Vice-Admiral Kummetz’s reasons for not giving them a more active role have some validity, but come firmly under the heading ‘playing safe’. That Kapitän zur See Stange held the same views was possibly even more damaging to the fortunes of the German operation. Napoleon had been a great believer in luck, and it was undoubtedly a significant piece of luck for the Allies that a snow squall should obscure the convoy at around 10.45, just as the Lützow squadron moved into position to attack. However, had Kapitän zur See Stange taken the opportunity to launch his destroyers at the merchantmen at that time they must have achieved significant success, as only two corvettes and the badly damaged Onslow were available to oppose them at the head of the convoy.
Unaware of the crisis that the battle had caused within the German navy, the Commander-in-Chief Home Fleet, Admiral Tovey, nevertheless felt that it was a job well done, stating in a memorandum dated 25 January 1943:
The conduct of all officers and men of the escort and covering forces throughout this successful action against greatly superior forces was in accordance with the traditions of the service. That an enemy force of at least one pocket battleship, one heavy cruiser and six destroyers, with all the advantage of surprise and concentration, should be held off for four hours by five destroyers and driven from the area by two 6” cruisers, without any loss to the convoy, is most creditable and satisfactory.[156]
Underlining the fact that his handling of the close escort had not been an isolated piece of good luck, Captain Sherbrooke continued his career with the Royal Navy, subsequently achieving the rank of Rear-Admiral.
—♦—
The large-scale scrapping of the heavy ships of the German fleet threatened by Hitler ultimately never took place. Nevertheless, three modern cruisers and two old battleships were decommissioned, and work planned to repair the modern battle cruiser Gneisenau was put on hold indefinitely. On its own terms the Battle of the Barents Sea had been a notable victory for the Royal Navy, ensuring the arrival in Murmansk, without loss, of convoy JW51B. Add to this the crisis caused in the Kriegsmarine, and it takes on a much greater significance, dramatically underlined by the subsequent performance of the heavy ships. Admiral Doenitz had promised to find a target for Scharnhorst within three months, but in fact it was not until Christmas Day 1943, almost a full year after the Barents Sea action, that the battlecruiser sailed to attack convoy JW55B. Units of the Home Fleet, including Sheffield, Jamaica, and the battleship Duke of York, subsequently caught and sank her off the North Cape. The big ships of the German navy did not participate in any further offensive naval operations for the remaining years of the war.
—♦—
Of the two major warships employed by the German navy in the Battle of the Barents Sea, the flagship, Admiral Hipper, left Altenfjord in January 1943 to return to Wilhelmshaven ostensibly for repairs. In April 1943 she passed through the Kiel Canal and transferred to Pillau where she remained, decommissioned, until 1944. Her next and final operation took place in the closing months of the war. In conjunction with a number of other ships brought out of mothballs, she assisted with the evacuation of two million German refugees from the path of the rapidly advancing Red Army, transporting soldiers and civilians from East Prussia and the Courland Peninsula across the Baltic to western Germany. On 3 April she was bombed in Kiel, and on 3 May 1945 she was scuttled.
Lützow remained in Norwegian waters until September 1943, subsequently transferring to Gdynia, where she lay more or less idle until early 1945. The pocket battleship finally became part of the 2nd Battle Group, formed to offer naval support for army operations against the Soviet advance along the Baltic coast, and in this capacity engaged in coastal bombardments, also assisting with the transportation of army personnel, matériel and refugees across the Baltic. On 16 April 1945 she was hit during an air attack and left two-thirds submerged. As salvage was impractical, she was blown up to prevent her capture by the Russians.
—♦—
Vice-Admiral Kummetz had been a sea-going officer since the 1930s, and following the Barents Sea action became C-in-C North Norway Naval Squadron, flying his flag in Tirpitz. By the end of the war he was Supreme Commander-in-Chief, Supreme Naval Command, Baltic, being extensively involved in the organisation of the evacuation of German troops and civilians from the path of the Russian armies.
Prior to his appointment to the command of Lützow Kapitän zur See Stange had been a section leader with the Supreme Naval Command, and afterwards returned there as Chief of Staff, Naval Group Command South.
