Hitler’s Pre-Emptive War: The Battle for Norway, 1940 (48 page)

The engagement in Ofotfjord lasted approximately one hour, and five of the German destroyers—
Hermann Künne
,
Hans Lüdemann
,
Wolfgang Zenker
,
Bernd von Arnim
, and
Georg Thiele
—eventually participated. The results of this relatively long engagement were surprisingly minor. The British fire did not hit the German destroyers. The aircraft from
Furious
were even less effective. They dropped more than 100 bombs but these fell in the sea without doing any damage to the German ships. Two British aircraft were shot down.

The German destroyers were slowly forced further into the fjord and soon found themselves near the junction of Herjangsfjord and Rombakfjord. By 1315 hours, they had exhausted almost all their ammunition. Their main objective became one of saving the lives of the crews and preventing their ships from falling into British hands. Bey ordered the destroyers to withdraw into Rombakfjord. Four destroyers withdrew as ordered under a smokescreen.
Hermann Künne
failed to receive Bey’s order and withdrew under pressure into Herjangsfjord. According to Assmann, the Germans scuttled the destroyer after it had fired its last rounds.

Erich Giese
exited Narvik harbor at the same time as the other destroyers were withdrawing into Rombakfjord. She met the concentrated fire of six British destroyers and was attacked aggressively by
Bedouin
and
Punjabi
. The intense bombardment resulted in 22 heavy caliber hits, which caused uncontrollable fires aboard the German ship, and she began to sink. Lieutenant Commander Karl Smidt,
Erich Giese’s
captain, ordered the ship abandoned at 1430 hours. The destroyer sank quickly in deep water, taking 85 of its crew with it. There were many wounded and nine were captured. Before she sank,
Erich Giese
managed to score a torpedo hit on
Punjabi
, forcing that warship to withdraw from the battle.

Diether von Roeder
had engine problems and remained tied up to a pier in Narvik.
Warspite
and a group of British destroyers approached the harbor while
Erich Giese
was sinking and were fired on by
Diether von Roeder
. The British destroyers
Cossack
,
Foxhound,
and
Kimberley
entered the harbor and opened fire on the immobile German destroyer at distances that varied from 2,000 to 8,000 meters. Shells from the three destroyers and
Warspite
struck the German ship repeatedly.
Diether von Roeder
continued to fight despite the many hits and managed to place seven shells into
Cossack
, forcing that ship to beach. It was only after her crew had exhausted all ammunition that
Diether von Roeder
was scuttled with demolition mines.
Foxhound
, who was coming alongside for boarding, narrowly escaped the explosion.

Two of the four German destroyers retiring into Rombakfjord,
Wolfgang Zenker
and
Bernd von Arnim
, had exhausted their ammunition and continued southeastward to the end of the fjord, called Rombaksbotn. There the ships were scuttled.
Georg Thiele
and
Hans Lüdemann
still had some ammunition and torpedoes left and took up good positions immediately east of a narrow strait, to use their last ammunition to inflict a final blow against the British as they tried to enter through the narrow strait. This delay also allowed their comrades in
Wolfgang Zenker
and
Bernd von Arnim
to make their escape up the cliff-like side of the inner part of the fjord.
Warspite
did not follow the German destroyers into Rombakfjord.

Eskimo
,
Forester
,
Hero
,
Icarus
, and
Bedouin
followed the German ships, with
Eskimo
in the lead.
Warspite’s
reconnaissance aircraft informed the attacking British destroyers that
Hans Lüdemann
and
Georg Thiele
were waiting for them just inside the narrow strait.
Hans Lüdemann’s
bow faced east and it was in position for a rapid departure in case the ambush failed. The fire control system on both German destroyers was damaged and the guns were operated under local control. After firing its last shells against the approaching British warships,
Hans Lüdemann
followed
Wolfgang Zenker
and
Bernd von Arnim
. Friedrichs fired his last torpedoes at the British destroyers as he headed eastward.
Hans Lüdemann
was abandoned and scuttled when it reached the end of the fjord.

