THE BATTLE OF NORTH CAPE - 26 DECEMBER 1943

From the beginning of November to the middle of December 1943, no less than 3 eastbound and 2 westbound Arctic convoys reached their destinations without loss, and Admiral Dönitz came under increasing pressure to order a sortie by one of German's few remaining heavy surface units to interrupt the flow of war supplies to Russia.

Earlier in 1943, after the humiliating defeat in the Battle of the Barents Sea, Hitler had told his admirals that their Navy was "utterly useless". He wanted all the heavy ships scrapped, and their guns removed for use as coastal defences; Admiral Raeder, C-in-C of the Kriegsmarine, resigned, and was replaced by Admiral Dönitz, who was able to persuade Hitler to allow him to deploy a number of heavy units to northern Norway to operate against Russia-bound convoys.

(Nevertheless, heavy cruiser Admiral Scheer was decommissioned early in 1943 for use as a training ship, heavy cruiser Admiral Hipper was decommissioned April and her sister Prinz Eugen in May. Battlecruiser Gneisenau had been decommissioned in May 1942 and was removed from service entirely in July 1943.)

Battleship Tirpitz, who had spent the winter of 1942-43 in Loo Fjord, moved to Bow Beight in March 1943 then to Kå Fjord and finally to Narvik, where she arrived on 12 March.

Heavy cruiser Lützow and one destroyer moved from Kå Fjord to Narvik on 10-11 March, and on 12 March battlecruiser Scharnhorst and 3 destroyers arrived at Narvik from Kiel.

By 24 March the Northern Force had concentrated at Altafjord, and comprised Tirpitz, Scharbnhorst, Lützow and 7 destroyers. The heavy units did little in the ensuing months apart from a raid on the Allied base at Spitzbergen on 6-7 September, then on 22 September an attack by midget submarines left Tirpitz crippled at her moorings.

On 25 September Lützow departed for a refit in Germany, leaving only Scharnhorst and 5 destroyers in the Northern Force.

Nevertheless, during a conference ay Hitler's Wolfsschanze headquarters on 19 December, Dönitz informed the Führer that "Scharnhorst will attack the next Allied convoy headed from England to Russia." A week later Scharnhorst lay at the bottom the Barents Sea.

On the evening of Christmas Day, the battlecruiser sailed from Langefjord with the destroyers Z.29, Z.30, Z.33, Z.34 and Z.38. Her mission was to attack the Russia-bound convoy JW55B and the returning convoy RA55A.

However, unknown to the Germans, British Intelligence was intercepting and deciphering German signals, and within hours of Scharnhorst sailing her departure had been signaled to Admiral Sir Bruce Fraser, C-in-C Home Fleet. Fraser, therefore had plenty of time to deploy his available forces to prevent the Germans from intercepting either of the convoys.

JW55B of 19 ships departed Loch Ewe on 20 December with a close escort of old destroyers HMS Whitehall and HMS Westcott, minesweeper HMS Gleaner and corvettes HMS Honeysuckle and HMS Oxlip. Its "fighting destroyer escort" comprised HM Ships Onslow (Leader), Onslaught, Orwell, Impulsive and Scourge and HMC Ships Haida, Huron and Iroquois. It was covered by Fraser's Force 1 from Scapa Flow, comprising the battle HMS Duke of York, light cruiser HMS Jamaica, and destroyers HM Ships Matchless, Musketeer (Leader), Opportune, Saumarez, Savage, Scorpion and Virago and the Norwegian destroyer Stord.
RA55A, which departed Murmansk on 22 December, had a close escort of one minesweeper, HMS Seagull, and two corvettes, HMS Dianella and HMS Poppy, and a fighting destroyer escort of HM Ships Milne (Leader), Ashanti, Beagle, Meteor and Westcott and HMCS Athabaskan. It was covered by Vice-Admiral R.B. Burnett's Force 2, comprising the heavy cruiser HMS Norfolk and the light cruisers HMS Belfast (Flag) and HMS Sheffield, which departed Murmansk on 23 December.

As soon as the German ships cleared Langefjord they ran into the full force of a westerly gale, and the German commander, Rear-Admiral Bey, signaled Berlin that in the heavy weather prevailing his destroyers would have little fighting value and asked if the operation should proceed. Dönitz replied that only the man in the spot could decide; Bey, knowing what was at stake not only on the Eastern Front but in Berlin, opted to continue with the mission.

