by David Wragg
March – For the sixth successive month in succession, the Kriegsmarine had more than a hundred U-boats in the North Atlantic.
16–20 March – Atlantic convoys HX229 and SC122, with more than ninety ships between them, become involved in a the largest convoy battle of the war with forty U-boats. Over four days, twenty-one ships are lost for the cost of one U-boat.
23 March – 8 April – Eastbound Convoy HX231 crosses Atlantic from Canada without a single loss fighting off every attempted attack by U-boats. The ‘Atlantic Gap’, the distance without air cover, is still some 500 miles wide.
May – In this month, more than forty U-boats are lost, although Dönitz refuses to recognise it as anything more than a temporary setback.
- resupply of Axis forces in North Africa has become impossible, forcing them to surrender shortly afterwards.
10 July – Operation Husky, the Allied landings in Sicily, with Admiral Sir Andrew Cunningham once again in command of the naval forces. The USN provides the Western Naval Task Force, the RN the Eastern. No less than 580 warships and 2,000 landing craft are used, covered by Force H and the Mediterranean Fleet with the battleships King George V, Howe, Nelson, Rodney, Warspite and Valiant, the carriers Formidable and Indomitable, six cruisers and twenty-four destroyers. Naval firepower breaks up a German armoured division making a counter-attack.
25 July – Mussolini deposed in Italy.
3 September – Allied forces cross the Straits of Messina to land at Calabria.
8 September – Italy surrenders and changes sides to fight with the Allies.
9 September – Operation Avalanche, the Allied landings at Salerno, is covered by Force H with the battleships Nelson and Rodney and the carriers Formidable and Illustrious, while Force V under the command of Rear Admiral Sir Philip Vian with Unicorn and four escort carriers, Attacker, Battler, Hunter and Stalker covering ground forces ashore.
- Following Italian surrender, the Italian fleet sails for Malta and are escorted by the battleships Howe, King George V, Valiant and Warspite, which also cover a landing at the major Italian naval base of Taranto. German air attack sees Warspite and the cruiser Uganda damaged, as well as two American cruisers.
22 September – British midget submarines, X-craft, attack Tirpitz in the Alternfjord and put her out of action for six months.
4 October – British carrier-borne aircraft attack German convoys around Narvik, sinking 40,000 tons of shipping.
17 October – Michel, the last surviving operational auxiliary cruiser, sunk by US submarine Tarpon.
26 December – Battle of the North Cape occurs after battlecruiser Scharnhorst with five destroyers attempts to attack Arctic convoy JW55B, escorted by fourteen destroyers but with a close support cruiser squadron including Belfast, Norfolk and Sheffield, while a long-range protection group includes the battleship Duke of York with the cruiser Jamaica and four destroyers. The convoy is missed in bad weather which also separates Scharnhorst from her escorts, after which the German ship is confronted by the British cruisers, and after a second attempt a 20-minute battle breaks out with each side scoring two hits, after which Scharnhorst attempts to withdraw but runs into the Duke of York and Jamaica, ending up bracketed by the two British support groups. After Duke of York scores several hits, British destroyers mount a torpedo attack, after which British gunfire resumes as the battlecruiser loses way and eventually capsizes.
1944
22 January – Operation Shingle, Allied landing at Anzio, involves four cruisers and a number of destroyers. Cruiser Spartan sunk by air attack on 29 January, the cruiser Penelope is torpedoed by a U-boat and sunk on 18 February.
3 April – Operation Tungsten, carrier-borne bombers from Furious and Victorious and three escort carriers, Emperor, Pursuer and Searcher, attack Tirpitz and put her out of action for a further three months.
11 May – Clasp for the Roll of Honour of the German Navy instituted.
15 May – U-boat Clasp instituted.
6 June – Operation Overlord, the Allied invasion of Normandy, sees naval forces commanded by Admiral Ramsay, and in addition to manning many of the landing craft, the Royal Navy provides a bombardment group with the battleships Warspite and Ramillies, twelve cruisers and twenty destroyers, with a reserve force including Nelson and Rodney and three cruisers. Attacks by German destroyers and E-boats see a British destroyer sunk as well as two German ships. Other Allied destroyers were sunk by mines, as were a number of landing craft.
11 June – U-490, the last surviving supply submarine, sunk.
12 June – U-2321, Type XXIII, the first electro-submarine, commissioned.
27 June – U-2501, Type XXI, the first large electro-submarine, commissioned.
July – Experimental command established under Admiral Helmuth Heye within the Kriegsmarine to develop midget submarines.
15 August – Operation Dragoon, the Allied landing in south of France, with battleship Ramiliies amongst the five Allied battleships providing covering fire. Fleet of nine escort carriers includes five British ships, Attacker, Emperor, Khedive, Searcher and Stalker.
September/October – British naval forces enter the Aegean, with seven escort carriers, seven cruisers, nineteen destroyers and frigates, to attack the German evacuation from Greece and destroy the remaining German naval units in the area.
12 November – Aircraft from 617 Squadron RAF bomb Tirpitz and capsize the ship with hundreds of her crew trapped below.
13 November – War Badge for Midget weapons introduced with seven grades.
1945
30 January – Passenger liner Wilhelm Gustoff sunk in Baltic by Soviet submarine, with more than 5,000 German refugees, fleeing from the advancing Soviet armies, killed.
10 February – Passenger liner General von Steuben sunk in Baltic by Soviet submarine, with more than 2,700 German refugees killed.
1 April – British Pacific Fleet reinforces the US Fifth Fleet at the landings on Okinawa, providing the aircraft carriers Indomitable, Victorious, Illustrious and Indefatigable with 220 aircraft and the battleships King George V and Howe, with five cruisers. The ships hit are Formidable, Victorious and Indefatigable.
16 April – Passenger liner Goya sunk in Baltic by Soviet submarine with the loss of more than 6,000 German refugees – the worst loss of life at sea in a single ship in maritime history.
30 April – Hitler commits suicide in his command bunker in Berlin, and Grossadmiral Karl Dönitz becomes Head of State. Originally, Goering was to fulfil this role, but he was in disgrace during the final months of the Third Reich.
3 May – Passenger liner Cap Arkona sunk in Baltic with the loss of several thousand lives, with other merchant ships also lost around this time adding to the mounting death toll.
4 May – At 18.30, German delegation signs Instrument of Surrender at Field Marshal Montgomery’s headquarters to the south of Hamburg.
5 May – At 08.00, all hostilities by German forces come into effect.
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Notes
CHAPTER 1
1 & 2 C. McClelland, The German Historians and England, Cambridge University Press, 1971.
3 Review of Reviews, Feb 1910.
CHAPTER 3
1 Cameron, J., (ed), The Peleus Trial, Hodge, London, 1948
2 Rossler, E., The U-boat, Arms & Armour Press, London, 1981
CHAPTER 4
1 Bird, K., Weimar, the German Naval Officer Corps and the Rise of National Socialism, Amsterdam, 1977.
CHAPTER 5
1 Organisation der U-Boote Waffe, 21 September 1935.
2 Salewski, M., Die Seekriegsleitung, 1939–1945, Bernard & Graefe, Munich, 1970–1975 (five vols)
CHAPTER 10
1 Bundesarchiv Lichterfelde Branch.
2 Tooze, Adam, The Wages of Destruction, Allen Lane, London, 2006
