June 1st - June 30th, 1940
Norwegian Campaign
In Norway, things had gotten dicey. While the situation in Norway was stable, with the Norwegian 6th Division and the Allied troops (still led by Béthouart) forming a line along the Skjerstadtfjorden, the German race to the sea had reshuffled the cards. France in particular were heavily insistent on pulling out their troops as Guderian’s panzers raced to the sea, despite both Béthouart and Bohusz being against the idea.
However, following the miracle at Montcornet and the forced retreat of the German panzers to the Schelde, things had calmed down.
Despite this, Paul Reynaud still wanted to evacuate the French troops in Norway, and frankly, so did Churchill. As such, in coordination with the Norwegian forces, it was decided to switch positions. The British and French troops would evacuate the Narvik and Bodo area, and be relieved by the Norwegian 3rd and 4th Divisions.
This movement was in response to generals Fleischer and Ruge being worried that most of the evacuated Norwegian men would either desert or lose the will to fight, away from home. In fact, the commanders of the 3rd and 4th Divisions had voiced their concerns during the initial evacuations against evacuating conscripts, but were promised that they would be transferred to Narvik as soon as logistics followed. The 3rd and 4th Divisions would thus reembark, along with general Otto Ruge, to hold the line around Bodo.
Thus, three divisions would be left in Norway, in addition to the Polish Mountain Brigade, which was to stay and help the Norwegians. The Poles would also receive their own air support, with Gladiators and Hurricanes transferred from Britain to the new Polish wing operating from Harstad and Bardufoss. Béthouart's Frenchmen would be evacuated to Scotland as a first step, then to France by mid-August. Similarly Gubbins' British would follow, with one Independent Company staying on the ground, and the rest being evacuated in echelons starting in early June.
With three and a half divisions holding Norway, and Franco-British interests secured, it was thus decided to proceed with Operation Alphabet, the evacuation of Franco-British forces and the transfer of Norwegian forces to northern Norway.
On June 4th, the first Norwegian troops started to land in Narvik, under cover of the carrier HMS
Furious. The latter, along with the carriers HMS
Glorious and
Verdun, would be in charge of transporting aircraft in crates towards Norway.
It was not long till the news of the evacuation reached Berlin.
In the Shell-Haus, Admiral Erich Raeder knew that his Kriegsmarine was on thin ice. After suffering disastrous losses in the Norwegian Campaign, he definitely needed to show Hitler a victory to avoid being retired…or worse.
Raeder thus decided to send a task force northward to intercept the ships. Either evacuating or bringing troops in, if the Kriegsmarine sinks a few transports, that will be enough to calm Hitler’s temper and bring a much-needed victory for the Kriegsmarine.
Raeder does not skimp on details, and sends everything he has at his disposal: the battleships
Scharnhorst and
Gneisenau, the heavy cruiser
Admiral Hipper, the light cruiser
Emden, and the destroyers
Z7 Hermann Schoemann, Z10 Hans Lody, Z15 Erich Steinbrinck and
Z20 Karl Gaster.
All of this, of course, under the cover of the Luftwaffe bases in Norway for most of the journey. Raeder knew of the effectiveness of air cover, and knew that he couldn’t afford to lose even a single major unit.
This force was entrusted to admiral Wilhelm Marschall, one of the brains of the entire plan, whom Raeder completely trusted.
Setting sail under the cover of darkness, the force started to prowl the seas until it finally came across a target of extremely high value: an aircraft carrier.
This was the HMS
Glorious, who was hurrying back to Scapa Flow with the destroyers HMS
Acasta and
Ardent. On board were some men of the British divisions landed in Norway, along with some of their equipment, and some air crews from No.263 Sqn.
The mood on board the carrier was relaxed. Most of the crews were not alert until they came within range of German fighters around the Norwegian coast, and only the anti-submarine crews were really working overtime. In this case, Captain Guy d’Oyly-Hughes hadn’t even bothered to set up a Combat Air Patrol. Not needed, and we do not want to lose any time! It was said that he wished to attend the court-martialling of his commander, something he would never get to see.
The German force intercepted the
Glorious’ group in the afternoon of June 8th. The much superior German force made quick work of the two escorts, and turned their attention to the
Glorious. Taken by surprise and without having had time to even launch a few aircraft,
Glorious was sunk with the loss of 1,519 men, including her Captain.
But while Captain d’Oyly-Hughes was slacking,
Ardent’s commander, J.F. Barkley, had time to send a distress message before hopelessly engaging the battleships. Whilst none of her salvo hit, the
Acasta did hit the
Scharnhorst with a torpedo, killing fifty sailors and putting one turret out of action.
In fact, the
Ardent’s distress message was heard by another convoy, heading towards the other direction. It was the
Verdun group, which was escorting a convoy bound for Narvik with men of the 3rd Norwegian Division.
Having acknowledged the message and correctly deducing that the German ships would try to escape southwards, towards Trondheim, the
Verdun’s commander, Admiral Emmanuel Ollive, decided to intercept.
Moving quickly, he left the destroyer
Tramontane with the convoy, taking the
Verdun, the battlecruiser
Strasbourg, two light cruisers and four destroyers with him.
The move succeeded, trapping the German force, hindered by the
Scharnhorst’s reduced speed. The reconnaissance aircraft of the
Verdun spotted the Germans on the morning of June 9th. Immediately, Ollive turned his force towards the ships, sending in a full wave of Laté 299s and LN 401s to strike the force.
