Hitler’s Pre-Emptive War: The Battle for Norway, 1940 by Henrik Lunde (the reader ebook .TXT) 📕

there were more than a dozen seriously wounded. The losses would have been far worse had it not been for Lieutenant Stanning’s actions. Warburton-Lee was mortally wounded and died shortly after being brought ashore. He was the first recipient of the Victoria Cross in World War 2.

While the Hardy was being beached, the furious battle in the fjord continued. Commander Wolf assumed that the 4th Destroyer Flotilla was pursuing the British from the east. In order to keep the British ships in the trap, he turned Georg Thiele around and stayed ahead of the British ships, off their starboard bows. Bernd von Arnim followed suit.

The 4th Destroyer Flotilla was in fact well to the rear and this could have subjected the two German ships to the full fury of the four remaining British destroyers. However, the smoke kept both sides from knowing the exact situation. This worked to the advantage of the two aggressive German destroyer captains and they were able to maintain the initiative. There may have been two factors explaining Bey’s apparent lack of aggressiveness in the pursuit. First, the three ships of the 4th Destroyer Flotilla had not refueled and their fuel levels were so low that a prolonged engagement with the British ships could cause them to run dry and become immobile targets. The second factor was related to the first. The German Navy’s operational order stressed the importance of avoiding combat, especially decisive combat. The objective was the preservation and early return of the destroyers to Germany. The burden of ensuring compliance with the operational order fell on Bey after Bonte was killed.

In Bey’s defense, it should be kept in mind that the two sides opened fire on each other at a range that may have been as much as 10,000 meters. The British were heading west at maximum speed and the chance that Bey could close the distance was not great unless the British westward progress could somehow be slowed. The difficulty in catching up with the British was further complicated when the 4th Destroyer Flotilla took evasive actions when it was engaged by its own ships in Narvik.

This left Georg Thiele and Bernd von Arnim to battle the British alone. The smoke was not helpful to the British at this point. Since it also obscured the enemy, they did not realize at first that their two opponents had changed to a parallel course. They kept up the smoke in the belief that Commander Bey was closing fast on their rear.

Havock was now the lead ship in the British column. The British commanders may have been unaware of the German course change, but the gunners kept engaging whenever they saw a target through the smoke. They finally began to register hits. A 4.7-inch shell made Georg Thiele’s forward boiler inoperable and another started a fire that required flooding the aft magazine. A torpedo salvo from Hostile passed harmlessly between the German ships.

While the British gunners were beginning to find their targets, the Germans continued to inflict damaging hits on their opponents. Havock escaped serious damage, but both Hunter and Hotspur were hit at this time. Commander Courage did not see any enemy ships to his front because the British smoke apparently shielded Georg Thiele and Bernd von Arnim. He concluded that all the pressure was from the rear. To alleviate this pressure, Courage made a 180° turn. It speaks volumes about the confusion in this battle that the other British ships did not notice Havock’s maneuver. The Germans, however, did notice the turnabout.

What Courage saw as he raced down the line of his own ships at a relative speed of 60 knots, was not encouraging. It appeared that Hotspur was out of control and Hunter was burning from bow to stern and losing speed. As he reached the rear of the British line and exited the smoke, he saw what he believed to be four enemy warships coming up fast at a range he estimated to be about 10,000 meters. He planned to engage them in order to slow their pursuit, but changed his mind when informed that the two forward guns were out of commission. He turned his ship around and engaged the enemy with his two aft guns. The German fire was in the process of bracketing Havock when the latter re-entered the smokescreen on Hostile’s port quarter. Several fragments from near misses hit the British ship.

Georg Thiele was now ahead of the British line. Commander Wolf assumed that the British had slowed to protect their damaged ships and he concluded that the time was right to press the attack. He turned Georg Thiele to starboard but in doing so the ship sustained several damaging hits. One shell hit one of the forward guns, killing nine of its crew. Another shell passed through the forward funnel and exploded above deck. Finally, as Georg Thiele was completing her starboard turn, an armor-piercing shell exploded in the fire control room. Wolf did not let these hits deter him from closing on the British line now led by Hunter and followed by Hotspur, Hostile, and Havock, in that order. The British ships were still heading west at maximum speed, but not for long. Hunter was ablaze and with the range reduced to about 1,700 meters, Georg Thiele provided the finishing blows to the crippled British warship. The range was so short that Georg Thiele could employ her secondary as well as her main armaments. Hunter, a flaming wreck, lost power and made an unintended turn towards the enemy ship. She quickly became motionless and Wolf fired a torpedo salvo at her as he passed on an easterly course to the north of the British line. At least one torpedo hit Hunter amidships.

Hotspur followed closely no more than 1,000 meters behind Hunter but those on the bridge were unable to make out what was happening due to smoke. Hostile and Havock were also enveloped in the smoke screen, but in their case the screen served a