Konstam - The Battle of the North Cape: The Death Ride of the Scharnhorst, 1943

Maps

Illustrations

All images are copyright of the Stratford Archive, unless noted otherwise.

The Scharnhorst , pictured from the deck of her sister ship the Gneisenau

This naval battle, fought to a grim conclusion amid dark and stormy water off the northern tip of Norway, was a struggle that has all but been forgotten. It was the climax of a long and hard-fought naval campaign, which for various reasons, has been largely bypassed by historians in their eagerness to recount more dramatic tales of war-fare. However, the Battle of North Cape was an engagement that deserves to be placed among the truly decisive naval encounters of the Second World War. In its way it was every bit as important as the great carrier battles fought out in the Pacific, and probably of greater strategic significance than the sinking of the Bismark or the Graf Spee . This book is a humble attempt to raise awareness of the events that led to the sinking of Germanys last operational capital warship, and to honour the men of both sides who fought and died in those bleak, freezing waters almost two-thirds of a century ago.

Introduction

The Battle of North Cape was a naval struggle the like of which was never seen again. While the commanders of both sides embraced, or at least made use of, the new technologies of naval warfare aircraft, submarines, radar and electronic surveillance this was still a battle fought in the old style: a duel to the death using guns and torpedoes, fired or launched by surface warships. It was the last naval battle fought using these tools of surface combat alone, aclash of battleships, those long-departed gun-armed titans of the seas. In fact, the Battle of North Cape was a naval clash that invokes many superlatives. It was the last naval engagement in history involving a major unit of the German Kriegsmarine. It was one of the first where search radar and radar fire control played a major part in the outcome. Above all, it was a strategic victory that ensured the continued supply of the Soviet war effort. That winter the Red Army was preparing for a new offensive, which, in the following year, would take it to the borders of Hitlers Germany. Each convoy carried the equivalent of an armoured corps, and every ship that made it safely to Murmansk would help tip the balance in favour of the Allied cause.

One other important factor set the battle apart. It was highly unusual to fight a major naval engagement in the Arctic twilight, or during the darkness that falls within two hours of noon. This spectacular naval clash was fought to a conclusion in the pitch dark, or at least in a dim twilight, and in seas so mountainous that the small destroyers were in as much danger of succumbing to the elements as they were to German shells. Then there was the cold the freezing, all-pervading icy cold, which tested the endurance of sailors of both sides as they manned their deck guns or lookout positions. Worse still, this was a fight to the death, the inevitable consequence being that those sailors who managed to escape from their burning, sinking ship were pitched into the freezing waters of the Barents Sea. For them, their chances of survival were slim.

Those sailors of both sides who survived the battle have tried to recount their experiences as best they could, and many of these accounts have been woven into the narrative of this book. Mere words could hardly express the sheer desperate horror of watching your shipmates maimed beside you, or drifting in the freezing oil-covered water with little hope of rescue, and with consciousness slipping away. This book can only capture a fragment of what these young men experienced. And the word young is an important one. The average age of the men who survived the sinking of the Scharnhorst was just twenty-one. Many of the crews of the British, Canadian and Polish warships that took part in the battle were equally youthful, although many had already experienced the harsh realities of naval warfare. For the most part they were commanded by junior officers and senior ratings little older themselves, although on both sides the more senior officers and ratings were battle-hardened men of experience, capable of imbuing their young subordinates with the professionalism for which the navies of both sides were renowned.

Then there were the admirals the men whose decisions set events in motion that would lead to this clash of titans, and on whose shoulders rested the responsibility for so many lives. Admiral Bruce Fraser and Konter-Admiral Heinrich Bey were the men who fought what was ultimately a very personal naval duel, albeit one involving ships, aircraft and submarines rather than pistols or swords. These two men were very different, but each carried with him the weight of naval tradition, and the aspirations and objectives of their Service. Of the two, Bey was the most hamstrung. While he maintained full operational control over his Battlegroup, he was still expected to follow the orders of his superiors Generaladmiral Schniewind in Kiel, and Grossadmiral Dnitz in Berlin. While he enjoyed the theoretical support of the Kriegsmarines U-boat arm and of the Luftwaffe stationed in Norway, cumbersome chains of command and inter-service rivalry meant that, for the most part, he could rely on little assistance. By contrast, Fraser enjoyed complete strategic control over his forces, and while he was ultimately answerable to the British Admiralty, he was given a free hand in waging the naval battle his own way. Ultimately, the faith of the Admiralty in Frasers abilities would be fully justified.