Hitler’s Pre-Emptive War: The Battle for Norway, 1940 (38 page)

Stanning, who was ineligible for command because of a physical disability, performed a heroic act in bringing the wrecked ship ashore. Nineteen sailors died on the
Hardy
and 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 useful purpose by shielding them from the three German destroyers approaching from the east.
Hotspur
fired torpedoes at
Georg Thiele
as the German ship passed to its starboard but both torpedoes missed their target. Two shells from
Georg Thiele
hit
Hotspur
.

The German shells caused total communications failure on
Hotspur
and put her hydraulic steering mechanism out of commission. The ship took an uncontrollable turn to starboard and sliced into
Hunter’
s amidships engine room. The result was devastating, adding significantly to the already existing carnage on that ship. The two ships were motionless and subjected to a withering fire from the two German destroyers.
Hostile
then took violent evasive action that prevented a further pile-up.

Hotspur
was still pushing against
Hunter
with its 34,000 horsepower engines at full throttle. Lieutenant Commander Layman could not communicate with the engine room and left the bridge to establish verbal communications. He was successful in ordering the engines reversed, but in his absence a German shell struck the bridge and killed most of those present.
Hunter
righted itself as
Hotspur
backed away, but only for a moment.
Hunter’
s one remaining functioning gun was still firing as the ship slowly rolled over on its starboard side and sank.

Georg Thiele
was forced to withdraw from the battle at this crucial moment. The ship had sustained at least seven major hits: she was ablaze, two magazines were flooded, and her fire fighting ability had been severely reduced. Commander Wolf had sighted the three destroyers from Herjangsfjord coming up fast behind the British column and he decided it was time to exit the battle to save his ship and leave the cleanup to others.

Bernd von Arnim
tried to finish off
Hotspur
. Layman was able to establish a double human chain of communications between the shattered bridge and the engine room. With the ship’s communications system destroyed, the guns operated under local control to good effect. The gunners calmly kept up a relentless rapid fire directed at
Bernd von Arnim
as she passed to the north. The German destroyer sustained at least five hits, and as the three other German destroyers were approaching, she also left the battle to lick her wounds.

The two remaining British destroyers,
Hostile
and
Havock
, continued westward after their near collision with their stricken friends. From two miles to the west, they saw
Hotspur
, badly damaged from the collision and enemy fire, still making headway to the west. The two British destroyer captains decided instinctively, and independently, to turn around and help the stricken ship. At this critical moment, the initiative swung to the British.

The Germans, believing that the battle was over except for completing the destruction of
Hotspur
, were somewhat dismayed at the sight of the two British destroyers turning around and coming at them at high speed, firing as they came.
Hostile
and
Havock
reached
Hotspur
and took up protective positions to her rear. The three ships continued westward to safety.

The three ships of the 4th German Destroyer Flotilla were unable to prevent the British escape, and Bey appeared satisfied with having driven the enemy from the fjord. His ships were less than 5,000 meters off the British warships as
Hostile
and
Havock
swung in behind
Hotspur
. At that range, the Germans should have been able to bring a devastating fire to bear on their enemies. However, Bey approached the enemy while continually zigzagging across the fjord. The danger of British torpedoes was minimal if the Germans had pressed their attack directly, as they would have combed their tracks. The fuel levels in the German ships were dangerously low, but more fuel was expanded in the zigzag course than in a direct approach. The constant course changes delayed closing with the British and caused the German fire to be ineffective. Wolf and Rechel were probably dismayed at how the enemy escaped the battlefield they had prepared so well. Bey missed an opportunity to inflict a severe blow on the Royal Navy.

The beached
Hardy
fired at the German destroyers with its one remaining serviceable gun.
Erich Giese
fired a torpedo at
Hardy
but it malfunctioned.
Erich Giese
was so low on fuel that the fuel pumps were expected to start sucking air at any moment and the ship was in no position to continue the pursuit.
Wolfgang Zenker
, Bey’s flagship, also gave up the chase for unknown reasons, but probably because of dangerously low fuel levels.
Erich Koellner
continued as far as Djupvik before it also turned back. She joined
Wolfgang Zenker
and
Erich Giese
in searching for survivors in the area where
Hunter
had sunk. As Dickens writes, the 48 survivors (10 later died from wounds and exposure) bore testimony to the gallant help and care given them by the officers and men of the German destroyers.

The Germans suffered another mishap of considerable importance before the British warships cleared the fjord. Unknown to the Germans in Narvik, the supply ship
Rauenfels
entered Ofotfjord as the three British destroyers were exiting. The
U25
, which was patrolling east of Barøy, was the first warship to see
Rauenfels
. The submarine commander, Lieutenant Commander Viktor Schütze, had heard gunfire from the direction of Narvik and although not sure, considered it possible that the ship was a British transport. Despite his doubts, he decided to attack. One torpedo was fired at
Rauenfels
. Either it missed its target or, more probably, malfunctioned, as did so many German torpedoes during the Norwegian campaign.

The
U46
, commanded by Lieutenant Herbert Sohler, patrolled the waters near Ramnes and her crew also heard gunfire from the direction of Narvik. Sohler did not know what was happening until he saw three British destroyers heading directly towards him from the east. The
U46
managed to dive before being spotted. Sohler tried to get into position to fire torpedoes, but before he could do so, the British destroyers had passed.

Lieutenant Commander Layman was the senior of the three British destroyer captains but since his communications were destroyed, he turned over tactical command to Lieutenant Commander Wright on
Hostile
. As the British reached the fjord entrance, they spotted
Rauenfels
entering. They did not know the ship’s nationality, but this doubt was removed when she refused signals to stop. This had been a bad day for the captain of the supply ship. One German submarine had already attacked the ship and now he confronted three British destroyers.

Commander Wright ordered two high explosive shells fired into
Rauenfels
when she failed to obey the heave-to orders. The German ship began to burn and the crew abandoned ship. Wright continued to escort the crippled
Hotspur
out of the fjord and ordered Lieutenant Commander Courage in the
Havock
to take care of the German ship. A boarding party was sent aboard
Rauenfels
but they decided to leave because they feared an explosion. The British were also worried that German destroyers could reach them from the east at any moment. Bey, although he did not know it, missed another opportunity to punish the British. If the two German destroyers with some fuel left had continued their pursuit another few miles, they may have saved the
Rauenfels
, caught up with
Havock
, and perhaps destroyed her. Courage ordered two more rounds fired at the German ship as soon as the boarding party returned. Dickens describes the event:
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