—♦—
The convoys continued to Russia, although they were cancelled during the summer of 1943.[157] The principal reason for this was a lack of escorts, as the Battle of the Atlantic at that time approached its climax, and had to take precedence. The Russians were not overjoyed at the prospect of no convoys for several months, but in truth the crisis had by that time passed on the Russian front. Soviet industry had settled in the eastern provinces (see Appendix I), and set about producing simple but sturdy weapons of war in massive quantities. Stalingrad had been the catalyst. Following the surrender of General von Paulus’s Sixth Army, the Russians went over to an offensive which would ultimately take them to the heart of Berlin; the war of attrition on the eastern front bleeding the German army of much of its manpower, ultimately making D-Day and final victory possible. The Russia convoys, and the battles fought in defence of them, played an indispensable part in that victory.
APPENDIX I
OUTLINE DETAILS OF GERMAN WARSHIPS WITH NOTES ON DEVELOPMENT AND WARTIME CAREERS
Heavy Cruiser Admiral Hipper
Vice-Admiral Oskar Kummetz’s Flagship for the Battle of the Barents Sea
Outline Specification[158]
Built: Blohm & Voss Shipyard, Hamburg
Laid down 1935
Completed 29 April, 1939
Dimensions: 639 ft 9 in (195 m) × 69 ft 9 in (21.26 m) × 15 ft 6 in (4.72 m) draught
Displacement: Nominally 10,000 tons (10,160 tonnes), standard. Actual displacement closer to 14,900 tonnes
Main Armament: 8 × 8 in (203 mm) in four twin turrets
Anti-aircraft Armament: 12 × 4.1 in (104 mm)
12 × 1.46 in (37 mm)
Also a number of 2 cm light a/a guns
Torpedo Tubes: 12 × 21 in (533 mm) in four triple units situated on main deck, 2 abaft bridge, 2 abaft mainmast
Aircraft: 4. Hangar placed between funnel and mainmast
1 catapult
Machinery: 3 sets geared turbines (plus diesels for cruising), to 3 propeller shafts. High-pressure La Mont boilers
Maximum 80,000 SHP, giving 32 knots
Mines: Mine-laying capability, for which track was kept onboard
Complement: 830
Admiral Hipper (Reproduced with permission from Jane’s Information Group)
Pocket Battleship Lützow (ex Deutschland)
Outline Specification[159]
Lützow (Reproduced with permission from Jane’s Information Group)
Built: Deutsche Werke
Laid down 5 February 1929
Completed 12 November 1934
Dimensions: 609 ft 3 in (185.7 m) × 67 ft 6 in (20.57 m) × 21 ft 8 in (6.63 m) draught
Displacement: Nominally 10,000 tons (10,160 tonnes), but probably over 12,000 tons (12,192 tonnes)
Main Armament: 6 × 11 in (279 mm) in two triple turrets
New Krupp model firing a 670 lb (304 kg) shell
Maximum range 30,000 yards (27,432 m)
Maximum elevation 45°
Secondary Armament: 8 × 5.9 in (146 mm), in single turrets
Anti-aircraft Armament: 6 × 4.1 in (104 mm)
8 × 37 mm
10 machine-guns
Torpedo Tubes: 8 × 21 in (533 mm) in two quadruple units aft
Aircraft: 2 (1 catapult)
Machinery: 8 × 2 stroke double-acting diesels (compressorless), geared to 2 propeller shafts
Maximum total 54,000 BHP
&nb
sp; Maximum speed 26 knots
Maximum cruising range at 15 knots 20,000 nautical miles, or 10,000 nautical miles even at high speed
Complement: 926
Note: Electrically welded hull used for the first time in a ship of this size
Maasz class destroyer Friedrich Eckholdt
(sister vessels Richard Beitzen & Theodor Riedel)
Outline Specification[160]
Built: Blohm & Voss, 1937
Richard Beitzen Deutsche Werke, 1935
Theodor Riedel Germania, 1936
Dimensions: 374 ft 0 in (114 m) × 37 ft 0 in (11.28 m) × 9 ft 3 in (2.82 m)
Displacement: 1625 tons (1651 tonnes), standard
Main Armament: 5 × 5 in (127 mm), in five single turrets
Anti-aircraft Armament: 4 × 37 mm
4 × 20 mm
Torpedo Tubes: 8 × 21 in (533 mm) in two quadruple units
Anti-submarine Armament: Depth charges
Machinery: Geared turbines. High-pressure water tube boilers
Maximum 50,000 SHP, giving 36 knots
Complement: 283
Type 1936A (Mob) Narvik class destroyers
Z29, Z30, Z31[161]
Built: 1941/42
Dimensions: 410 ft 0 in (125 m) × 39 ft 4 in (12 m) × 9 ft 6 in (2.90 m)
Displacement: 2603 tons (2645 tonnes)
Main Armament: 5 × 5.9 in (146 mm), in one twin and three single turrets. Some (e.g. Z30) fitted with a lighter single turret forward to improve seagoing characteristics
