Red Sky in the Morning
Michael Pearson
The Arctic convoys that sailed through the cold malevolent waters of the Barents Sea ran the gauntlet of German air and sea attacks as they struggled to transport vital supplies to Britain’s Russian allies. Convoy JW51B sailed in December 1942 with a small close escort of five destroyers, plus a reserve of two light cruisers, which shadowed the main convoy at a distance of seventy miles. The convoy was attacked on 31 December by a powerful German force that included the heavy cruiser Admiral Hipper, the pocket battleship Lützow and six destroyers. The ensuing engagement proved the worth of the British destroyers and the bravery of the men who sailed in them.
It was a naval engagement that had far-reaching consequences and resulted in many capital ships of the Kriegsmarine being decommissioned for the rest of World War II.
A gripping tale of the war at sea under the direst of conditions.
[Best viewed with CoolReader.]
Michael Pearson
RED SKY IN THE MORNING
The Battle of the Barents Sea 1942
‘Watching from this locality the battle has reached its climax. I can see only red.’
Kapitänleutnant Karl-Heinz Herschelb, U354, 11.45 hrs, 31 December 1942
For my parents Marie and Leslie,
who lived through those years
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
I would like to extend my sincere thanks to the following persons and organisations without whom this book would not have been possible. I would particularly like to thank the veterans, British and German, who contributed their recollections and expertise with such unfailing enthusiasm and good humour.
Mr Smith Belford
Bundesarchiv, Koblenz (Researcher Dr Ekkehart Guth)
Lieutenant-Commander J.P. Donovan
Radio Mate and Guard Commander Johann Hengel
Captain Michael Hutton
Imperial War Museum, London
Mrs Pamela Marchant, for permission to use the taped interview with Lieutenant-Commander T.J. Marchant
Commander Loftus Peyton-Jones
Public Records Office, London
Mrs Helen Rhead, for permission to use the memoir of Lieutenant-Commander Eric Rhead
Control Telephone Officer for Heavy Artillery Josef Schmitz
Lieutenant-Commander A.W. Twiddy
Leading Stoker Walter Watkin
I would also like to express my appreciation to Mike Taylor, my good friend and fellow history buff, for his invaluable help in checking the drafts and proofs.
Mike Pearson
INTRODUCTION
On 31 December 1942, the icy expanse of the Barents Sea witnessed a naval battle which all but ended offensive operations by the heavy ships of the German navy for the remainder of the war. How this came to be is firmly rooted in the psyche of Adolf Hitler. Military hardware of all kinds held a fascination for Germany’s Führer, and it was inevitable that he would be drawn to the tremendous power of the heavy ships of his navy, both as weapons of war, and for the prestige and influence which they attracted to the Reich from abroad.
His attitude to the navy in general, however, was complex, and can be traced back to Germany’s defeat in 1918. A significant factor in that defeat, Hitler believed, had been the mutiny of the High Seas Fleet, and as such he never totally trusted the navy. It is probably also fair to say that he was not navy-minded, having little understanding of the complexities of naval warfare; and was, compared with land operations, unsure of himself when dealing with the war at sea. In a moment of unusual self-criticism, he remarked that he considered himself a lion on land but a coward at sea.
The naval war began badly for the German surface fleet, with the loss of the pocket battleship Admiral Graf Spee in December 1939, and, although there can be no doubt that the officers and men of the heavy ships fought with as much skill and determination as any other branch of the German armed forces, Hitler’s apprehension over the fate of his major warships grew, fuelled in May 1941 by the destruction of the ‘unsinkable’ Bismarck.
In December 1942, the defeat in the Barents Sea of Vice-Admiral Kummetz’s powerful battle group, at the hands of a small force of destroyers and two light cruisers, was the last straw. That this defeat was due, in part, to restrictions placed on the commander at sea by a naval high command well aware of his unease over the possibility of loss or damage to the heavy ships was ignored, and Hitler’s mood turned to fury. For him, all ships of the German navy above the size of destroyers were now a useless waste of men and matériel, and were to be scrapped. Ultimately this large scale scrapping did not take place, however most of the ships in question were decommissioned, and following the Battle of the Barents Sea, only one offensive operation was undertaken by a German heavy ship – the abortive sortie by Scharnhorst, also in the Barents Sea, one year later.
