Red Sky in the Morning

by Michael Pearson

  Supporting the invasion of Norway in April 1940, Admiral Hipper sailed north to land troops and equipment at Trondheim. Also in the area, the ageing British battlecruiser Renown and four destroyers were similarly bound for Norway. The destroyer Glowworm became detached from the squadron in fog while searching for a man overboard, and on the morning of 8 April sighted Admiral Hipper and supporting vessels. While trying to make her escape, Glowworm came under accurate fire from the German heavy cruiser and suffered several hits. With his ship on fire, Glowworm’s captain, Lieutenant-Commander Roope, determined that he could do better than abandon her without responding to the German force. He therefore turned the burning destroyer toward the German battle group and rammed her into Hipper’s bows, tearing a 120 ft (36.6 m) gash in the cruiser’s side and letting in 528 tons (536 tonnes) of water. However, in the process Glowworm was dragged under Hipper’s bows and sank. Roope was awarded a posthumous VC for his action. Although the German cruiser developed a 4° list to starboard she was able to proceed with her mission, and successfully landed men and matériel at Trondheim.

  Having returned to Germany for repairs, May 1940 saw Admiral Hipper back in Norway. On 13 June she was attacked by British naval aircraft and again damaged, returning once more to Germany for repairs. Her next sortie, in September that year, was a commerce-raiding cruise in the North Atlantic, but once again she got no farther than the Norwegian coast when engine trouble forced her to return. In December 1940 she tried again, encountering convoy WS5A off the west coast of Africa, en route to the Middle East via the Cape of Good Hope. Tracking the convoy from late on Christmas Eve, Hipper attacked early on Christmas morning but ran into the cruiser escort, Berwick, Bonaventure and Dunedin. There was some exchange of fire, one merchant ship was damaged and Hipper also received some minor hits. The action was brought to a halt when the German heavy cruiser found herself again plagued by engine trouble and broke away to the north. This sortie was on the face of it a failure, but it had an unforeseen knock-on effect. Included in the WS5A convoy were five fast merchant ships under the code name Excess which, instead of going around the Cape, were to leave WS5A at Gibraltar and proceed at speed through the Mediterranean with troops, airmen and crated Hurricane fighters for Malta, plus supplies for Greece.

  When Hipper attacked, orders were given for the convoy to scatter, and the Excess ships were held at Gibraltar. Excess finally sailed on the evening of 6 January, some ten days later than anticipated, escorted by Force ‘H’ – the battlecruisers Renown and Malaya, aircraft carrier Ark Royal, cruiser Sheffield and six destroyers (the size of the escort for five merchant ships illustrates graphically how urgently the supplies were required). On the evening of the 9th Force ‘H’ turned back for Gibraltar, handing the convoy on to the cruisers Gloucester and Southampton, strengthened later that day by the main escort under the command of the C-in-C Mediterranean, Admiral Cunningham, in the battleship Warspite, with the battleship Valiant, aircraft carrier Illustrious, and seven destroyers in attendance.[165]

  Excess had been delayed for ten days or so as a result of Admiral Hipper’s abortive attack, and during that time an important change had taken place in enemy dispositions in the Mediterranean. Fretting that the Italians were not pressing the British hard enough, on 10 November Hitler wrote to Mussolini proposing that Luftwaffe units should operate from Italian bases against British shipping. Il Duce agreed, and by Christmas 1940 the unit chosen, Fliegerkorps X, was moving down through Italy. By 8 January ninety-six bombers had arrived at bases in the south from which they could strike at Allied shipping, to be strengthened by the end of January to 120 long-range bombers, 150 dive bombers and 40 fighters. Fliegerkorps X were the Luftwaffe anti shipping specialists.[166]

  The newly arrived Luftwaffe units struck the convoy and escort on 10 January, concentrating most of their attack on Illustrious. Seven direct hits and three near misses crippled the carrier, turning her into a blazing wreck – but for her armoured flight deck she must surely have been sunk. Suffering a further attack on the way, the severely damaged ship managed to reach Gibraltar where she was patched up and sent to the United States for repair. She would be out of the war for over a year. The merchant ships all reached their destination, but the crippling of Illustrious was a serious blow to the balance of naval power in the Mediterranean.[167]

  Following her attack on WS5A, Hipper arrived at Brest on 27 December, was repaired, and was at sea again on 1 February 1941. Her prey now were convoys from Britain to the United States and the Mediterranean, her operational area between the latitudes of Gibraltar and south-west Ireland. Chronically high fuel consumption meant that the first order of business on arrival was to refuel at sea from a supply ship; however on 11 February her luck changed when she sighted the unescorted, laden, UK-bound convoy SLS64, comprising nineteen merchantmen. The cruiser subsequently sank seven ships totalling 32,806 gross tons, and damaged four more.[168]