Lt. Commander Wolf, so instrumental in the destruction of
Hardy
and
Hunter
on April 10, again played a key role in the last minutes of this battle.
Georg Thiele
remained behind to confront the five British destroyers by herself when
Hans Lüdemann
retired. This gave the other destroyers time to scuttle their ships and the crewmembers time to escape capture.
Eskimo
, under Commander Micklethwait, was the first British destroyer to make the daring dash through the narrow strait, followed closely by the
Forester
, under Lt. Commander Tancock.

Georg Thiele
took repeated hits and she had almost exhausted her ammunition. However, she continued to fight as the British were closing. Micklethwait tried to position his ship for a torpedo attack on its stubborn foe, but had to take a sudden evasive maneuver to avoid one of the torpedoes fired by the departing
Hans Lüdemann
. The maneuver resulted in
Eskimo
presenting its broadside to
Georg Thiele
at a very short range. Wolf seized the chance and fired his last torpedo. The torpedo hit the forward part of the British destroyer and the explosion tore off
Eskimo’s
forecastle, killing 15 sailors. Micklethwait reversed engines and managed to retire through the narrow strait where the destroyer was grounded in rather deep water because the sunken wreckage of its forecastle was still attached. The path of the destroyers following
Eskimo
was temporarily blocked.

Georg Thiele
had received numerous hits by British shells and everyone on the bridge was killed except Commander Wolf. Without more shells or torpedoes to fire, Wolf signaled full speed ahead on the engine room telegraph and beached the destroyer at high speed near Sildvik. The ship capsized and the aft portion sank at 1500 hours while the forward part remained beached. Fourteen crewmembers were killed and 28 wounded.

The actions of Commander Wolf throughout the fighting in Narvik—admired by friend and foe alike—had a fitting ending. Commanders Rechel in
Bernd von Arnim
and Smidt in
Erich Giese
were also singled out for praise by their opponents for their daring and determination. The British concluded that the German destroyers acquitted themselves as well as could be expected under the circumstances. The ineffectiveness of their submarines, torpedoes, and their shortage of ammunition doomed their efforts from the start. The British destroyer commanders also showed their traditional daring and aggressiveness.

The crews from the German destroyers assembled ashore and headed up the hillsides on the south side of Rombaksbotn, towards the railway line. This was not an easy task on the steep hillsides in deep snow and under fire from the British destroyers. According to the 3rd Division journal, the British fired after the escaping German destroyer crews with both their main armaments and machineguns. The crews were later transported to Narvik. When they entered the inner part of the fjord, the British found
Hans Lüdemann
still afloat and she was sunk by a torpedo from
Hero
.

The British Consider Landing

Admiral Whitworth reported to Admiral Forbes at 1742 hours that a German submarine and all destroyers were sunk. He considered the idea of a landing in Narvik, but concluded that his exhausted men were in no state to face the 2,000 or so German troops he believed to be in the city.

The British naval bombardment caused no fatalities among German troops and the material damage was minor, even though many buildings in and around the city were destroyed. Whitworth’s assumption that German morale was low may well be correct. They had watched helplessly as their warships were destroyed. The German troops occupied positions along Rombakfjord and the troops in Narvik were in their positions with orders to repel any landing attempts.

Some British writers leveled mild criticism against Admiral Whitworth for not seizing the opportunity to capture Narvik. Norwegian writers have been more direct. They point out that Dietl’s forces in Narvik numbered only 800 spread along the shoreline from Fagernes to Vassvik as well as along the Rombakfjord, and that they knew it was hopeless to engage an enemy with overwhelming naval artillery with only individual or crew-served weapons. Colonel Munthe-Kaas concludes that “There is no doubt that Narvik would have fallen if a determined amphibious commander had understood to exploit the demoralizing state of mind in which the Germans, for a second time, found themselves, particularly after witnessing their destroyer fleet shattered.”
⁸
He points out that Whitworth had 2,700 men at his disposal and that two companies from the 24th Guards could have augmented this force if the admiral had only waited in the fjord for another half day. The 2,700 were not Royal Marines but the crews of the British battleship and the nine destroyers. Munthe-Kaas fails to consider that the two Guard companies embarked on the cruiser
Southampton
were prepared for an administrative landing. They carried only individual and a few crew-served weapons and were not ready for combat operations.

