Hitler’s Pre-Emptive War: The Battle for Norway, 1940 (21 page)

Admiral Lütjens’ orders, after detaching TF 1, were to draw any major British surface units away from the Norwegian coast but at the same time, he was instructed to avoid a decisive engagement. A British defeat would have been a serious blow to the Allies and would have left the German Navy in control of the northern waters for more than 24 hours, sufficient time for the destroyers in Narvik to refuel, if the tankers showed up, and start their return voyage to Germany.

Admiral Whitworth was notified about 2130 hours that the battle cruiser
Repulse
and its accompanying ships were on their way to join him. He reported his position to this force at 2200 hours as being 67° 09´ North, 10° 10´ East on a course of 310°. This shows that he was 40 nautical miles further out to sea than he had been at 1715 hours.

The weather in the Norwegian Sea improved somewhat during the night, and Admiral Whitworth finally turned east towards the Norwegian coast at 0240 hours on April 9, almost seven hours after receipt of the Admiralty order. Before long, Whitworth’s force found itself in battle with the
Scharnhorst
and
Gneisenau
.

Battleship Action

Admiral Lütjens detached TF 1 at 2000 hours and started his planned diversion to the north and west. Western Group Command informed him at 2133 hours that two British warships of the
Renown
class were at sea and that an enemy cruiser and destroyer had been sighted in Vestfjord. He later received several reports about enemy naval forces, one that placed a British force very close to his own position.

Mountainous seas confronted Lütjens’ ships as they started their diversionary run on a course of 290°, and speed was reduced to 7 knots although it was later increased to 12 knots. The German battleships were about 80 nautical miles west-south-west of the Lofoten Islands at 0400 hours on April 9 when they made radar contact with an enemy force 18,500 meters to their west, 280° from their position. Soon, they observed a large enemy warship and the German ships altered their course to north.

On their way to the Vestfjord, the British were actually the first to sight the enemy when their lookout spotted two ships between themselves and the coast at 0337 hours. The early British sighting was probably because the German ships were silhouetted against the dawning eastern horizon. Whitworth reported to the Admiralty that a ship of the
Scharnhorst
class and a cruiser of the
Hipper
class confronted him. This left the Admiralty and Forbes guessing as to the location of the other German battleship they knew was at sea.

Whitworth continued on his southeastern course until 0359 hours, and then changed his course to 305° before opening fire with his main armament against
Gneisenau
and the secondary armament against
Scharnhorst
. The range was 17,000 meters and the time was 0408 hours. The Germans returned fire three minutes later. The British destroyers also opened fire with their 5-inch guns but they began to fall behind in the heavy sea.
Renown
also reduced speed in order to use her forward guns. Lütjens had orders to avoid decisive combat if possible and this was apparently the reason he changed course away from the British. In doing so, he placed his ships in a position where they could only use their aft guns.
²¹

Whitworth changed course to northeast at 0418 hours. The German ships were now off his starboard bow and the distance had decreased to 15,000 meters. A 15-inch shell hit the
Gneisenau
, destroyed her forward fire control system, and made her main armament temporarily inoperable.
Gneisenau
sustained two more hits. One damaged the door to her forward turret and this caused the seas that were sweeping over the forward portions of the battleship to flood the turret, resulting in severe electrical damage. Three 11-inch projectiles also hit
Renown
but the damage was not serious.
Scharnhorst
was not hit and was able to assist
Gneisenau
by crossing behind her and laying smoke. The German battleships increased speed to 28 knots and
Renown
started falling behind. Frequent snow squalls also reduced the visibility.
Renown
increased her speed to 29 knots for a few minutes but after some ineffective salvos by both sides, the Germans disappeared from sight at 0615 hours. Whitworth thereupon detached the destroyers to guard the entrance to Vestfjord.
Repulse
and her accompanying ships, still more than seven hours away, were given the same mission.

