Admiral Hipper was the lead ship of the Admiral Hipper class of heavy cruisers which served with Nazi Germany's Kriegsmarine during World War II. The ship was laid down at the Blohm & Voss shipyard in Hamburg in July 1935 and launched in February 1937; Admiral Hipper entered service shortly before the outbreak of war, in April 1939. The ship was named after Admiral Franz von Hipper, commander of the German battlecruiser squadron during the Battle of Jutland in 1916 and later commander-in-chief of the German High Seas Fleet. She was armed with a main battery of eight 20.3 cm (8 in) guns and, although nominally under the 10,000-long-ton (10,160 t) limit set by the Anglo-German Naval Agreement, actually displaced over 16,000 long tons (16,260 t).
Köln was a light cruiser, the third member of the Königsberg class that was operated between 1929 and March 1945, including service in World War II. She was operated by two German navies, the Reichsmarine and the Kriegsmarine. She had two sister ships, Königsberg and Karlsruhe. Köln was built by the Reichsmarinewerft in Wilhelmshaven; she was laid down in August 1926, launched in May 1928, and commissioned into the Reichsmarine on 15 January 1930. She was armed with a main battery of nine 15 cm SK C/25 (5.9-inch) guns in three triple turrets and had a top speed of 32 knots.
HMS Onslow was an O-class destroyer of the Royal Navy. The O-class were intermediate destroyers, designed before the outbreak of the Second World War to meet likely demands for large number of destroyers. They had a main gun armament of four 4.7 in guns, and had a design speed of 36 kn. Onslow was ordered on 2 October 1939 and was built by John Brown & Company at their Clydebank, Glasgow shipyard, launching on 31 March 1941 and completing on 8 October 1941.
HMS Sickle was a third-batch S-class submarine built for the Royal Navy during World War II. Completed in 1942, she made her initial war patrol off the Norwegian coast. Sickle then sailed to Gibraltar, from where she conducted one patrol, then to Algiers, French North Africa. From 10 May to 10 October, the boat patrolled the Gulf of Genoa five times and sank a German submarine as well as three minesweepers and an escort ship. She then moved to Beirut, French Lebanon, and conducted two patrols in the Aegean Sea, sinking three caïques and a merchant ship, in addition to landing resistance operatives in Greece.
HMS Seadog was a third-batch S-class submarine built for the Royal Navy during World War II. Completed in September 1942, she spent most of her career in Arctic waters, off Norway, but sank only one German ship in 13 patrols. In January 1945, she was redeployed to the Far East, meeting more success. On her first patrol in the area, the submarine rescued four American airmen. After two patrols, she and her sister ship HMS Shalimar sank five sailing vessels, two coasters, a barge, a tugboat and a Japanese tank landing ship. After the war ended, Seadog was sent back to England, placed in reserve, then sold for scrap in December 1947. She was ultimately broken up in August 1948.
HMS Sportsman was a third-batch S-class submarine built for the Royal Navy during World War II. Completed in 1942, she spent most of the war serving in the Mediterranean Sea. After an initial patrol off Norway, she sank the heavy transport Général Bonaparte in the Mediterranean in 1943 and missed a French oil tanker. She was heavily damaged after a mistaken attack by an Allied bomber, and was sent east after repairs to participate in operations in the Black Sea. After the operation was cancelled, Sportsman patrolled the Aegean Sea, sending several Greek and German ships to the bottom. She sank the German transport SS Petrella in early 1944 despite it being clearly marked as a prisoner-of-war ship, killing 2,670 out of 3,173 Italians aboard. Sportsman sank several more ships, and suffered minor damage when she was detected and sighted while attempting to attack a convoy.
HMS Tigris was a T-class submarine of the Royal Navy. She was laid down at Chatham Dockyard and launched in October 1939.
The Soviet evacuation of Tallinn, also called Juminda mine battle, Tallinn disaster or Russian Dunkirk, was a Soviet operation to evacuate the 190 ships of the Baltic Fleet, units of the Red Army, and Soviet civilians from the fleet's encircled main base of Tallinn in Soviet-occupied Estonia during August 1941. Near Juminda peninsula Soviet fleet ran into minefield that had been laid by the Finnish and German navies, and were repeatedly attacked by aircraft and torpedo boats, incurring major losses.