Norwegian conclusions that German morale was broken are based primarily on the observations of civilian observers, whose judgment of discipline in the German units is at least debatable. Railroad traffic inspector, Johan Olsen, stated that “Both the Germans and we civilians expected that the British would land in Narvik. The Germans were panic-stricken. Crowds of them threw away their weapons, asked for the way to Sweden, and left the city.”
⁹

The fact that the German troops did not sustain any fatalities and only a few wounded calls into question the accuracy of reports about disintegration of discipline and unit cohesion. There is no reliable information that the German mountain troops were in a state of panic. They were battle-experienced and professionally led troops and their performance against numerically superior Norwegian forces two days later indicates that reports of their demoralization and panic are much exaggerated.

Admiral Whitworth does not deserve criticism for not landing shore parties in Narvik on April 13. Such action would likely have resulted in a severe setback and the possible loss of the inadequate landing parties carried on the warships. Moulton reports that the marines available on the heavy ships of the Home Fleet amounted to two or three companies and that many of these ships were not in the Ofotfjord area. The lead elements of the 24th Guards Brigade were still 24-36 hours away and were unprepared for immediate combat operations. A failed landing would have been an undesirable ending to an otherwise successful operation. Whitworth also feared that enemy submarines and aircraft would attack
Warspite
if she remained in the fjord. He withdrew
Warspite
and most of the destroyers from Ofotfjord around 1830 hours.

The 140 survivors from the destroyer
Hardy
were moved from the immediate vicinity of the wrecked ship to the village of Balangen where they were cared for by local Norwegians. Here they joined 47 merchant seamen who had been prisoners aboard
Jan Wellem
. Admiral Whitworth returned with the battleship and destroyers after dark and remained in the fjord during the night taking aboard wounded sailors. Norwegians brought the survivors from
Hardy
and the British merchant seamen who had joined them, to a place where they were taken aboard two British destroyers. All British ships withdrew from the fjord by daylight on April 14.

The German problems with their torpedoes again saved the British from potentially heavy losses. Lieutenant Commander Viktor Schütze in
U25
, positioned in Vestfjord, made two attempts to torpedo
Warspite
as she left the fjord the first time. The destroyer
Foxhound
drove off one attack while the second attack failed, probably because of faulty torpedoes. Schütze tried again on the battleship’s second visit to the fjord. The single torpedo again missed, or malfunctioned. The ability of both
U25
and
U46
to penetrate the destroyer screens with relative ease demonstrates the inordinate risk the British were taking by sending a battleship into these restricted waters. The Second Naval Battle of Narvik could have been a costly affair if the German torpedoes had functioned properly.

At 2115 hours the Admiralty urged Admiral Forbes to occupy Narvik in order to prevent later opposition to a landing. They apparently believed that the German troops were driven out of town because of the naval bombardment. Derry writes that it is unknown if Admiral Whitworth was aware of this message since the reception conditions in the fjord were poor. He did send a message later that evening reporting that he believed “the enemy forces in Narvik were thoroughly frightened” and recommended that the main landing force should occupy Narvik as quickly as possible.
¹⁰
Whitworth followed up this message the following morning with one recommending that a small landing force could secure the city if he could support such a landing with the naval forces under his command.
¹¹
However, Forbes soon ordered Whitworth to take
Warspite
out of Vestfjord for fear of submarine and air attacks. The Home Fleet’s experience with the Luftwaffe in the North Sea may have influenced this decision.