The
Scharnhorst, at reduced speed, was completely powerless against this. Hit by no less than four torpedoes, its speed was reduced to a horrific six knots. Likewise, the
Gneisenau was hit by two torpedoes which reduced its speed to eleven knots.
Marschall knew he had been spotted, and, to his regret, decided to sacrifice the
Scharnhorst, leaving the ship to be executed while he runs south at full speed with the rest of his force. By now, a battleship for a carrier and two destroyers looked like a good trade, especially since Marschall thinks he has killed many evacuated troops in the midst of it.
However, Ollive did not take the bait. Informed that the Scharnhorst was almost stationary, he decided to finish it off later.
The torpedo bombers were immediately readied for a second strike, whilst the cruisers and destroyers slowly closed the distance. This would be the
Verdun’s last strike, and it was destructive. Hit four times, the
Emden was critically hit and keeled over before the French fleet even arrived. The
Gneisenau was hit two more times, with the destroyer
Z10 Hans Lody also being hit.
It was then time for the guns to speak. Opening fire first, the French guns of the
Strasbourg,
Montcalm and
La Galissonnière opened fire on the disorientated Germans. By now, only the guns of the
Hipper could accurately reply.
A gun duel formed, with the French slowly closing the distance. The
Strasbourg hit the
Gneisenau twice at maximum range, with the destroyers
Le Fantasque and
L’Audacieux launching a high-speed torpedo run to finish off the battleship.
Burning, the
Gneisenau will sink in the afternoon, almost twenty-four hours after sinking the
Glorious. Admiral Marschall chose to go down with his ship, having given the order to make a torpedo run and scatter.
The
La Galissonnière was quite damaged by the fire of the
Hipper, losing its aft turret, and had to fall out of line. This presented an opportunity for the German destroyers, who tried to torpedo the vessel. But, under the fire of the
Montcalm, which immediately swapped targets, the destroyers could not hope to reach the cruiser.
The
Z10 Hans Lody, already slowed, was literally broken in two by a salvo of the
Montcalm. The
Z15 Erich Steinbrinck was hit by one shell, then crippled by two torpedoes from the destroyer
L’Audacieux. It would sink in the evening.
Finally, the
Z7 Hermann Schoemann was sunk by the gunfire of the Fantasque-class destroyers, which had engaged the batteries of the
Hipper so as to distract the behemoth from aggressively pursuing the
La Galissonnière.
This did not mean that the French escaped unscathed. The destroyer
Mistral, hit by two torpedoes, stopped in the middle of the battle, and had to be scuttled in the evening as its damage was too extensive for it to be towed back to Scapa Flow. The
La Galissonnière had also been beaten up, with its speed reduced to 15 knots: it had to leave for Scotland immediately.
In the meantime, the
Hipper, still capable of maximum speed, and the
Z20 Karl Gaster, made their escape south, taking advantage of the French being too occupied with finishing off the German destroyers. Ollive, seeing that his flotilla would soon be in range of the German Luftwaffe, chose not to pursue, and sent a message to the fleets detailing his victory and the bearing of the
Hipper and
Karl Gaster. The submarines would take care of them.
As for the
Scharnhorst, the British, informed of the battle, had diverted several submarines to the area to hope to catch the German force. Ollive did not have time to send his planes for a final strike: the HMS
Clyde took care of the stricken battleship and sent it to the bottom with the loss of 1,205 men.
The day after, the French submarine Rubis spotted the
Z20 Karl Gaster escorting the
Hipper southwards. A salvo of torpedoes executed the destroyer, leaving the
Hipper to continue south on its own. The poor German cruiser would not have a fun time in reaching Trondheim. It was spotted by the submarine ORP
Wilk, which also tried a torpedo run, but only succeeded in damaging the cruiser before leaving the cruiser to reach safe haven.
All in all, the Germans lost 3,500 men killed and 2,000 captured, for the loss of only about fifty Frenchmen and eight aircraft.
The British were both happy and furious. Happy because the Kriegsmarine was essentially wiped out as a serious threat, but furious it was the French who did the job for them! Angrily, Churchill ordered to sink the
Hipper at any cost. Over the course of the month of June, the heavy cruiser would be mercilessly pounded, until, on June 17th, a raid of Skua of the
Ark Royal finally finished off the last survivor of the Battle of the Norwegian Sea.
For the French, it was elation. Emmanuel Ollive was warmly congratulated and promoted to the head of all French Naval forces in the North Sea, while Vice-Admiral Edmond Derrien (on the
Montcalm) was promoted to Admiral and put in charge of the
Verdun. The light cruiser
La Galissonnière safely joined Scapa Flow, then Rosyth, where it would remain until October 1940.
For the Germans, it was a much less happy state of affairs. Erich Raeder was immediately sacked by Hitler, and sent into forced retirement. He was replaced by Admiral Conrad Albrecht. Hitler, seeing the damage done by a light carrier, also ordered work be resumed on the carrier
Graf Zeppelin, so that it be ready for action against a naval target in the Summer of 1941.
Albrecht was now on thin ice. The Kriegsmarine was almost obliterated, and the
Bismarck,
Tirpitz and
Prinz Eugen would not be ready for a few months at the least. And with the war in France stalling, the prospect of Italy joining the war slowly became dimmer. Germany needed to strike in France quickly, or risk losing everything.