The Battle of the Barents Sea was a World War II naval engagement on 31 December 1942 between warships of the German Navy (Kriegsmarine) and British ships escorting convoy JW 51B to Kola Inlet in the USSR. The action took place in the Barents Sea north of North Cape, Norway. The German raiders' failure to inflict significant losses on the convoy infuriated Hitler, who ordered that German naval strategy would henceforth concentrate on the U-boat fleet rather than surface ships.
On 31 December, a German force, based along the Altafjord in northern Norway, under the command of Vice-Admiral Oskar Kummetz, on Admiral Hipper set sail in Unternehmen Regenbogen (Operation Rainbow). After Convoy PQ 18, the force had waited to attack the next Arctic convoy but their temporary suspension by the British during Operation Torch in the Mediterranean and Operation FB, the routing of single ships to Russia, had provided no opportunity to begin the operation.[3] The force comprised the heavy cruisersAdmiral Hipper, Lützow (the renamed Deutschland), and destroyers Friedrich Eckoldt, Richard Beitzen, Theodor Riedel, Z29, Z30 and Z31.[4]
Prelude
JW 51B sailed from Loch Ewe on 22 December 1942 and met its escort off Iceland on 25 December. From there the ships sailed north-east, meeting heavy gales on 28–29 December that caused the ships of the convoy to lose station. When the weather moderated, five merchantmen and the escorts Oribi and Vizalma were missing and Bramble was detached to search for them. Three of the straggling merchantmen rejoined the following day; the other ships proceeded independently towards Kola Inlet.[5][6] On 24 December the convoy was sighted by German reconnaissance aircraft and from 30 December was shadowed by U-354 (Kptlt. Karl-Heinz Herbschleb).[7] When the report was received by the German Naval Staff, Kummetz was ordered to sail immediately to intercept the convoy. Kummetz split his force into two divisions, led by Admiral Hipper and Lützow, respectively.[8]
Battle
Battle of the Barents Sea
At 08:00 on 31 December, the main body of JW 51B, twelve ships and eight warships, were some 120nmi (140mi; 220km) north of the coast of Finnmark heading east. Detached from the convoy were the destroyer Oribi and one ship, which took no part in the action; 15nmi (17mi; 28km) astern (north-east) of the convoy Bramble was searching for them. North of the convoy, at 45nmi (52mi; 83km) distance, was Vizalma and another ship, while Burnett's cruisers were 15nmi (17mi; 28km) southeast of them, and 30nmi (35mi; 56km) from the convoy. To the east, 150nmi (170mi; 280km) away, the home-bound convoy RA 51 was heading west. To the north of the convoy, Admiral Hipper and three destroyers were closing, while 50nmi (58mi; 93km) away Lützow and her three destroyers were closing from the south. At 08:00 the destroyer Friedrich Eckholdt sighted the convoy and reported it to Admiral Hipper.[9]
At 08:20 on 31 December, Obdurate, stationed south of the convoy, spotted three German destroyers to the rear (west) of the convoy. Then, Onslow spotted Admiral Hipper, also to the rear of the convoy, and steered to intercept with Orwell, Obedient and Obdurate, while Achates was ordered to stay with the convoy and make smoke. After some firing, the British ships turned, apparently to make a torpedo attack. Heavily outgunned, Sherbrooke knew that his torpedoes were his most formidable weapons; the attack was feigned as once the torpedoes had been launched their threat would be gone. The ruse worked: Admiral Hipper temporarily retired, since Kummetz had been ordered not to risk his ships. Admiral Hipper returned to make a second attack, hitting Onslow causing heavy damage and many casualties including 17 killed. Although Onslow ultimately survived the action, Sherbrooke had been badly injured by a large steel splinter and command passed to Obedient.[10]
Admiral Hipper then pulled north of the convoy, stumbled across Bramble, a Halcyon-class minesweeper, and there was an exchange of fire; Admiral Hipper returning fire with her much heavier guns causing a large explosion on Bramble. The destroyer Friedrich Eckholdt was ordered to finish off Bramble, which sank with all hands, while Admiral Hipper shifted aim to Obedient and Achates to the south. Achates was badly damaged but continued to make smoke until eventually she sank; the trawler Northern Gem rescued many of the crew. The Germans reported sinking a destroyer but this was owing to the misidentification of the minesweeper Bramble; they had not realised Achates had been hit.[11]
