The German Navy (Kriegsmarine) had led the invasion of Norway in Operation Weserübung and had lost many ships. Admiral Hipper was in dry dock after being rammed by the British destroyer HMS Glowworm on 8 April. The battleships Scharnhorst and Gneisenau were in dry dock with storm and battle damage after their encounter with HMS Renown at the Action off Lofoten on 9 April. Of the two Deutschland-class heavy cruisers, Lützow had been torpedoed and would be out of action for months and Admiral Scheer was still being refitted. Blücher; one of the two Admiral Hipper-class heavy cruisers, had been sunk on 9 April by the Norwegians during the attack on Oslo.^[1]

After the German invasion of Norway on 9 April 1940, the French and British had begun the Namsos campaign in central Norway and landings in Harstad in northern Norway. Towards the end of May, the Allies evacuated central Norway but had captured the important town of Narvik in northern Norway. German forces under the command of General Eduard Dietl had retreated into the mountains around Narvik and the commander of the Kriegsmarine, Admiral Erich Raeder, ordered the German navy to assist the army in northern Norway.^[2]

No capital ships were available to oppose the Allied landings but at the end of May, a battle group was assembled, comprising the battleships Scharnhorst and Gneisenau which had completed their repairs, the heavy cruiser Admiral Hipper and the destroyers Z20 Karl Galster, Z10 Hans Lody, Z15 Erich Steinbrinck and Z7 Hermann Schoemann. The force was put under the command of Admiral Wilhelm Marschall who received the orders to assist Dietl by attacking the Allies at their naval base in Harstad and by supporting German forces advancing overland to Narvik. To make continuous operations possible, the German force was to operate from Trondheim, where a naval base had been set up.^[3]

The ships departed from Kiel on 4 June and steamed undetected at high speed through the Skagerrak, along the Norwegian coast and into the Arctic. During the night of 6 June two destroyers refuelled from the battleships and on 7 June Admiral Hipper and the two other destroyers refuelled from the replenishment oiler Dithmarschen near Jan Mayen island.^[4][5] In the evening of 7 June Marschall held a conference aboard Gneisenau to organize the attack on Harstad. Air reconnaissance had reported convoys and two carriers steaming westwards but no information about Harstad was available. Marschall suspected the Allied were evacuating Norway and he decided to abandon the attack on Harstad and destroy the convoys. At 05:00 on 8 June, the German ships formed a line abreast in search of the convoys.^[6][7]

At 06:45 Admiral Hipper sighted a tanker and an escorting trawler. The German cruiser sank the escort HMT Juniper with her secondary armament and rescued a survivor. Marschall, aboard Gneisenau, closed in on the scene and Gneisenau shelled the tanker Oil Pioneer (5,666 GRT) which caught fire. The tanker was sunk by a torpedo from Hermann Schoemann, the destroyer rescued eleven survivors but twenty crew were killed. After this engagement, the German ships resumed their position in the patrol line, searching for the convoy. At 08:45 Admiral Hipper and Scharnhorst each launched a Arado Ar 196 reconnaissance floatplane. The airplanes found two ships, but no convoy.^[8][9][10] The first ship was the empty troop transport Orama (19,840 GRT) which was sunk by Admiral Hipper and Hans Lody at 12:10, nineteen members of the crew were killed and 280 men were taken prisoner.^[11][12][a] The second ship was the hospital ship Atlantis which refrained from reporting the attack and the Germans respected its immunity.^[14] Marschall decided to abandon the search for the convoy and ordered Admiral Hipper and the destroyers to Trondheim, to comply with the second part of his operational orders, to support and cover the German troops at Trondheim. The battleships remained in the Arctic and steamed northwards to refuel from Dithmarschen.^[15]

Marshall wanted to operate with the two battleships against ships reported by the B-Dienst section aboard his ship, which had intercepted signals from the carrier HMS Ark Royal and HMS Glorious and the heavy cruiser HMS Southampton.^[16] The weather was excellent with unlimited sight and at 16:45 a lookout at the highest platform on Scharnhorst reported a faint cloud, and upon investigation with the optic rangefinder the top of a mast was noticed at a distance of 46 km. The German battleships gave chase immediately and at 17:13 the Germans identified a carrier, first believed to be Ark Royal and two escorting destroyers, HMS Acasta and Ardent.^[17][18][19]

Sinking of HMS Glorious edit

On the night of 7/8 June, the aircraft carrier Glorious (Captain Guy D'Oyly-Hughes), took on board ten 263 Squadron Royal Air Force (RAF) Gladiator fighters and eight Hurricane fighters of 46 Squadron RAF, the first landing of modern aircraft without arrestor hooks on a carrier. These fighters had flown from land bases to keep them from being destroyed in the evacuation. Glorious was part of a troop convoy headed for Scapa Flow, also including the carrier Ark Royal. In the early hours of 8 June, the captain of Glorious requested permission to proceed independently with her escorting destroyers Acasta and Ardent, at a faster speed because D'Oyly-Hughes was impatient to hold a court-martial of his Commander, Flying, J. B. Heath and Lieutenant Commander Evelyn Slessor.^[20][b]