Renown
continued on a northwesterly course in the hope of reestablishing contact with the German ships in case they turned south. At 0900 hours, Admiral Whitworth received orders from the Admiralty to undertake operations to prevent German landings in Narvik and he thereupon concentrated all his forces on this mission. The southern approach to Narvik was finally closed, but long after the Germans had sailed through and attacked that city.

Admiral Lütjens has been criticized for lack of aggressiveness in not turning his battleships around and destroying his adversary. This criticism is unfair. His mission, after detaching TF 1, was to draw main surface units of the British fleet away from the Norwegian coast and the landing areas. Lütjens looked upon the engagement with
Renown
(the Germans identified their opponents as two or three large ships) as proof that he had successfully carried out his mission. His further orders were to avoid enemy contact and bring his ships back to Germany. It was possible for Lütjens to score a spectacular victory if he had turned on his opponent and approached him from different directions thereby dividing the enemy fire, but this was by no means certain. The British destroyers would have joined such an engagement and they presented a serious torpedo threat. Admiral Raeder, in his report to Hitler on April 13, fully endorsed Lütjens’ conduct:
²²

Group Command West and reports from aircraft and submarines kept Lütjens informed during the day about British fleet movements and he started his return voyage to Germany in the evening of April 9. The battleships linked up with
Hipper
and reached Wilhelmshaven in the afternoon of April 12 without encountering British naval forces. It was planned that the destroyers from Narvik would join the battleships for the return voyage but this was not possible.

British Hesitation

The Home Fleet was on a north-north-westerly course away from the Norwegian coast at 1600 hours, slightly north of Trondheim’s latitude. This allowed TF 2 to slip safely into Trondheim during the night. The Admiralty informed Admiral Forbes at about 1500 hours that a large German naval force had been observed in the Kattegat and Skagerrak on a northerly course.
²³
These were the ships in TF 5. This complicated the situation for Forbes. He knew there were sizable German forces to his north. He did not expect to catch up with these but he hoped Admiral Whitworth would intercept them.

The battle cruiser
Repulse
, the cruiser
Penelope
, and four destroyers had been sent ahead since their higher speeds gave them a better chance to catch up with the German ships. These ships were formally detached from the Home Fleet at 2000 hours and placed under Admiral Whitworth’s operational control. In addition to serving as reinforcements for Whitworth, they also served as an assurance that the Germans would be intercepted if they turned south. At the same time, Forbes turned the rest of the Home Fleet around and headed south.

Most British writers imply that the decision to turn south was Admiral Forbes’, influenced by his view, as opposed to his colleagues in the Admiralty, that a full-scale German invasion of Norway was in progress.
²⁴
There are reasons to question this conclusion.

First, the Admiralty sent Forbes a message at 1842 GMT laying out their objectives, which were to prevent the return of the German ships to his north and to intercept the force reported heading north in the Kattegat and Skagerrak. It appears that both the Admiralty and Admiral Forbes considered these forces a more promising target for the Home Fleet. This is a strange assessment since the logical targets for the ships steaming north through the Skagerrak were ports in southern or southwestern Norway. However, it seems that both Forbes and his colleagues in the Admiralty continued to be haunted by fears of a German breakout into the Atlantic. A look at the composition of the reported forces (included torpedo boats, small minesweepers, and trawlers), taken together with the Admiralty’s own conclusion as to the target of the German forces to the north, should have put these fears to rest.

A second reason to doubt that Forbes had concluded that a full-scale invasion of Norway was in progress at the time
Glowworm
was sunk is the disposition he made of the forces at his disposal. If he had reached the stated conclusion, his logical action would have been to position his forces to cover the obvious targets on Norway’s west coast: Trondheim, Bergen, and Stavanger. Instead, he turned away from the Norwegian coast, kept his fleet 80 to 100 miles from the Norwegian coast, even after turning south, and kept the 1st, 2nd and 18th Cruiser Squadrons that had been attached to him in the middle of the North Sea. Such a disposition only made sense if his primary concern was a German breakout into the Atlantic. Some writers maintain that the Admiralty, not Admiral Forbes, stipulated the dispositions of the naval forces in the North Sea in the evening of April 8.
²⁵
However, the official history of the Norwegian campaign makes no mention of any Admiralty orders with regard to the tactical disposition of forces in the North Sea until they issued the order for the cruiser squadrons to link up with the Home Fleet.

