCS Huron, and HMCS Iroquois, and the minesweeper HMS Gleaner.
On 25 December 1943, the German battleship Scharnhorst (Captain Fritz Hintze) with the Narvik class destroyers Z 29, Z 30, Z 33, Z 34, and Z 38 left Norway's Alta Fjord under the overall command of Konteradmiral (Rear Admiral) Erich Bey.
Also in the area was convoy RA 55A, returning to the United Kingdom from Russia. RA 55A consisted of 22 cargo ships, escorted by the destroyers HMS Musketeer, HMS Opportune, HMS Virago, HMS Matchless, HMS Milne, HMS Meteor, HMS Ashanti, HMCS Athabascan, and the minesweeper HMS Seagull.
Unknown to the Germans was the presence in the area of major Royal Navy forces. Force 1, under Rear Admiral Robert Burnett, comprising the cruisers HMS Norfolk, HMS Belfast, and HMS Sheffield, was nearby. Force 2 commanded by Admiral Sir Bruce Fraser, consisting of the modern battleship Duke of York, the cruiser HMS Jamaica, and the S-class destroyers HMS Savage, HMS Scorpion, HMS Saumarez, HMS Sword and HNoMS Stord of the Royal Norwegian Navy, was trailing the convoy at a considerable distance.
[edit] Battle
The following day, in poor weather and heavy seas and with only minimal Luftwaffe reconnaissance to aid him, Rear Admiral Bey was unable to locate the convoy. Thinking he had overshot the enemy, he detached his destroyers and sent them southward in an attempt to increase the effective search area. Admiral Fraser, anticipating a German attack, had diverted the convoy northward, out of the area in which it was expected.
The now unescorted Scharnhorst encountered Burnett's cruisers shortly after 09:00 hours. At a distance of nearly 13,000 yards, the British cruisers opened fire and Scharnhorst responded with her own salvoes. While no hits were scored on the cruisers, the German battleship was struck twice, one shell destroying the radar controls, leaving Scharnhorst virtually blind in a mounting snowstorm. Without radar, gunners aboard the battleship were forced to aim at the enemy's muzzle flashes. This was made more difficult because two of the British cruisers were using a new flashless powder, leaving Norfolk the relatively easier target. Bey, now outgunned and believing he had engaged a battleship, turned south in an attempt to distance himself from the pursuers.
Once he believed he had shaken off his pursuers, Bey turned north-east in an attempt to circle round them. Shortly after noon, the cruisers were encountered once again. As the opposing forces exchanged fire, Scharnhorst scored hits on Norfolk, disabling a turret and her radar. Following this exchange, Bey decided to return to port in Scharnhorst, while he ordered the destroyers to attack the convoy at a position reported by a U-Boat. The reported position was out of date and the destroyers missed the convoy.
Scharnhorst ran south for several hours. Burnett pursued, but both Sheffield and Norfolk suffered engine problems and dropped back. The lack of working radar aboard Scharnhorst prevented the Germans from taking advantage of the situation. Meanwhile, the Duke of York, with her four destroyers already pressing ahead to try and get into torpedo launching positions, had picked up Scharnhorst on radar at 16:15 and was manoevering to bring her full broadside to bear.
At 16:48, Belfast fired starshell to illuminate Scharnhorst. The battlecruiser was clearly visible from Duke of York, with her turrets trained fore and aft. Duke of York opened fire at a range of 11,920 yards. Scharnhort's foremost turret ("Anton") was almost immediately disabled, and another salvo destroyed the ship's aeroplane hangar. Bey turned north, but was engaged by the cruisers Norfolk and Belfast, and turned east at full speed.
Although Bey was able to put some more distance between Scharnhorst and the British ships and scored two hits on the Duke of York, his ship's fortunes turned at 18:20 hours when a shell pierced her armour belt and destroyed the number 1 boiler room. Scharnhorst's speed dropped to only 22 knots, and she was now vulnerable to the attacks of the destroyers. Five minutes later, Bey sent his final radio message to the German naval command: "We will fight on until the last shell is fired" (Claasen, 232).
At 18:50 hours, Scharnhorst turned to starboard to engage the destroyers Savage and Saumarez, but this allowed Scorpion and the Norwegian destroyer Stord to attack, scoring one hit on the starboard side. As Scharnhorst continued to turn to avoid the torpedoes, Savage and Saumarez scored three hits on her port side. Saumarez was hit several times by Scharnhorst's secondary artillery and had eleven killed and eleven wounded.
Despite the torpedo hits, the battlecruiser still maintained a speed of 20 knots. Now however, with Scharnhorst illuminated by starshells "hanging over her like a chandelier", Duke of York and Jamaica resumed fire, at a range of only 10,400 yards. At 19:15, Belfast joined in from the north. The British vessels subjected the German ship to a deluge of shells, and the cruisers Jamaica and Belfast fired their remaining torpedoes at the slowing target. Scharnhorst's end came when the British destroyers Opportune, Virago, Musketeer and Matchless fired a further nineteen torpedoes at her. Wracked with hits and unable to flee, Scharnhorst finally capsized and sank at 19:45 hours on 26 December, her propellers still turning, at an estimated position of 72 degrees 16 minutes north latitude, 28 degrees 41 minutes east longitude. She was actually identified and filmed at N72 31, E28 15. Of her total complement of 1,968, only 36 were pulled from the frigid waters, 30 by Scorpion and 6 by Matchless. Neither Rear Admiral Bey nor Captain Hintze were among those rescued, although they both were reported seen in the water after the ship sank.
[edit] Aftermath
Later in the evening of December 26 Admiral Fraser briefed his officers on board Duke of York: "Gentlemen, the battle against Scharnhorst has ended in victory for us. I hope that if any of you are ever called upon to lead a ship into action against an opponent many times superior, you will command your ship as gallantly as Scharnhorst was commanded today".
The loss of Scharnhorst demonstrated the vital importance of radar in modern naval warfare. While the battleship should have been able to outgun all of her opponents (save the Duke of York), the early loss of radar-assisted fire control combined with the problem of inclement weather left her at a significant disadvantage. In the aftermath of the battle, the Kriegsmarine commander Großadmiral Dönitz remarked, "Surface ships are no longer able to fight without effective radar equipment" (Claasen, 233).
Stord and Scorpion fired their torpedoes from an easterly direction. Stord fired her eight torpedoes as she was about 1,500 yards from Scharnhorst, while also firing with her guns and scoring hits. After the battle Admiral Fraser sent the following message to the Admiralty: "... Please convey to the C-in-C Norwegian Navy. Stord played a very daring role in the fight and I am very proud of her...". In an interview in The Evening News on 5 February 1944 the commanding officer of HMS Duke of York (Captain Guy Russell) said: "... the Norwegian destroyer Stord carried out the most daring attack of the whole action...".
[edit] References
- Claasen, A.R.A. Hitler's Northern War: The Luftwaffe's Ill-Fated Campaign, 1940-1945. Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 2001. pp 228-233. ISBN 0-7006-1050-2
- Fritz-Otto Busch, The Sinking of the Scharnhorst (Robert Hale, LTD., London, 1956), ISBN 0-86007-130-8, the story of the Battle of North Cape and the final battle as told by a Scharnhorst survivor.
- Donald MacIntyre, The Naval War against Hitler (Willmer Bros. Birkenhead, 1971), ISBN 0-7134-1172-4
