The British destroyers, in the order Hardy, Havock, Hunter, Hotspur, and Hostile, laid smoke as they sped westward at maximum speed. The smoke helped shield the British ships from their three pursuers, but was of little help in meeting the next surprise sprung on Warburton-Lee. When he observed two big warships approaching from the west at high speed, he assumed initially that they were British cruisers coming to his aid. It was only when Commander Wolf turned Georg Thiele to port in order to bring all its armaments to bear on the British, that it became obvious to the officers on Hardy’s bridge that the ships were German.
Georg Thiele, commanded by Lieutenant Commander Max-Eckhart Wolf, and Bernd von Arnim, commanded by Lieutenant Commander Kurt Rechel, were anchored in Ballangen Bay when the British attacked Narvik. They were alerted at the same time as Commander Bey but very dense fog and heavy snowfall kept them from reaching Ofotfjord until 0540 hours. Wolf and Rechel must have ignored Commander Bey’s order to break out as related by Dickens. They turned eastward as soon as they reached the open waters of Ofotfjord, intent on giving battle. They flew large recognition signals to prevent being fired on by other German ships which they assumed were converging on the British from the northeast.
The British were now caught in a pincer between the two German destroyers from Ballangen Bay and the three destroyers from Herjangsfjord. The British were in a precarious position. The number of ships involved was equal, but the German ships were considerably larger and they now had the tactical initiative. Georg Thiele and Bernd von Arnim were closing on the British destroyer column at an effective speed of 60 knots and this left precious little time for decision-making.
The two aggressive German destroyer captains knew that a tragedy had befallen their comrades in Narvik and they were now bent on revenge. By turning to port and opening fire at a range of approximately 4,000 meters, Commander Wolf achieved the classic crossing of the “T” and brought all his guns to bear on Hardy, the lead British destroyer. Warburton-Lee, approaching the German ships head on, could only use his two forward guns and when he finally turned to port to bring the rest of the armament to bear on his opponents, he had lost precious time. The smoke screen prevented the destroyers behind Hardy, with the exception of Havock, from observing what was happening. The three pursuing German destroyers were delayed at this critical moment by the evasive actions they took to avoid the torpedoes and gunfire from their comrades in Narvik. Warburton-Lee’s immediate problem was therefore only the destroyers coming at him from the west and these were not only outnumbered five to two but the British had a gun advantage of 21 to 10. However, the British commander had to assume that the three German destroyers from Herjangsfjord were hot on his heels and that his ships were caught in a vise.
Bernd von Arnim, seeing that Georg Thiele was engaging Hardy, concentrated its efforts on the second destroyer in the British line, Havock. Warburton-Lee signaled his ships at 0555 hours, “Keep on engaging the enemy.” This message took on a legendary quality in the British Navy since it was believed that Captain Warburton-Lee issued this order after he was mortally wounded. However, based on testimony of the only surviving officer on Hardy’s bridge, this message was sent before the ship was hit and was meant as a tactical instruction to the three rearmost destroyers in the British line to keep engaging the German warships coming up from behind.16
Georg Thiele found the range with its fourth salvo. Two shell struck Hardy’s bridge and wheelhouse and other shells destroyed her forward guns. Everyone on the bridge was either killed or wounded. The only officer alive and not mortally wounded on the bridge was Paymaster Lieutenant Geoffrey Stanning, and his leg was shattered. Hardy was out of control, and heading towards the rocky shore at 30 knots. Stanning ordered the helmsman to change course but the wheelhouse was destroyed and there was no one at the helm.
The rest of the British line, not knowing that Hardy was out of control, followed in her wake. Stanning, in an amazing feat of bravery and determination, climbed down the ladder to the wheelhouse despite a shattered leg. Here he found that the helm was partially destroyed, but that it still functioned when he turned what was left of the wheel. He altered course away from the shore, but initially he could not see out of the wheelhouse, overcorrected, and found himself heading towards the enemy. He was able to correct the course and found a seaman who took the wheel while he made the painful climb back to the bridge. He saw two German destroyers off his starboard bow firing rapid salvoes. His first thought was to ram one of his antagonists but then a shell hit the boiler room, sending out billowing columns of steam. The ship was losing power and would soon become a stationary target at the mercy of the enemy. He decided to beach Hardy in order to save the crew. The ship almost came to a stop before reaching shore but she eventually slid gently onto the rocky beach at Virek.