The shellfire attracted the attention of Force R, which was still further north. Sheffield and Jamaica approached unseen and opened fire on Admiral Hipper at 11:35, hitting her with enough six-inch shells to damage (and cause minor flooding to) two of her boiler rooms, reducing her speed to 28 knots (52km/h; 32mph). Kummetz initially thought that the attack of the two cruisers was coming from another destroyer but upon realising his mistake, he ordered his ships to retreat to the west. In another case of mistaken identity, Friedrich Eckholdt and Richard Beitzen mistook Sheffield for Admiral Hipper; after attempting to form up with the British ships, they were engaged by Sheffield with Friedrich Eckholdt breaking in two and sinking with all hands.[12]
Lützow approached from the east and fired ineffectively at the convoy, still hidden by smoke from the crippled Achates. Heading north-west to join Admiral Hipper, Lützow also encountered Sheffield and Jamaica, which opened fire. Coincidentally, both sides decided to break off the action at the same time, each side fearing imminent torpedo attacks upon their heavy ships from the other's remaining destroyers. This was shortly after noon. Burnett with ForceR continued to shadow the German ships at a distance until it was evident that they were retiring to their base, while the ships of the convoy re-formed and continued towards Kola Inlet.[13]
Aftermath
Erich Raeder with Adolf Hitler shortly after his Resignation from Commander in Chief of the Navy in 1943
The encounter took place in the middle of the months-long polar night and both the German and British forces were scattered and unsure of the positions of the rest of their own forces, much less those of their opponent. The battle became a rather confused affair and sometimes it was not clear who was firing on whom or how many ships were engaged.[14] Despite the German efforts, all 14 of the merchant ships reached their destinations in the USSR undamaged.[15]
Hitler was infuriated at what he regarded as the uselessness of the surface raiders, seeing that the initial attack of the two heavy cruisers was held back by destroyers before arrival of the two light cruisers. There were serious consequences; this failure nearly made Hitler enforce a decision to scrap the surface fleet and order the German Navy to concentrate on U-boat warfare. Admiral Erich Raeder, supreme commander of the Kriegsmarine, offered his resignation, which Hitler accepted. Raeder was replaced by Admiral Karl Dönitz, the commander of the U-boat fleet.[16]
Dönitz saved the German surface fleet from scrapping, although Admiral Hipper and two (Emden and Leipzig) of the light cruisers were laid up until late 1944, while repairs and rebuilding of the battleshipGneisenau were abandoned. Additionally, work to complete the Kriegsmarine's only aircraft carrier, the Graf Zeppelin, was suspended for the second and final time. Although German E-boats continued to operate off the coast of France, only one more big surface operation was executed after the battle. This was the attempted raid on Convoy JW 55B by the battleship Scharnhorst.[17] The battleship was sunk by an escorting British task force in what later became known as the Battle of the North Cape.[18]
Victoria Cross
Captain Robert Sherbrooke was awarded the Victoria Cross. He acknowledged that it had really been awarded in honour of the whole crew of Onslow. In the action he had been badly wounded and he lost the sight in his left eye.[19] He returned to active duty and retired from the navy in the 1950s with the rank of rear-admiral.[citation needed]
Commemoration
At the memorial for Bramble, Captain Harvey Crombie said of the crew
They had braved difficulties and perils probably unparalleled in the annals of the British Navy, and calls upon their courage and endurance were constant, but they never failed. They would not have us think sadly at this time, but rather that we should praise God that they had remained steadfast to duty to the end.[20]
The battle was the subject of the book 73 North by Dudley Pope and the poem JW51B: A Convoy by Alan Ross, who served on Onslow.
Roskill, S. W. (1960). The War at Sea 1939–1945: The Offensive 1st June 1943 – 31st May 1944. History of the Second World War United Kingdom Military Series. Vol.III. Part I (1sted.). London: HMSO. OCLC277168049.