CHAPTER 1
RUSSIAN ROULETTE
On 30 January 1933 Adolf Hitler became Chancellor of Germany, and within days called a meeting of senior Nazi officials and officers of the armed forces. He declared to his bemused but enthused audience that ‘the conquest of the land in the east [principally Soviet Russia] and its ruthless Germanization’,[1] was his unshakable and unalterable goal. If ever a man carried with him the seeds of his own destruction it was Germany’s new Führer.
In succeeding years, Hitler’s expansionism in Europe brought him into conflict with the interests of Britain and France, and realising that he could not fight a war on his eastern and western fronts at the same time, by 1939 he had concluded a non-aggression pact with Soviet Premier Stalin, intended to keep Russia quiet while he finalised military operations in the west. The Führer remarked that the pact was ‘an entente, in short, watched over by an eagle eye and with a finger on the trigger’,[2] amply illustrating his attitude both to the pact and to Russia. For his part Stalin, mistrustful of anybody and everybody, including Hitler, was quite prepared to play along to buy time and see what developed.
It did not take long for the Führer’s next move to be made, and several uncomfortable provisions of the German – Russian pact to unfold. The German invasion of Poland began on 1 September 1939, quickly followed by declarations of war by Britain, France, Australia, and New Zealand. By 17 September the rapid advance of the Wehrmacht came to a halt, having overrun approximately half of Poland’s territory. Then, as the world watched mesmerised, the Red Army rolled westward from its borders to occupy the other half. Not for the first time in its stormy history, Poland had ceased to exist as a nation. It was evident that some ‘carving up’ of territory had been agreed between the USSR and Germany, and more was to come. Included in the Soviet ‘sphere of influence’ were the Baltic republics of Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia, and also intended as a Soviet satellite was Finland.
The Finns, however, had other ideas. Resisting intense Soviet political pressure for two months, they finally felt obliged to mobilise their vastly outnumbered 200,000-strong army, whereupon Stalin broke off negotiations and on 31 November 1939, invaded. Despite having no armoured units and no heavy artillery, the Finnish forces not only held the mighty Red Army but in some areas threw it back in confusion; while in Berlin, Hitler noted with satisfaction the difficulties Russia had overcoming a substantially weaker enemy. The problems must have been equally apparent in the Kremlin, but, Stalin nevertheless ordered the assault pressed home until finally the Finns, after inflicting heavy losses on the Russians, were forced to ask for an armistice. This was refused, but considering their dominant position, the terms offered by the Russians, and accepted by the Finns on 13 March, were not as severe as they might have been. They also offer a fascinating insight into the Russian High Command’s thinking, and have considerable
bearing on later operations in the Barents Sea.
The Russians were to lease the Hanko Peninsula from Finland (for thirty years), giving them control over the entrance to the Gulf of Finland; they would also occupy Viipuri and the Karelian Isthmus, enabling them to defend Leningrad in depth. To the north Russia would control the mountains west of Kandalaksha, a strong defensive position covering the railway line from Murmansk on the Barents Sea coast to Leningrad and the Russian interior. It is apparent from these dispositions that the Soviet regime fully expected a war on its western frontier, and was also fully aware that Murmansk, and Archangel further east along the coast, were the only ports in western Russia capable of receiving supplies in any quantity.
—♦—
Following Germany’s invasion of Norway and Denmark in April 1940, events in western Europe developed at speed. On 10 May Winston Churchill replaced Neville Chamberlain as Prime Minister of Great Britain, while on the same day German troops invaded Belgium and the Netherlands. The Blitzkrieg swept on through France, forcing the evacuation of the British Expeditionary Force and a substantial number of its French allies from Dunkirk.
