1940 2nd Naval Battle at Narvik

British Newsreel. April 25, 1940.The Royal Navy considered it imperative, for morale and strategic purposes, to defeat the Germans in Narvik, so Vice Admiral William Whitworth was sent with the battleship HMS Warspite and nine destroyers; four Tribal class (HMS Bedouin, Cossack, Punjabi, Eskimo) and five others (HMS Kimberley, Hero, Icarus, Forester and Foxhound), accompanied by aircraft from the aircraft carrier HMS Furious. These forces arrived in the Ofotfjord on 13 April to find that the eight remaining German destroyers, now under the command of Fregattenkapitän (Commander) Erich Bey, were virtually stranded due to lack of fuel and were short of ammunition.During the opening stages of the battle, a Fairey Swordfish launched from Warspite bombed and sank the German submarine U-64, at anchor in a side-fjord near Bjerkvik. Most of the crew survived and were rescued by German mountain troops. This was the first U-boat to be sunk by an aircraft during the Second World War.In the ensuing battle, three of the German destroyers were sunk by Warspite and her escorts, and the other five were scuttled by their own crews when they ran out of fuel and ammunition. First to go was Erich Koellner which was trying to ambush the Allied forces, but was spotted by Warspite's Swordfish and subsequently torpedoed and shelled by the destroyers and battleship. Then Wolfgang Zenker, Bernd von Arnim, Hans Ludemann and Hermann Künne engaged the British forces, but only managed to lightly damage HMS Bedouin. British aircraft from Furious tried to engage the German destroyers but were unsuccessful; two were lost. Wolfgang Zenker unsuccessfully attempted to torpedo Warspite.Finally, when the German destroyers were low on ammunition, they retreated, except for Hermann Künne, which had not received the order. Hermann Künne was fired upon by the pursuing HMS Eskimo, but she took no hits. Out of ammunition but undamaged, Hermann Künne was scuttled by her crew in Trollvika in the Herjangsfjord. After scuttling the ship, the crew placed demolition depth charges on the ship, attempting to sink her in Trollvika's shallow waters. Eskimo, still in hot pursuit, fired a torpedo which hit Hermann Künne, setting her on fire. Whether the German's own depth charges or the torpedo from Eskimo was the source of explosion, nobody knows [7]. Eskimo was in turn ambushed by Georg Thiele and Hans Ludemann, losing her bow but surviving. Diether von Roeder and Erich Giese, both suffering engine problems, fired upon the British forces while still docked, damaging Punjabi and Cossack, but they were both sunk before they could cause further damage. That was the last German counter-attack and the remaining German destroyers were scuttled soon after. The only German ship which survived within the port area was the submarine U-51.

Category:

News & Politics

Tags:

• Naval
• Battle
• Narvik
• April
• 1940
• Royal
• Navy
• RN
• Kriegsmarine
• Norway
• HMS
• Warspite