  Back at Brest on 14 February Hipper became the target of British bombers but escaped damage. As persistent engine problems necessitated a return to Germany for a major refit, on the night of 15/16 March she slipped away from France and having refuelled at sea off southern Greenland, passed through the Denmark Strait on 23 March, heavy weather shielding her from patrolling British warships waiting for just such an opportunity to catch German raiders heading to or from the Atlantic.[169] Having had to refuel again, Admiral Hipper arrived at Kiel on 28 March. Her unreliable engines and short cruising range made her particularly unsuitable for operations in the Atlantic, consequently she was relegated to a long period of training exercises in the Baltic.

  By March 1942 Admiral Hipper was en route to northern Norway, and on 5 July, in company with Tirpitz and Admiral Scheer, she sailed from Altenfjord to attack convoy PQ17, but when the convoy scattered the battle squadron was recalled, and the attack was left to U-boats and the Luftwaffe, (see pp. 10–12).

  The heavy cruiser remained based in northern Norway, carrying out minelaying operations off the north-west coast of Novaya Zemlya in the eastern Barents Sea in September, and from 5 to 9 November, in company with destroyer Z27, sank the Russian tanker Dombass and anti-submarine vessel No.78. Recurring engine problems prevented several proposed sorties to attack independently routed merchant ships bound for Russia, but she was scheduled to attack the next Russia-bound convoy discovered in the Barents Sea.

  —♦—

  During the German invasion of Norway, British naval forces attacked a large German destroyer force in Narvik, and in battles fought over two days, 16–17 April 1940, sank the entire complement of ten ships for the loss of two of their own. As replacements, the Kriegsmarine designed and built what were intended to be the most powerful destroyers in the world. Popularly referred to as the Narvik class, after the ships lost in Norway, they weighed in at 2600 tons and boasted five 5.9 in (150 mm) guns, against the 4.7 in (120 mm) to 5 in (127 mm) guns of the more powerful of the British or American destroyers. Unfortunately for the Kriegsmarine this significant increase in firepower led to other drawbacks with the design. The forward two 5.9 in guns were carried in a twin turret weighing a massive 60.4 tons (61.37 tonnes), compared to the 25-ton (25.4-tonne) twin turrets of the British Tribal class destroyers. This meant that the German boats were prone to dip their bows into the sea under the weight, while yawing and proving very difficult to handle in a following sea.[170] To improve seagoing characteristics some were fitted with a lighter single turret forward, replacing the heavy twin mounting. An additional, and it would seem fairly obvious, drawback with the large guns was the weight of the shells, which, at 100 lb (45 kg), had to be loaded by hand – a considerable physical strain for the gun crews. Due to their difficult heavy-weather handling these ships were not best suited to operations in the Arctic; nevertheless five were sent to Norway to support the naval build-up.

  —♦—

  The U-boats were undoubtedly the German navy’s most successful and most feared ship-killers, however ultimately they als
o suffered terrible losses. Of the 40,000 men enlisted into the submarine service, 30,000 were killed. U354, which shadowed and unsuccessfully attacked convoy JW51B, is a case in point. A Type VIIC boat, she was commissioned on 22 April 1942 at the Flensburger Schiffsbau shipyard, carried out twelve patrols, sank three ships for a total of 19,899 gross tons, and damaged two more totalling 6134 gross tons. Two incidents aboard U354 underline the hazardous nature of submarine warfare, quite apart from enemy action. On 11 November 1942 Fahnrich zur See Horst Mayen was lost overboard, and on 12 March 1943, in an incident not uncommon in the U-boat service, Maschinenmaat Helmut Richter committed suicide.[171]

  However, not all was doom and gloom. Late on 31 December 1942 as U354 reconnoitred the Barents Sea battle area, Admiral Kluber in Narvik took time to send good news to one crew member: ‘To: Herschelb. For Lt. E. Rainer. Its arrived. Going well Dora. Best Wishes.’[172]

  On 24 August 1944 two British corvettes, a frigate, and a destroyer, tracked U354 and sank her with all hands in the Barents Sea. Kapitänleutnant Herschelb, whose message of 31 December 1942 unwittingly helped to cause the seismic upheaval in the German navy following the Battle of the Barents Sea, had previously transferred and was not with the boat at the time.