Woodman, Richard (2004) [1994]. Arctic Convoys 1941–1945. London: John Murray. ISBN978-0-7195-5752-1.
Websites
"HMS Bramble 1942". halcyon-class.co.uk. 7 November 2010. Retrieved 29 May 2011.
Further reading
Books
Pope, Dudley (1958). 73 North: The Battle of the Barents Sea. London: Wyman and Sons. OCLC464156754.
Hinsley, F. H. (1994) [1993]. British Intelligence in the Second World War: Its Influence on Strategy and Operations. History of the Second World War (2nd rev. abr.ed.). London: HMSO. ISBN978-0-11-630961-7.
O'Hara, Vincent P. (2004). The German Fleet at War. Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute press. ISBN978-1-59114-651-3.
The Rise and Fall of the German Air Force (repr. Public Record Office War Historiesed.). Richmond, Surrey: Air Ministry. 2001 [1948]. ISBN978-1-903365-30-4. Air 41/10.
Websites
Helgason, Guðmundur. "The Type VIIC boat U-354". German U-boats of WWII - uboat.net. Retrieved 22 December 2015.
Kappes, Irwin J. (23 February 2010). "Battle of the Barents Sea". German-Navy.De. Archived from the original on 7 June 2011. Retrieved 29 May 2011.
HMS Jamaica, a Fiji-class cruiser of the Royal Navy, was named after the island of Jamaica, which was a British Crown Colony when she was built in the late 1930s. The light cruiser spent almost her entire wartime career on Arctic convoy duties, except for a deployment south for the landings in North Africa in November 1942. She participated in the Battle of the Barents Sea in 1942 and the Battle of North Cape in 1943. Jamaica escorted several aircraft carriers in 1944 as they flew off airstrikes that attacked the German battleship Tirpitz in northern Norway. Late in the year she had an extensive refit to prepare her for service with the British Pacific Fleet, but the war ended before she reached the Pacific.
HMS Achates was an A-class destroyer built for the Royal Navy during the late 1920s. Completed in 1930, she initially served with the Mediterranean Fleet. She was sunk on 31 December 1942 during the Battle of the Barents Sea.
Deutschland was the lead ship of her class of heavy cruisers which served with the Kriegsmarine of Nazi Germany during World War II. Ordered by the Weimar government for the Reichsmarine, she was laid down at the Deutsche Werke shipyard in Kiel in February 1929 and completed by April 1933. Originally classified as an armored ship by the Reichsmarine, in February 1940 the Germans reclassified the remaining two ships of this class as heavy cruisers. In 1940, she was renamed Lützow, after the unfinished Admiral Hipper-class heavy cruiser Lützow was sold to the Soviet Union the previous year.
The Arctic convoys of World War II were oceangoing convoys which sailed from the United Kingdom, Iceland, and North America to northern ports in the Soviet Union – primarily Arkhangelsk (Archangel) and Murmansk in Russia. There were 78 convoys between August 1941 and May 1945, sailing via several seas of the Atlantic and Arctic oceans, with periods with no sailings during several months in 1942, and in the summers of 1943 and 1944.
Rear Admiral Robert St Vincent Sherbrooke, was a senior officer in the Royal Navy and a recipient of the Victoria Cross, the highest award for gallantry in the face of the enemy that can be awarded to British and Commonwealth forces.
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 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).
Convoy PQ 16 was an Arctic convoy of British, United States and Allied ships from Iceland to Murmansk and Archangelsk in the Soviet Union during the Second World War. The convoy was the largest yet and was provided with a considerable number of escorts and submarines. QP 12, a return convoy, sailed on the same day
HMS Orwell was an O-class destroyer of the Royal Navy that entered service in 1942 and was broken up in 1965.
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.
Convoy PQ 18 was an Arctic convoy of forty Allied freighters from Scotland and Iceland to Arkhangelsk in the Soviet Union in the war against Nazi Germany. The convoy departed Loch Ewe, Scotland on 2 September 1942, rendezvoused with more ships and escorts at Iceland and arrived at Arkhangelsk on 21 September. An exceptionally large number of escorts was provided by the Royal Navy in Operation EV, including the first escort carrier to accompany an Arctic convoy. Detailed information on German intentions was provided by the code breakers at Bletchley Park and elsewhere, through Ultra signals decrypts and eavesdropping on Luftwaffe wireless communications.