Anti-aircraft Armament: 4 × 37 mm
4 × 20 mm
Torpedo Tubes: 8 × 21 in (533 mm) in two quadruple units
Machinery: Geared turbines. Designed 55,000 SHP giving 36 knots
Articles 181 and 190 of the Treaty of Versailles severely limited post-First World War development of the German navy, a central provision restricting German ‘battleships’ to a maximum 10,000 tons displacement, whereas the Washington Naval Agreement of 1922 restricted the size of battleships of the major naval powers (Britain, France, Italy, Japan and the United States) to 35,000 tons. As the time for replacing the older battleships Germany had been allowed to keep in 1918 approached, the problem greatly exercised the planners and architects of the German navy. The solution arrived at proved to be unique and in many ways revolutionary – the aptly nicknamed ‘pocket battleship’. The basic premise was actually quite simple – to build a vessel fast enough to outrun more heavily armed enemy battleships, yet with sufficiently powerful main armament to outgun enemy heavy cruisers which had a faster turn of speed.
The first of this new class of vessel, the Deutschland, caused quite a stir in naval circles (see outline specification). Her combination of range, speed, and firepower made an ideal commerce raider, and commerce raiding, it was decided, would be the main aim of the German navy in any future conflict with Great Britain. Two sister vessels followed the Deutschland, the Admiral Scheer, one of the most successful German surface raiders of the Second World War, and probably the most familiar of the three, Admiral Graf Spee.
Innovative she may have been, but Deutschland was not a lucky ship. On 24th August 1939, just prior to the outbreak of war, and three days after Graf Spee sailed on her fateful voyage, Deutschland departed Wilhelmshaven for her ‘waiting area’ off the southern tip of Greenland. On the outbreak of hostilities with Britain she proceeded to her ‘hunting ground’ in the North Atlantic between the Azores and the North American coast. In early October she sought prey in the busy Caribbean shipping lanes, and on the 5th, some distance east of Bermuda and taking care to remain outside the Panamerican Neutrality Zone, she sank the British SS Stonegate, 5044 gross tons. Off Cape Race on 9 October she captured the steam tanker City of Flint, which, it transpired, was United States owned. This was something of an embarrassment as the United States was at that time neutral, and the German regime was not yet ready to antagonise another potential enemy. This embarrassment was compounded when the officer sent from Deutschland with a prize crew sailed the vessel to two neutral ports, Tromsoe and Murmansk, where she should have been impounded for the duration of the war; however, she was subsequently allowed to return to the United States. On 14 October Deutschland sank the Norwegian SS Lorenz W. Hansen, 1918 gross tons, east of the northern tip of Newfoundland.
Following the Battle of the River Plate and the sinking of Graf Spee, Hitler began to develop that mental twitch which always seemed to affect him when German heavy ships were operational, and therefore at risk. He became extremely concerned at the possible effect on public morale should a warship with the name Deutschland be sunk, and she was therefore ordered home, arriving at Gotenhafen on 15 November subsequently to be renamed Lützow.
—♦—
Concerned for the continuation of essential iron ore supplies from northern Sweden via Norway, and aware how useful Norwegian ports would be to the Kriegsmarine, Hitler ordered the invasion of Norway and Denmark. On 9 April 1940 the troops went in, and for her first sortie under her new name Lützow was ordered north in support. Off the Skaw on 11 April she was hit in the stern by a 21 in torpedo from the British submarine HMS Spearfish,[162] the damage proving to be serious, and almost fatal, for she nearly foundered while under tow to Kiel. In dry dock her stern was stripped down and completely rebuilt, the repairs and subsequent trials taking over a year to complete.