The German – Italian Axis now controlled all of western Europe with the exception of an area of southern France controlled by the Vichy regime (in effect a German puppet government) and Spain, neutral but pro-Fascist. A further expansion of the Axis powers was announced on 27 September when the Tripartite Pact between Germany, Italy, and Japan was made public.
Britain’s European allies had been knocked out of the fight with devastating rapidity, and a substantial portion of the land forces available to her in the European theatre had only just escaped annihilation. Despite these hammer blows the British government and people, both strengthened by the unflinching resolve and stirring rhetoric of Prime Minister Churchill, determined that there would be no deals and no capitulation. Britain would remain without an ally with armies in the field against Germany until June 1941.
—♦—
During the summer of 1940, the Battle of Britain and the RAF’s defeat of the Luftwaffe brought Hitler’s attention back to his principal obsession – Russia. The German navy would step up attacks on Britain’s supply routes by U-boat and surface raiders, while the Luftwaffe switched from a direct confrontation with the RAF to bombing Britain’s civilian population in her cities. In this way, it was hoped, Britain could be kept at arm’s length until public morale cracked and she would be forced to sue for peace on German terms. In the meantime, the great mass of Germany’s formidable military power would be unleashed on Russia.
At 1.35 a.m. on Sunday, 22 June 1941 Adolf Hitler launched Operation Barbarossa, the invasion of Russia. Having noted the difficulties which the Red Army experienced suppressing the troublesome Finns, Hitler’s high command had no doubts as to the outcome; nevertheless preparations had been meticulous and the sheer scale of the German invasion was awesome. From the Baltic Sea in the north to the Black Sea in the south stood some 3,000,000 men, 3200 tanks, and 7500 guns. To the rear, stretching the full length of the front in a band 100 miles (161 km) wide, were the ammunition dumps, stores, fuel, half a million lorries, 600,000 horses, and all the accoutrements and paraphernalia necessary to support this vast array. Covering the invasion would be 775 bombers, 310 dive bombers, 830 single-engine fighters, 90 twin-engine fighters, 710 reconnaissance aircraft and, for operations in the Baltic and Black Sea, 55 seaplanes.[3]
Behind the invading armies came the SS Einsatzgruppen, the death squads, the butchers and executioners whose mission it was to obliterate any vestige of Bolshevism, and reduce the surviving Slav population to abject slavery. The Nazis’ unholy war had begun.
Opposing this terrifying force the Red Army was, on paper, impressive; but there were serious, almost fatal, cracks in the edifice presented to the world. In theory at least, the Red Army had some 2,000,000 men, 20,000 tanks, and 12,000 aircraft[4] available in its western provinces to pit against the invaders. Many units, however, were substantially under strength, and there were worse problems. In the mid-1930s the Red Army could justly claim to be one of the finest fighting forces in the world. Noting this power, Joseph Stalin, with the obsessive paranoia of the absolute dictator, perceived threats and plots against him, and in 1937 unleashed the secret police, the NKVD, and as vicious as anything the Nazis had to offer, against the officer corps of the Red Army. Between 1937 and 1938 three of the five marshals of the USSR, eleven deputy commissars of defence, thirteen of fifteen army commanders, all the military district commanders and 35,000 officers of lower rank were executed, imprisoned, ‘disappeared’ or, for the fortunate few, merely dismissed. Only those officers who displayed total unquestioning obedience to Stalin remained. The war with Finland underlined the crippling effects of such blind reliance on ‘higher authority’ as officers at all levels made no attempt at individual enterprise or initiative, and instead simply waited for orders from above. Finally, sheer weight of numbers told against the Finns, but the Russians would not have that ace to play against the advancing hordes of the ruthlessly efficient, state-of-the-art German military machine.
To compound the problems, despite warnings from Britain and the United States, Stalin was convinced that Hitler would not break the non-aggression pact so soon after its inception. In order to reduce the possibility of border incidents and heightened tensions in the area, many of the Soviet ‘advance’ units were withdrawn miles behind their forward positions, in many instances scattered over wide areas with at best antiquated communications systems.