Unternehmen Rösselsprung was a plan by the German Navy to intercept an Arctic convoy in mid-1942. It was the largest operation of its type mounted by the Kriegsmarine and resulted in the near-destruction of Convoy PQ 17. The success of the operation was indirect none of the ships engaged the convoy, its losses inflicted by U-boat and aircraft attacks. Despite not making contact with the convoy a number of the ships of Unternehmen Rösselsprung were damaged and the heavy cruiser German cruiser Lützow (1940), ran aground in thick fog, needing three months of repairs.
Operation Regenbogen was a sortie in 1942 into the Arctic Ocean by warships of the Nazi Germany Kriegsmarine during the Second World War. The operation culminated in the Battle of the Barents Sea.
Convoy JW 51B was an Arctic convoy sent from United Kingdom by the Western Allies to aid the Soviet Union during World War II. It sailed in late December 1942, reaching the Soviet northern ports in early January 1943.
Z16 Friedrich Eckoldt was a Type 1934A-class destroyer built for Nazi Germany's Kriegsmarine in the late 1930s. It was named after Kapitänleutnant Friedrich Eckoldt (1887–1916), the commander of torpedo boat V 48, who was killed when his boat was sunk during the Battle of Jutland on 31 May 1916.
Z29 was one of fifteen Type 1936A destroyers built for the Kriegsmarine during World War II. Completed in 1941, she took part in the Channel Dash in early 1942 as flagship of the escort force. Despite this venture to France, the ship spent most of the war in Norwegian waters, escorting German ships and laying minefields. Z29 participated in the indecisive Battle of the Barents Sea at the end of the year, during which she helped to sink a British minesweeper. The ship was damaged during the raid on the island of Spitsbergen in September 1943. Z29 was damaged by British aircraft attacking the battleship Tirpitz in July 1944. The ship escorted troop convoys from northern Norway when the Germans began evacuating the area beginning in October until she began an extensive refit in December.
Z30 was one of fifteen Type 1936A destroyers built for the Kriegsmarine during World War II. Completed in 1941, the ship was transferred to Norwegian waters in early 1942 where she remained for most of the rest of her career, escorting convoys and laying minefields. She played a minor role in the indecisive Battle of the Barents Sea at the end of the year and was damaged during the raid on the island of Spitsbergen in September 1943.
HMS Bramble was a Halcyon-class minesweeper of the Royal Navy, which was commissioned in 1939, just prior to World War II. During the war she served as a minesweeper in the North Sea, and then on Russian convoys until sunk in the Battle of the Barents Sea on 31 December 1942 by the German cruiser Admiral Hipper and the destroyer Friedrich Eckoldt.
Convoy QP 14 was an Arctic convoy of the QP series which ran during the Second World War. The convoy was a return journey of Allied ships from the port of Archangelsk in the Soviet Union to Loch Ewe in the west of Scotland. The British planned to send Convoy PQ 18 from Iceland to Murmansk and when the convoys crossed transfer much of the escort force from the outbound convoy to Convoy QP 14 and escort back it through the most dangerous waters off Norway.
Z31 was a German Type 1936A (Mob) destroyer, which was completed in 1942 and served with the Kriegsmarine during the Second World War. She was constructed in Germany as part of Plan Z, and commissioned 11 April 1942. She spent much of the war in Arctic and Norwegian waters, taking part in the Battle of the Barents Sea on 31 December 1942. She survived the war, and was passed on to the French Navy as a war prize, serving under the name Marceau until 1958.
Operation Zarin was a German minelaying operation off the north-western coast of the islands of Novaya Zemlya in the Arctic Ocean. The operation was conducted between 24 September and 28 September 1942 by the German heavy cruiser Admiral Hipper escorted by the destroyers Z23, Z28, Z29 and Z30, because the British had sunk the specialist minelayer Ulm on 25 August. The mines laid during the operation had little effect.
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