Stanning, who was ineligible for command because of a physical disability, performed a heroic act in bringing the wrecked ship ashore. Nineteen sailors died on the Hardy and there were more than a dozen seriously wounded. The losses would have been far worse had it not been for Lieutenant Stanning’s actions. Warburton-Lee was mortally wounded and died shortly after being brought ashore. He was the first recipient of the Victoria Cross in World War 2.
While the Hardy was being beached, the furious battle in the fjord continued. Commander Wolf assumed that the 4th Destroyer Flotilla was pursuing the British from the east. In order to keep the British ships in the trap, he turned Georg Thiele around and stayed ahead of the British ships, off their starboard bows. Bernd von Arnim followed suit.
The 4th Destroyer Flotilla was in fact well to the rear and this could have subjected the two German ships to the full fury of the four remaining British destroyers. However, the smoke kept both sides from knowing the exact situation. This worked to the advantage of the two aggressive German destroyer captains and they were able to maintain the initiative. There may have been two factors explaining Bey’s apparent lack of aggressiveness in the pursuit. First, the three ships of the 4th Destroyer Flotilla had not refueled and their fuel levels were so low that a prolonged engagement with the British ships could cause them to run dry and become immobile targets. The second factor was related to the first. The German Navy’s operational order stressed the importance of avoiding combat, especially decisive combat. The objective was the preservation and early return of the destroyers to Germany. The burden of ensuring compliance with the operational order fell on Bey after Bonte was killed.
In Bey’s defense, it should be kept in mind that the two sides opened fire on each other at a range that may have been as much as 10,000 meters. The British were heading west at maximum speed and the chance that Bey could close the distance was not great unless the British westward progress could somehow be slowed. The difficulty in catching up with the British was further complicated when the 4th Destroyer Flotilla took evasive actions when it was engaged by its own ships in Narvik.
This left Georg Thiele and Bernd von Arnim to battle the British alone. The smoke was not helpful to the British at this point. Since it also obscured the enemy, they did not realize at first that their two opponents had changed to a parallel course. They kept up the smoke in the belief that Commander Bey was closing fast on their rear.
Havock was now the lead ship in the British column. The British commanders may have been unaware of the German course change, but the gunners kept engaging whenever they saw a target through the smoke. They finally began to register hits. A 4.7-inch shell made Georg Thiele’s forward boiler inoperable and another started a fire that required flooding the aft magazine. A torpedo salvo from Hostile passed harmlessly between the German ships.
While the British gunners were beginning to find their targets, the Germans continued to inflict damaging hits on their opponents. Havock escaped serious damage, but both Hunter and Hotspur were hit at this time. Commander Courage did not see any enemy ships to his front because the British smoke apparently shielded Georg Thiele and Bernd von Arnim. He concluded that all
the pressure was from the rear. To alleviate this pressure, Courage made a 180° turn. It speaks volumes about the confusion in this battle that the other British ships did not notice Havock’s maneuver. The Germans, however, did notice the turnabout.
What Courage saw as he raced down the line of his own ships at a relative speed of 60 knots, was not encouraging. It appeared that Hotspur was out of control and Hunter was burning from bow to stern and losing speed. As he reached the rear of the British line and exited the smoke, he saw what he believed to be four enemy warships coming up fast at a range he estimated to be about 10,000 meters. He planned to engage them in order to slow their pursuit, but changed his mind when informed that the two forward guns were out of commission. He turned his ship around and engaged the enemy with his two aft guns. The German fire was in the process of bracketing Havock when the latter re-entered the smokescreen on Hostile’s port quarter. Several fragments from near misses hit the British ship.