Operationally effective again at the beginning of June 1941, Lützow was once more ordered north to Norwegian waters (something of a nemesis for this ship). Off Egersund, en route to Trondheim, she was hit amidships by an 18 in torpedo from a solitary RAF Beaufort torpedo bomber. Developing a list, she altered course and headed through the Skagerrak, proceeding at 16 knots back to Kiel. Entering dry dock immediately she remained under repair until mid-November 1941, when she left for trials in the eastern Baltic.
May 1942 saw Lützow once more in Norwegian waters, this time for anti-convoy operations. Ordered to join her sister ship Admiral Scheer, the battleship Tirpitz and heavy cruiser Admiral Hipper, for an attack on convoy PQ17, she grounded in fog while leaving Ofotfjord bound for Altenfjord.[163]
Having repaired in Trondheim she spent some time in the Baltic, but by December 1942 she was back in Norwegian waters for operations against Russia-bound convoys in the Barents Sea.
—♦—
Dr Erich Raeder became Commander-in-Chief of the German navy on 1 October 1928, and managed to retain his post under the Nazi regime. Raeder was a sound naval strategist who appreciated the complexities of sea power, but he was not prepared to indulge in the manoeuvrings and political machinations necessary to achieve prominence at the Nazi court, concerning himself only with the affairs of the Kriegsmarine. As a result he never obtained admittance to Hitler’s inner circle of confidants and advisers, a factor which may have had a negative effect on the ability of the Kriegsmarine to wage the kind of war which would be necessary, since Hitler’s attitude to his navy was at best ambivalent. He was fascinated by the big warships as military hardware, appreciating the prestige they brought to the Reich from abroad, but his conviction that capital ships and aircraft carriers were the ‘playthings of the decadent democracies’[164] ensured pre-war emphasis on the production of U-boats for the navy and aircraft for the Luftwaffe. Both achieved much, but Raeder believed that the addition of aircraft carriers and more surface raiders could have stretched the Royal Navy to breaking point.
Underlying Hitler’s dealings with Raeder were his suspicions concerning the officers and men of the Kriegsmarine – after all, had not the sailors of the High Seas Fleet mutinied in 1918? In his eyes this constituted a fatal and unforgivable stab in the back for the German nation. By 1938 Hitler appeared to have come around to Raeder’s way of thinking, inviting proposals for an expansion of the fleet and assuring Raeder, as he had done previously, that there would be no war with Britain until 1944 at the earliest. The result was the Z Plan, in which Raeder envisaged a balanced fleet of capital ships, aircraft carriers, U-boats and su
pport vessels, achievable by 1944. By 1939 however, Hitler became convinced that there was nothing to be gained by waiting. Any improvement in German arms would be offset by increased military preparations now being put in hand by her enemies.
When war came in 1939 the Kriegsmarine consequently found itself caught between two stools. On the one hand there were not enough U-boats in service to cut Britain’s supply routes, and on the other the surface fleet was nowhere near ready for fleet actions with the Royal Navy. U-boat production was increased during the war years, and although for Admiral Karl Doenitz, Commander-in-Chief of the U-boat arm there were never enough, for the Allied merchant and naval seamen who had to take them on, there were more than sufficient.
—♦—
In commerce-raiding terms much was expected of Lützow and her sister vessels, but other designs were not so suitable. Excessive fuel consumption, limited cruising range and unreliable engines, for instance, seriously hampered the heavy cruiser Admiral Hipper.
The outbreak of war saw Admiral Hipper at Kiel, where she remained, with the exception of brief visits to Pillau in October 1939 and Hamburg in December 1939, until 31 January 1940. Having dry-docked at Wilhelmshaven on 10 February she sailed in company with the battlecruisers Scharnhorst and Gneisenau on her first operational sortie, to intercept Allied shipping leaving the north Scottish islands and the Clyde. The operation was compromised two days out by an encounter with a British submarine, and the force returned to Wilhelmshaven.
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