Operation FB took place as part of the Arctic Convoys of the Second World War. The operation consisted of independent sailings by unescorted merchant ships between Iceland and Murmansk. In late 1942, the Allies had taken the offensive against Germany but the dispatch of supplies to the USSR by convoy via the Arctic route was suspended, due to the demands of the Mediterranean campaign. Convoy PQ 19 was cancelled because the Home Fleet diverted ships to the Mediterranean for Operation Torch which would have had to be postponed for three weeks had ships been provided for Convoy PQ 19.
The German submarine U-109 was a Type IXB U-boat of Nazi Germany's Kriegsmarine that operated during World War II. She conducted nine war-patrols, sinking 12 ships and damaging one. All but one of these were during the six patrols she carried out under the command of Heinrich Bleichrodt.
Convoy PQ 14 was an Arctic convoy sent from Britain by the Western Allies to aid the Soviet Union during the Second World War. Convoys from Britain had been despatched since August 1941 and advantage had been taken of the perpetual darkness of the Arctic winter. German operations against the convoys had been muted due to the need to support Operation Barbarossa, confidence in imminent victory and the small size of the convoys. In late 1941 and early 1942 the Luftwaffe and Kriegsmarine had reinforced Norway with aircraft and ships.
Convoy PQ 8 was an Arctic convoy of the Western Allies to aid the Soviet Union during the Second World War. The convoy left Iceland on 8 January 1942. On 12 January the convoy had to turn south to avoid ice; the weather was calm, visibility was exceptional, with a short period of twilight around noon. and arrived in Murmansk nine days later.
Щ-213 was a Soviet Navy Shchuka-class submarine, Type X. She was built at the Sudostroytelnyi zavod imeny 61 kommunara in Mykolaiv, Ukrainian SSR, and entered service in October 1938 with the Soviet Black Sea fleet.
Arctic naval operations of World War II were the World War II naval operations that took place in the Arctic Ocean, and can be considered part of the Battle of the Atlantic and/or of the European Theatre of World War II.
Щ-215 was a Soviet Navy Shchuka-class submarine, Type X. She was built at the Sudostroytelnyi zavod imeny 61 kommunara in Mykolaiv, Ukrainian SSR, and entered service in October 1938 with the Soviet Black Sea fleet based at Sevastopol. Shch-215 survived the Second World War, was reclassified С-215 in 1949 and was decommissioned in 1955.
The Romanian Navy during World War II was the main Axis naval force in the Black Sea campaigns and fought against the Soviet Union's Black Sea Fleet from 1941 to 1944. Operations consisted mainly of mine warfare, but there were also escort missions and localized naval engagements. The largest naval action fought by the Romanian Navy was the 26 June 1941 Raid on Constanța, and its most extensive operation was the 1944 evacuation of the Crimea.
The Kara Sea U-boat campaign was a German submarine operation in the Arctic waters of the Kara Sea during the Second World War. The plan was to repeat Operation Wunderland in Operation Husar. The Deutschland-class cruiser Lützow was to sortie into the Kara Sea with U-boats in support, to attack Soviet ships.
Submarine warfare in the Black Sea in World War II during 1942 involved engagements between primarily submarines of the Soviet Black Sea Fleet attacking Axis merchantmen defended by Romanian and German naval warships. These engagements were a part of the Black Sea campaigns between Axis and Soviet naval forces.
Convoy RS 3 was a South Atlantic convoy from 22–31 March 1943 between Gibraltar and Freetown in Sierra Leone. The convoy was part of the Battle of the Atlantic in the Second World War. The convoy lost its three biggest ships to U-boat attacks.
Operation Northern Mark was a sortie by a German flotilla of two battleships and a heavy cruiser against British merchant shipping between Norway and Shetland from 18 to 20 February 1940. The sortie was intended as a riposte to the Altmark incident, to create confusion to help German blockade-runners reach home and as a prelude to more ambitious operations in the Atlantic. The flotilla was spotted by the British early on, who held back a Norway-bound convoy.
Soviet Navy 
Royal Navy 
Kriegsmarine 