Georg Thiele was now ahead of the British line. Commander Wolf assumed that the British had slowed to protect their damaged ships and he concluded that the time was right to press the attack. He turned Georg Thiele to starboard but in doing so the ship sustained several damaging hits. One shell hit one of the forward guns, killing nine of its crew. Another shell passed through the forward funnel and exploded above deck. Finally, as Georg Thiele was completing her starboard turn, an armor-piercing shell exploded in the fire control room. Wolf did not let these hits deter him from closing on the British line now led by Hunter and followed by Hotspur, Hostile, and Havock, in that order. The British ships were still heading west at maximum speed, but not for long. Hunter was ablaze and with the range reduced to about 1,700 meters, Georg Thiele provided the finishing blows to the crippled British warship. The range was so short that Georg Thiele could employ her secondary as well as her main armaments. Hunter, a flaming wreck, lost power and made an unintended turn towards the enemy ship. She quickly became motionless and Wolf fired a torpedo salvo at her as he passed on an easterly course to the north of the British line. At least one torpedo hit Hunter amidships.
Hotspur followed closely no more than 1,000 meters behind Hunter but those on the bridge were unable to make out what was happening due to smoke. Hostile and Havock were also enveloped in the smoke screen, but in their case the screen served a useful purpose by shielding them from the three German destroyers approaching from the east. Hotspur fired torpedoes at Georg Thiele as the German ship passed to its starboard but both torpedoes missed their target. Two shells from Georg Thiele hit Hotspur.
The German shells caused total communications failure on Hotspur and put her hydraulic steering mechanism out of commission. The ship took an uncontrollable turn to starboard and sliced into Hunter’s amidships engine room. The result was devastating, adding significantly to the already existing carnage on that ship. The two ships were motionless and subjected to a withering fire from the two German destroyers. Hostile then took violent evasive action that prevented a further pile-up.
Hotspur was still pushing against Hunter with its 34,000 horsepower engines at full throttle. Lieutenant Commander Layman could not communicate with the engine room and left the bridge to establish verbal communications. He was successful in ordering the engines reversed, but in his absence a German shell struck the bridge and killed most of those present. Hunter righted itself as Hotspur backed away, but only for a moment. Hunter’s one remaining functioning gun was still firing as the ship slowly rolled over on its starboard side and sank.
Georg Thiele was forced to withdraw from the battle at this crucial moment. The ship had sustained at least seven major hits: she was ablaze, two magazines were flooded, and her fire fighting ability had been severely reduced. Commander Wolf had sighted the three destroyers from Herjangsfjord coming up fast behind the British column and he decided it was time to exit the battle to save his ship and leave the cleanup to others.
Bernd von Arnim tried to finish off Hotspur. Layman was able to establish a double human chain of communications between the shattered bridge and the engine room. With the ship’s communications system destroyed, the guns operated under local control to good effect. The gunners calmly kept up a relentless rapid fire directed at Bernd von Arnim as she passed to the north. The German destroyer sustained at least five hits, and as the three other German destroyers were approaching, she also left the battle to lick her wounds.
The two remaining British destroyers, Hostile and Havock, continued westward after their near collision with their stricken friends. From two miles to the west, they saw Hotspur, badly damaged from the collision and enemy fire, still making headway to the west. The two British destroyer captains decided instinctively, and independently, to turn around and help the stricken ship. At this critical moment, the initiative swung to the British.
The Germans, believing that the battle was over except for completing the destruction of Hotspur, were somewhat dismayed at the sight of the two British destroyers turning around and coming at them at high speed, firing as they came. Hostile and Havock reached Hotspur and took up protective positions to her rear. The three ships continued westward to safety.
The three ships of the 4th German Destroyer Flotilla were unable to prevent the British escape, and Bey appeared satisfied with having driven the enemy from the fjord. His ships were less than 5,000 meters off the British warships as Hostile and Havock swung in behind Hotspur. At that range, the Germans should have been able to bring a devastating fire to bear on their enemies. However, Bey approached the enemy while continually zigzagging across the fjord. The danger of British torpedoes was minimal if the Germans had pressed their attack directly, as they would have combed their tracks. The fuel levels in the German ships were dangerously low, but more fuel was expanded in the zigzag course than in a direct approach. The constant course changes delayed closing with the British and caused the German fire to be ineffective. Wolf and Rechel were probably dismayed at how the enemy escaped the battlefield they had prepared so well. Bey missed an opportunity to inflict a severe blow on the Royal Navy.