It has been noted by Beith that Glorious was in a low state of readiness. The crow's nest look-out was not manned, leaving the observation task to the destroyers with much lower observation angles. Only twelve out of 18 boilers were in use, so she could not develop quickly full speed [from 17 kn (31 km/h; 20 mph) to 30 kn (56 km/h; 35 mph)].^[22] Glorious carried seven Hurricanes and ten Gladiators from the RAF along with six Swordfish of 823 Naval Air Squadron and the Sea Gladiators of 802 Naval Air Squadron.^[23] A Swordfish and three Sea Gladiators were at ten minutes' notice below deck but the previous commander always had some aircraft in the air. D'Oyly-Hughes failed to launch aircraft for a Combat Air Patrol around the carrier group, reportedly to give the aircrews a rest.^[24]

While sailing through the Norwegian Sea on 8 June, the carrier, Acasta and Ardent were intercepted by the German battleships Scharnhorst and Gneisenau off Norway at about 69° N, 00° E. The carrier and her escorts were sunk in two hours, roughly 170 nmi (310 km; 200 mi) west of Harstad. As Scharnhorst had turned towards Glorious immediately upon her sighting, without waiting for an explicit instruction from Marschall aboard Gneisenau, Scharnhorst was well ahead of Gneisenau and opened fire first at 17:32 with a salvo from her forward turrets at a distance of 26 km (14 nmi; 16 mi)^[c] After 52 seconds the salvo fell short and then Scharnhorst fired three ranging salvoes with one turret each. Having found the range with the second salvo, impact shooting started with the fourth salvo. Scharnhorst's scored a first hit at 17:38 at the extreme range of 24,000 m (26,000 yd), before Glorious could launch her torpedo-bombers. At 17:46 Gneisenau opened fire with her main battery at Glorious.^[25] The destroyers had begun to make smoke to protect Glorious which was effective at first but receded around 18:20, exposing Glorious again.^[26]

Ardent and Acasta made continual attempts to launch torpedoes at the German ships. At about 18:39, Scharnhorst was hit by one of four torpedoes launched by Acasta; fifty sailors were killed, 2,500 long tons (2,500 t) of water flooded into her and her aft turret was put out of action. Ardent was sunk at around 18:20, having made seven attacks with torpedoes. The approximate sinking position based on last transmission from Glorious is 69°0′N 04°0′E / 69.000°N 4.000°E / 69.000; 4.000.^[27] Marschall, aboard Gneisenau, ordered Scharnhorst to cease wasting ammunition on Glorious. Gneisenau was 4,374 yd (2.160 nmi; 2.485 mi; 4.000 km) closer to Glorious than Scharnhorst.^[28]

Gneisenau and the damaged Scharnhorst made for Trondheim for repairs, where they joined Admiral Hipper and the four destroyers. Between 10 and 12 June Marschall sortied with Gneisenau, Admiral Hipper and the four destroyers; due to a lack of air reconnaissance and the presence of the British fleet he returned to Trondheim.^[29] On 13 June, 15 Fleet Air Arm Skua bombers from Ark Royal attacked Scharnhorst in harbour. One dud bomb struck her for the loss of eight Skuas.^[30] After emergency repairs in Trondheim of the torpedo damage, Scharnhorst departed for Germany escorted by the four destroyers, reaching Kiel on 23 June to go into dry dock. To cover the withdrawal of Scharnhorst, Marshall sortied with Gneisenau and Admiral Hipper from Trondheim on 20 June but Gneisenau was torpedoed and damaged in the bows by the British submarine HMS Clyde.^[31] Scharnhorst and Gneisenau remained under repair until the end of 1940.^[32]

Casualties edit

Due to their exposed position, the German ships were not able to stop to rescue survivors of any of the ships. Thirty-three officers were killed and another forty-two were missing in Glorious, seventy-two ratings killed or died of wounds and 865 were missing. Nineteen Royal Marines were killed and eighty missing; a Maltese rating was killed and another thirty missing along with six NAAFI staff. Five RAF personnel were killed and thirty-six were missing and eighteen RAF pilots of 46 Squadron and 263 Squadron were killed or missing; the total number of men killed or missing in Glorious was 1,207. Acasta suffered two officers killed and six missing, twelve ratings killed or died of wounds and 139 ratings missing and one NAAFI staff member missing, a total of 160 killed or missing. In Ardent ten officers were missing presumed killed, two ratings were killed or died of wounds and 139 ratings and one NAAFI staff member were missing, for a total of 152 killed or missing. Casualties for all three ships was 1,519 killed or missing.^[33] There were 45 survivors, the survivor from Acasta was rescued by the Norwegian steam merchant ship Borgund which also saved 38 men from one of Glorious' lifeboats. The men saved by Borgund were set ashore at Tórshavn in the Faroe Islands on 14 June. The steamship Svalbard II took four survivors and one man who had died of wounds to Norway, thence to prison camps in Germany.^[34]

• List of Kriegsmarine ships
• List of classes of British ships of World War II

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• Destruction of Glorious
• The Tragedy of H.M.S. Glorious, H.M.S. Ardent and H.M.S. Acasta