  —♦—

  On the outbreak of war with Germany, Soviet industry was capable of manufacturing large quantities of basic but reliable and sturdy weapons of war – guns, tanks, aeroplanes, etc. The problem was the factories, which were almost all situated in western Russia in the immediate path of the invaders. Had these factories been overrun, defeat for the Soviets would have been inevitable, as resupply from Britain and the United States could not hope to keep pace with all the requirements of the Red Army. The solution was both breathtakingly simple and enormously complex. The Russians would move all the plant and machinery, entire factories, eastwards away from the rapidly advancing Germans.

  In the four months from July to October 1941, 1½ million trucks and 915,000 railway wagons transported over 1000 factories east, together with the manpower to rebuild them, install plant and machinery, and operate them. Some 100,000 men accompanied the dispersion of Soviet industry eastwards, and the results of this enormous physical and logistical exercise were equally impressive. Aircraft factories moved to Saratov began production before the roofs were on – fourteen days after the last jigs were installed, MiG fighters were rolling off the production line. The tank works transported to Kharkov produced its first twenty-five T-34 tanks ten weeks after engineers rebuilt the factories. Winter in eastern Russia is a desperately hard affair; nevertheless despite atrocious working conditions the winter of 1941/2 saw Soviet arms production reach 4500 tanks, 3000 aircraft, 14,000 guns, and over 50,000 mortars.[173] This equipment would be vital in the coming months, but could not hope to keep pace with the rate of attrition on the Russian front. It was vital that the hundreds of thousands of tons of military hardware and equipment scheduled for transportation from Britain in the Arctic convoys were fought through to Russia.

  APPENDIX II

  OUTLINE DETAILS OF BRITISH WARSHIPS WITH NOTES ON DEVELOPMENT AND WARTIME CAREERS

  Southampton class light cruiser Sheffield

  Rear-Admiral Robert Burnett’s Flagship, Force ‘R’

  Outline Specification[174]

  Built: Vickers Armstrong, Barrow

  Laid down 1934

  Completed 25 August 1937

  Dimensions: 584 ft 0 in (178 m) × 61 ft 8 in (18.8 m) × 17 ft 0 in (5.2 m)

  Displacement: 9100 tons (9246 tonnes)

  Main Armament: 12 × 6 in (152 mm) in 4 triple turrets, at the time of the Barents Sea action. As the war progressed all the Southampton class had ‘X’ turret removed and replaced by two quadruple Bofors anti-aircraft mountings

  Anti-aircraft Armament: 10 × 20 mm fitted 1941, replacing original multiple machine-guns

  16 × 2 pdr pompoms

  Torpedo Tubes: 6 × 21 in (533 mm) in two triple units

  Aircraft: 2 Walrus seaplanes, one housed either side of the fore funnel, in a hangar abaft the bridge

  1 catapult athwartships

  Machinery: Parsons geared turbines, built by Vickers

  Twin-screw. Admiralty 3-drum boilers

  75,000 SHP, giving 32 knots

  Complement: 833

  HMS Sheffield (Reproduced with permission from Jane’s Information Group)

  Fiji class light cruiser Jamaica

  Outline Specification[175]

  Built: Vickers Armstrong, Barrow

  Launched 16 November 1940

  Completed 29 June 1942

  Dimensions: 555 ft 6 in (169 m) × 62 ft 0 in (18.9 m) × 16 ft 6 in (5 m)

  Displacement: 8000 tons (8128 tonnes)

  War additions such as torpedoes and extra splinter protection caused the displacement to rise to 8631 tons (8769 tonnes), but without compromising speed

  Main Armament: 12 × 6 in (152 mm), in 4 triple turrets

  Anti-aircraft Armament: 10 × 20 mm

  Torpedo Tubes: 6 × 21 in (533 mm)

  Aircraft: 2 box hangars abaft bridge, 1 either side of the fore funnel, equipped to carry Walrus and later Sea Otter seaplanes

  1 fixed catapult athwartships

  Machinery: Parsons geared turbines. Quadruple-screw

  4 Admiralty 3-drum boilers

  72,500 SHP giving 31.5 knots

  Complement: 980

  HMS Jamaica (Reproduced with permission from Jane’s Information Group)

  ‘O’ class destroyer Onslow

  Leader, 17th Destroyer Flotilla,[176] and sister vessels

  Obedient, Obdurate, Orwell

  Built: Clydebank, 1941

  Obedient, Obdurate, Orwell, 1942

  Dimensions: 345 ft 0 in (105 m) × 35 ft 0 in (10.6 m) × 15 ft 8 in (4.67 m) max

  Displacement: 1540 tons (1564 tonnes)

  Main Armament: 4 × 4.7 in (119 mm)