The beached Hardy fired at the German destroyers with its one remaining serviceable gun. Erich Giese fired a torpedo at Hardy but it malfunctioned. Erich Giese was so low on fuel that the fuel pumps were expected to start sucking air at any moment and the ship was in no position to continue the pursuit. Wolfgang Zenker, Bey’s flagship, also gave up the chase for unknown reasons, but probably because of dangerously low fuel levels. Erich Koellner continued as far as Djupvik before it also turned back. She joined Wolfgang Zenker and Erich Giese in searching for survivors in the area where Hunter had sunk. As Dickens writes, the 48 survivors (10 later died from wounds and exposure) bore testimony to the gallant help and care given them by the officers and men of the German destroyers.
The Germans suffered another mishap of considerable importance before the British warships cleared the fjord. Unknown to the Germans in Narvik, the supply ship Rauenfels entered Ofotfjord as the three British destroyers were exiting. The U25, which was patrolling east of Barøy, was the first warship to see Rauenfels. The submarine commander, Lieutenant Commander Viktor Schütze, had heard gunfire from the direction of Narvik and although not sure, considered it possible that the ship was a British transport. Despite his doubts, he decided to attack. One torpedo was fired at Rauenfels. Either it missed its target or, more probably, malfunctioned, as did so many German torpedoes during the Norwegian campaign.
The U46, commanded by Lieutenant Herbert Sohler, patrolled the waters near Ramnes and her crew also heard gunfire from the direction of Narvik. Sohler did not know what was happening until he saw three British destroyers heading directly towards him from the east. The U46 managed to dive before being spotted. Sohler tried to get into position to fire torpedoes, but before he could do so, the British destroyers had passed.
Lieutenant Commander Layman was the senior of the three British destroyer captains but since his communications were destroyed, he turned over
tactical command to Lieutenant Commander Wright on Hostile. As the British reached the fjord entrance, they spotted Rauenfels entering. They did not know the ship’s nationality, but this doubt was removed when she refused signals to stop. This had been a bad day for the captain of the supply ship. One German submarine had already attacked the ship and now he confronted three British destroyers.
Commander Wright ordered two high explosive shells fired into Rauenfels when she failed to obey the heave-to orders. The German ship began to burn and the crew abandoned ship. Wright continued to escort the crippled Hotspur out of the fjord and ordered Lieutenant Commander Courage in the Havock to take care of the German ship. A boarding party was sent aboard Rauenfels but they decided to leave because they feared an explosion. The British were also worried that German destroyers could reach them from the east at any moment. Bey, although he did not know it, missed another opportunity to punish the British. If the two German destroyers with some fuel left had continued their pursuit another few miles, they may have saved the Rauenfels, caught up with Havock, and perhaps destroyed her. Courage ordered two more rounds fired at the German ship as soon as the boarding party returned. Dickens describes the event:17
The result must have been one of the most shattering explosions of those good old days before nuclear weapons. Mr. Leslie Millns, Torpedo Gunner, saw a bright flash in the center of the ship which expanded until she shone from end to end, it seemed that it was not just the cargo which detonated but the whole ship … Wright in the Hostile, now well around Barøy and separated from the Rauenfels by the 500 foot contour or higher, saw what he swore was her funnel gyrating in the sky …
The British account of Rauenfels’ end has also found its way into some German sources. However, there are serious differences between that account and the events described in the Norwegian naval history. While Rauenfels was damaged severely, she did not explode. In fact, the German crew reboarded the ship after the British departed, managed to bring the fires under control, and beached their ship to keep it from sinking. The Norwegians captured the crew of 48 (one was killed in the encounter with the British). The Norwegians eventually salvaged most of the cargo but much was badly damaged by exposure to seawater.18
Hitler’s Pre-Emptive War: The Battle for Norway, 1940 Page 28