When the storm broke the Russian ‘front’ was swept away, and despite pockets of resistance German mechanised units along the whole line of advance sped deep into western Russia.
—♦—
As the German invasion erupted into his country, Stalin bombarded the British government with urgent pleas for help for his hard-pressed armies. Although in its early stages the war in Russia did not appear destined to last long – so rapidly did the invaders gain ground – Churchill was painfully aware that Russia was the only ally Britain had with armies in the field against the mutual enemy, and it was vital to keep her in the fight. Despite severe shortages of supplies, equipment and ships of all kinds, especially escorts, the Prime Minister undertook to have regular convoys sent from Britain to the Russian Arctic ports of Murmansk and Archangel.
Relations between the British and Soviet governments were never going to be easy given the preceding years of mutual distrust, especially since it was widely known that Prime Minister Churchill was unshakeably anti-Communist, and while the revolution in Russia was under way had, as a senior government minister, publicly and unequivocally supported the White Russian (anti-Communist) forces. Given these feelings, when asked how he proposed to respond to the German invasion of Russia, Churchill firmly nailed his colours to the mast with his famous remark: ‘If Hitler invaded Hell, I would at least give the Devil a favourable mention in the House of Commons’.[5]
Despite the best of intentions things got off to a shaky start. Prior to the German invasion, British intelligence, having broken the Wehrmacht Enigma code, became aware of the build-up of forces taking place on the Russian border. Churchill was keen to develop a ‘one-toone’ relationship with Stalin and sent a personal warning of the German plans to the Soviet leader, with instructions to the British ambassador to Moscow, Sir Stafford Cripps, that he should hand it personally to Stalin. The Ambassador argued the point, believing that it should be sent ‘through channels’ via the appropriate Soviet government department. As a result of much to-ing and fro-ing the message did not reach Stalin for weeks, by which time much of its impact had been lost.[6]
By September 1941 it was all too obvious that the Russians were in serious trouble, and on the 4th of that month the Soviet ambassador to London, M. Maisky, passed on Stalin’s urgent request for: ‘a second front somewhere in the Balkans or France, capable of drawing away 30/40 [German] divisions, also, 30,000 tons of aluminium by the beginning of October, and monthly
minimum of aid amounting to 400 aircraft and 500 tanks of small or medium size’.[7]
One week later Stalin telegraphed directly to Churchill: ‘It seems to me that Great Britain could without risk land in Archangel 25/30 divisions, or transport them across Iran to the southern regions of the USSR.’[8]
As previously indicated, Churchill was only too aware of the need to support the Russians and keep them in the fight – without the Russian campaign Germany’s full attention would be turned on Britain. The Prime Minister was, therefore, perfectly prepared to send all the supplies which could be managed, at times to the detriment of Britain’s own needs; but he was not prepared to send British troops. In the ensuing weeks Russian requests for British divisions became more and more insistent, while Sir Stafford Cripps in Moscow, caught up in an atmosphere of crisis rapidly descending into catastrophe, bombarded the Foreign Office with messages relaying Russian ‘disappointment’ that no British troops would be sent, and warning of a possibly serious weakening of morale. The Soviets were obviously under intense pressure, but Churchill had problems of his own. Britain was still under heavy air attack; U-boats were waging a ferocious war against her transatlantic supply routes; food rationing was introduced, and her only campaign currently in operation against German forces, in North Africa, was not going well. Churchill’s patience finally snapped and on 28 October 1941, via Foreign Secretary Anthony Eden, the Prime Minister despatched a cable to Sir Stafford Cripps outlining a few ‘home truths’:
1. The Russians brought the war on themselves when, by their pact with Ribbentrop [German Foreign Minister], they let Hitler loose on Poland.
2. The Russians cut themselves off from an effective second front when they refused to intervene in 1940 and allowed the French army to be destroyed.
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