  Obedient, Obdurate, Orwell fitted for rapid conversion to minelayers – ‘Y’ gun and both sets of torpedo tubes could be removed and stored ashore, to be replaced by 60 mines in two racks[177]

  Anti-aircraft Armament: 4 × 2 pdr

  8 × 20 mm

  Anti-submarine Armament: 4 mortars[178]

  Torpedo Tubes: 8 × 21 in (533 mm) in quadruple mounts

  Machinery: Parsons geared turbines to twin-screws

  2 Admiralty 3-drum boilers

  40,000 SHP, giving 34 knots

  Acasta class destroyer Achates[179]

  Built: Launched Clydebank 4 October 1929

  Dimensions: 323 ft 0 in (98.4 m) × 32 ft 6 in (9.9 m) × 12 ft 0 in (3.65 m)

  Displacement: 1330 tons (1351 tonnes)

  Main Armament: Initially 4 × 4.7 in (119 mm) – see anti-submarine equipment below

  Anti-aircraft Armament: Initially 2 × 2 pdr pompoms, 5 machine guns

  Later replaced by 20 mm a/a guns, and a 12 pdr (see torpedo tubes below)

  Anti-submarine Armament: By 1941 ‘A’ turret replaced by forward throwing Hedgehog a/s mortar, ‘Y’ turret replaced by additional depth charges

  Torpedo Tubes: Initially 8 × 21 in (533 mm), first destroyers to be fitted with quadruple mounts. Aft bank subsequently replaced by 12 pdr a/a gun

  Machinery: Brown-Curtis HP turbines & Parsons LP twinscrew

  34,000 SHP, giving 35 knots

  Complement: 138

  Flower class corvettes Rhododendron & Hyderabad[180]

  Built: Harland & Wolff, Belfast, 1940 & Alexander Hall, Aberdeen, 1942

  Dimensions: 205 ft 0 in (62.5 m) × 33 ft 0 in (10 m) × 14 ft 6 in (4.42 m)

  Displacement: 925 tons (940 tonnes)

  Guns: 1 × 4 in (101 mm)

  Anti-aircraft Armament: 1 pompom 20 mm machine-guns

  Anti-submarine Armament: 1 forward-firing Hedgehog multi-barrelled mortar

  Machinery: Triple expansion

  2 SE boilers

  IHP 2750, giving 16 knots

  Complement: 85

  Halcyon class fle
et minesweeper Bramble[181]

  Built: Launched Devonport Naval Dockyard 12 July 1938

  Dimensions: 230 ft 0 in (70.1 m) × 33 ft 6 in (10.2 m) × 7 ft 3 in (2.21 m)

  Displacement: 875 tons (889 tonnes)

  Armament: 2 × 4 in (101 mm)

  5 machine-guns

  Machinery: 2 × 3-cylinder compound steam engines

  Twin-screw

  2 Admiralty 3-drum boilers

  7150 IHP, giving 17 knots

  Complement: 80

  Trawler Northern Gem[182] fitted as rescue ship

  Built: Cochrane, 1936

  Dimensions: 173 ft 3 in (52.8 m) × 28 ft 8 in (8.63 m) × 12 ft 6 in (3.81 m)

  Gross Register Tonnage: 655

  Machinery: Triple expansion

  1100 IHP, giving 12.5 knots

  Britain’s economy between the wars depended on her vital trade routes with the empire, and her many other overseas trading partners, the Royal Navy’s mainstay for the defence of these trade routes being the cruiser. At the Washington conference of November 1921, pressure was applied to the British delegation, principally by the United States (whose strategic considerations were wholly different from those of Britain), to restrict the number of cruisers in commission. Britain refused but put forward a proposal – which was accepted – that cruisers should not exceed 10,000 tons, and mount guns 8 in (200 mm). The principal concern at this time was not the navy of Germany, but that of Japan, which had undergone major expansion and modernisation and threatened the balance of power in the Pacific.

  At the Geneva conference of 1927, a further attempt to limit the potentially damaging naval arms race between the major powers disbanded without agreement, primarily due to Britain’s inability to accept restrictions on cruiser strength again proposed by the United States. January 1930 saw a third conference, this time in London, at which Britain finally allowed itself to be persuaded by the United States to accept a reduction in cruiser strength from seventy units to fifty, with a maximum new build programme of no more than 91,000 tons by December 1936. This reluctant agreement was in no small part brought about by the dire economic circumstances in which Britain and most of the industrialised nations of the world found themselves during the 1930s, nevertheless it was to have serious consequences for the outbreak of war in 1939, by which time the Royal Navy would have only sixty-two cruisers to carry out world wide-trade protection and fleet commitments.[183]