Shortly before 0400 on 26 December, Scharnhorst was heading north at the best speed the battered destroyers could maintain. Convoy JW55B was some 120 nautical miles to the northwest, heading northeast. Only 100 miles northeast of the Germans, and heading west on an interception course, was Burnett's cruiser force, while Duke of York was 260 miles to the west-southwest and heading east-northeast at best speed.

At 0630, as a precautionary measure, JW55B altered 30 degrees to port, almost to north. An hour later, with no contact with his target (the convoy was still some 50 miles to the northwest), Bey ordered his destroyers to fan out in a search pattern from southwest through west to northwest.

It was still dark at 0924 when without warning from either of Scharnhorst's radars, Bey found himself illuminated by starshells bursting overhead. They were from Belfast, who had picked up Scharnhorst on her radar at 0840 at a distance of 30 miles; Burnett knew that his task was to fight a holding action to both keep Scharnhorst away from JW55B and prevent her from escaping before Duke of York arrived.

He achieved both tasks admirably.

The starshells from Belfast were followed within seconds by 8-inch shells from Norfolk, and in less than 2 minutes the forward fire-control director and radar in Scharnhorst had been knocked out of action. Unable to see his enemy, Bey increased to full speed and swung away to the south, and in the heavy seas was able to move out of range. Admiral Burnett was too battle-wise to allow his cruisers to be drawn away from the convoy in pursuit, and confidently predicted that Scharnhorst would be back. Within 3 hours his prediction proved correct.

Had Bey maintained his southerly course and headed for base he would have got clean away, but he decided instead to use his speed advantage to circle around to the eastward of the British cruisers and still get at the convoy. At this stage a breakdown communications with the destroyers led to their getting so far detached that they were to play no part in subsequent events.

Burnett's cruisers had been joined by destroyers Matchless, Musketeer, Opportune and Virago when, at 1205, Belfast's radar detected Scharnhost to the east. This time the battlecruiser made a more determined effort to break through to the convoy, and the range came down to only 11,000 yards as 11-inch shells bracketed the British cruisers and Norfolk was hit several times. The four destroyers moved out to carry out a torpedo attack to take the pressure off the cruisers, but were unable to get within torpedo range.

While unable to seriously damage Scharnhorst, Burnett's ships succeeded in one vital aspect: they absorbed the German's total attention, allowing Duke of York to close the battlecruiser from her port quarter completely undetected.

The British battleship made radar contact with Scharnhorst at 1615 at a range of 23 miles, and had plenty of time to manoeuvre into a favourable attacking position. At 1650 starshell again burst above Scharnhorst, and at the same time Duke of York opened fire, obtaining a hit abreast the battlecruiser's foremost turret almost at once.

Once again Scharnhorst tried to break away, but this time she was unable to open the range as the heavy seas evened out the nominal 4-knot difference in the two ships' top speeds. The cruisers were left behind as the two big ships traded salvoes at a range of 17,000 to 20,000 yards, then a fortuitous 14-inch hit damaged one of Scharnhorst's propeller shafts, causing her to lose speed slightly. Noticing this, Fraser ordered his 4 destroyers to try to slow her further with a torpedo attack.

Painfully slowly the destroyers gained on the battlecruiser, whipping and shuddering as they plunged through the waves and buried themselves in clouds of spray. Saumarez and Savage moved out to Scharnhorst's port quarter, while Scorpion and the Norwegian Stord approached from the starboard quarter. Saumarez and Savage came under heavy fire from the battlecruiser's secondary battery of 5.9-inch guns, and while most of the shooting was wild Saumarez took one hit which killed 11 men.
Scorpion and Stord, meanwhile, managed to close to 3000 yards and launched their torpedoes; at least one of Scorpion's torpedoes hit, and Scharnhorst turned away, straight into the salvoes from Saumarez and Savage. Three more torpedoes slammed into the battlecruiser, and her speed fell away.

Scharnhorst was now being pounded by Duke of York and Jamaica from one side and Belfast from the other, firing at the dull smoky glow that was all that anyone could make out in the gloom. When it was clear to Fraser that the battlecruiser's big guns were silent and she was almost dead in the water he ordered Belfast and Jamaica to launch more torpedoes. They scored two more hits, then Burnett's four destroyers moved in to administer the coup-de-grâce with 6 more torpedoes.

At 1945 a heavy underwater explosion and the disappearance of the glowing center of the smoke cloud that was Scharnhorst marked her end.

There were only 36 survivors from her crew of almost 2000.