It may well be that, after turning south, Admiral Forbes began to give more credence to the possibility that the German forces observed in the Skagerrak were heading for ports in Norway, a possibility also alluded to in the Admiralty’s message at 1842 hours. This explains his orders to the 1st and 2nd Cruiser Squadrons. However, he must still have viewed this as a less likely possibility than a breakout since he continued the Home Fleet on a southerly course far out to sea, and had the 18th Cruiser Squadron sweep towards the Home Fleet, also far out at sea. Forbes ordered Admiral Cunningham’s 1st Cruiser Squadron, now reinforced by the French cruiser
Emile Bertin
and two French destroyers, and Admiral Edward-Collins’ 2nd Cruiser Squadron to proceed to a point off the Norwegian coast between Stavanger and Bergen. They were to start a northward sweep at 0500 hours on April 9. If carried out, the sweep would undoubtedly have led to an engagement with TF 3, destined for Bergen.

Task Force 3 Eludes the British Navy

The ships constituting TF 3 were located in three harbors in northern Germany on April 7. The light cruisers
Köln
,
Königsberg
, and the auxiliary
Bremse
were located in Wilhelmshaven and cleared that harbor before 2340 hours on April 7. The torpedo boats
Wolf
and
Leopard,
and the depot ship
Karl Peters
left Cuxhaven about the same time. The motor torpedo boats left from Helgoland. Plans called for the three elements of TF 3 to rendezvous near the southern coast of Norway, 56° 20´ North, 06° 20´ East, at 1015 hours on April 8. The three elements picked up an escort of He-111s at dawn on April 8.

Admiral Huber Schmundt’s assessment of the situation was not very optimistic. He realized that the German groups destined for Narvik, Trondheim, and Bergen were dangerously exposed to British interception and counterattacks. Narvik and Trondheim were located far from British naval bases, but Bergen was within eight or nine hours’ sailing distance from Scapa Flow and Schmundt believed that the British would launch their main naval effort against Bergen with secondary attacks against Narvik and Trondheim. Much of TF 3’s passage took place in daylight since its speed was limited to 18 knots because of the slow moving
Bremse
and
Karl Peters
. Schmundt assumed that the German ships destined for Narvik and Trondheim, which had departed a day earlier, would encounter British naval forces. This would make it very difficult for TF 3 to proceed along the Norwegian coast in clear weather.

The Germans were lucky because the weather deteriorated as they headed north and because the British made mistakes and were indecisive. The fog that hid the Germans ships from the British also prevented the German ships from making their scheduled rendezvous off the coast of southern Norway. Admiral Schmundt’s orders stipulated that he should let nothing interfere with his mission and therefore he proceeded towards Bergen at 18 knots, despite the fact that visibility was less than 500 meters.

It was not until around 1600 hours on April 8 that
Karl Peters
and the torpedo boats joined the main force. The Germans were in great peril during their voyage along the Norwegian west coast. Admiral Schmundt received a message from Naval Command West that numerous British warships were located between TF 3 and Bergen. This was an accurate report. As the fog lifted and the ships of TF 3 assembled, except for the motor torpedo boats, a British naval force of two modern light cruisers and 15 destroyers was located only 60 nautical miles to the northwest, between TF 3 and the southern approach to Bergen. This was the 2nd Cruiser Squadron, which had reached its start point for next morning’s sweep. The weather was clear and visibility good as TF 3 continued towards Bergen at a distance of 12 to 15 miles off the Norwegian coast.